FORTY TOWNS
In order to feel the pulse of the people of the state in regard to their attitude toward plays, as well as to carry the drama to the people, a road tour of forty towns was made. Twenty-two counties were visited. The play selected for this trip was “Back to the Farm,” written by Merline Shumway, a former student at the Minnesota Agricultural College. It is a three-act rural comedy. The central thought running through the play is the old way of doing things on the farm versus the new method. It appeals to all classes of people and especially to those who have tilled the soil. One farmer said it was the best thing he had ever seen. Another told his friends that “‘Back to the Farm’ had ‘The Birth of a Nation’ skun a mile.” They were both right, because to them the play came out of the soil.
A cast of eight characters was taken on the tour. They were given twenty-five dollars a week and their railroad fares. In the evening they presented the play and during the day made a brief social survey of every community visited. For instance, one young man would go to the livery stable or garage and find out something about the roads in the surrounding community. Naturally, roads have something to do with people getting together. Another would measure the size of village halls, the assembly rooms in schoolhouses, the basements of churches, empty country stores, and lodge rooms—in fact, any place where people assembled. Listing musical activities in the town was the duty of one member of the cast. Still another looked up everything he could find about athletics in the different places. The various clubs, organizations, and societies in the town were tabulated by one young man. The three ladies in the cast ascertained the number of festivals, pageants, home talent plays, programs, games, folk dances, library facilities, and newspapers. All of these facts, combined with other data obtained before andsince then, make a splendid social diagnosis of certain phases of country life in North Dakota. They give one an insight into the activities of country folks out on a prairie. Many interesting conditions were revealed by the survey and knowledge gained elsewhere.
As a rule the roads are good. Travel in the late spring, summer, and fall is comparatively easy. In the winter it is more difficult, just as it is in any state. In some places the roads are graded ten, fifteen, and twenty miles out from a center. The prairie or grass road is frequently used to save time. It is not an uncommon occurrence for parties to drive twenty and thirty miles to attend a picnic, a play or a social function of some kind. Even in the winter and early spring the snow and “gumbo” do not stop them from attending social activities. Automobiles average from one to three to a section of land. Means of communication are constantly improving. Inasmuch as the homes in the country in the state are far apart, due to the present large acreage of the farms, the roads are an important factor in developing the social life in the country districts.
Folk Dances, Parades, and Pageants Have Become an Integral Part of the Social Life of the State
Folk Dances, Parades, and Pageants Have Become an Integral Part of the Social Life of the State
Practically every community possesses some sort of a hall or a meeting place. In size they accommodate, so far as the seating arrangement is concerned, from one to six hundred persons. In the forty towns visited, four had halls with a seating capacity of less than one hundred and fifty, fifteen with two hundred, twelve with three hundred, five with four hundred and four with six hundred and over. The seats were not stationary, the halls being used for other purposes. For the most part they consisted of folding chairs, kitchen chairs, boxes, saw-horses, and barn floor planks. The stages were small and the scenery scarce. In several places one could stand on the stage, and touch the ceiling with his hands. The front curtains were usually roll curtains and covered with advertising. Very few stages had a set of scenery. Oil and acetylene lamps furnished the necessary light. Barn lanterns were not uncommon. Occasionally some enterprising community would have electricity. In one village hall electric light bulbs were set in large tomato cans which were cut down on one side. These served as footlights. Automobile head lights facingtoward the stage quite frequently gave the necessary light. Plumbers’ candles were sometimes used. Dressing room facilities were generally lacking. Sometimes a ladder was placed at the back window near the stage and the characters in the play who found it necessary to change their make-up would climb out on the ladder and go down in the basement between acts and make the necessary adjustments. Screens, blankets, and sheets pinned across the back corners of the stage make a good impromptu stage dressing room. Several of the halls had excellent dining rooms in connection with them. All the buildings were used for many different community activities. Most of them lacked good architecture, simply because the agencies in education had never taken enough interest in planning community buildings for country districts. The present tendency in consolidated schools is to install stages, platforms, and gymnasiums, in order to make them available for every activity characteristic of community life. A great many of the communities had splendid well arranged halls.
The musical survey showed that in districtswhere the people were of foreign descent all kinds of music thrived. The majority of the places had the talent, but not the leadership and the organization. Music in the schools was fairly well developed. Dance orchestras were popular. One town had a good orchestra, a fine band, and a glee club. Another had just a band of fifteen pieces. Victrolas were popular and in use in every school for games and folk dances. An interesting feature of the different kinds of music was the popularity of the violin. Every orchestra was blessed with this particular kind of a string instrument.
So far as clubs and organizations are concerned, every community has plenty of them. Some of them are very active and broad-minded, as well as farseeing in their work. Others are petty in their attitude and inclined to do very little. Many duplicate each other’s work. Where there is leadership, the organizations are alert and perform many valuable acts of service.
Of the Fifty-three Counties in the State Thirty-five Have County Play Days
Of the Fifty-three Counties in the State Thirty-five Have County Play Days
Athletic activities in the various towns and country districts are extremely popular with both the young and the old. Baseball is generallyplayed at twilight, between seven-thirty and nine-thirty in the evening. Basketball tournaments in consolidated school districts attract considerable attention. Field days at farmers’ picnics create an unusual interest.
County play days in which all the children in the county meet at some particular place and participate in games, folk dances, parades, and pageants have become an integral part of the social life of the state. Out of the fifty-three counties in the state over thirty-five have play days. From two to ten thousand people attend these annual affairs.
The attitude of the weekly papers toward social functions and public programs is excellent. Space is freely given. The library facilities for furnishing data for presentation on public programs are not good, due primarily to lack of material and funds with which to purchase it. The possibilities for library work in the country districts in the state and even other states are infinite. Thousands of letters besides the survey of the forty towns attest this fact.
Hundreds of plays are presented in the stateevery year. Home talent plays are generally greeted with great crowds everywhere. Everybody “likes ’em.” Operettas are popular because large casts of characters are necessary to produce them. And besides everybody likes to see his offspring, relative, or friend take part. It is human nature to see what is in a person. The audiences are always enthusiastic and appreciative. The repertoire consists of comedies, classical plays, Christmas festivals, pantomimes, operettas, and May fetes. The community without a play is one without a leader. In a great many towns and rural districts the play, the picnic, and the Christmas festival are annual affairs. It is doubtful whether anything proves so popular with the vast majority of people as a real play staged by honest-to-goodness country folks. It also unconsciously brings out a spirit of leadership.
These few facts which were gathered by the cast during the day, coupled with other information secured before and after the tour, tell one something, perhaps not much, about the social life of country people in a prairie state.
The experiences encountered during theforty-day sojourn were interesting, to say the least. The audiences ranged in size from twenty-six persons to seven hundred. A county fair or circus admission of fifty cents for adults and twenty-five for children was charged. Sometimes the audiences were made up of cowboys, or cow-punchers, as the Westerners say. In one community two hundred sheep herders saw the play. In another, lignite coal miners and their families witnessed the production. For the most part the halls were filled with wheat growers and dairymen and their kin. With a few possible exceptions the crowds were rural in their complexion. Out in the extreme western part of the state the lights balked and the play never started until nine forty-five in the evening. In one town a thirteen dollar and fifty cent crowd enjoyed the comedy. It was necessary to purchase a bolt of chocolate colored cambric in another place, because only one screen could be found in the whole community. The cambric was used as a background and the screen for a left wing. The back of a piano with the American flag drooped over it served as the right wing. Old-fashioned acetylenelamps gave the necessary light. A large dry goods box was used for a ticket stand. Planks resting on saw horses satisfied the crowd so far as a seating arrangement was concerned. Social functions frequently followed the presentation of the play. After paying all expenses, the profits on the forty town road tour amounted to six dollars and sixty-seven cents.
The tour showed that people actually like plays. It carried the drama to the people.