Under the Daisies

Van Dyke Brooke
1913-09-12

0
18 min

There are many things to admire besides settings and acting in the feature play "Under the Daisies," and perhaps the foremost is the affecting poem on which it is based. It chiefly concerns the bad conduct of a dramatic critic-it is about time his villainy is shown up on the screen-who starts on his downward path by cynical observations on the agonizing efforts of an unsuccessful playwright. As nearly all well-known dramatists of to-day have found their way into one of the most trying of professions through channels of criticism, the selective taste of one serving to determine how much an what kind of creative work of the other will be suited to the tastes of a mixed audience, the playwright in this case is of a theatrical kind, one who uses a pen or pencil in writing and gazes at vacancy in search of inspiration. A very large proportion of authors in real life do nothing of the kind. Perhaps that is why the dramatist in the story failed to make a hit.