T THE LEXINGTON PAGEANT HE Pageant of Lexington has been in preparation for four years. It is arranged to mark the 100 years of peace between the United States and England, and is to be given on the evenings of June 21st, 22nd and 23rd, in a nature setting at the Twin-Elm Spring Estate, the birthplace of American liberty, 140 years ago. It is to be a Pageant not of war but of peace; a Pageant designed as an historical event, a gift to the nation in the form of an artistic celebration that may be revived every decade to visualize the significance of the lasting concord among English speaking peoples. Great sacrifices of time and energy are being made by the people of the town, and many patriotic persons living elsewhere, to make the Pageant of Lexington a perfect tribute to our national democracy, and to this end they are working under as skilful and imaginative a group of Pageant experts as has ever collaborated. No person or group of persons will profit financially by the performances. All are working to establish a tradition of national meaning and in the joy of doing their finest work under the happiest of artistic conditions. Something over a third of the seats have been set apart without reserve for the American Red Cross. Out of the receipts from the remainder of the 6,coo seats it is expected to pay for the expenses of the production, and to insure financially the stability of the Pageant, it has been incorporated and a guarantee fund of $5,000 paid in by a group of citi zens. Nothing is being le't undone for the comfort and convenience of visitors. Extra train and trolley service has been arranged for. Automobilists will be delighted to find that the already good roads in all directions have been put in first-class condition by the town. An earnest of the success of the Pageant is seen in the fact that all seats for the opening performance were subscribed for before the opening of the regular sale of tickets. The Opening Night, June 21, is designated President's night. Representatives of the Pageant are now in Washington to secure the presence of President Wilson, and they have a like mission at the British embassy. June 22 is Governor's night, when it is expected that all the Governors of the thirteen original States will be present, together with the Governor of Vermont. Military night is the title of the third night, when the commanding officers of the State organizations with their staffs are to be guests. Because the Pageant of Lexington is planned for perpetuation as a national event, no pains have been spared in the preparation. Actual work has been going on for two years on the Pageant Grounds until now there exists an artfully designed but consummately natural seeming amphitheatre hitherto undreamed of in this country, and rivalling the famous al fresco stages possessed by two or three old Italian families. In his preliminary work, J. Willard Hayden, Jr., the Pageant master, consulted with Wallace Goodrich, dean of the New England Conservatory of Music; Professor George Pierce Baker, instructor in playwriting at Harvard University, and Frank Chouteau Brown, architect and president of the American Pageant Association. Preliminary to actual work, the pageant grounds were dedicated in the presence of the President and Vice-President of the Lexington Historical Society, members of the Lexington board of selectmen, the Daughters of the American Revolu tion, the Commander of the Lexington Minute Men, and other representative persons. The first sod was turned by Charles M. Parker, the great-grandson of Captain John Parker, who led the brave little band that morning of April 19, 1775, when the British soldiers met their first armed resistance from the patriots, and who uttered that famous phrase, "Stand your Ground! Don't fire unless fired upon! But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!" A boulder, suitably inscribed, marks this spot on the pageant ground. now First came Livingston Platt, newly returned from two years as artistic director of the State Opera House at Bruges, Belgium, and designer of superb pictorial costume, scenic and lighting effects for Miss Margaret Anglin's revivals of Shakespearean and Greek plays. Long a landscape painter of note, and executant of a notable series of murals for a Belgian chapel that required two years' work in Spain, Mr. Platt brought to his task as well his practical experiences in visualizing every phase of a dramatic spectacle. Under his direction the transformation of the landscape began on the pageant grounds. From an immense terrace stage, thirty-eight inches high, 200 feet long by 500 feet deep was built up, backed and flanked by groves of trees to provide a frame for the picture and to offer means of dramatic exits and entrances. All this was designed in relation. relation to an elongated pond that borders the grounds on the left of the terrace and valuable for symbolical and naturalistic water episodes. The terrace-stage is now as smooth as a wave-pounded sea-beach and clothed with firm, close knit turf grateful to the feet of the dancers. To complete the vista fifteen fifty-foot trees, weighing two tons each, were moved onto grounds from an adjoining estate and are now a flourishing part of the picture. Mr. Platt has also mapped out the stage pictures, planned the color harmonies and invented the lighting effects. Directing the production will be Gustav von Seyffertitz, long a member of the producing staff of Charles Frohman, and steeped in the great traditions of German stage art. was under Mr. Seyffertitz's direction that Miss Maude Adams' massive It spectacular production of Schiller's "Joan of Arc" was staged in Harvard Stadium, and he has not only worked out the battle episode but will act one of the strong characters. Miss Virginia Tanner, noted interpretative dancer and teacher of dancing, participant in leading roles of many pageants and author and manager of the Pageant of Machias in 1913, is to stage the dancing numbers and have charge of the symbolical first part of the Pageant of Lexington, and will also interpret a leading character, Nature. Miss Tanner declares that never before has she had opportunity, as she has in this Pageant, to use all the artistry that she has mastered. Completing this notable staff are Mrs. Beulah Locke Sherburne, the artist, who has made costume plates for the production, and Chalmers Clifton, an American composer who won distinction while studying music at Harvard, and who since then has been studying and composing in Paris. He has composed music of a new type for this pageant, pure pageant music designed for performance by an orchestra of brass and wood-wind instruments, music suited. strictly to the genius of these instru ments. Mr. Clifton's creation of a Pageant type of orchestration is being watched by musicians with great interest, and it is predicted that he has evolved a subdivision of harmonic art destined to found a new tradition in music history. To give some idea of notable results to be expected of this striking collaboration of talent the experience of the visitor to the Pageant of Lex ington may be foreshadowed somewhat as follows: Those who make their first visit to this historic ground will probably take occasion to reach Lexington sometime during the day. They will be met by a member of the numerous hospitality committee and given in charge of the corps of young men guides, now being coached in every accurate detail, and shown all the noted spots in town without charge. Toward sunset, with hundreds of others who are now arriving by automobile, street cars and on foot from every direction, they will gather at the pageant grounds. Passing through turnstiles presided over by men in Colonial costume, they will find themselves strolling down the paths of a lovely park beneath quaint lanterns of Paul Revere's day already twinkling as with candles in the gathering dusk. ACTION OF THE PAGEANT Part I Prelude-Creation of Nature. Episode 1-The Indians. Episode 2-The First Settlers. Interlude I-The Birth of Lexington. Part II Vision-The Dawn of American Liberty. Episode 3 The Plot at the Green Dragon Inn (Old Boston). Episode 4-Arrival of Paul Revere at Hancock-Clarke House (Lexington). Episode 5-The Roll Call on Lexington Green. Episode 6-The Battle of Lexington. Part III Introduction Peace Epilogue. |