National Theatre

For nearly 50 years Englishmen have been trying to found a National Theatre, while other Englishmen have been trying to prevent them. The British Government have tacitly been part of the Opposition, which argues that a subsidized theatre means bad plays. But a private committee headed by George Bernard Shaw has at last raised $750,000 and spent half of it buying a site in London's South Kensington, far from the theatre district. Last week, on the eve of Shakespeare's birthday (April 23), before a crowd of nearly 1,000, including U. S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Mr. Shaw formally accepted the deeds to the site, remarked: "I suppose you have had me here today as the next best thing to Shakespeare. It is said that people do not want a National Theatre. . . . They got the British Museum, Westminster Abbey and the National Gallery that they did not want. But now . . . they like them." Americans, Shaw continued, should help pay for Britain's cultural institutions, for "they always visit them, but we never go near them ourselves."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.