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PART 111
THE POETRY THEATRE
The love of aotion which made a glorified tramp of Harry 4emp
the poet, found other avenues of expression in the writing and acting of
poetic drama. He spent a year as a member of the Provinootown Players in the
company of Euguene O'Neil, Clifford Odets and other soon -famous young playwrights
who had their first tryouts in Provinoetomn, before returning to Greenwich Village
where he established a one -act theatre of his awn in 1921.
The idea was to produce only poetic plays, for, as Harry says, "the
most vital expression through drama is attained When the visual or material
action is coupled with imagistic or mental interplay-- the mind and the emotions
bein simultaneously stimulated"— and this demands a wedding of poetry with drama.
Looking for a suitable home for his high -flung venture, Kemp decided
the "Minettas", then an undeveloped neighborhood and shunned as 'the badlands
of the Village', was the ideal location for his poetry Theatre. "The Minettas
in those days were given over to rag -pickers and petty gangsters", Harry tells us.
'Vincent Peppy owned the -whole thing and was having bad luck with it because he
couldn't rent any of his tumble-down houses to respectable people. I persuaded
him to let me have a whole house rent-free, and promised to make the district as
popular as Washington Square with my poetry theatre. That's more or less haw it
turned out, too.
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"After we moved in and fixed up the place with a stage, dressing
roams, and living quarters for myself on the top floor, it became clear that I'd
have to join the 'gang' of cut-throats and coke -eaters and make friends of them,
to keep them from breaking windows, running away with the box office, or abducting
the actresses. So I used to invite the guys in for a drink once in a while, and
to keep them in good humour, we'd let them watch the plays from the back of the hall
free-- on condition that they'd control their urge to boo and cat-oall during the
love -scenes..."
That year, Kemp produced several of his awn one -act poetic dramas,
including "The White Hawk", "Don Juan the Gardner", "The Game Called Kiss"
and "Solomon's Song." He also did some very successful adaptations of famous
poems, which lent themselves to dramatic portrayal. One of the earliest
adaptations was of Robert Frost's poem "Home Burial." At that time the famous
Pantano Murder Scandal in Brooklyn filled the New York papers. Among other
sympathisers with the young Pantano who had been condemned to the chair, was
Theodore Dreiser. Kemp used a newspaper transcript of Dreiser's interview
with the murderer as the basis for a realistic poetic -drama, and himself
became instrumental in protesting the execution of Pantano.
'One day', Harry tells us, 'Jack Gould, the son of old Jay Gould,
walked in during a dress rehearsal of "Calypso", a new play of mine, and he
brought with him a very lovely young girl, with a great heap of corn -colored
hair, piled high on her head. She was about nineteen but looked even younger.
Jack wanted me to ive her a tryout as my next leading lady. She was not tall,
but slender, and had beautiful hands, except that the thumbs were a pair of
unjointed stubs-- she has to build them out, you know, for the movies.... well,
I had her read for me, and she was perfect... had excellent stage presence
although she'd had no experience. Iafskld her what her nano was. She said,
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Inn Harding. I told Jaok to take her up to Provinoetown, and they billed her
there immediately as the lead in Susan Glaspel's 'The Inheritors'. Ann didn't
stay there long, I'm told. David Helium saw her, and shipped her off to
;lolly -wood
'Well, I'll tell you what finally side me leave the Minettas
it was getting mixed up with those toughs there.., they were good guys,
never harmed any of us, but turned out to be a nuisanoe. As I said, I became
a member of their gang...- 'The 608 Outfit' named after a drink they brewed
themselves. Around christmas time, the Downing Street Gang, with which the
606 had regular feuds, sent word they were going to raid my place-- burn
the sta e and furnishings, and confiscate the actresses... I took the oecasion
to plan a Christmas party for my friends, and jokingly advised them to bring
their guns. Everyone of them came with a pistol and a pint of licieur on either
hip, and I was only one who didn't take the situation seriously. So I
was considerably surprised and frightened when about midnight there vas a heavy
pounding on the door, and voices yelling 'open upi/ The boys got to their feet,
and raw:thee for their belts, but 1 struck a Ceasarian pose and commanded them
to let me handle the intruders. I figured I'd talk turkey to the marauders,
offer them a drink, and maybe ooax them out of a killing mood. I flung; the
door open, yelling Merry Christmas! There stood two men from the preoint station!
null, Kemp! What're you doing here? We had a report there's some rough
stuff goin' on here. Whose place is this?' 'Mine', I said, in a small voice....
'Well, I had some explaining to do at night court.., and the upshot
wt,o I took the law's advice and decided to move my Poetry Theatre to a more
placid neighborhood.
Kemp got in tough with an old friend, Dr. Guthrie, who owned the
abandonee St. Marks Chapel then standing on 10th Street at Avenue A. Dr. Guthrie
gave soirees for old women which he dignified by calling 'poetry recitals'.
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He had long been after Kemp to recite at one of these. Now Kemp got Guthrie
to rorüe hin the use of the church basement for his Theatre, in exchanee for
appearlh, re7elarl-e- at Guthriels soirees.
The pities was large, but rather dark, and badly heated. Moreover
there was ao furniture. The aotors ranted a set of funeral chairs for the audience,
and eeklt a staee out of the minister's rostrum. Kemp conceived the 1 ,:re of
produoin a series of authentic Indian mimes-- relieious and tribe]. rituals
of the North American Indian. He inserted an advertisement in the worlds 'Real
Indians Wanted!' The church basement became the mecca of a caravan of feathered
and painted Indians, real and otherwise. The Broadway redskins were willing
to act the mimes, but knew nothine about tribal ritual; while the real Indians,
belon-ir to The live Aations, who came down from upstate, were well grounded
in their awn lore, but refused to displ what to them were sacred tribal
rituals, uefore the white men. The Indian mimes, Kemp tells us, were finally
acted by some college boys from the bronx, in the borrowed costumes of The
Five hations, and Clifford 3detts took the lead in the one -act drama. Broadway
producers arrived the third nieht to sit uncomfortably on the funeral chairs,
but to applaud heartily when the curtain care down. Heywood Broun, Alexander
Wooloott, David belaeco, and William brady appeared in the audience, and thereafter
the critics began to watch the progress of Kemp/s Poetry Theatre with interest.
Asked whet it was that finally broke up the movement, Kemp admits
that despite the growine success of his Poetry Theatre, he could not eive it
his undivided attention. Why? 'Well, while I lived in Minetta Lane, I
had the top attic fixed up as a rendevous At that time I was in love with
a young, married woman, who had a wealthy pig of a husband... She used to come
to me there... would drive dawn in a taxi. The 606 boys, who hung around the
place, would fieht among themselves ns to who should open the door and a ssist
her ladyship from the cab. They'd stand around like peasant boys with their
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caps ofe, grieeing and chewing oe thr.eir eids. She was a levely ttlee, and the
Lee, wes in awe of her.
'Later when I moved to Avenue A, w O got an apartment together. Well,
istet sterted all tee rumpus id finally resulted in the breakdown of the Poetry
Tesetre, was that her hustand startec' a story in a Boston paper to the effect
that I, -erre Iemp, had left vile and four brats somewhere in the west and
Tas eew livInv in ehe village with another man's /rife. The thine was absurd,
an- le; leever uncovered that fact that there was a man by the name of 'Harry
Keepl-- a laborer ho was reported for deeertion by his wife down in Arkansas
or somewhere-- ane I was supposed to be him. Ay lawyer's name was Crocker
I had Liz file a suit for :5000 for lieel against the 'Boston American'. Nothing
se-med co come of it, and that as I soon found wut, was bsoauss Crooker was as
crooked as his name. ae accepted my foes and jert let the thine ride. So I
decided to take it on myself. I took a train damn to eoston, and called on
the editor of the 'American' A Eearst sheet. I told him it was my turn to
give him some publicity. I said, I'm invited to a press'zanquet at which
Will Hearst is the guest of honor, eed if I don't see $5000 hit me through the
mail eefore then, I'm going to pull WIlly's pants down, lay him over atable
ane 4ve him the spunkine at his life... and I'll see that every paper in
America carries the story and fUll partioulars as to the grudge I bear the
Boston American. I would have done it too. But next day I got a oheck for the
$6000. Seeehow the affair left a had taste in both our mouths.... I split the
moray with my girl, and me shook hands, auf wiedersehen... She sailed for Paris
with her pig of a hustand....
'The theatre began to pall on me... I guess I wee getting old. I decided
to settle down and do some writing... My cape and sword days were over.'