Glory to William

While George V and Queen Mary were pondering Hamlet Stratford-on-Avon celebrated Shakespeare's birthday (rainy) with Othello. At high noon the flags of all nations were broken out in the public square by their diplomatic representatives--all except the Stars & Stripes.

Because Ambassador Charles Gates Dawes sent nobody to break out his flag this was done by Sir Archibald Flower, Board Chairman of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. Tactful, he smoothed everything over by remarking that the U. S. has contributed more than any other nation to the Theatre Fund.

At a jocund luncheon afterward, the Rt. Rev. Charles Lisle Carr, Bishop of Coventry cried: "To Shakespeare's immortal memory!" and upended his glass. Cried Dramatist St. John Greer Ervine: "To the drama!" Sparkling-eyed Actress Violet Vanbrugh responded to this toast. Later Mr. Ervine, who spent the winter of 1928-29 in Manhattan taking plays to pieces as Guest Critic of the New York World, spoke with modest and mellow good humor: "Anybody can take Shakespeare's plays to pieces," said he, "but only Shakespeare could put them together. . . . There is no such thing as a flawless play. Shakespeare could not abstain from making puns."

A wreath sent from Stratford-on-Avon to Manhattan was placed at the foot of Shakespeare's statue in Central Park last week by a bleak, shivering little knot of people who were movietoned by two uncouth persons in great coonskin coats. Miss Eva LeGallienne, leading upliftress of Manhattan drama, laid the wreath. Mayor James John ("Jimmy") Walker, ill, was represented by a Mr. Strassburger.

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