The following two paragraphs
are from a New York theater review that first appeared
in a 1921 Vanity Fair (the month and page
have been lost to history due to the poor condition of
that moldy issue). It nicely sums up the rebellious spirit
of the flappers and the entire youthquake of the 1920s.
“Canonizing
the Flapper”
Whatever the novelists knew yesterday the playwrights
discover to-day. The novelists tell them. In this case
Clemence Dane has brought the tidings of a new world.
She has turned playwright for the purpose and it seems
to us that A Bill of Divorcement is the only play in town
which has claim to greatness. Not only in town which has
claim to greatness. Not only does it reflect life, but
it performs the still more rare and valuable function
of interpreting it. We know of no better expression of
the creed of the new generation than that which Clemence
Dane has drawn up and assigned, ironically enough, to
the oldest character in her play.
The Flapper’s
Manifesto
“That young, young generation”,
he says, speaking of the new world which began with the
war, “found out, out of their own unhappiness, the
war taught them, what peace couldn’t teach us --
that when conditions are evil it is not your duty to submit
-- that when conditions are evil, your duty, in spite
of protests, in spite of sentiment, your duty, though
you trample on the bodies of your nearest and dearest
to do it, though you bleed your own heart white, your
duty is to see that those conditions are changed. If your
laws forbid you, you must change your laws. If your church
forbids you, you must change your church. And if your
God forbids you, why you must change your God.
It may be objected and it
it will be objected that this is a theory of life which
tends to hardness. The answer to that is that truth is
compelled to steel itself in a world of error. It is better
for righteousness to seem hard than to perish. The harshness
is only the semblance.
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