A Plea for the Theatrical Manager

IT is a great relief to the average man to find a scapegoat. When hard work produces only unsatisfactory results, how easy to charge up the blame to the other fellow! When theories fail, how pleasant to shift the responsibility for the disaster!

This desire to shift responsibility is very obvious just now in the way in which a certain public is railing at the low state of dramatic art; and just because it feels the situation so keenly it has found its scapegoat in the theatrical manager. Upon this low person, so unerringly portrayed in the facetious pages of the weekly press, with his immaculate shirtfront, his diamond studs, his cigar in the corner of his mouth, his feet on his desk, a disgusted public visits its wrath. He is the cause of the degradation of dramatic art.

Surely the charge is warranted! He “runs” the theatre, he engages the actors, he selects the attractions, he even dictates the undress of the actresses. His fault? Why, obviously! He is a coarse, grasping money-getter! Out upon him for a blasphemer of art! And even as the anathema is uttered, one can see that manager reach for his pen and sign up the most vulgar show of the season. Verily, he is a fellow of the baser sort.

As one of the “baser sort” myself, I undertake his defense. And my plea is all contained in six words: You have arraigned the wrong person ! Let me explain. We low-browed fellows depend for existence on public patronage. We must give the public what it wants. Such giving is our license for existence; if we fail to do it, we are soon out of management, for money is made and lost quickly. Unfortunately, the public does not always know what it wants; that is the thorn in the managerial side. Its demand may be formulated, but often it is an inarticulate and unapprehended craving. Yet the manager must discover and satisfy that craving. The obligation is so inexorable that the mere fact that a manager is continuing in business from season to season is itself the proof that he is giving the public what it wants. And this is rarely what it needs!

But what does it want? What will it patronize ? There is nothing on earth the anxious manager desires to know so much as this. It is just possible that he does not enjoy furnishing porcine pabulum, but on the other hand he cannot afford to throw pearls into the trough. And so each manager asks himself, as he sits at his desk to plan the productions of a new season, “What do they want?”

To get close to the situation, let us look at the great table on which the game is played, and at the size of the stakes. Nine-tenths of all the plays seen in our leading cities are directed, cast, staged, financed, and sent out from New York. It is but a short time since a single financial interest in that city controlled indirectly over five hundred theatres. The business is in few hands, and often a number of houses are interlaced in a chain or circuit, with or without partnership. The play produced in New York may remain for one year on Broadway; then it may go with the star for a season to the leading cities; then it is sent for one or two seasons with a road company to the smaller cities and towns; finally, for several years it may be leased to the stock houses. Thus it is not for one season alone that the manager plans his production, and his future stake ranges from the losses of one year to the prospective profits of five.

All this but emphasizes the importance of the decision he is required to make. Upon his answer to the question “What will the public patronize?” depends his failure or success for this season, and perhaps his continued existence as a theatrical manager. It is a very anxious man, then, who sits down at that desk in New York, and his anxiety is not without warrant. Perhaps there is no better time to study him, for those who hold the manager responsible for the degradation of dramatic art, than at this juncture while he is planning his new production, weighing every evidence of public appreciation, testing each point; perhaps, even, desirous of giving better art than is now given, but coming up at every turn before the solid wall of fact, — that he must give what a majority of the public will patronize, or face the alternative of bankruptcy. And obviously, before any artistic duty, must come the fundamental duty of the man and the citizen that he pay his bills.

Here, then, is the manager’s task: he must read human nature with the skill of the philosopher; he must feel the public pulse with the solicitude of the physician; he must put his ear to the ground with the sharpened faculties of the Indian. He tries to do all this. Specifically he separates men into classes and analyzes each class. In attempting such an analysis ourselves, let us begin by dividing theatrical audiences into three classes.

In the first class we will put the people of Bad Taste. They divide naturally into two groups — the taste that is morally bad, and the taste that is æsthetically bad. We must consider them separately, for though we place them in one class, they are really wide apart. Of the first group, little need be said; their cultivation is not a mere negative quantity; it is positive; their taste is vicious and depraved. They live on “penny shockers” and dime novels; they crave “sensations.” In the morning they buy a yellow journal for a cent; they demand battle, murder, and sudden death, and its columns rarely disappoint them. In the evening they pay fifteen cents to go to the theatre. They see The Queen of the Highbinders, or The King of the Opium Ring, or The Queen of the White Slaves. Alternating with these Bowery dramas, in deference to the patronage of an entirely different element, represented in the second group, are plays of more honest calibre, wherein primitive virtue in rugged setting is finally triumphant over raw and well-dressed vice. A blind man can detect the character of the audience, because these children of the people express pleasure and pain in a language peculiarly their own. You have heard the noisy laughter which voices pleasure; the house physician of any public hospital will tell you how they express pain. To feel is to express, and the theatre is vocal with the recognition of each dramatic situation. Every imagination is combustible at a different temperature, but this eagerness to express feeling is almost spontaneous combustion.

In each large city there is one of these theatres; in a city of a dozen theatres there would be two or three such playhouses. In their best condition they have a “family” patronage of persons who come every week under the subscription system. In these family theatres the Bowery melodrama is rarely seen, but in its place appeal is made more directly to the feminine element by such plays as No Mother to Guide Her, Why Working Girls Sin, and Deserted at the Altar. These are the theatres which I place in the second group of the Bad-Taste class as being æsthetic but not moral offenders. Indeed, so far are they from moral obliquity that they are almost kindergartens of ethical culture. They teach by object lessons. I am reminded of what one young girl who visited such a theatre confided to a settlement-house worker as they walked home together. She was much impressed by the gentleness and sweetness of the ingénue, and she said, “Oh, ain’t she just grand, that little girl! If I talked that way to my mother, maybe she would n’t get so mad with me.” And she tried it on her mother to good effect, as I afterwards learned.

It should be noted that these theatres are projected to cater to this particular class in the community. There is less financial risk in their operation than in the ordinary theatre, because their clientèle, though restricted in size, is sharply defined in taste and desire, and hence there is no conjecture about what they want. They have a keen appetite for entertainment, and evince no hesitating loyalty in their support of their theatre. As a steady investment, by and large, such a theatre I believe earns higher profits than any other. If the theatres in a dozen leading cities were combined and classified, it probably would be found that these lower-priced houses have the highest earning capacity.

At the other extreme, in the third class, we will put the people of Good Taste, represented, let us say for the purposes of this argument, by such a constituency as the readers of this magazine. You, then, gentle reader, are one of this class. If you would realize how small is your class in the calculations of the theatre manager, ask yourself how many theatres you attend in your own city. Take Boston as an example. There are eighteen theatres in Boston, but you attend only six of them. And where do you sit when you go to the theatre ? Almost invariably in the first ten rows of the orchestra. And the friends whom you see and recognize — where are they ? They are to be found in these same ten rows, unless it is the opera, or some unusual occasion at high prices. You see how small is your class, and how financially unimportant on the treasurer’s “ count-up ” sheet.

But who fill the fourteen or more rows of orchestra behind these ten rows ? Who occupy the wide tiers of the first balcony ? Whose are the dark forms that crowd the cavernous recesses of the second balcony till the line of bent heads stretches up to the dome of the theatre? And finally, who supplies the audiences for those other theatres which as yet we have not considered, but which constitute at least one-half of the total number in any city ? The theatre manager can tell you; it is the great No-Taste class, fifteen times as large as the Good-Taste class, four times as large as the Bad-Taste class, a body which comprises three-fourths of all theatregoers, and which alone fills one-half of all our theatres. It is to this great army that the manager must look to pay his bills under the present system, and he does not dare to produce a play which will not interest this middle class!

Here, then, are the conditions which, like fetters upon the manager’s wrists, bind him to the broad rock of artistic mediocrity, the safe meeting-ground of the uncultivated in all walks of life. These are the restrictions which prevent your having more of that higher dramatic art which you would so much enjoy. Before you can have the play that you want, you must wait till a drama is written so universal in its theme, so compelling in its appeal, so instinctive in its understanding of the human heart, that not only you, but the marcelled sales-lady of the department store, will be drawn to the theatre to see it.

There are such plays, but oh, how few of them! The Music Master is a recent example. They are like grains of wheat in a field of chaff. Meanwhile, the more subtle fancies of the playwright, the dramas in which he can play with themes that tempt his imagination, and weave the spells his fancy loves, are all laid aside. Although you, dear reader, would care for them, they must remain unwritten because our lady of the pompadour has not as yet sufficient cultivation to appreciate them.

And now, what is the remedy for this condition of dramatic anæmia ? The first prescription is a familiar formula,—“Elevate the masses! Let the people of Bad Taste and the people of No Taste be taught to appreciate and demand better plays.” I wonder if the golden age will ever come when this plan can be carried out. To me it seems as futile in practice as it is logical in theory. “ You may lead a horse to water,” says the proverb, “ but you cannot make him drink.” You may give your higher art in the most attractive setting, with excellent scenery and appointments, and at no advance in price, but the theatregoers of No Taste will not patronize it. They balk, they shy, and finally bolt for the playhouse which makes no demands upon gray matter. It is useless to sugarcoat the pill; they have taken such pills before, and they know that the aftertaste is bad. They abhor subtlety, and have no use for anything subjective. They want the objective, — the heavyhanded objective, — and they don’t complain if it is fired over the footlights out of a cannon. They are very sure that they know what they want, and in this selfanalysis they are lamentably right.

It is not easy to dissent from this theory of the higher dramatic education of the masses, for it is widely held and is the solution of such close students of dramatic affairs as Mr. Henry Arthur Jones. But an experience of four years in trying to raise the standard of a popular-priced stock theatre has made me skeptical, and changed my enthusiastic partner into a pessimist. We entered the field full of hope. Starting on a rather low level, and carefully avoiding the temptation to hasten the process, we made no change of bill for a time. Then, with the smallest appreciable gradation from week to week, we began the upward ascent. It was unnoticed at first. Things went swimmingly. We could almost see the “ uplift.” But one fine day the audience woke up from its trance, and looked at the play-bill. It was Barrie’s Professor’s Love Story. Now, they had no use for an aged professor’s romance, and they were not accustomed to doing business with J. M. Barrie. They had been decoyed, trapped, ambushed — and they knew it! By the end of the week the professor and his love story were badly frostbitten. In the language of the vernacular, the play did not “ build.” But we had started with an unlimited fund of patience, and, like Robert Bruce’s spider, we dropped back merely to begin another upward movement. Alas, the result was the same. Letters poured in from indignant patrons. I wish that some of these missives might be reproduced here without violating faith; but it is perhaps sufficient to say that higher dramatic education received a severe blow, and our box-office statements taught us a lesson that we did not soon forget.

We found some consolation, however, in the discovery that Shakespeare would be allowed to go unchallenged. The “ Bard of Avon ” was not on the black list, and six of his plays which we produced drew crowded houses. This exception of Shakespeare is interesting. It is rather more of an acceptance of his plays than a demand for them, but the result, financially, is equally satisfactory. At first sight, it would seem to disprove the claim that a certain degree of cultivation is essential to an appreciation of the highest dramatic art. Be that as it may, whatever law governs the case is laid on lines of universal experience, for Shakespeare draws even better in the towns than in the cities. This widespread acceptance of the great dramatist is a strong argument with those who claim the possibility of higher dramatic education for the masses. It was easy to point to our box-office receipts on the six plays mentioned, and say that there was no need to despair when true merit was instantly recognized and appreciated like this.

But, to my thinking, the patronage of Shakespeare’s plays by the apostles of the heavy-handed objective is only an instance of the American craze for education. It is an American point of sensitiveness to be posted on the things that one is generally supposed to know. As Sara Bernhardt says “ Ze Americain always arrives! ” He must be “ in ” at the finish, whether it is a social function, a physical test, or a question of knowledge. The average theatregoer accepts a Shakespearean play as he would accept a theory of creation. He neither apprehends its merit nor comprehends its construction. He simply admires because every one tells him he ought to admire. He has not even laid hold of the great dramatist’s coat-tails, but is being drawn along with the suction of a mighty wind of traditional approbation. Had we been able to present Hamlet as an unknown play under the title of A Prince of Denmark, however well mounted and capably acted, I cannot believe that the public would have cared sixpence for it. The seats would have been full of absentees, and Hamlet might have exclaimed with truth, “ The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.”

We were able to detect this same educational impulse in the increased attendance at certain “ book ” plays which we produced. It is proper that the up-todate American should be acquainted with the characters of Charles Dickens : he must recognize why one man is called a Uriah Heep, and another a Pecksniff; he certainly would be happier if references to Mr. Micawber conveyed any clear impression to his mind. So he goes to see Little Em’ly. It is “ reading without tears.” It is education while you wait. It accomplishes a great saving of time, for it kills two birds with one stone; he has the entertainment at the theatre, and he masters a whole book of characters with whom forever after he may claim a bowing acquaintance. At his side are others who come to refresh their memories, and to meet the old favorites of their youth. There is sentiment in it truly, but there is also a back-door to education in every such play, and thousands seek admission at this entrance rather than through the main door of amusement.

Speaking of plays brings up the question of their selection. This is the manager’s fateful duty, and it is here that he most clearly reveals whether he is fit for his post. Two fundamentals need to be considered, — the quality of the play, and the character of the audience. In estimating the power of the play, it is important that one should detect with accuracy the value and sincerity of each motif, the vitality and consistency of each character, and the vibrating intensity of every situation or climax as it develops. In considering the character of the audience the rule is, “ Put yourself in their place.” But, obviously, to choose wisely for another, one must be able to see that other’s point of view. In our own case, this last condition demanded that we should woo the second balcony at close range, and some interesting experiences came in the wooing.

We played daily matinées, and each matinée drew its own distinctive audience. The Monday matinée always brought us from seventy-five to one hundred of the steam-laundry workers of the city, they being by their hours compelled to choose between Monday afternoon and Wednesday evening. It was interesting to sit with them and hear their comments. I recall one play in which there was a squalid kitchen scene with a very dirty, slovenly woman. One girl nudged her companion and said with unabashed admiration, “ Gee, ain’t it just natural! ”

At another time it was one of Shakespeare’s plays, which evidently failed to satisfy, for I heard the disgusted comment, — “ When are they going to put on something worth going to? I hate all these uptown plays. They’re too stiff for me! No love in them at all! ” One of the characters was " The Banished Duke.” They were in some doubt as to the pronunciation, but one or two called it “ duck,” and this seemed to be accepted as correct. After the fall of the curtain they disputed as to the heroine’s pronunciation and inflection of certain words, and each one was soon imitating the inflection she liked best. One woman was evidently studying the fashions, and the gown of the leading lady gave her exquisite joy. She clutched her neighbor’s arm and said, “ Tell me, for the love of God, how she gets in and out of that dress. I’m after making one for Annie.” So Bad Taste finds the theatre a school of æsthetics as well as of ethics.

The recital of such incidents might be continued almost indefinitely. To estimate the full influence of the theatre on some of these bleak and unlovely lives, one needs to know the sacrifices that are made in order to obtain the coveted fifteen cents each week for the play. The things that cost us dearly are the things that have power to mould us, because they are bought by sacrifices. I knew of one family where the effort of the whole week was to save the money for Katie to go to the theatre. Katie was a girl of twenty-four years, with the mind of a mature woman and the body of a sixyear-old child. The family was woefully poor, but the mother made every sacrifice to eke out the fifteen cents each week, and rarely did I fail to find Katie on Thursday afternoons in the second balcony. It was her one joy in life. ” Ain’t it all beautiful? ” she said one day; “ I just settles down to enjoy life.” And then for two hours and a half she was lost to her world of misery, and lived with heroes and heroines.

But we are wandering from the subject of how to educate the masses to appreciate higher dramatic art. I am afraid that we shall in truth wander far into the twentieth century ere the light dawns. When it comes to lifting up the great army of No-Taste theatre-goers, I fear that some of us will ourselves be lifted up from this mundane sphere before we obtain an enlightened drama with an expository school of American acting. But here is the question: Are we going to do without cake because that great army headed by the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker, prefers to eat bread ? Shall we have no beauty which they cannot appreciate equally with us ? Must we wait on their higher development before we can indulge the taste that is our heritage ? Shall we have no food for our hungry æstheticism because they have indigestion ? Such a proposition seems to me as unfair as to claim that, because the majority of passengers on an ocean liner travel in the steerage, there need be no first cabin. The man of Bad Taste cares little for the plays of the No-Taste theatre; if one stops to reflect, why should not the man of Good Taste care equally little for them ?

And this brings me to the only solution, as it seems to me, of the present situation. If we are to have higher dramatic art in this country, with all the advantages which the exposition of such art would bring, it must come through a plan of segregating the classes on the line of mental and æsthetic appreciation. There are a few who have a genuine interest in the drama as an art. In all seriousness they are asking for a higher aim and better standard of work in some theatre. The demand is legitimate, and the question arises, Why should not this class have its own theatre, just as the Bad Taste of the community has its two or three theatres in every large city ? If Bad Taste supports its theatres and No Taste supports its theatres, why should not Good Taste show an equal loyalty to its ideals ? Can there not be a theatre with this higher aim in at least one of our American cities ? The city of Boston, for example, maintains eighteen theatres; in that long list is there not one theatre that may safely dare to cater to Good Taste rather than to popular mediocrity ?

It is for the persons who can appreciate such a theatre to answer that question. Their support alone can make the plan feasible. Will they stand for their high ideals as loyally as the “ ten-twentythirty ” patrons now support their two or three theatres ? Let us frankly admit that in the latter case there exists a more active demand for entertainment of this nature. Hard toil and daily worry crave the relaxation of amusement. Absence of cultivation greatly restricts the number of possible pleasures, and the play-house of the people, with its heavy-handed ethics, becomes a very Godsend in a community where the bar-room and the lighted streets at night are the only enjoyable alternatives. It unites the members of the family in their pleasure-taking, and it preaches many a sermon in parable. Let us beware of “ elevating ” such drama above the easy grasp of its devoted admirers. It is all merely entertainment, and we welcome it without a word of regret.

But we have a right to demand that the drama which is offered to persons of cultivation shall be treated not as mere entertainment, but as an art. We require that literature, architecture, painting, music, and sculpture shall furnish us instruction and inspiration. Why should we insult the drama by treating it always as mere amusement ? Why should not a sign of theatrical cultivation in the most prosperous nation of the world be as much in evidence as its Bad Taste? If the light could be kindled in but one American city, it might serve as an example and an inspiration to other communities.

And when that light is kindled, what shall we see? What will it reveal to us that we do not now enjoy ? Let us be specific, that all may know where we stand. Just what, then, do we mean by “ a higher aim and better standard of work ” in the theatre? What is the end to be attained, and what must the loyal member of the Good-Taste class do as his share in the work of attaining it ?

The answer cannot be epitomized, but I will try to reply briefly. First, we shall have acting that is not done by one star shining resplendent against a background of weak support. The plays will not be carefully chosen because they are onepart plays and give one performer a chance to show his or her unique gifts. They will not be excised so that no advantage —not even a “ laugh,” and certainly no applause — can possibly come to any but the star. The actors will not be driven down stage that the star may always face the audience, or banished into corners so that the centre may be perpetually reserved for him. In short, the play and its presentation will not be cut and trimmed and fitted to the actor’s gifts and the actor’s vanity. Instead, there will be a well-balanced company, disciplined, and thoroughly in earnest. They will be in spirit with the work, or they will have no part in it. Personal whims, and the eccentricities of “ temperament,” will be tolerated only up to the point where every one is faithfully working for the whole success as distinguished from any mere personal triumph. There will be no hard-and-fast “ lines ” of business, but every play will be cast to the best advantage of the whole company, and every actor will “ play as cast.”

It will not be an easy task at first to induce the best actors to appear without featured head-lines, to submit to discipline of this sort, and to act as a company, for company glory, with true esprit de corps; but I know whereof I speak when I say that it can be done. I believe that such a company can be assembled, and under proper leadership I am confident that eventually it can be imbued with the right spirit. It is the old formula of team-play, and the results are the same whether it is an army in the field, an orchestra in the concert-room, a crew on the river, or a company of highlyorganized, over-sensitive dramatic artists in a play.

So much for the acting; now as to the plays. It is a fact that there is a lamentable dearth of good new plays. But it is also true that, except in very rare instances, no play is given a chance of presentation unless presumably it will appeal to the average theatre-going person. That, as I said in the beginning, is an absolute requirement. The average theatre-goer likes humor, and so the number of laughs in the play is advertised in the papers; he abhors gloom, so there must be a happy ending, regardless of probability or consequences. It is to this sort of human nature that our playwrights must hold up the mirror if they are to obtain a hearing.

Think of it! The great drama, of really great power, must “ end prettily.” I am glad to say that at times when our purse was not empty we dared to violate this rule. We presented the American adaptation of Beyerlein’s Zapfenstreich, although for two years the repeated and urgent warnings of our agents and advisers were wholly against the play. “ It never succeeds! ” “ They won’t like it!” “It’s over their heads!” “It ends badly!” —So said those who knew. But we gave Boston its first and only sight of Taps, and it played to crowded houses. Had we been operating the theatre merely for financial profit, we should not have dared to produce it. Yet, to our astonishment, we found in this one case that art paid! I could name a score of plays that come in this same class — dramas which the readers of this magazine would enjoy far more than the plays which labor through four acts to exploit some popular star. But no manager is giving them, because the theatre cannot rise higher than the level of its box-office support.

Some of these great plays we may hope to see to the accompaniment of powerful acting, if we will join earnestly in the demand for better dramatic art. But as every privilege carries with it some responsibility, so it will be the duty of each one of us to support such a theatre, when it does come, with something more than expressions of approval. We may not have funds to subscribe, yet surely we can do more than buy tickets to occasional performances. We must see to it that, so far as we can compel it, such a theatre shall not fail of hearty support from every intelligent person in the community. Interest, to be of value, must express itself at the ticket-window. Let it be our mission to awaken that interest.

The establishment of such a theatre, apart from the pleasure to those who build it, will be a strong educational movement in dramatic art. Let us remember that education costs money, and that as a people we have endowed conservatories of music and museums of art without a question as to the necessity for doing so. Dramatic art, such as we are considering, cannot be wholly dependent on box-office receipts in New York or Boston, any more than it is today in Paris or Vienna. There it is the work of government; here it must be the work of private individuals — of those who care. I believe that we can have this better art as soon as we give evidence that we will support it with the same earnestness with which the theatre as an institution is supported by its less exacting patrons.

In other words, we must light what Ruskin calls the “ lamp of sacrifice.” Not by occasional support, not by merely visiting the theatre when we have nothing better to do, shall we become worthy of a nobler and more spiritual dramatic art. Loyalty to ideals demands sacrifice, and it is no sacrifice to attend a theatre when we want to see the play. We can afford to waive our demand that a particular play shall give us pleasure, if its presentation is true to the principles for which we plead. We must support our theatre through its failures, for they are inevitable, and despite its mistakes, for they are equally so, asking only that the effort as a whole shall foster and develop that higher dramatic art which we. have at heart. We must be patient, and we must wait. Not to be blinded by popular approval nor disheartened by popular distaste, not to desire any success which is not built on true merit, and to be lenient with faulty details so long as the general conception and effect are right — these are parts of the price we must pay for an ennobled stage.

Already there are signs of the coming of such a theatre. The New Theatre in New York is an established fact, and its direction has been entrusted to a man of discriminating taste and imaginative insight, who will not be satisfied with anything but the best. The experiment is not starting, however, under wholly ideal conditions, for the ambition of New York has found expression in a too large auditorium, and this same ambition will find it hard to admit later that the institutions of the old world cannot be duplicated in a comparatively short time. Not even the art of France could create a Comédie Française to-day if it did not exist. But nevertheless a most interesting experiment is being made, from which it may safely be inferred that some better art will result.

Looking beyond New York, we have had the suggestive, even if somewhat unfortunate, experiment for four months in the New Theatre, Chicago, under the management of Victor Mapes. San Francisco is reported as finding time, in the midst of her strenuous rebuilding, seriously to consider a movement along these lines. Philadelphia has been holding meetings and subscribing money. And here in Boston we have been trying to gain practical experience for such work by four years of theatre operation — serving an apprenticeship which will be found valuable if the time ever comes when its lessons can be applied to the larger problem.

I have said that such dramatic art as we are now considering must be independent, for a time at least, of box-office receipts. This is not because of a conceded lack of patronage, but because such art demands a very small theatre for its proper expression. Theatres today are constructed with a watchful eye to their seating capacity, regardless of the admitted fact that natural acting can never be brought to perfection in a playhouse where a part of the audience is very far from the stage. But the theatre of to-day is from first to last a moneymaking institution, and its gallery gods, six hundred or more, must be propitiated, for their dimes count. So the actors raise their voices and the stage manager broadens every effect, for both must carry over the intervening distance up to the furthest curve of the dome.

We do not realize how this moneymaking attitude has steadily enlarged our theatres and wrought havoc to dramatic art, for the change has been gradual. Over a century ago, when the Haymarket Theatre in London was doomed to enlargement, Sarah Siddons complained that no longer would it be possible to have good acting in that theatre, for the increased size of the auditorium put a stop to it. Yet the old Haymarket in its enlarged size was smaller than any theatre in Europe to-day, and must have been ridiculously small compared to the modern American playhouse. And remember that this was tragedy which Mrs. Siddons was acting — not comedy.

It would seem to be a lamentable corollary, that as the number of seats is reduced the price per seat must advance. But the small theatre which I hope to see built some day, with a fine company of artists on its stage, will be able to maintain itself, if at all, upon the ordinary theatre price of one dollar and a half for the best orchestra seat. And I believe that the performances in this theatre, under proper management, will soon be able to justify the experiment of the reduced size, — an experiment which no theatre-manager who depends on boxoffice receipts can as yet regard with anything but horror.

And so we come back to the question with which we started,— who is to blame for the present deplorable condition of dramatic art ? Is it the theatrical manager ? Not if his first duty is to pay his bills. Who then ? Behold, the very man who asks the question is himself the man who must answer it. Who is to blame ? “ Why, I am! I, who want good art, but am not willing to pay the price; I, who have ideals but no self-sacrifice, convictions but not courage, obligations without impulses.”

And an fortunately, in a world constituted as ours is, if you will not pay the piper you cannot have the dance.