FENEMY
You ask me if I like the play. How do I know! If it’s by a foreigner, sure I like it; but if it’s by an American (particularly a young American) you can bet I’ll roast it. Why, it’s got to the point where some of these young American playwrights are getting to be better known than we are, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to do anything to help the thing along.
HILL
You’re right, Fenemy. Besides, they know how to do these things so much better abroad than our writers do. Take this play. Pretty good, to be sure. But I’ll wager it was written by some fellow who used to be a reporter—probably on my very paper. And I’m not going to be the one to give him the swelled head. No, sir!
DIXON
If Belasco had only produced this play it would have been a wonder. Belasco’s a wizard. I know it, because he has repeatedly told me so himself.
SUMMERS
Ah, gentlemen—gentlemen. Why indulge in this endless colloquy over this insignificant proscenium tidbit. Let us remember that howsoever good it may be it was still not written by Shakespeare and that however ably it may have been interpreted, Booth and Barrett and Charlotte Cushman, alas, are no longer with us.
HILL
Oh, you’re a back-number, Summers. You’re no critic—you’re a scholar! Why don’t you put a punch in your stuff and get a good job?