Dorriforth. They may; but they don’t make good plays to see or to hear. The theatre consists of two things, que diable—of the stage and the drama, and I don’t see how you can have it unless you have both, or how you can have either unless you have the other. They are the two blades of a pair of scissors.
Auberon. You are very unfair to native talent. There are lots of strictly original plays—
Amicia. Yes, they put that expression on the posters.
Auberon. I don’t know what they put on the posters; but the plays are written and acted—produced with great success.
Dorriforth. Produced—partly. A play isn’t fully produced until it is in a form in which you can refer to it. We have to talk in the air. I can refer to my Congreve, but I can’t to my Pinero. {*}
* Since the above was written several of Mr. Pinero’s plays
have been published.
Florentia. The authors are not bound to publish them if they don’t wish.
Dorriforth. Certainly not, nor are they in that case bound to insist on one’s not being a little vague about them. They are perfectly free to withhold them; they may have very good reasons for it, and I can imagine some that would be excellent and worthy of all respect. But their withholding them is one of the signs.
Auberon. What signs?
Dorriforth. Those I just spoke of—those we are trying to read together. The signs that ambition and desire are folly, that the sun of the drama has set, that the matter isn’t worth talking about, that it has ceased to be an interest for serious folk, and that everything—everything, I mean, that’s anything—is over. The sooner we recognize it the sooner to sleep, the sooner we get clear of misleading illusions and are purged of the bad blood that disappointment makes. It’s a pity, because the theatre—after every allowance is made—might have been a fine thing. At all events it was a pleasant—it was really almost a noble—dream. Requiescat!