It is not a "representative" audience. But it represents New York and all the 48 States. For this is the night of decision!
There has been much talk and squawk for "constructive criticism." It would mean about nothing. By the time it appears, it would have to be reconstructive. And it's then too late.
A handful of plays have upset the original opinion, notably Abie's Irish Rose, Tobacco Road and Hellzapoppin'. In all those instances, and the few others where a production caught its second wind, the backers were game and optimistic, plowed through losses with a confidence rare in such enterprises.
As a rule, what the first-nighters say as they come out is final, be it an Ibsen revival or a Theatre Guild musical or a bawdy revue.
Word spreads amazingly fast and far. Fifteen minutes after a smash has rung down, the cigar-store crowds in the Bronx and the burghers on Staten Island and the stoop-sitters in far Flatbush are chewing about it. For a big hit is big business in the Big Burg.
No recurrent event, including contest sports, sells papers like an important opening. Thousands know that what the critics say means a flop or a run. Not only are many directly interested, but millions follow such news, as Los Angeles reads Hollywood trade matter, Chicago goes for stockyards' statistics, Detroit watches auto output, Washington eats up politics and Memphis seeks the latest on "the state of the River."
For the stage is a colossal industry in Greater New York.
Its "legitimate" houses turn over more than $1,000,000 a week in good months.
Its unions are rich and powerful, its personnel exceeds in volume the population of some metropolitan cities.
Yet its fortunes hang on invisible, intangible hairs!