The following communications have found their way into the Editor's box at 85, Fleet Street, and are published that their writers may claim them. As most of the signatures were more or less illegible, it has been considered advisable to suppress them, to prevent the possibility of mistakes. The only exception that has been made to this rule is in the case of the last letter, wherein seemingly is summed up the moral of the controversy.
Communication No. 1, dated Tuesday.
Is it not time, considering that there is nothing of particular interest attracting public attention, that a protest should be raised against the "Society" plays which occupy the stages of some of our best theatres? You see I pave the way to my gentle reproof by buttering up vested interests. To do this the better, I will say something nice about "our most capable actors," and write "I remember Buckstone, and Sothern, the Bancrofts, and, aye, Mr. Tree himself." This will prove that there is no malice in my suggestions.
Let me describe the piece to which, in the dead season of the year, I object. The plot is centred in the love for each other of a partially-reclaimed lady and an opium-drinking gentleman; I might use stronger expressions, but I know your paper is intended for the family rather than the dress-circle, and my language is therefore modulated to meet the modest requirements of the case. Take it from me, Sir, that the story of these two individuals is nauseous and degrading. I say that its unravelling should not be foisted on the public in a modern play. But that you may not consider my impressions libellous, I add that the piece is finely staged, and in parts well written. For all that, I cannot imagine why the manager, with his lofty ideas of the function of a theatre as a medium of education, has permitted himself to produce it. And if that observation does not draw the manager in question, my name is not X. Y. Z.
Communication No. 2, dated Wednesday.
Your anonymous contributor "of London" (mark the sarcasm!) was right in imagining that I would be drawn. I consider it my duty to Mr. Henry Arthur Jones to say something about his "accustomed combative geniality," and to Mr. Haddon Chambers to refer to his "cheery stoicism." I will also allude to Mr. Pinero, but as he is not writing for my theatre just now, merely record my conviction that he will be able to survive the sneers against The Second Mrs. Tanqueray—"a play which has made a deep and lasting impression on the thinking public." And when I write "lasting," I am the more obliging, as I assume the rôle of a prophet. It will be "lasting," I am sure. The "thinking public," of course, are those admirable and intellectual persons who fill the stalls and boxes of my theatre, and the stalls and boxes of kindred establishments.
And, while I am talking of "thinking," let me insist that the criticism of the piece by the anonymous one "of London" (mark the irony!) is not a personal matter, but a question that affects the freedom of the thinking community. This is a generation that has outgrown "the skirts of the young lady of fifteen"; and it behoves all to understand the meaning of that apt sentence, and to regard with a jealous eye any attempt to crib, cabin, and confine the development of contemporary thought. "Crib, cabin, and confine" is also good, and entirely worthy of your serious consideration. At a time when the stalls are 10s. 6d., and the family-circle available to those who will not run to gold, is a literary dandy (in whose stained forefinger I seem to detect the sign of an old journalistic hand) to pass a vote of censure on Shakspeare because, forsooth, Hamlet was not forgotten? I trust not. And shall the public (mark you the intellectual, the praiseworthy—in a word, the "thinking public") be debarred from taking their piece in their favourite theatre because, forsooth, there is an interesting correspondence in newspapers in the dullest season of the decrepit old year? Again—I trust not.
Communication No. 3—once more dated Wednesday.
I beg to ask your permission, as an old playgoer, to see myself in print. I do not pretend to be able to write myself, but an eminent littérateur, in a recent number of a popular monthly magazine, has done good service by enforcing the untruthful character of the "problem" pieces recently presented to the public audiences. I have not the ability to comment on this unpleasant phase of the histrionic profession, so merely observe (with a recollection of an old-world story) "them's my sentiments."
Communication No. 4, dated Thursday.