urning prodigal and their sneers at
his eminently respectable brother, Joseph Surface, Esq.

This secret of Sheridan in the "School for Scandal" is the main element
of only one modern drama that I now remember--"Rip Van Winkle"--but it
is quite common in the "old comedies," as they are called. These old
comedies generally make their appearance at least once in two years at
such theatres as Wallack's and Daly's of New York and the Arch Street
at Philadelphia. I forget the name of the Boston "legitimate" place.
When well acted they always "take," and there are so many stage
traditions of how to act them that they are seldom badly done. The
forgiveness of repentant prodigals, it will be remembered, forms the
basis of most of them, an element which has gradually disappeared from
the modern drama in deference to the increasing Philistine element,
represented by the Y.M.C.A. and the T.A.B.

Ascending from the modern English drama to its parents in the
Elizabethan era, we encounter the only dramatist of those times whose
works still hold the stage, and ask what is the secret of "Richard
III.," "Macbeth," "Othello," "Lear," "Hamlet," and the Shakespeare
comedies. The first general answer that most people will give is--the
genius of Shakespeare; his power of drawing character, his wonderful
language, his mastery of human passion. All these, it seems to me, are
true, but it is to the last element that the success of Shakespeare's
plays _on the stage_ is mainly due. No other dramatist, French,
English, or German, with the single exception of Goethe in "Faust," has
succeeded in making men and women, under the influence of tremendous
passion, talk and act so _truly_, so _realistically_. We notice this on
the stage when we see "Richard III." well acted. The man becomes a real
live man, a great scamp no doubt, but an able scamp, so able that he
actually excites our sympathy, when a really good actor plays him. The
main power of Shakespeare's tragedies to-day, and their superiority to
the tragedies of any other dramatist, lies in their _realism_. Where a
modern dramatist like Boucicault confines his realistic treatment to
matters with which most of us are familiar, Shakespeare flies at any
game, no matter how high, and impresses us with the presence of _real_
men and women, whether they be kings and queens or only common folk.
This seems to be Shakespeare's one secret which makes his plays hold
the stage to-day in spite of faulty cons