hat of our own players by comparison.

There is one very noteworthy fact: from the point of view of a London
manager the scenery and appointments were contemptible, and this
apparently did not matter a rap. An audience, five-sixths of it British,
was enthralled by these players, although the scenery and the furniture
of the indoor sets had no pretension to magnificence, were sometimes
almost absurdly squalid.

The venture at the Shaftesbury showed that if you give what the public
deems good acting you need not bother about painted canvas and
furniture; and what applies to good acting applies to good plays. The
Sicilians taught us this, even if, perhaps, little else; for our
players, unless they are to represent Sicilians, or such volcanic
creatures, can learn comparatively little from them. Indeed, our
delightful visitors could be taught something by our despised stage in
the way of reticence, for there is little doubt that they love a horror
for horror's sake and revel in the gory joys of the penny gaff. This may
be said with full recognition of the fact that, according to their own
standard, they are intensely sincere and superbly equipped in
consequence of hard work and natural gifts.

Alleged Dearth of Great Actresses

Lately there have appeared some remarks by an unnamed "prominent
dramatic author" alleging that "there is a dearth of great actresses
just now," and stating that "several serious plays which it was hoped
might be produced next autumn are in danger of being indefinitely
postponed because of the inability of finding actresses capable of
playing strongly emotional parts in drama of deep and complex interest."
These dramas of "deep and complex interest" are quite as rare in our
theatre as great actresses and we only believe in their existence when
we see them.

Of course there is a dearth of great actresses--there always was and
always will be: "great" is only a relatively term. Thank goodness for
this, seeing that they are sadly injurious to drama. On the other hand,
to allege a lack of actresses competent to play strong emotional parts
seems quite unjust.

The remarks of the "prominent dramatic author" were followed by a
letter to the same effect by Mr George Rollit, known to fame as the
author of a fairly good farce produced in 1904 at the Royalty. He
appears to have allowed it to get known that a new play of his was to be
produced in the West End, but he was unable to find "an adequate
expon