and just in so far as he does insist
in ever-growing numbers upon drama that has technical skill, literary
quality and interpretive insight into life, will that better theater
come which must be the hope of all who realize the great social and
educative powers of the playhouse. The words of that veteran
actor-manager and playwright of the past, Colley Cibber, are apposite
here: "It is not to the actor therefore, but to the vitiated and low
taste of the spectator, that the corruptions of the stage (of what kind
soever) have been owing. If the publick, by whom they must live, had
spirit enough to discountenance and declare against all the trash and
fopperies they have been so frequently fond of, both the actors and the
authors, to the best of their power, must naturally have served their
daily table with sound and wholesome diet." And again he remarks: "For
as their hearers are, so will actors be; worse or better, as the false
or true taste applauds or discommends them. Hence only can our theaters
improve, or must degenerate." Not for a moment is it implied that this
book, or any book of the kind, can make playwrights. Playwrights as well
as actors are born, not made--at least, in the sense that seeing life
dramatically and having a feeling for situation and climax is a gift and
nothing else. The wise Cibber may be heard also upon this. "To excel in
either art," he declares, "is a self-born happiness, which something
more than good sense must be mother of." But this may be granted, while
it is maintained stoutly that there remains to the dramatist a technic
to be acquired, and that practice therein and reflection upon it makes
perfect. The would-be playwright can learn his trade, even as another,
and must, to succeed. And the spectator (our main point of attack, as
was said), the necessary coadjutor with player and playwright in theater
success, can also become an adept in his part of this cooeperative
result. This book is written to assist him in such cooeperation.

HOW TO SEE A PLAY

CHAPTER I

THE PLAY, A FORM OF STORY TELLING

The play is a form of story telling, among several such forms: the short
story, or tale; the novel; and in verse, the epic and that abbreviated
version of it called the ballad. All of them, each in its own fashion,
is trying to do pretty much the same thing, to tell a story. And by
story, as the word is used in this book, it will be well to say that I
mean such a manipulation