akespeare's plays, if they were robbed of scenic upholstery and
spectacular display. This estimate rests on insecure foundations. That
section of the London public which is genuinely interested in
Shakespearean drama for its own sake, is prone to distrust the modern
theatrical manager, and as things are, for the most part avoids the
theatre altogether. The student stays at home to read Shakespeare at
his fireside.

It may be admitted that the public to which Shakespeare in his purity
makes appeal is not very large. It is clearly not large enough to
command continuous runs of plays for months, or even weeks. But
therein lies no cause for depression. Long runs of a single play of
Shakespeare bring more evil than good in their train. They develop in
even the most efficient acting a soulless mechanism. The literary
beauty of the text is obliterated by repetition from the actors'
minds. Unostentatious mounting of the Shakespearean plays, however
efficient be the acting with which it is associated, may always fail
to "please the million"; it may be "caviare to the general."
Nevertheless, the sagacious manager, who, by virtue of comparatively
inexpensive settings and in alliance with a well-chosen company of
efficient actors and actresses, is able at short intervals to produce
a succession of Shakespeare's plays, may reasonably expect to attract
a small but steady and sufficient support from the intelligent section
of London playgoers, and from the home-reading students of
Shakespeare, who are not at present playgoers at all.

IV

The practical manager, who naturally seeks pecuniary profit from his
ventures, insists that these suggestions are counsels of perfection
and these anticipations wild and fantastic dreams. His last word is
that by spectacular method Shakespeare can alone be made to "pay" in
the theatre. But are we here on perfectly secure ground? Has the
commercial success attending the spectacular production of Shakespeare
been invariably so conspicuous as to put summarily out of court, on
the purely commercial ground, the method of simplicity? The pecuniary
results are public knowledge in the case of the two most strenuous and
prolonged endeavours to give Shakespeare the splendours of spectacle
which have yet been completed on the London stage. What is the message
of these two efforts in mere pecuniary terms?

Charles Kean may be regarded as the founder of the modern spectacular
system, though it had some pre