Excerpt from The Drama and the Stage
The critical observer of our living theatre, to be useful at all, must cultivate good humor, patience and tolerance. To great humility of expectation and a gratitude for small mercies he must add a steadfast determination not to be taken in. For the theatre is a place of many illusions, the home of over-eager minds and of harsh ambitions, the scene of an alternation of blazing splendor and of bleak despair. No one can understand the theatre who sees it too intently from within; no one can serve it who does not, as it is to-day, hold it a little cheap. Because the theatre of to-day is being killed - by the theatre. This mechanism which, stripped to its essentials, is but a wooden platform sheltered from the winds, this simple thing placed now on a hill-side, now in an inn-yard, now in a room, has become an end in itself. Revolving stages, subtle lights, elaborate scenes are in their right order beautiful and useful things. They become a menace when they cause it to be forgotten that the platform is the platform of the eternal poet struggling with the mysteries of the earth. This is not fine language; it is the plain and sober truth. But who will admit it? David Belasco?
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Drama and the Stage (Classic Reprint) (Ludwig Lewisohn)