The San Francisco call., 1898-03-06

The stage is always going to the devil At regular intervals it's moral ity. art and commerce are attacked and defended by authors, actors, managers, critics and other persons interested. No sooner have the play-goer and the play shunner reconciled going to the thea ter at all with a future in the bright blue beyond than up jumps somebody who questions any value that the the ater may have for fine, literate per sons, even that of mere entertainment, and waiving all consideration of nor ality and putting the matter solely on the basis of mentality and good taste. Like the contemporary actor the con- temporary play is always being voted inferior to that of yesterday. Yet when the manager offers yesterdays play in -. anything like it's original form-that is to say. without the millionaire scenic and sartorial investiture thatis the basis of most revivals of the classics now adays-he gets slim encouragement. There are people who sigh for the old days of the stock company with its lightning change of bill and it's versa tile actors. Yet, how are the stock per- formances, hastily put together, taken off almost before they are in the first stages of secure acting. to cope with the modern production that runs on oiled wheels, with it's actors selected for their specialized skill in depicting the physical and mental attributes of their respective parts? This is a day of ''productions;" of long runs. There is hardly manager or an actor-manager with the conspicuous exceptions of Au- gustfn Daly and Richard Mansfield whose foremost ambition is not to se- cure play that will run nothing short of an entire season. z And it can be said for most of the big managers-the Frohmans in parttc- ular-that they seldom produce a play without going to an initial expenditure that can be made profitable only by a long run. When a play goes on at, say, the LyCeum or the Empire and lasts but a couple of weeks, the situation becomes pecuniarily serious.
 On the other hand the long run sys- tenn does not seenl-in the long run-to be conducive to the finest act ing or to the finest play-writing. The actor sooner or later. as the per fOrmances pile up from the fifties to the hundreds, loses the nervous excite ment of his part. He may work ener- getically enough but with a mechanical energy in which his brains practically .. take a vacation. You may recall the second appearance here of MT. Hackett and others of the Lyceum Company in ''The Prisoner of Zenda," and the ghastly difference between that per fOrmance and the previous one. With the English and American play writers and only considering the best of them the goal, too, would seem to be instan- taneous popularity and profit. It is droH author to-day who would not cheerfulIy discount his hopes of re vival" and place in modern classical repertory for the juicy plum of imme- diate success. In the absence of mod ern English and American master pieces, the author and the manager -<iumphantly find no demand for them and so justify their respective medi- ocrity and commercial enterprise which, they say, with incontestable truth, are what the most of the public wants.
 Tt is all well enough for you news paper chaps, who live comfortably by commenting on our risk and toil to point to higher ideals and hungry pos terity," the manager and the author can say, but we can't do that sort of
 
 ed theater requires a certain number of persons in the auditorium, just as 1t does on the stage-and, anyway, how do you know that you would recognize @ real play if we should produce one? How many of you have agreed on Ib- sen. on Suderman? Some of you are even decrying Shakespeare. Why should we set about pandering to your various capriceS when we have trOu- bles of our own catering to the big paying public that supports us? And isn't it a succession of these paying publics that makes posterity?'
 In putting words in the mouths of the manager and the author l have tried to enter sympathetically into the best of their practical views. l have come to sympathize with the manager. even with those of him who recognize only two distinctions in criticism-"good no-