The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-12
THE PLAYS THE THING
From the Louisville courier-Journal.

From the Louisville Courier-Journal
 N UTUMNS near approach brings WV the recrudescence of the annual
 discussion of dramatic criticism, the manager being arrayed upon one side and the critic upon the other. In one of the midsummer magazines the author of few plays, some of which failed to score, speaks for the manager and playwright. He pours out his wrath upon the critics. dividing them Into two classes, "the Hee-Haws" and the "Remin- iscents." The Hee-Haws are makers of epigrams, writers of satire, vendors of sarcasm self-exploiters, who Tive with out conscience and live without heart" They live also without books, insists their assailant. Soddenly ignorant of the his- tory of drama, of the laws governing the construction of plays, equipped neither by temperament nor experience to sit in judgment upon the player or the play, they earn a miserable livelihood by pan dering to the public's appetite for hu- morous writing as meretricious as 1t is malicious. They're a bad lot-parasites who suck away at the lifeblood of the producers of plays quite regardless of results. The "Reminiscents" are elderly critics who see nothing in the present that is equal to the past, who drool of actors who trod the boards three generations ago, and laud playwrights of old at the ex- pense of better men who are bidding for the American dollar today. Between the fire of the Hee-Haws and the Remin- iscents the ambitious producer and the able writer of plays has, in the opinion of the critic of the critics, a hard row to hoe.
 There are critics good, bad and indif- ferent, well equipped, i'll equipped and not equipped at all. But the point that most of those shivering lances against the brazen forehead of the defamer of plays and writers of plays invariably miss is that there Is a large self-willed public which has mind of its own. and which wants what it wants when 1t wants it."
 The critic is neither omnpotent nor omniscient. Sometimes the manager con siders him so when he praises the play, but really he isn't and he knows 1t. He is human and errs-sometimes when he is exceedingly young and extremely ig-
 
 ingly, and sometimes he never grows out of his ignorance and never modulates his bray-but taken as whole the critics would rather praise than "pan' what in managerial vernacular is called a show" The Hee-Haws are not majority, and the Reminiscents are few. Neither the dramatic editor, who has the bad taste to write humorously rather than inform ingly and justly, nor the elderly critic who does not regard Miss Innocence" as better than "A Midsummer Nights Dream" Is regarded as final authority by the playgoers. It is as interesting mat ter rather than as instruction to the ig- norant that the dramatic column appeals to the newspaper reader If the critic Is difficult to please the public soon ascer-
 tains his standard and discounts his statements. If he is so great an optimist as to see nothing but worthiness in every "dramatic ofering,'' his readers soon learn to disregard him utterly. The critic who carps continually and the fellow who seeks to draw attention to his own de- lightful cleverness, rather than to dis cuss the play judicially, are unsuited to their chosen field, but they do not damn the drama as utterly as the dramatists and managers would have us believe. The following dialogue, from a humor- ous journal-delightfully humorous be- cause of the words it puts in the man. ager's moyth-hits the bulls eye:
 "A p4ly,' remarked the theatrical manager, is like cigar
 |" What's the answer? inquired the innocent reporter. " If it's good explained the manager everyone wants box. and If it's bad no amount of puffins will make 1t draw"
 A poll of the critics would not show a ->tA in favor of Mir. George Conan as