[Serjeant Musgrave's Dance] had the great virtue of crystallising and sharply dividing critical opinions; the one thing with which it did not meet was indifference. Some of the reactions to the play make an interesting study. They were, incidentally, comments on the parable as a dramatic form. (p. 49)

[We] have three distinct attitudes: hostile, mixed, and friendly…. We may feel that the argument is loaded: Musgrave is too peculiar, indeed pathological, a character to give any general validity to the parable. What cannot be said is that the play is impenetrably obscure. Could it be that some of the hostile critics found the message not so much obscure as unpalatable? (pp. 50-1)

We are only shown a wrong reaction to an iniquitous state of affairs [in Serjeant Musgrave's Dance]. But why should a playwright dot all his I's and cross all his T's?

He must of course expect...