The great misfortune of this condition of affairs is that the failure of a play as a business proposition cuts off suddenly and finally the dramatist’s sole opportunity for publishing his thought, even though the failure may be due to any one of many causes other than incompetence on the part of the dramatist.  A very good play may fail because of bad acting or crude production, or merely because it has been brought out at the wrong time of the year or has opened in the wrong sort of city.  Sheridan’s Rivals, as everybody knows, failed when it was first presented.  But when once a play has failed at the present day, it is almost impossible for the dramatist to persuade any manager to undertake a second presentation of it.  Whether good or bad, the play is killed, and the unfortunate dramatist is silenced until his next play is granted a hearing.

II

DRAMATIC ART AND THE THEATRE BUSINESS

Art makes things which need to be distributed; business distributes things which have been made:  and each of the arts is therefore necessarily accompanied by a business, whose special purpose is to distribute the products of that art.  Thus, a very necessary relation exists between the painter and the picture-dealer, or between the writer and the publisher of books.  In either case, the business man earns his living by exploiting the products of the artist, and the artist earns his living by bringing his goods to the market which has been opened by the industry of the business man.  The relation between the two is one of mutual assistance; yet the spheres of their labors are quite distinct, and each must work in accordance with a set of laws which have no immediate bearing upon the activities of the other.  The artist must obey the laws of his art, as they are revealed by his own impulses and interpreted by constructive criticism; but of these laws the business man may, without prejudice to his efficiency, be largely ignorant.  On the other hand, the business man must do his work in accordance with the laws of economics,—­a science of which artists ordinarily know very little.  Business is, of necessity, controlled by the great economic law of supply and demand.  Of the practical workings of this law the business man is in a position to know much more than the artist; and the latter must always be greatly influenced by the former in deciding as to what he shall make and how he shall make it.  This influence of the publisher, the dealer, the business manager, is nearly always beneficial, because it helps the artist to avoid a waste of work and to conserve and concentrate his energies; yet frequently the mind of the maker desires to escape from it, and there is scarcely an artist worth his salt who has not at some moments, with the zest of truant joy, made things which were not for sale.  In nearly all the arts it is possible to secede at will from all allegiance to the business which is based upon them; and Raphael