We still want more of life, of the vital movements of our own time, upon the stage; and we shall get it by degrees.  Sentimental melodrama, with its male puppet, who is hero or villain, its female puppet, who is angel or devil, may still continue to flourish among us; for it still satisfies the natural craving for romance, ideality, which the drama is bound to supply.  But these things belong to a decaying phase of romance; and our so-called realism is but the first wave of a new romantic movement, on the stage as elsewhere.  For when the old ideals become decrepit, we must go back to nature to get the stuff wherewith to make new ones.

As our dramatists advance with the times, people begin to go to the theatre to see plays, and not merely an actor in a part.  The “well-made play,” which was a piece of mechanical contrivance into which the puppets were ingeniously fitted, may some day develop into a work of art—­a thing born rather than made—­growing up like a flower in the imagination of the dramatist.

When that day comes, the actor, who used to “create” the part, will have to be content to let the part create him.  The play will make the actor, not the actor the play; to the great benefit of both play and actor.

But why be so serious over an art whose end is only to amuse?  To amuse?  Yes; but we are not all equally amused by the same things.  There may be forms of humour which tickle some people more exquisitely than even that magnificent making of tea in an old gentleman’s hat, which convulses the Charley’s Aunt audience.  And if amusement be the object of the drama, we must take the word in an extended sense.  I should myself roughly define a good play as one that, when adequately performed, can hold the attention of an unprejudiced audience from beginning to end, whether it amuses or merely interests them.  It does not follow that because it may shock, or even bore, some worthy people it is a bad play.  Even farcical comedy bores some people, with whom I cannot sympathise.

And now, if I have been rather hard upon the “well-made play,” it must not be assumed that it is because I do not value construction.  I do value it.  But it should be vital, not academic, organic, not mechanical.  Still, even mechanical construction is better than none at all.  A play without plot is invertebrate, without bones.  It is at his peril that a dramatist departs from accepted rules, even those respecting “strong” curtains and “strong” exits, though in certain cases weak curtains and weak exits may be more really dramatic.  Then, valuable as dialogue is, it may be redundant, and make a play “flabby.”  The actor’s rule, that all talk that does not carry on the action is bad, is worthy of all due respect.  “You literary fellows want to say everything twice over,” was the shrewd criticism of a stage-manager in a certain case.  But an actor is often so absorbed in his own part that he does not easily estimate the