ABSTRACT
The American theatregoing public is the most liberal in the world. It deserves well of the theatre, and, being entitled to see the best that can be shown, it is entitled to see the plays of Shakespeare acted, and to see them acted well. The experience of individual actors in the presentment of Shakespeare’s plays has, from the first, been especially instructive, and it has been, in almost innumerable instances, an experience of opulent success. The plays of Shakespeare, furthermore, cannot be produced by janitors; they must be acted, and the actors of to-day, as a class, are inadequate to the demands of Shakespeare because they have little or no suitable training to enable them to act those parts. The reiteration, by persons making themselves public as theatrical “managers,” of the statement that “Shakespeare spells Ruin” is so insistent, not to say blatant, that, in the face of the facts, it causes equal contempt and astonishment.
