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 bearing of any given speech, even his own, upon the whole play.
"Cuts" at rehearsal are not unfrequently found to be too hastily
made. Then, what is the action? Not merely the external incidents,
but the shifting phases of thought, emotion, character, in the
_dramatis personæ_. It is these that give the incidents their value,
and so give dramatic interest to the plot, or story. The dialogue
and the incidents are but two phases of the presentment of the
story. The action may be rapid or slow, direct, or with episodes.
All depends upon the treatment; and the play that one audience finds
detestable may delight another.

If THE BLACK CAT ever again come to the ordeal of the
footlights, I can only hope that it may find an audience as
sympathetic as that of the Independent Theatre.


OPERA COMIQUE,
STRAND, W.C.

THE INDEPENDENT THEATRE.
FOUNDER AND SOLE DIRECTOR, J.T. GREIN.

Third Season, Fifteenth Performance.

_FRIDAY, 8th December, 1893,_