Commerce in the Theatre

Wellington said that an army moves on its belly. So does a London
theatre. Before a man acts he must eat. Before he performs plays
he must pay rent. In London we have no theatres for the welfare
of the people: they are all for the sole purpose of producing the
utmost obtainable rent for the proprietor. If the twin flats and
twin beds produce a guinea more than Shakespeare, out goes
Shakespeare and in come the twin flats and the twin beds. If the
brainless bevy of pretty girls and the funny man outbid Mozart,
out goes Mozart.



Unser Shakespeare

Before the war an effort was made to remedy this by establishing
a national theatre in celebration of the tercentenary of the
death of Shakespeare. A committee was formed; and all sorts of
illustrious and influential persons lent their names to a grand
appeal to our national culture. My play, The Dark Lady of The
Sonnets, was one of the incidents of that appeal. After some
years of effort the result was a single handsome subscription
from a German gentleman. Like the celebrated swearer in the
anecdote when the cart containing all his household goods lost
its tailboard at the top of the hill and let its contents roll in
ruin to the bottom, I can only say, "I cannot do justice to this
situation," and let it pass without another word.