Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/471

Rh ; it holds on while a far wittier, far more intelligent piece like comes badly off, because  is native and unpretentious and simply amusing. The moments when the humour strikes too near-home are few, but the play remains real, while an equally agreeable farce,, is always superficially clever.

writers of plays are still hesitant about humour;, and the whole upholstered repertoire of Mr. Al Woods testify to the superior stage qualities of rough wit and incessant action, leaving Potash and Clarence virtually alone in the projection of human character. But I would gratefully record that going to the theatre has been very easy this year.

theatre is not a social institution; it is only adventitiously a part of the communal life. It is intensely a personal thing at which we are either interested or bored, moved to laughter and to tears, or not. In a world where such specious examples as and  are considered artistic successes, there can be little room for discussing the art of the theatre. In a season where social criticism from the stage is limited to woolly little plays about the nationalization of women, the community function of the theatre can hardly be said to exist.

fact sticks, magnificently, that the proportion of plays which have interested and charmed and moved the intelligent is high, and if the theatre is decadent not a few of us will cheerfully stand by it in its decay. It would be easier for us if the acting were a bit better; perhaps before the month is out one superlative piece of work will occur to give point to a discussion of the rest.