The Court Theatre 1904 1907 A Commentary And Criticism With An Appendix Containing Reprinted Programmes Of The Vedrenne Barker Performances

Author : Desmond MacCarthy
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781330548349
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (483 download)

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Download or read book The Court Theatre, 1904-1907 written by Desmond MacCarthy and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Court Theatre, 1904-1907: A Commentary and Criticism It may sometimes depress the critic to reflect how little influence he has upon the fate of the plays and books he criticizes, but this fact is the salvation of criticism, and often, let me hasten to add, the salvation of art. If the case were otherwise, and the critic knew his opinion had a direct effect upon the commercial success of a play, he could hardly bring himself to point out carefully the defects of a performance, which he thought, nevertheless, far better than its competitors for public favour. He would feel bound, in such a case, to consider the immediate effect of what he wrote, and this preoccupation would be fatal to criticism. Happily, we need not think of this. It is obvious that success is achieved independently of the opinion of critics; the sky is red with spreading, blazing reputations which their cold water is as powerless to quench as a fire-engine a prairie fire; nor can their unanimous praise always secure even a modicum of success. For instance, in March 1905, the Court Theatre Company produced a translation of Hauptmann's Bieber Pelz, called The Thieves' Comedy. It was a first-rate performance, and an exceptionally good play. The critics praised it with one accord; not only those who had begun to see in the Vedrenne-Barker management the most notable achievement in modern dramatic production, but also those who were reluctant to admit anything of the kind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.