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"The Playwrights of To-day." Daily Telegraph. Jan. 3, 1894, p. 5.
TO THE EDITOR OF "THE DAILY TELEGRAPH."
Sir, — Is your dramatic critic really in earnest when he asserts (à propos of "The Country Girl") that the playwrights of to-day cannot write plays to suit such artists as Miss Ada Rehan and Mr William Farren? Is he quite sure that (say) Mr. Pinero and Mr. Grundy have been invited to write plays to suit these artists; or that, having been invited and having agreed to do so, these gentlemen have despairingly thrown up their contracts, staggered by the intellectual difficulties of the task they have so rashly undertaken? And does not your dramatic critic know as well as any man in England that if such preposterous rubbish as "The Country Girl" were put forth as a new play by a modern author it would be indignantly hissed off the stage before the first act had run its course? — I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
W.S. GILBERT.
Harrow Weald, Jan. 2
“The Playwrights of To-day.” Daily Telegraph, no. 12,060, Jan. 9, 1894, p. 3
TO THE EDITOR OF “THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.”
SIR – Your critic’s courteous reply to my letter upon the alleged inability of modern dramatic authors to write plays that will suit such artists as Miss Ada Rehan and Mr. William Farren raises, incidentally, a question of considerable interest to playgoers, and one, moreover, that has never been fully threshed out—that is to say, whether a manager is warranted in expecting that acknowledged dramatic authors of tried experience (there are, probably, only four or five who come under this description) shall write plays for him “on approval.” The manager contends with some show of reason that in producing a play he has a heavy venture at stake: that he is not to be called upon to buy a pig in a poke; and that he is entitled to be placed in possession of the completed work before he consents to produce it. On the other hand, the experienced author contends that it is unreasonable to expect that a man whose time is golden, and whose previous achievements are a warrant for the confidence he demands, shall devote six months of his year to the composition of a play which is to suit the capacities of a particular company of players and the tastes of a particular class of audience, on the off-chance of its being eventually accepted and produced by the manager at whose suggestion it has been written. I will not, at present, intrude upon your space by advancing my own views on this somewhat delicate point. I throw it out for consideration, with the admission that there is much to be said on both sides of the question. — I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
W.S. GILBERT
Grim’s Dyke, Harrow Weald, Jan. 8
Page modified 7 August 2018