, 1917.
impersonation artistic ? Today impersonation requires accessories such as scene, music , costume, ensemble, plot, and the like. There can be little doubt that the audience which reads dramatic
criticism and which then formulates its governing principles, asks of the critic primarily , How good is this drama as drama? The art of impersonation is precisely that imitation of life , that creation of the illusion of life , for which Aristotle contended . Its values as a form of art have not changed since the days when
theatres like those of Epidaurus were made large enough to contain the population of the entire city , and every man was his
own critic. Good acting will bring people to a play no matter how bad it is as a life lesson , as plot, as scene; plays fail almost in
proportion to the quality of the acting. Unfortunately , dramatic critics are nearly always more interested in the rules governing the accessories of their art, and in the dramatist's philosophy of
life, than in the art itself.” The historian looks to the dramatic critic to give him inform
ing criticism on those points rather than a review of the play as literature, yet it is in all of these matters that he will as a rule find dramatic criticism lacking and he will be unable to dis entangle pure criticism from the confusing questions of com
plimentary and purchased tickets, reporter playwrights, theatri cal advertising, the possibility of perverted morals and question
able taste on the part of the audience, good acting spoiled by inadequate stage setting and admirable stage setting wasted on inartistic acting. It was many years ago that G . H . Lewes felt that to ensure good dramatic criticism more was necessary than good plays, good acting, and good critics. “ There must be,” he says, “ not only accomplished artists and an eager public ; there must be a more enlightened public. The critical pit, filled with play -goers
who were familiar with fine acting and had trained judgments ,
has disappeared . In its place there is a mass of amusement seekers , not without a nucleus of intelligent spectators , but of this nucleus only a small minority has very accurate ideas of what constitutes good art. . . . The drama is everywhere in Europe and America rapidly passing from an art into an amuse
ment, just as of old it passed from a religious ceremony into an art.” 144 144 On Actors and the Art of Acting, p . 182; cf. A . B. Walkley, “ The Ideal
Spectator,” Dramatic Criticism , pp . 7 -45.
