The origins of the drama in its simplest forms can be traced back to the earliest of human civilisations, and it is almost certain that as long as drama has existed it has been talked about. It then follows, that with the arrival of literature we might expect to find mention of the drama, and indeed the oldest known surviving written reference is the testament of an Egyptian actor, I-kher-nefert, in which he describes the Passion Play of Osiris which he produced himself at Abydos sometime before 3000 BC.
The oldest surviving example of any kind of analytical or comparitive criticism of the drama is the 'The Poetics' of Aristotle written in the fourth century BC when classical Greek drama was at its height. Later, in the third century AD, Dionysius Longinus raised dramatic and literary criticism to almost an art form in his own right in his writings on the 'sublime'. Thus it appears that the tradition of dramatic criticism is almost as old as is the drama itself.
Throughout the Dark Ages the widespread suppression of theatre likewise suppressed the need for criticism of the drama, and it was not until the Renaissance period that dramatic criticism was fully re-awakened, first in Italy then spreading across the rest of Europe. In England, Jonson's 'Discoveries' (1641) and John Dryden's 'Essay of Dramatick Poesie' (1668) were two outstanding early examples of dramatic criticism. Dryden, the leading dramatist in his own age, is also recognised as one of the greatest dramatic critics of all time and is credited with establishing the English style of dramatic criticism, much as Shakespeare did the English style of dramatizing.
With the arrival of the eighteenth century, dramatic criticism began to concentrate on the individual actor for the first time, and saw to it that the art of actors like Betterton, Garrick, Kean and others were immortalised for all time. This can be seen as the birth of modern dramatic criticism, although at that time it remained largely scholastic in nature and it was not until the mid part of the following century that it found it's way into mainstream journalism.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw a rapid expansion of the press due to the natural convergence of a number of contibutory factors.
The result of all these factors was that in the latter half of the century the number of daily newspapers in London alone increased by more than fifteen-fold. Furthermore, increasing literacy and falling prices had spread the readership to the working classes. This last factor alone led to a new kind of journalism and a change in subject matter to appeal to the masses - particularly among the newer publications that targeted this new market. News stories were made easier to read with more prominent headlines and simpler English, and a growing use of illustrations (with most newspapers beginning to employ sketch artists for the purpose). In terms of content there was less finance and politics in favour of more crime, sport and, especially in the London papers, theatre.
This new widespread and systematic coverage of theatre in the press led to the establishment of dramatic criticism as a recognised branch of journalism for practical news purposes. On both sides of the Atlantic, it brought theatre and theatrical issues to the masses in a way that had never been seen before. In many ways, dramatic criticism benefitted from this change, in that it developed as an art form seperate from its immediate designated task. In other ways it suffered in that it slowly began to become more populist than academic, as the critics sought to attract a readership more by their own ability of self-expression than by their accuracy as judges.
By the 1880's, dramatic criticism had reached a form that is recogniseably similar to that which we commonly see today. Some drama critics were fair, others, seeking their own self-aggrandisement beyond the higher ideals of true journalism, were decidedly unfair or at least walked a fine line between genuine candour and malicious affectation. Take, for example, the work of Clement Scott, an influential English theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph, whose acerbic style of writing and outspoken criticism of various plays and players often embroiled him in deep controversy and numerous legal claims. Scott always carried out his reviews on the first night of productions and wrote and published his impressions as soon as he had seen the piece, without any further revision. He pulled no punches against those who aroused his ire and was especially vitriolic in his treatment of Ibsen and Shaw, even accusing them of immorality and being harmful to society.
It is not surprising to note then, that the theatrical managers of the Edwardian era enjoyed something of a love-hate relationship with the more prominent drama critics. The great popular appeal of the theatre during that era granted the critics a great deal of power - including perhaps even the ability to make or break a play, which may have cost a great deal of money to produce, by dint of a few well chosen words. The theatre managers may have resented the power the critics held over them, but they could not afford to ignore it.
By January of 1907, such was the prominence of the professional drama critics that it was decided that they needed a society to look after their interests and the Society of Dramatic Critics was formed with was Arthur Bingham Walkley, drama critic for the London Times, as it's first president. Within a few years, however, that society had become moribund and in April 1913 a new society was formed in the Institute of Journalists Critics Circle. The circle was not a Trade Union, but rather a professional association whose remit was to promote the art of dramatic criticism and uphold it's integrity as well as safeguarding the interests of its members.
Willaim Archer was born in Perth, Scotland on 23rd September 1856. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he gained a Master of Arts degree in 1876. He became a lead-writer with the Edinburgh Evening News in 1875, moving to the London Figaro in 1879 and the World in 1884. In London he soon became recognised as one of the two leading drama critics of his day and did much to introduce and popularise the works of Henrik Ibsen to English audiences - including translating a number of plays by Ibsen and other Scandinavian writers into the English language. In 1898, in collaboration with the actress and writer Elizabeth Robins, Archer established the New Century Theatre to sponsor non-profit productions of Ibsen's works, producing several. He was a friend of George Bernard Shaw, and for a time was his next door neighbour in London's Fitzroy Square.
Following the outbreak of war, Archer was invited to join the staff of Britain's War Propaganda Bureau, and in that capacity wrote a series of open letters arguing Germany's responsibility in initiating the conflict and the Allies stance as the defenders of liberty. After the war he helped establish the New Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. His published works included "Play-Making: A Manual of Craftsmanship" (1912) and "The Old Drama and the New" (1923), in which he extolled the merits of Ibsen, Bernard Shaw and Galsworthy. His own play, "The Green Goddess", a melodrama, acheived considerable success when it was first produced in 1923. Archer died on 27th December, 1924, during an operation to remove a cancerous tumour.
Clement William Scott was born in Hoxton, north London, on 6th October, 1841. He was educated at Marlborough School before taking up a position as a civil servant with the War Office in 1860. He began writing freelance articles for various publications before becoming dramatic writer for the The Sunday Times in 1863 - a position he lost after two years because of the self-indulgence of his published opinions. In 1871, he accepted a position as theatre critic with the Daily Telegraph and eight years later founded his own periodical magazine The Theatre, finally giving up his job at the War Office to earn his living solely from his writing. He wrote a number of plays which acheived moderate success, as well as several English translations (from the French) of Sardou, and was also a respected travel writer. He married twice, first to Isobel du Maurier (died 1880) with whom he had four children, and second to Margarite Brandon, an American journalist.
During his thirty years with the Daily Telegraph he was regarded as probably Britain's most influential drama-critic, reknowned for acerbic wit and snap judgements invariably carried out on the first night of productions. His career came to a dramatic end following an ill-considered attack on actresses morals which was published in 1897 and outraged the theatrical profession. Although he subsequently apologised and retracted his remarks, his reputation was irreperably damaged and he never again regained his public standing (see The Fall of Clement Scott). He died in broken circumstances and following a long illness in 1904.
Archer and Scott were great rivals with radically different views on almost all theatrical issues. They rarely saw eye to eye and it is clear that little love was lost between them. Each had his own dedicated readership, but, until he self-destructed at least, Scott was probably the more influential of the two. He was also certainly the most forthright and vitriolic in his condemnation of his rival, frequently railing against Archer in his writings.
One of their differences was that Scott was a great proponent of the French drama whilst Archer championed the Scandinavian cause, particularly the works of Henrik Ibsen. Scott, on the other hand, was notoriously anti-Ibsen, even coining "Ibsenite" as a term of derogation. In his review for the Daily Telegraph of 'Hedda Gabler', arguably Ibsen's greatest work, he wrote: "So specious is the dramatist; so subtle is his skill in misrepresentation, so fatal is his power of persuasion that, for a moment, we believe Hedda Gabler is a noble heroine and not a fiend." But Archer, who translated the play, won that particular argument - the production became an extraordinary popular success.
The rivalry between Scott and Archer raged unabated until Scott's carelessly unwise comments on the morals of actresses destroyed his career and reputation.
One of the major bones of contention between Archer and Scott was Scott's insistence on always reviewing new productions on their first nights, and then immediately publishing his first impressions without any further review. Most theatre managers deplored this practice since it did not catch their production in it's best light. It was not uncommon, then as now, for minor problems to occur on the first night of a new production. It was a nervous time for actors and stage-hands alike, worrying that the publice would take to the piece that would keep them in employment. Consequently, no amount of rehearsal could fully prepare for the exigencies of performing a piece for the first time before a live audience. In that respect a first night performance, whilst it must be considered the finished article, is not yet fully polished. To review a new production on it's first night therefore was, according to some, erroneously assuming that this lack of polish was to be the norm.
Reproduced below are articles from period magazines in which Scott and Archer argue both sides of the 'First Night' debate.
The Theatre - September 1st, 1894
THE FIRST NIGHT CRITICISM
By CLEMENT SCOTT
It is no new thing to be told, by those who could not write a readable report of a new play on the same night that it was produced to save their lives, that our system is all wrong, that the thoughtful essay is far better than the hurried impression, that the art, the actor, the dramatist, all suffer from the scamper of so-called criticism, and that some police law or Act of Parliament should come into force whereby the stage and the writers for the stage could be protected from the terrors of publicity. In fact, newspaper proprietors and editors have with some assurance been taught their own business by certain guidances who are apparently in complete ignorance of the first requisite of modern journalism - namely, the best possible work in the shortest possible time.
At our breakfast tables we read a printed pungent and excellently written "leading article" based on a parliamentary debate that could not have concluded at midnight. Every important work of art in our best picture galleries is described, in terms of praise or otherwise, on the morning following the opening of the gallery. Books are read, digested, and reviewed hot from the press. War correspondents with an energy past comprehension, and a devotion to their duty beyond praise, vie with one another in their tact, good taste, and speed to describe for us in the most picturesque and graphic manner the battle that took place on the other side of the world within a few hours of its occurrence. Should there be some terrible accident or disaster by land or sea, no expense, no tax of the human constitution, and no diplomacy is spared in order to serve the newspaper to which a man devotes the whole of his best energy. And yet in the case of the musical and dramatic art we are gravely and solemnly told that newspaper enterprise is to stand still, and that the swift writers are to be gagged and silenced in order to bring them on a level with those who have never practised themselves in what I may fairly call the art of journalism.
The latest convert to the policy of delay in connection with the stage is no less an authority than M. Francisque Sarcey, the most brilliant of Parisian dramatic essayists, whose great experience and ripe judgment have gained him the reputation of "an authority" and have secured for him the pleasure of a band of devoted followers. I need scarcely say that M. Sarcey is not a newspaper first-night critic. He reserves his opinions - and very valuable they are - for his weekly "feuilleton" in Le Temps; and, being the work of a man temperate in style, gifted with memory, and, best of all, an enthusiast on the subject to which he has devoted his life, these weekly essays are read with avidity and interest by the playgoing public of Paris.
M. Sarcey has recently startled the newspaper world of the "gay city" by his warm advocacy of delayed criticism. He would abolish first nights as they are known in Paris and in London. He would by some mysterious method, best known to himself, keep out the stage enthusiasts from first representations. He insists on the abolition of all dress rehearsals, and he clamours, as many have done over here, for the "public voice" and the elevation of the thoughtful essayist over the "pen of the ready writer." Considering that Paris, as is the case in London, has its dilatory as well as its rapid critics, I cannot quite see in what manner the public of Paris loses by the present system. It has its reporters, if you like to call them so, for the breakfast table, and it has its well-digested comments for Sunday, or study, or club reading. To gag every daily Parisian journalist would not give an added value to the opinions of the magazine or weekly newspaper reader.
We also have our brilliant Sarceys in London: men who have not quite so much experience or tact as the Parisian leader, but who show a quite enviable art in collecting the varied opinions of their swift contemporaries, and not only flatly contradicting each individual opinion, but lecturing the various writers on their ignorance, enthusiasm, or faulty taste. I seem to see this critical schoolmaster, hedged round with newspapers, correcting the work of his confreres. The pedagogue critic who takes a week to make up his mind, and who prides himself on his supreme power of contradiction, is certainly not unknown in London; and I cannot quite see that the stage, or the dramatic literature, or the actors, or the actresses of England would gain very much by the multiplication Of his species to the exclusion of those who fancy that, by experience and knowledge of their subject, they can feel the public pulse, and diagnose a dramatic case without the comfortable aid of a consultation.
A dramatic criticism, whether called a report of last night's dramatic doings or trumpeted into an essay which will belittle the fame of a Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, or Leigh Hunt, is exactly valuable for what it is worth and no more. If from long experience of his work and his style the public believes in a certain critic, they will follow him to a limited extent. But when they find he is playing them false, when they can detect in him favouritism, fulsomeness, or a want of candour and independence, the words he writes are not worth the paper on which they are written.
No criticism ever guides public opinion; it momentarily influences it. If A, B, and C take up a newspaper in the morning and read something about a plaY or the acting of it that interests them, and on the strength of that report they go to the theatre and enjoy themselves in the same way that the critics or reporters did, then, they offer tacit thanks to the writer of that report or criticism. At any rate they have not wasted their money. But if the interest they have taken in reading the report of a new play is not felt when they pay and see it, then they feel that their money has been wasted, and they would secretly like to turn round and rend that impulsive and infatuated reporter.
The great art of the newspaper critic is instinctively to gauge or foretell public opinion. A recent remarkable instance of the attitude of the public in connection with new plays and criticism upon them was given in the case of Mr. J. M. Barrie's delightful Professor's Love Story, which has proved to be what I thought it always would be, one of the most genuinely popular plays of the dramatic year. So varied, and on the whole so contradictory were the opinions on that play, when first produced, that the public shied at it. It was treated on the whole in such a shambling, half-hearted, sneering, and carping tone that the public at large was afraid to invest its' money on a risk. The boldest and most outspoken enthusiast for what is natural, human, pure, and edifying could not make headway against Mr. Snarl and his companions, who could not see the intrinsic beauty and originality of the work, but kept butting their heads against the utterly immaterial jokelet about "Cherchez La Femme," as if that weighed anything against the value of a play as a play and the joy of Mr. Willard's acting. Well, what was the consequence? For a fortnight the theatre was comparatively empty. As I said before, the public shied at it. Playgoers stood trembling on the brink like nervous children when told to plunge into cold water and have a swim. It was almost resolved to take off the play and close the theatre. At this crisis, thank goodness, the public rushed in and saved the play from failure. The period of the life of the good Professor has been extended again and again. I know of people who went night after night to see it. It has now been removed to the Garrick Theatre, and I shall be very much surprised if it is not running at Christmas! Now, if the critics, both weekly and daily, had been anything like unanimous in their opinion or in gauging public taste, the play would have been a pronounced success from the start.
Believe me, the critic, or expert, or play taster, does no more than the trusted playgoer does at every dinner table or social gathering. He says "go and see such and such a play" or "don't go and see it." He says "go and you will be charmed," or "stay away and you will save your money." But it depends, of course, upon the men or women who give the advice and the terms in which they express themselves.
The great antagonism between the "old school" and the "new school" is of course just now a managerial perplexity simply because the majority of our younger managers refuse to believe that the great bulk of the public has not deserted the old school for the new - and in my humble opinion never will. The Independent Theatre and the plays of the independent school have been passed over by the public so far with good-natured indifference. Whether the time will not come when audacious and reckless plays of the new school will not frighten people away from the theatre altogether is quite another question. But to cry for the abolition of first night criticism is to cry for a cessation of newspaper enterprise. You might just as well cry for the moon. A new play is a matter of public interest, and it surprises me to find commercial managers howling for the old days when plays were, in the estimation of the general public, matters of no great public importance, and were treated with the neglect they possibly deserved. The fact that plays are now so important in the eyes of the public is from the very publicity that is awarded to them by the newspapers.
I can well remember the time when newspaper editors would not waste space over "theatrical stuff." They had something better to put before their readers. Newspaper criticisms were, as a rule, mere bald, uninteresting reports; and they shambled into the newspapers one, two, three days, or even a week after the event. But nowadays the theatre and its story have become matters of great public interest; and depend upon it, whether you call them reports, or criticisms, or what not, the daily newspaper will contain now and for all time the best possible and most readable column or half or quarter of a column that can be written about a new play between the hours of 12 o'clock and 1.30.
It amuses me to hear the managers and actors and authors lecturing the newspaper proprietor, and telling him how he is to do his own business, as much as it amuses me to hear the conceited actress telling her critics what they ought to have said about her wretched performance. The editor, so they tell him, is to have a bare report of a new play the next morning scrupulously free from comment; he is to have a carefully studied opinion a few days later, and a confirmation, or possibly a contradiction under influence, of all that has been conscientiously said, a week after. Three distinct comments on every silly play forsooth! When the theatrical notice as it stands is kept out of the newspaper much matter which many consider of far more importance than the playhouse will make its neglected appearance. Newspapers will only cease to give prominent importance to theatres when the theatre ceases to interest the public, and when actors and actresses revert to the humble salaries and the humbler and more modest position that they occupied thirty years ago.
For actors deliberately to complain of publicity seems to be the most paradoxical circumstance I can call to mind. I always thought, from fatal experience, that they could not be advertised enough. The fact of it is, if we can conscientiously praise them the quicker and the stronger it can be done, and the more it can be slabbed on, the better. But if, in the interests of the public and of art, we are unable to become butter merchants, then the more delay and shilly-shally the better. This, after all, is human nature. But, taking the rough with the smooth all round, I do not think that the manager, actor, or author of to-day has suffered much from the quick publicity of the newspaper, or the energy of the critical reporter.
The unkindly and ungenerous sneer of M. Alexandre Dumas, who takes the opportunity of the discussion raised by the critic Sarcey to throw dirt at the profession of criticism, may be dismissed with the contempt it deserves. Whether critics are bribed or not in Paris I neither know nor care. But it is an unworthy thing of so great a genius and dramatist, a man who owes so much to the brilliant exposition of his work by the greatest critics of his time, to fling out this wholesale and general denunciation without condescending to particulars. But it is no news to us. We have our Dumases on this side of the channel, men often overpraised, who overload our letter cases and dispatch boxes with their thanks, their gratitude, their expressions of devotion, their undying respect and confidence, when they succeed, but who, when they fail, as we all must fail at times, have no language to fling at us but that of the gutter-snipe and fish-fag.
We know them all! When we can praise them we are as honest as the day; when we dare to dispute with them we are common libellers. When we applaud them they are ready to kiss our feet; when we condemn their taste, run counter to their egregious vanity, and deplore their occasional errors, we have to expect a cowardly stab from the back, or a hit over the head when we are unprotected. When we praise a play it is less than it deserves; when we condemn a play we have some sly or sneaking motive for doing so. we are the villains, they are embodied virtue!
Meanwhile we stand or fall, not by disappointed dramatists, actors, or actresses, but by public opinion. We know what we have to expect when we do our conscientious duty, but we do it careless of stabs in the back or blows in the dark. Sooner or later we are possessed with the calm philosophy of the coalheaver with the vixenish wife. "Never mind! it pleases her and it don't hurt me!" when the public ceases to take an interest in the theatre through its decay, or degradation, then, and not before, publicity will be denied to it. But the future existence of any such period is beyond my present comprehension. As an old friend said to me the other day, when I was protesting against some new form of injustice or insult suffered at the hands of one I had, as usual, helped to lift to his position, to be repaid with crass ingratitude, "Never mind them, my dear boy! They are a set of babies and ever will be!" So I suppose it is the special privilege of babies to break their most valuable toys!
'The Theatre' - November 1894
THE INFLUENCE OF DRAMATIC CRITICISM
By Adair Fitz-Gerald.
It is not my purpose to say unkind things of the critics themselves for this I know they will be deeply grateful but to inquire into the aims of criticism as far as they affect the public. The morning after the production of a new play, the daily papers grow either madly enthusiastic or cynically morose over the previous night's entertainment. Why they should do so is not known. Let us assume that the piece has been a great success, and that the critics, for once in a way, are almost unanimously eloquent over the piece and the players. The inevitable critic who damns most things that other people praise need not be considered: the piece is a success. The critics take the play bit by bit, and examine it most minutely; its good qualities and its bad are carefully dissected; its art -which on the stage is frequently only another name for artifice - is extolled or found fault with, and its nature, which you cannot get on the stage except it be diluted or extravagant, is praised sky high. And so the sentation of plot and play goes on to the finale. Nature, you will generally observe in the morning criticisms, constantly takes rank before art. The introduction of a baby's rattle always receives more admiration than the finest scenic effect ever evolved, or the inward working psychism outwardly shown by the cleverest actor who ever trod the boards. Some grow quite hysterical about nature on the stage - a wisp of straw from the stables round the corner is sufficient to conjure up farm house and homestead, waving corn and poppies.
But let me not wander too far a-field. We wish to find out who reads these elaborate criticisms, these sometimes sparkling and epigrammatic essays inspired by the ordinary production of an ordinary play. Does not the critic take his task too seriously, as far as relates to daily journalism ? If you ask the average actor whether he has read the notices of the new pieces, he tells you, in a manner that is nearly convincing, that he never reads criticisms, and that such and such a critic knows no more about acting than he does of flying. But this is only a fanciful hyperbolical veneer that many a player assumes for non-professional purposes, because he always quotes the best lines that relate to himself. Apart from the drama and its followers, and those who are more or less connected or associated with the stage and its surroundings, who peruses these long descriptions of the new plays? Does anybody, unless he takes a more or less personal interest in the stage and its votaries, ever wade through the special notice, written at break-neck speed in the early hours of the morning? Then why are they penned?
Go out amongst those who really support the theatre by paying for their seats, and you will speedily discover that at the matutinal meal, or during the ride to town in the train, that part of the paper containing the review of the latest comedy or drama is, almost without exception, skipped. The regular first-nighters, the aspiring young dramatist, perhaps the novelist and the artist, and many more moving in Bohemian circles upper and lower - for now in the City of Prague caste has crept in - undoubtedly take a delight in studying the notices, and perhaps comparing one paper with another, much to their amazement or gratification, as the case may be. The managers naturally like a good notice to quote from in their advertisements, as do the actors. But Jones does not, nor Smith, nor Robinson; yet they all go to the theatre as often as they can. If they want to know what a piece is like they consult some one of their friends who has been; and here, according to individual taste, and this individual taste is commonly the general taste of the playgoing public, you get the truest criticism. Usually a play is "good," or "rubbish." It is worth seeing or it is not worth seeing. If the former, a piece possessing fascinating or humorous qualities is at once recommended.
These practical critics, as a rule, are the folk who go to the theatre to enjoy themselves. And their recommendation is of the highest value in filling the treasury. Many staunch playgoers pin their faith to one theatre, or one set of actors or actresses, and swear by them. For your playgoer is nothing if not conservative, and he is rarely critical, except when he can praise. But see what an amount of good he does by going about talking modestly and honestly about the beauty or the qualities of such and such a piece or performer. Half-a-dozen such folk are worth a hundred printed notices, for personal praise is infectious, and travels everywhere, growing richer and more vivid at every repetition. It is of course granted that the criticisms, as quoted by the managers themselves in their advertisements, are well digested, and good result surely follows. Better still if the fare prove more appetising than the menu. The weekly papers, chiefly because their remarks are brief and to the point, carry greater weight than the dailies. But the power that is most far-reaching and almost irresistible, particularly for country people, is that wielded by the threepenny and sixpenny illustrated weekly journals, for their criticisms are the only ones devoured by the fair sex - and by them only I was going to say. We all know what their influence is; a baby and a girl in her later teens simply rule the whole nation in more ways than the ways of amusement - let alone the home denominated an Englishman's castle. Headers of the journals I have indicated are the strongest patrons of the circle and the upper boxes, and cannot be classed among the "general public" of the dramatic critics' apocryphal audience. The pit and gallery do not read the daily paper notices, because they have not the time, if they always have the money, except the few first-nighters who scan them to see whether the critics' opinion coincides with their own.
Criticism is purely a matter of temperament and digestion, and it is well for the public that it does not take theatrical criticism with the first meal of the day. Again, it is a mistake to imagine that the general public feels any special interest in the drama or its welfare. If a piece stirs and amuses them, and makes them forget their every day cares and worries and the skeletons so carefully locked up in the cupboard at home, it is all they want, all they pay for. By exalting the power of the play too much, we defeat the ends for which the theatre exists. The select few who take all things seriously - the students of the drama - those who love art for art's sake and believe in the higher aims of the Thespian calling - these are the loyal, intimate, and loving friends of all that appertains to the theatre, and have its well-being at heart. But they are of the inner circle, and belong not to the "general public." For this same general public the criticisms in the daily press of theatrical pieces have no importance whatever. They may revel in the lighter gossipy side of the stage, but not the earnest; and it is as well that they do not. With the weekly journals and monthly magazines and reviews, it is different. But here steps in the more or less intellectual side of the question, with which I am not at present dealing. The thinking man will understand why the general public cannot be expected regularly to read theatrical notices; we are not all suffering from dramaphobia, much as we may love the drama and dramatic act. Stay, I have discovered who reads all the daily newspaper criticisms - and that for obvious reasons - it is the dead-heads!
Primary Sources: As indicated plus various other online and literary sources.
Articles Index More on Dramatic Criticism Home