Stage Decoration as a Fine Art

The question of the use of "scenery" on the stage is perpetually bobbing up, and as perpetually it remains an unsolved question. Specific instances of the dire harm that the decoration can do to a play may be observed in our theatres almost any week during the active season. To take an example, let us mention one of Mr. Sothern's Shakespearean productions, which had already been cut to run within the time-limit, but which played from eight in the evening until midnight because the "elaborate" settings had to be changed frequently. The intermissions, as a result, occupied more of the spectators' patience than the play. In another instance, a musical comedy went to pot on the first night because the stagehands could not handle the setting of the second act with enough expedition. As a result, they kept the curtain down for thirty minutes, a fatal length of time in a playhouse devoted to frivolity.

John Palmer, in that book, quotation from which is sheer delight, "The Future of the Theatre," says that this is the age of the "naturalist" drama, and that as a result, when anyone tries to produce a "romantic" or "poetic" play, there is an attempt made to wrap up the shortcomings of the performance in elaborate upholstery.