On the Stage-And Off by Jerome K. Jerome — Read

QUOTE from two more letters, and then I have done with this stock company. The first was written just after our star had set -- or rather gone to the next town -- the second about a fortnight later:

". -- -- -- -- -- -- - left on Saturday. We had crowded houses all the time he was with us, and I'm not surprised. It must have been a treat to these benighted provincials to see real acting. No wonder country people don't care much for theaters, seeing the wretched horse-play presented to them under the name of acting. It does exasperate me to hear people talking all that thundering nonsense about the provinces being such a splendid school for young actors. Why, a couple of months of it is enough to kill any idea of acting a man may have started with. Even if you had time to think of anything but how to gabble through your lines, it would be of no use. You would never be allowed to carry out any ideas of your own. If you attempted to _think_, you would be requested to look out for, another shop at once. The slightest naturalness or originality would be put down to ignorance. You must walk through each part by the beaten track of rule and tradition -- and such rule and tradition! The rule of Richardson's Show, the tradition of some ranting inn-yard hack. To reach the standard of dramatic art in the provinces, you have to climb down, not up. Comedy consists in having a red nose, and tumbling about the stage; being pathetic makes you hoarse for an hour after; and as for tragedy! no one dare attempt that who hasn't the lungs of a politician.