PREFACE
A good play gives us in miniature a cross-section of life, heightened by
plot and characterisation, by witty and compact dialogue. Of course we
should honour first the playwright, who has given form to each well knit
act and telling scene. But that worthy man, perhaps at this moment
sipping his coffee at the Authors\' Club, gave his drama its form only; its
substance is created by the men and women who, with sympathy,
intelligence and grace, embody with convincing power the hero and
heroine, assassin and accomplice, lover and jilt. For the success of many
a play their writers would be quick to acknowledge a further and initial
debt, both in suggestion and criticism, to the artists who know from
experience on the boards that deeds should he done, not talked about, that
action is cardinal, with no other words than naturally spring from action.
Players, too, not seldom remind authors that every incident should not
only be interesting in itself, but take the play a stride forward through the
entanglement and unravelling of its plot. It is altogether probable that the
heights to which Shakespeare rose as a dramatist were due in a measure to
his knowledge of how a comedy, or a tragedy, appears behind as well as in
front of the footlights, all in an atmosphere quite other than that
surrounding a poet at his desk