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Page 14
[Illustration: _Officer._ "WHAT HAVE YOU GOT THERE?"
_Lighterman._ "COAL."
_Officer._ "I CAN SEE THAT. WHAT KIND OF COAL?"
_Lighterman._ "BLACK COAL."]
* * * * *
MORE INTENSIVE PRODUCTION.
When first I learned to play the fool
In various (unaccepted) verses
There was, I found, one golden rule
For poets who would line their purses.
"If ye," it ran, "to wealth would mount,
For silk attire would change your tatters,
Mere quantity will never count;
Quality is the thing that matters."
Broadly this precept, too, was laid
On grosser forms of human labour;
_E.g._, on Jones's antique trade,
Or Brown, the sausage-man, his neighbour;
Until of late, throughout a land
Reeling from strikes and "reconstruction,"
A cry was heard on every hand,
A clamour for "Increased Production."
While "makers," then, gird on their might
And merchants buzz like bees in clover;
When Jones is sawing day and night
And Brown shows twice his last turnover;
Shall I not follow where they've led
And, at the PREMIER'S invitation,
Double my output, Mr. Ed.?--
I look for your co-operation.
* * * * *
"'Oh, to be in England now that Noel's near.'
So, one might adapt one of Kipling's lines."--_Indian Paper._
What do they know of BROWNING who only KIPLING know?
* * * * *
"LADY wishes to travel in exquisite lingerie."--_Daily Paper._
By all means; but why should she be content to wear an inferior quality
when she is stationary?
* * * * *
AT THE PLAY.
"MR. TODD'S EXPERIMENT."
A new terror--or else a new attraction--has been added to the British
Drama. Mr. WALTER HACKETT has brought the scent of the cinema across the
footlights. When he wants to inform you of certain episodes in the hero's
past career, or let you know what he is doing when he is out of sight, he
throws the main stage into darkness and lights up a smaller one on which he
gives you as many as six little tabloid plays within the play.
Such a scheme has its obvious conveniences for the playwright, and should
greatly simplify the difficulties of stage-craft. Those introductory
statements which are required to explain the opening conditions and need
such adroit handling will no longer be necessary. You just put everybody
wise by a series of _tableaux parlants_. No longer need the author worry
about the best way of conveying to his audience the details of any action
that takes place off the stage; he just turns on a playlet and there it is.
Altogether, with a couple of the unities disposed of, he ought to have a
much easier time.
On the other hand he is going to have trouble with his principal stage and
put his actors to the inconvenience of playing in a painfully congested
area. Thus, in _Mr. Todd's Experiment_, the permanent scene was the hall of
a house, with a large tapestry occupying more than half of the wall.
Lurking behind this tapestry was the stage for the tabloids, and the
general company had to crowd themselves into the remainder or wander
forlornly about in the space in front of the tapestry. The playlets again
are almost bound to be just concentrated episodes, probably elemental in
theme and certainly elementary in treatment.
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