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With the stage-director standing thus, for benefit or hindrance, between the author and the audience, how is the public to appreciate what the dramatist himself has, or has not, done? An occasion is remembered in theatric circles when, at the tensest moment in the first-night presentation of a play, the leading actress, entering down a stairway, tripped and fell sprawling.
Surely that fact alone ought to have ensured proper treatment for him! Then Nellie woke up and saw the scattered newspapers. "Well," she asked, "what do they say?" "Oh!" he replied lightly, with a laugh. "Just about what you'd expect. Of course you know what a first-night audience always is. Too generous. And ours was, particularly. Miss April saw to that.
Again, we take no pleasure in foreknowing the fate of wholly uninteresting people; which is as much as to say that character is indispensable to enduring interest in drama. With these provisos, I suggest a reconstruction of our theories of dramatic interest, in which mere first-night curiosity shall be relegated to the subordinate place which by right belongs to it.
He made many applications by letter for other employment, and answered many advertisements, but nothing happened to deliver him. His heart galled him daily, for he had seen something of the world, and had tasted a first-night triumph as part-author of a play, and had mixed on equal terms with people who were very far away from his present sphere.
The more striking and successful is the first-night effect of surprise, the more certainly and rapidly will the report of it circulate through all strata of the theatrical public. But for this fact, one could quite well conceive a fascinating melodrama constructed, like a detective story, with a view to keeping the audience in the dark as long as possible.
When he spoke of going to a charity entertainment, or a private view, or a first-night at which she was to be present, she would expostulate that he wished to advertise their relations in public, that he was treating her like a woman off the streets.
The papers, not always in agreement with the applause of a first-night audience, had on this occasion endorsed the verdict, with agreeable unanimity hailing Gerald as the coming author and Elsa Doland as the coming star. There had even been a brief mention of Fillmore as the coming manager.
Speaking for a moment seriously, one may say that whilst the ordinary first-night pit is full of enthusiasts, it would be rash to attach very great value to its manifestations of opinion concerning the value of really ambitious plays, though in respect of most pieces, and performances too, its judgment may be regarded as satisfactory, since it fairly represents those aimed at by authors and players.
The practical lesson which seems to emerge from these considerations is that a wise theatrical policy would seek to diminish the all-importance of the first-night, and to give a play a greater chance of recovery than it has under present conditions, from the depressing effect of an inauspicious production.
The only ray in the darkness which brooded on his indomitable soul was the thought that it might still be possible, by getting hold of Mr Pilkington before the notices appeared and shaking his head sadly and talking about the misleading hopes which young authors so often draw from an enthusiastic first-night reception and impressing upon him that first-night receptions do not deceive your expert who has been fifteen years in the show-business and mentioning gloomily that he had heard a coupla the critics roastin' the show to beat the band . . . by doing all these things, it might still be possible to depress Mr Pilkington's young enthusiasm and induce him to sell his share at a sacrifice price to a great-hearted friend who didn't think the thing would run a week but was willing to buy as a sporting speculation, because he thought Mr Pilkington a good kid and after all these shows that flop in New York sometimes have a chance on the road.
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