Among the interesting items included in a recent Home mail was a report of a performance by the Incorporated Stage Society of two plays written M. Willson Disher, and in speaking of the policy of the society in producing a play by a practically unknown writer, the critic says "One is glad to observe the Incorporated Stage Society turn from the unexpurgated comedies of a past age and the dramatic indiscretions of great poets and novelists to plays by the living obscure. Mut in selecting from such plays judgement is more than ever necessary, since merit is or should be the sole consideration."
With the claim on spectacular effect which the present-day ssu: cessful play makes and the desire of managers to produce nothing which will not prove good from the point of view of box-office receipts, those writers whose work lies in the merit of the spoken word rather than the surroundings in which it is used are suffering badly at the hands of the professional readers. The corroding influence of luxury has fastened upon the stage as well as other departments of life and the drama is threatened by the mere spectacle. Consequently, amateur theatrical societies have been threatened with extinction, a threat which is now passing, and their real task for the future seems to be that of fostering unknown writers by the production of their meritorious works, for in so doing they are giving the public what the professionals are not and so long as they continue to do this they will justify their existence.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.