Chapter I: Preface

Most of the chapters which make up the present volume have already appeared, in earlier versions, in certain magazines; and to the editors of _The Forum_, _The North American Review_, _The Smart Set_, and _The Bookman_, I am indebted for permission to republish such materials as I have culled from my contributions to their pages. Though these papers were written at different times and for different immediate circles of subscribers, they were all designed from the outset to illustrate certain steady central principles of dramatic criticism; and, thus collected, they afford, I think, a consistent exposition of the most important points in the theory of the theatre. The introductory chapter, entitled _What is a Play?_, has not, in any form, appeared in print before; and all the other papers have been diligently revised, and in many passages entirely rewritten.

C.H.

NEW YORK CITY: 1910.

CONTENTS

THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE

CHAPTER PAGE

I. WHAT IS A PLAY? 3
II. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THEATRE AUDIENCES 30
III. THE ACTOR AND THE DRAMATIST 59
IV. STAGE CONVENTIONS IN MODERN TIMES 73
V. ECONOMY OF ATTENTION IN THEATRICAL
PERFORMANCES 95
VI. EMPHASIS IN THE DRAMA 112
VII. THE FOUR LEADING TYPES OF DRAMA 127
VIII. THE MODERN SOCIAL DRAMA 133

OTHER PRINCIPLES OF DRAMATIC CRITICISM