once would have accepted
them eagerly.

Numerous causes have contributed to the fact that during the last few
years the total sum lost in the London playhouses has been enormous,
despite some big successes, several of which have been of unsentimental
plays--such as _Little Mary_--and it seems to be time for the managers
and playwrights to begin to consider the question whether they cannot go
farther afield and handle themes from which they have held aloof
hitherto. Gorgeousness of mounting has ceased to help managers; even the
maidens in their teens have grown sophisticated, and jeer at the
bread-and-butter love-stories; and successful modern French drama offers
a much smaller proportion of adaptable plays than used to be the case.
There must be a bottom to the deepest purse, and things can hardly go on
in the legitimate playhouses as they have during the last few years; so
it seems to be almost time for the managers to try to get out of a
groove and look about for the unsentimental drama.

Since this was written the Phillips-Comyns Carr version of _Faust_ was
produced and not accepted by the critical, whilst the Phillips version
of _The Bride of Lammermoor_, called _The Lost Heir_, was a failure and
deserved its fate. Also it may be added Mr Frohman has produced
_Strife_, _Justice_, _Misalliance_ and _The Madras House_.

The Second-hand Drama

For some time past people have been seeking an explanation of the
weakness of our modern drama, of the fact that except in the byways of
the theatre, and with rare instances on the highways, it is sadly
unoriginal. Numerous causes have been suggested, and probably many have
played their part. There is one element in the matter the importance of
which has been overlooked--it is the mania for making adaptations. No
one will deny that most of the adaptations make bad plays, and that a
large proportion prove unsuccessful; and the making of them has an evil
effect upon the makers. The matter under discussion is not adaptations
for the English stage of foreign plays--a topic of great importance,
for the lack of protection to the foreign dramatists during a long
period was a great cause of the sterility of British drama; and the
habit of importing has not ceased merely because the foreigner acquired
the right to payment. Many a playwright who might have become an
original dramatist had all his power of imagination and invention
atrophied through disuse.

Nowadays we import less