scenery if they could; they
can't, poor things--so they have to provide acting.

Dorriforth. They have to, fortunately; but what do we hear of it?

Florentia. How do you mean, what do we hear of it?

Dorriforth. In what trumpet of fame does it reach us? They do what they
can, the performers Auberon alludes to, and they are brave souls. But I
am speaking of the conspicuous cases, of the exhibitions that draw.

Florentia. There is good acting that draws; one could give you names and
places.

Dorriforth. I have already guessed those you mean. But when it isn't
too much a matter of the paraphernalia it is too little a matter of
the play. A play nowadays is a rare bird. I should like to see | one.
Florentia. There are lots of them, all the while--the newspapers talk
about them. People talk about them at dinners.

Dorriforth. What do they say about them?

Florentia. The newspapers?

Dorriforth. No, I don't care for _them_. The people at dinners.

Florentia. Oh. they don't say anything in particular.

Dorriforth. Doesn't that seem to show the effort isn't very suggestive?

Amicia. The conversation at dinners certainly isn't.

Dorriforth. I mean our contemporary drama. To begin with, you can't find
it there's no text.

Florentia. No text?

Auberon. So much the better!

Dorriforth. So much the better if there is to be no criticism. There
is only a dirt prompter's book. One can't put one's hand upon it; one
doesn't know what one is discussing. There is no "authority"--nothing is
ever published.

Amicia. The pieces wouldn't bear that.

Dorriforth. It would be a small ordeal to resist--if there were anything
in them. Look at the novels!

Amicia. The text is the French _brochure_. The "adaptation" is
unprintable.

Dorriforth. That's where it's so wrong, It ought at least to be as good
as the original.

Auberon. Aren't there some "rights" to protect--some risk of the play
being stolen if it's published?

Dorriforth. There may be--I don't know. Doesn't that only prove how
little important we regard the drama as being, and how little seriously
we take it, if we won't even trouble ourselves to bring about decent
civil conditions for its existence? What have we to do with the French
_brochure?_ how does that help us to represent our own life, our
manners, our customs, our ideas, our English types, our English world?
Such a field for comedy, for tragedy, for portraiture, for satire,
as they all make-such subjec