ubtful whether Germany
and Russia, the defeated, will not be the gainers; for the victors are
already busy fastening on themselves the chains they have struck from
the limbs of the vanquished.

How the Theatre fared

Let us now contract our view rather violently from the European theatre
of war to the theatre in which the fights are sham fights, and the
slain, rising the moment the curtain has fallen, go comfortably home
to supper after washing off their rose-pink wounds. It is nearly twenty
years since I was last obliged to introduce a play in the form of a
book for lack of an opportunity of presenting it in its proper mode by a
performance in a theatre. The war has thrown me back on this expedient.
Heartbreak House has not yet reached the stage. I have withheld it
because the war has completely upset the economic conditions which
formerly enabled serious drama to pay its way in London. The change is
not in the theatres nor in the management of them, nor in the authors
and actors, but in the audiences. For four years the London theatres
were crowded every night with thousands of soldiers on leave from the
front. These soldiers were not seasoned London playgoers. A childish
experience of my own gave me a clue to their condition. When I was a
small boy I was taken to the opera. I did not then know what an opera
was, though I could whistle a good deal of opera music. I had seen in
my mother's album photographs of all the great opera singers, mostly
in evening dress. In the theatre I found myself before a gilded balcony
filled with persons in evening dress whom I took to be the opera
singers. I picked out one massive dark lady as Alboni, and wondered how
soon she would stand up and sing. I was puzzled by the fact that I was
made to sit with my back to the singers instead of facing them. When the
curtain went up, my astonishment and delight were unbounded.

The Soldier at the Theatre Front

In 1915, I saw in the theatres men in khaki in just the same
predicament. To everyone who had my clue to their state of mind it was
evident that they had never been in a theatre before and did not know
what it was. At one of our great variety theatres I sat beside a young
officer, not at all a rough specimen, who, even when the curtain
rose and enlightened him as to the place where he had to look for his
entertainment, found the dramatic part of it utterly incomprehensible.
He did not know how to play his part of the game. He