The Project Gutenberg EBook of How to See a Play, by Richard Burton

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Title: How to See a Play

Author: Richard Burton

Release Date: May 19, 2010 [EBook #32433]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HOW
TO SEE A PLAY

BY
RICHARD BURTON

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1914

Now here are twenty criticks ... and yet every one is a critick after
his own way; that is, such a play is best because I like it. A very
familiar argument, methinks, to prove the excellence of a play, and to
which an author would be very unwilling to appeal for his success.

--_From Farquhar's A Discourse Upon Comedy._

COPYRIGHT, 1914
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and Electrotyped. Published November, 1914
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK--BOSTON--CHICAGO
DALLAS--ATLANTA--SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON--BOMBAY--CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO

* * *

PREFACE

Chapter: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI

NOTES

* * *

PREFACE

This book is aimed squarely at the theater-goer. It hopes to offer a
concise general treatment upon the use of the theater, so that the
person in the seat may get the most for his money; may choose his
entertainment wisely, avoid that which is not worth while, and
appreciate the values artistic and intellectual of what he is seeing and
hearing.

This purpose should be borne in mind, in reading the book, for while I
trust the critic and the playwright may find the discussion not without
interest and sane in principle, the desire is primarily to put into the
hands of the many who attend the playhouse a manual that will prove
helpful and, so far as it goes, be an influence toward creating in this
country that body of alert theater auditors without which good drama
will not flourish. The obligation of the theater-goer to insist on sound
plays is one too long overlooked;