the audience to piece out the "imperfections" of the scenery
with their "thoughts" or imagination. The spectator's "imaginary
puissance" is, practically in every circumstance, the key-stone of the
dramatic illusion.

The only conditions in which Shakespeare's adjuration would be
superfluous or impertinent would accompany the presentment in the
theatre of some circumscribed incident of life which is capable of so
literal a rendering as to leave no room for any make-believe or
illusion at all. The unintellectual playgoer, to whom Shakespeare will
never really prove attractive in any guise, has little or no
imagination to exercise, and he only tolerates a performance in the
theatre when little or no demand is made on the exercise of the
imaginative faculty. "The groundlings," said Shakespeare for all time,
"are capable of [appreciating] nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and
noise." They would be hugely delighted nowadays with a scene in which
two real motor cars, with genuine chauffeurs and passengers, raced
uproariously across the stage. That is realism in its nakedness. That
is realism reduced to its first principles. Realistic "effects,"
however speciously beautiful they may be, invariably tend to realism
of that primal type, which satisfies the predilections of the
groundling, and reduces drama to the level of the cinematograph.

IX

The deliberate pursuit of scenic realism is antagonistic to the
ultimate law of dramatic art. In the case of great plays, the dramatic
representation is most successful from the genuinely artistic point of
view--which is the only point of view worthy of discussion--when the
just dramatic illusion is produced by simple and unpretending scenic
appliances, in which the inevitable "imperfections" are frankly left
to be supplied by the "thoughts" or imagination of the spectators.

Lovers of Shakespeare should lose no opportunity of urging the cause
of simplicity in the production of the plays of Shakespeare. Practical
common-sense, practical considerations of a pecuniary kind, teach us
that it is only by the adoption of simple methods of production that
we can hope to have Shakespeare represented in our theatres constantly
and in all his variety. Until Shakespeare is represented thus, the
spiritual and intellectual enlightenment, which his achievement offers
English-speaking people, will remain wholly inaccessible to the
majority who do not read him, and will be only in part at the comm