STAGE STORIES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 82, 5 April 1924, Page 21

STAGE STORIES

WHY GOOD PLAYS GO BEGGING

"Havoc," the- remarkable new wax play which has just been, produced at the Haymarket Theatre, where it looks like having a long run, was refused by ten managements, declares .William Pollock' in the " Daily Mail." ". Tons of Money," shortly to be withdrawn after a run of nearly eight hundred performances, .went begging for years before anyone would put it ob the stage.

This sort of- thing is constantly happening. Tree would,have nothing to do with "Petev Pan," ' declaring that it was " no good " ; and when Sir James Barrie offered it to Charles Fordhanv he did so almost apologetically, and gave him " Alice-sit-by-the-Fire V to recompense him for the loss he might make if he produced, "Peter."

A well-known manager told me recently that it took him a very long time to persuade anyone to join' him in putting on a certain comedy which had" more than a year's run in London when it did got a^. chance; and neither "At Mrs. Beam's" nor "Outward Bound' Vowed ils original production to the.enterprise of leading managements. The truth probably is—as Mr. Godfrey Tearle said to me the. other day—that it is practically impossible to say how a play will; turn out till it is put before the public. - ./>■- , . " Out of hundreds of plays which were sent to me directly it became known that I thought of becoming an actor-manager, Is accepted three. Naturally, 'I think they are good plays," but who' can tell till they are acted?" i - ■ . The fact that very ' few reasonably well-written and constructed plays are offered to managers may explain -why so many bad plays get put on, but it does not explain why good plays are so frequently missed by > those to whom they are submitted. -

Theft are, of course, some people in the theatrical business without any qualifications—other than,financial—for the work; But there are numbers who have given their lives to dealing with plays and yet make mistakes in their estimation ,of -manuscripts.. The same thing happens with publishers, but it is much less common for a publisher to miss a good book than for. a manager to miss a. good play.

.-Wpvero'is the great difficulty with plays? _Very largely in visualisation, in seeing in the. mind's eye how a play will act; partly in wrong estimation of what the public will (or will not) like; and frequently in personal prejudice. It is still true-^as someone once said—that anyone; can write a. play, but that it takes a genius to get a play produced.