AN AUTHOR AND HIS CRITICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 938, 27 February 1908, Page 17

AN AUTHOR AND HIS CRITICS.

Mr James Welch has been unburdening his mind about the London critics to a “New York Hera d ” interviewer. Said he: '•

“ Do you know that those gentlemen to a man denounced ‘ When Knights were 80ld ’ .as being trashy, weak, and unworthy of my endeavours, and said it was doomed to certain failure. It has been going a year . now. That shows how much they know about it. After it was fairly, started and there was no doubt of its success, they changed their tune and began to praise it.”

Mr Welch further confided to the interviewer that: “ The prompt-book of ‘ When Knights were Bold ’ is a literary curiosity. There is not a page of the original manuscrip left intact. At every performance a shorthand writer is stationed in the wings and takes down every new word or bit of business that is introduced, and also records at just what the audience laughs each night. Then the next day, at rehearsal, the play is changed to suit the latest liking of the audience- In this way the comedy has been written and re-written time after time. The author does not pretend to recognise her work any more. She refers to it as a ‘Welch play.’” All this is very entertaining, but it is not very convincing (says the “ Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette”). Many trashy p ays have succeeded, but their success has not proved them to be masterpieces to the satisfaction of anybody but the re-

sponsible manager. But even supposing that critics know nothing about their business, they have to thank Mr Welch for so completely justifying their denunciation of “When Knights were Bold.” He admits that since the critics saw the production the play has been entirely re-written, and we conclude that its success ;is due to the process of revision to which it has been subjected by Mr Welch. It must have been a very bad indeed to require such wholesale revision, and of course it was clever of, Mr Welch to so transform the piece that the author does not even pretend to recognise her, work. But it shows how correct the critics, were in their valuation of the original production, and it is, perhaps, the finest example of how to give away your author that an actor has ever given us.