Washington Square Plays

"[...]afterpiece of our parents. It has been frequently said by those optimists who are forever discovering the birth of the arts in popular amusements that vaudeville audiences will appreciate and applaud the best. This is only in part true. They will appreciate the best juggler, the cleverest trained dog, the most appealing ballad singer such as Chevalier or Harry Lauder. But they will no more appreciate those subtleties of dramatic art which must have free play in the serious development of the one-act play than the readers of a "popular" magazine in America (or England either) would appreciate Kipling's "They," or George Moore's "The Wild Goose," or de Maupassant's "La Ficelle." To expect them to is silly; and to expect that because the supreme, vivid example of any form is comprehensible to all classes and all mixtures of classes, therefore the supreme example is going to be developed out of the commonplace stuff such mixed audiences daily enjoy, is equally to misunderstand the evolution of an art product in our complex modern world. But, [...]."