It is to be feared that
such excess either weakens or distorts the just and proper influence
of Shakespeare's work. If these imputations can be sustained, then it
follows that the increased and increasing expense which is involved in
the production of Shakespeare's plays ought on grounds of public
policy to be diminished.
II
Every stage representation of a play requires sufficient scenery and
costume to produce in the audience that illusion of environment which
the text invites. Without so much scenery or costume the words fail to
get home to the audience. In comedies dealing with concrete conditions
of modern society, the stage presentation necessarily relies to a very
large extent for its success on the realism of the scenic appliances.
In plays which, dealing with the universal and less familiar
conditions of life, appeal to the highest faculties of thought and
imagination, the pursuit of realism in the scenery tends to destroy
the full significance of the illusion which it ought to enforce. In
the case of plays straightforwardly treating of contemporary affairs,
the environment which it is sought to reproduce is familiar and easy
of imitation. In the case of drama, which involves larger spheres of
fancy and feeling, the environment is unfamiliar and admits of no
realistic imitation.
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