VIII
Nevertheless the final success of a great imaginative play on the
stage does not depend entirely on the competence of the actor.
Encircling and determining all conditions is the fitness of the
audience. A great imaginative play well acted will not achieve genuine
success unless the audience has at command sufficient imaginative
power to induce in them an active sympathy with the efforts, not only
of the actor, but of the dramatist.
It is not merely in the first chorus to _Henry V._ that Shakespeare
has declared his conviction that the creation of the needful dramatic
illusion is finally due to exercise of the imagination on the part of
the audience.[8] Theseus, in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, in the
capacity of a spectator of a play which is rendered by indifferent
actors, makes a somewhat depreciatory reflection on the character of
acting, whatever its degree or capacity. But the value of Theseus's
deliverance lies in its clear definition of the part which the
audience has to play, if it do its duty by great drama.
[Footnote 8: See pp. 20-1, _supra_.]
"The best in this kind," says Theseus of actors, "are but shadows, and
the worst are no worse, _if imagination amend them_.
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