Both principles have been adopted with successful results in
Continental cities; but their successful practice implies the
acceptance by the State, or by a permanent local authority, of a
certain amount of responsibility in both the artistic and the
financial directions.
It is foolish to blind oneself to commercial considerations
altogether. When the municipal theatre is freed of the unimaginative
control of private capital seeking unlimited profit, it is still wise
to require a moderate return on the expended outlay. The municipal
theatre can only live healthily in the presence of a public desire or
demand for it, and that public desire or demand can only be measured
by the playhouse receipts. A municipal theatre would not be
satisfactorily conducted if money were merely lost in it, or spent on
it without any thought of the likelihood of the expenditure proving
remunerative. Profits need never be refused; but all above a fixed
minimum rate of interest on the invested capital should be applied to
the promotion of those purposes which the municipal theatre primarily
exists to serve--to cheapen, for example, prices of admission, or to
improve the general mechanism behind and before the scenes.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186