This objection seems insubstantial. Competent actors are not
altogether absent from the English stage, and the municipal system of
theatrical enterprise is calculated to increase their number rapidly.
Abroad, the subsidised theatres, with their just schemes of salary,
their permanent engagements, their well-devised pension systems,
attract the best class of the profession. A competent company of
actors, which enjoys a permanent home and is governed by high
standards of art, forms the best possible school of acting, not merely
by force of example, but by the private tuition which it could readily
provide. In Vienna the companies at the subsidised theatres are
recruited from the pupils of a State-endowed conservatoire of actors.
It is improbable that the British Government will found a like
institution. But it would be easy to attach a college of acting to the
municipal theatre, and to make the college pay its way.
Much depends on the choice of manager of the enterprise. The manager
of a municipal theatre must combine with business aptitude a genuine
devotion to dramatic art and dramatic literature. Without a fit
manager, who can collect and control a competent company of actors,
the scheme of the municipal theatre is doomed to failure.
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