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The play was a great success but the audience was a disaster.
The play was a great success but the audience was a disaster.
And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop
To the low mimic follies of a farce,
As read more
And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop
To the low mimic follies of a farce,
As a grave matron would to dance with girls.
Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's read more
Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's you: the table is the place:
The carvers we: the prologue is the grace.
Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish,
Though we're in Lent, I doubt you're still for flesh.
Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough.
Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepperproof?
Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true
Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew.
Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join.
Are butcher's meat, a battle's sirloin:
Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste,
Are water-gruel without salt or taste.
Practice as if you are the worst, perform as if you are the best.
Practice as if you are the worst, perform as if you are the best.
But as for all the rest,
There's hardly one (I may say none) who stands the Artist's test.
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But as for all the rest,
There's hardly one (I may say none) who stands the Artist's test.
The Artist is a rare, rare breed. There were but two, forsooth,
In all me time (the stage's prime!) and The Other One was Booth.
The point of acting is to pretend you're someone else and sell a story.
The point of acting is to pretend you're someone else and sell a story.
You need three things in the theatre--the play, the actors and the audience,--and each must give something.
You need three things in the theatre--the play, the actors and the audience,--and each must give something.
Prologues precede the piece in mournful verse,
As undertakers walk before the hearse.
Prologues precede the piece in mournful verse,
As undertakers walk before the hearse.
Working in the theatre has a lot in common with unemployment.
Working in the theatre has a lot in common with unemployment.