That supper took place only sixteen years ago; so we are yet
only in the beginning of the great movement. Incidentally, it is also
necessarily the beginning of a school of dramatic criticism of that
art. It is difficult to suppose that a body of critics, merely learned
in the dramatic art of Europe, can be regarded as forming a school of
America.
To go to Paris to finish your education in dramatic art, and return to
New York and make comments on what you see in the theatre, is not to
be an American dramatic critic, nor does it tend in any way to found a
school of American dramatic criticism. The same is true of the man who
remains in New York and gets his knowledge of the drama from reading
foreign newspapers and books.
I stated in a former article in this magazine, "First Nights in London
and New York," that is was only within the last twenty-five or thirty
years that a comparison between the cities and the conditions had
become possible, for the reason that prior to that time there was
really no American drama. There were a few American plays, and their
first productions did not assume the least importance as social
events. As far as any comparison is possible between the early
American dramatists (I mean the first of the dramatists who were the
starting point in the later '60's and early '70's) and those of the
present day, I think of only two important points.
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