Then there swung a
school of what we call the palmy days of old comedy, and in the '40's
it dwindled to nothing, and England and America waited until the early
'60's. Then came Tom Robertson with his so-called "tea-cup and saucer"
school, which consisted of sententious dialogue, simple situations,
conventional characterizations, and threads of plots, until Pinero and
Jones put a stop to the Robertson fad.
This proves in my judgment that the school always starts by being
shown what the popular taste is, and follows that, until some
individual discovery that the popular taste is changed. The tendency
of the school is always to become academic and fixed in its ideas--it
is the individual who points to the necessary changes. Schools and
these special individuals are interdependent.
As to the present comedies in America: in the first place, it is
impossible as a rule to decide fully what are the tendencies of a
school when one is living in the midst of its activities. There is no
marked tendency now; and as far as I can see it is only the occasional
man who discovers the tendency of the times. Pinero undoubtedly saw
that the public was tired of the "tea-cup and saucer.
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