Abstract

Drama

English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare, like his birthday, comes but once a year in New York when producers and public do their duty by him with a fine sense of self-conscious virtue and then proceed comfortably to forget all about him until another season. One might suppose that the greatest poet and dramatist in the world would be produced for those that love him, not as a tedious, necessary rite or birthday ceremonial, but with constant, intelligent devotion, as the great tone-poets are performed. Two years ago, on the three hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death, there was a veritable competition of Shakespearean productions, from tragedy to buffoonery, with every soul in New York attesting with passionate ardor the fact that Shakespeare was dead.