Note 9 — A Plea for Polichinelle

Mr. G. Bernard Shaw has written of England: “The old professional marionette showmen have been driven off the road by the picture theatre. I am told that on the Continent where marionettes flourish much more than here, they have suffered the same way from the competition of the irresistible pictures. And I doubt whether they will recover from the attack. I am afraid there is no use pretending that they deserve to.”

How consoling to turn to Mr. Gordon Craig, who has prophesied optimistically in The Marionette: “Burattini are magical, whereas Cinema is only mechanical. When a framework of a film machine is one day found by curiosity-hunters in the ruins of a cellar and marvelled over, the Burattini will still be alive and kicking.”