Note 4 — Chapter IV
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Throughout this chapter I am at a disadvantage in that I do not thoroughly believe in the standards which I here set up. It is true that I am recommending higher standards than usually prevail in the sort of building which is here considered, or higher even than those that prevail in the well-equipped professional theatre. It is true, also, that these recommendations as viewed in the light of the known and tried methods of play production, are in the nature of reform and improvement. As such, I believe in them. As viewed in the light of the theatre of the future, I do not so thoroughly believe in them. But only a revolution in theatre methods can refresh our conceptions of what sort of place this theatre of the future is to be. This matter we shall leave for discussion in a final chapter. I should be ill-advised in advising ambitious groups interested in building adequate little playhouses to set aside finally the known and tried methods of play production and the stage they involve for methods adapted to a type of drama that may not yet exist, for methods that must be evolved only by sensitive and versed artists of the theatre. It is true that many signal new ideas come into any art through workers who do not know or trouble about tradition, young hands who blunder upon valuable methods through attacking their medium experimentally. For instance, Antoine, a gas-fitter by trade, who began his theatrical career as an amateur, by his daring innovations in the Théâtre Libre, renewed the life-force of the French theatre. But, in the main, I believe that the most important revolutionary changes in the stage are wrought by men who are thoroughly versed in the old practice, as was Gordon Craig. Hence, if the little theatres and community playhouses continue for the coming generation with a theatre modelled after the best practice of this our day, they may in good season contribute mightily to that theatre of the future to which I referred. Hence, for the present it is best that I continue in the rôle of reporter, rather than that of prophet.