if the legitimate stage has largely forgotten it.
The revolt against the conventions of the theater can go only so far before it meets the conventional stone wall. "Let's pretend," the theater asks of the spectator and must always ask. The spectator can rightfully ask only that the pretense be convincing at the moment. A room full of persons in life never has talked and never will talk and move as a room of actors talk and move on the stage. The stage is a narrowly restricted medium, and dramatist, stage manager and players are not permitted to forget it for an instant. If an actor should wander aimlessly about the stage as he does in the home of a friend he would distract the audience's attention from other actors at the moment more essential to the story, and play general hob with the performance. He may not turn his back to the spectators because they cannot quit their seats and follow him around.
A group gathered socially in a drawing-room do not naturally talk one at a time. On the stage they must. An actor who spoke as loudly in his home or on the street as he should on the stage would be a man one would cross the street or dodge into a doorway to avoid. He raises his
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