[The Awkward Age by Henry James]@TWC D-Link book
The Awkward Age

PREFACE
20/27

"Remember," they say to the dramatist, "that you have to be, supremely, three things: you have to be true to your form, you have to be interesting, you have to be clear.

You have in other words to prove yourself adequate to taking a heavy weight.

But we defy you really to conform to your conditions with any but a light one.

Make the thing you have to convey, make the picture you have to paint, at all rich and complex, and you cease to be clear.

Remain clear--and with the clearness required by the infantine intelligence of any public consenting to see a play--and what becomes of the 'importance' of your subject?
If it's important by any other critical measure than the little foot-rule the 'produced' piece has to conform to, it is predestined to be a muddle.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books