VII The Elizabethan's hard fate strangely contrasts with the situation of the playgoer of the nineteenth or twentieth century.
Both actor and playgoer suffer signal injury from its effects.
As a regular playgoer at a time when the stage mainly depended on the drama of Elizabethan days, Pepys was bound to witness numerous performances of Shakespeare's plays.
Very striking is the contrast offered by the methods of representation accepted with enthusiasm by the Elizabethan playgoer and those deemed essential by the fashionable modern manager.
Boys or men of all shapes and sizes squeaking or bawling out the tender and pathetic lines of Shakespeare's heroines, and no joys of scenery to distract the playgoer from the uncouth inconsistency!
Never was there a more indefatigable playgoer than Pepys.
Had Pepys gone at regular intervals, when the theatres were open, he would have been a playgoer at least once a week.
Pepys the Microcosm of the Average Playgoer 82 II.
He did all he could for the Elizabethan playgoer in the way of insisting that the art of acting must be studied seriously, and that the dramatist's words must reach the ears of the audience, clearly and intelligibly enunciated.
The needful dramatic illusion was obviously evoked in the playgoer of the past with an ease that is unknown to the present patrons of the stage.
There is no doubt at all that Shakespeare conspicuously caught the ear of the Elizabethan playgoer at a very early date in his career, and that he held it firmly for life.
However seductive may be the musico-scenic ornamentation, Shakespeare will never justly affect the mind of the average playgoerunless great or inspired actors are at hand to interpret him.
Elizabethan audience, the pungent censure of actors' perennial defects is calculated to catch the ear of the average playgoer of all ages.
Dumesnil and her school of acting and the most captious of critics were compelled to acknowledge her charm, while the ordinary playgoer was "transported with enthusiasm.
Clement Scott, in his Thirty Years at the Play, tells, as only a genuine playgoer could, of the improvised performance given by our comedians at the Crystal Palace, after the banquet given to them by the theatrical world of London.
The barbarians had begun to arrive; it was the first wave of democracy before which the habitue, the playgoer of the old school, was forced to flee.
But to the young playgoer who sits in front these troubles are unknown, and to him the theatre may well appear as the realisation of Fairyland, and a veritable Palace of Fancy.
It is surely good for the old playgoer to conjure up such recollections as these.
Sheridan later on recalled the playgoer to the fact that to give a humorous presentation of society as it is means the highest pleasure to the patron and the highest profit to the playwright.
But theplaygoer has been marking time all the while.
No great departure has been made on the boards since the playgoer was taught to demand accuracy of detail in staging.
The playgoer of to-day is fed on other stuff, on experiences quite unlike those his predecessors knew.
I think the playgoer of the present would scarcely notice Irving's mannerisms of speech, of gesture, of gait, he has seen so many mannerisms almost equally quaint, heard so much speech that is quite as queer.
A playgoer whose knowledge of the English stage extended over a period of fifty-five years, wrote another nice letter about "Much Ado" which was passed on to me because it had some ridiculously nice things about me in it.
One old playgoer wrote to tell me that he liked me better than my former instructress, Mrs. Charles Kean.
An old playgoeris almost a contradiction in terms.
And usually, we may note, the playgoer is youthful.
The would-be intelligentplaygoer is vastly to be preferred to the playgoer who makes a boast of his unintelligence.
There is absolutely no question which Professor Matthews, or any playgoer who shares his point of view, is "eager to have answered.
The most unsophisticated playgoer feels the effect of neat workmanship, though he may not be able to put his satisfaction into words.
The Elizabethan playgoer had no desire to bias the judgment of the dramatist.
Now, unfortunately, Edmund's speech is omitted from the stage-version, so that the playgoer who does not know his Shakespeare misses the irony of the terrible tragedy he is called upon to witness.
The speculator lost his money, the playgoer did not see his "star," and the student heard no masterpieces.
His criticisms are those of a playgoer writing of plays, as if he had seen them acted at the theatre.
The old Park, for example, was called simply The Theatre, and when the New York playgoer spoke of going to the play he meant that he was going there.
The playgoer who never saw Charles Fisher as Triplet can scarcely claim that he ever saw the part at all.
It takes the playgoer a long way back, to be thinking about this old piece and the casts that it has had upon the American stage.
Apparently the element of surprise is not a dramatic requisite with them, since every habitual playgoer of their class must know by heart every melodramatic theme in existence, together with its incidents and its outcome.
Their success had been moderate, for they united to their good intentions a habit of denunciation of all plays that were not "repertory" plays which had the effect partly of irritating the common playgoer and partly of frightening him.
Only so much is given here as may interest the reader, who is a playgoer first of all, and asks for entertainment and a light in these darker passages of the old British drama.
But to surprise the English mediæval smith or carpenter, cobbler or bowyer, when he turns playgoer at Whitsuntide, assisting at a play which expressed himself as well as its scriptural folk, we must go on to later episodes.
But you cannot argue with the playgoer who stays away.
The playgoer does not always agree with the player, still less with that unfortunate object, the poor actor-manager.
Perhaps the judgment of the simple-minded playgoer is sounder on this point than that of the critic, who is hoping that the characters will utter something that he does not expect them to say.
One can imagine the playgoerafter the farce, rare, alas!
However, it is hardly worth the while of the casual playgoer to study the structure of dramas sufficiently to appreciate fully such marvels of technique--the marvels are very rare.
Incidentally, it may be asked whether the ordinaryplaygoer exactly appreciates the position of the last rows of the stalls.
Some of the pleasantest memories of the playgoer concern superb performances by Miss Elizabeth Robins, and yet they can recollect two or three appearances in commonplace dramas that were flat failures.
This, of course, is very often the case; probably to the simple-minded playgoer when it happens there seems to be evidence that the dialogue is true.
The averageplaygoer has no idea of the skill involved in writing the ordinary successful comedy of the present time.
Art would be better served by the old-fashioned method, for the playgoer is more willing to concede a whole than a half "make-belief.
No doubt a great deal of money may be spent on quiet details, and sometimes is, without the attention of the ordinary playgoer being drawn to the expenditure, but the case is exceptional.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "playgoer" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
