VI It might be profitable to compare Pepys's experiences as a spectator of Shakespeare's plays on the stage with the opportunities open to playgoers at the present moment.
It was in "the old plays" that he and all average playgoers mainly delighted.
These features of current dramatic history are welcome to playgoers of literary tastes; but I have attempted no survey of them, because signs are lacking that any essential change has been wrought by them in the general theatrical situation.
Fashionable playgoers of the male sex might, if they opened their purses wide enough, occupy stools on the wide platform-stage.
No secret was made of the determination of playgoers to damn the first piece that should be stigmatised with the license of the Lord Chamberlain.
Playgoers felt that the old school of actors was breaking up, and the poets did little to render the finale illustrious.
In Ranger, Garrick surpassed even what old playgoers could recollect of comic excellence.
It is more to the purpose to speak of the two theatres which claimed the attention of London playgoers in the year 1703--the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The preface contains a very liberal enconium on the blooming excellence of Mr. Theophilus Cibber, which Mr. Savage could not in the latter part of his life see his friends about to read without snatching the play out of their hands.
In the "Dedication," for which he received ten guineas, there is nothing remarkable.
Yet if a picture taken from life does not belie her the dancer was most fair to look upon.
The crowded houses at "Faust" were largely composed of "repeaters," as Americans call those charmingplaygoers who come to see a play again and again.
She, who had made one of her early successes as the spirit of Astarte in "Manfred," was known to a later generation of playgoers as the aristocratic dowager of stately presence and incisive repartee.
Coghlan's clothes were not more perfect than his manner, but both were a little in advance of the appreciation of Bristol playgoers in the 'sixties.
The seasoned playgoers who have fought their way through the “Cowshed” to the front row of the pit point out to each other the eminent persons as they proceed to their stalls.
He refused to sublet his cloak-rooms to the harpies who at that time held an undisputed monopoly for at once incommoding and fleecing the playgoers who booked for the stalls and boxes.
He still clung to the notion that he was a far better judge of the requirements and desires of playgoers than they could possibly be themselves.
It must be remembered that the playgoers of a century ago were rather a family than a people.
As to the playgoers of the Restoration we have abundant information from the poet Dryden, and the diarist Pepys.
Certainly he was; but then custom had sanctioned it, and playgoers were not prepared for any meddling with the text of Shakespeare.
Of course he had to yield at last, as managers must when playgoers are resolute; he had to live by pleasing, not displeasing.
Even after the accession of Queen Victoria, a license was refused to an English version of Victor Hugo's "Ruy Blas," lest playgoers should perceive in it allusions to the matrimonial choice her Majesty was then about to make.
From that date theplaygoers of the past grew more and more like the playgoers of the present, until the flight of time rendered distinction between them no longer possible, and merged yesterday in to-day.
Yet they were assuredly spoken, and often by women, apparently to the complete satisfaction of the playgoers of the time.
The Leamington audience were provided with music at the commencement of the evening only; the Warwick playgoers dispensed with orchestral accompaniments until a later period in the performances.
In our early theatres, the arrangements for receiving the money of the playgoers were rather of a confused kind.
Some degree of accuracy our modernplaygoers would demand, if they disdained or disregarded minute correctness.
It would seem that the exhibition concluded at nine o'clock in the morning, so that the playgoers of the period must probably have assembled so early as six.
Dozens of regularplaygoers knew the traditions of the theatre better than many actors and actresses.
Playgoers have seldom seen a dramatic climax so thrilling as his hysterical recognition of Catesby, after the moment of doubt whether this be not also a phantom of his terrific dream.
The triumphs won in it by Edwin Booth are within the remembrance of many playgoers of this generation.
English playgoers recognize but vaguely the distinguishing characteristics of actors and actresses, whose fame has been won wholly by their performances on the other side of the Atlantic.
Of course, the influence of the Press upon the stage is very powerful, but it will cease to be so if playgoers find that their mentors, the critics, are not trustworthy guides.
Between herself and that great artist, middle-aged play-goers seem to find a certain resemblance; but to the present generation of playgoers Mary Anderson is an absolutely new revelation on the London boards.
Though the majority of French playgoers continued to side with him, and to cling to the time-honoured theatrical beliefs, a few young men were beginning to murmur against the too elaborate mechanism and artificial logic.
Moreover, provincial playgoers have lost all personal interest and pride in their local theatres, which have no longer any individuality of their own, but serve as a mere frame for the presentation of a series of ready-made London pictures.
Again, the railways which bring London productions to the country take country playgoersby the thousand to London.
Glancing over Clement Scott’s list, old playgoers will find their memories somewhat pathetically stirred by forgotten fashions and schools.
American playgoers will remember the disguise of Sherlock Holmes in the last act of Mr. Gillette's admirable melodrama.
Perhaps when playgoers have progressed for another century or two, they may discard some of the trappings and the suits of our present drama, and become again like little children.
He had no idea that playgoerswere ready to hail with pleasure a comedy founded upon scenes of everyday life, not upon the spurious sentimentality of an artificial age.
That is a feature which I think the playgoers will not be slow to appreciate," said Goldsmith.
Little Comedy and I will--oh, we shall insist on the playgoers liking it!
Colman, like the rest of his profession--not even excepting Garrick--possessed only a small amount of knowledge as to what playgoers desired to have presented to them.
He expressed a hope that the death of the King of Sardinia would not have so depressing an effect upon playgoers generally as to prejudice their enjoyment of his comedy.
I only hope that the playgoers will not resent his attempt to instruct them on the subject of your wit.
What, is he mad enough to expect that playgoers will tolerate his wretched old scenery in a new comedy?
He had written it, he said, for the sake of expressing his convictions through the medium of these particular scenes, and he was content to accept the verdict of the playgoers on the point in question.
The playgoers will damn it if it were e'en a Bishop's palace.
A manager who had the temerity to cast a play now was in no position to be fastidious, and playgoers were indulgent.
Playgoers who know him merely by his comedies, in which married people get on together so badly up to the fourth act, might be surprised to see inside his villa.
But we who read the drama after an interval of three centuries can afford to be less perturbed than Jacobean playgoers at its audacious juggling with facts, provided that it appeals to us in other ways.
A fault that some playgoers found with "King Arthur" was that it afforded few acting opportunities to Henry Irving.
So are old playgoers supremely content when with congenial souls they discuss the famous and favourite actors and actresses they have seen and admired in bygone days.
In that little playhouse which, thanks to their taste and admirable management, had become the favourite resort of playgoers far and near; in the birthplace and home of the sweet and memorable series of T.
When the piece was first produced at the Haymarket this part had been played by Blanche Fane, the idol of her day, and it had also been made familiar to playgoers by the ever-fascinating Marie Wilton, now Lady Bancroft.
Quickly she became the stage divinity of her day, and she remained the idol of London playgoers until, on her early marriage, she retired into private life.
In the mind of playgoers it had been long decided that this all-important first appearance had been in the character of Mamillius.
It was obvious that Leeds playgoers had understood the nature of the treat that was before them.
I can never forget the happy hours and enlightenment she has given me, and I believe that all my fellow-playgoers will think that I have treated my subject from the right point of view.
This play has been made familiar to later and present-day playgoers as "Peril," the clever adaptation by Clement Scott and B.
Later on his Robe Rouge introduced the ordinary playgoers to him; and he is now no longer one of the curiosities of the coterie theatre, as even Ibsen to some extent still is, but one of the conquerors of the general British public.
On the days when dramatic performances were to be given flags were hoisted in the morning over the playhouses; and after the early midday dinner the stream of playgoers began to flow from the gates.
In plays of society in particular, the criticism "No one does such things," is held by a large class of playgoers to be conclusive and destructive.
Most playgoers will, I think, bear me out in saying that we constantly find a great scene or act to be in reality richer in invention and more ingenious in arrangement than we remembered it to be.
She had exhibited unusual merit in singing and acting Macheath to the Polly of Charles Bannister, and the Lucy of Johnstone; and she created characters with which her name is closely associated in the memory of playgoers or playreaders.
Against plays, players, and playgoers they waged in pulpit and pamphlet a warfare characterized by the most intense fanaticism.
Footnote 155: There must have been two stairways leading to the upper rooms; I have assumed that playgoers used Neville's stairs to reach the theatre.
Mr. Yeats is again the authority: "The London playgoers .
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "playgoers" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
