Caviare to the General

The impending demise of Repertory Boston is an unrelieved dirty shame. Its proprietors have made mistakes, perhaps, in many directions, but they put together a good group of actors, and the series of plays they presented during their brief tenure at the Wilbur were, at very least considerably more interesting than those that occupied the crowded Shubert across the street. The Repertory promised--and provided--what theatrical experts had been demanding for years: an opportunity for rich and poor and cheap and lavish and ignorant and learned alike to go to the theatre, often and conveniently, to see good plays well acted, almost, perhaps, the way they drop down to Washington Street to see bad movies barely acted at all.

Evidently this opportunity is one thing that Bostonians and their suburban neighbors, including, perhaps, the Harvard community--almost unanimously do not want. Repertory Boston is dying of one uncomplicated ailment: box-office malnutrition. Their productions were generally well-reviewed, their theatre was well-located and commodious, their advertising was widespread, their prices were low. But nobody came.

A good deal was riding on this attempt at repertory. Its failure indicates that Americans (there is no reason to suppose that Bostonians are unique) do not want good theatre, and will not take it when it is offered. It will be hard now to read the success of a good play as indicating anything except that an audience has been stampeded by hit psychology, coaxed by affection for a favorite star, dragged by dumb loyalty to a particular critic, or tempted by the possibility of sexual excitement.

The theatre, Bernard Shaw used to declare, is a temple of the human spirit. Evidently, in our age as in his, its worshippers are greatly outnumbered by the customers of the money-changers and the temple prostitutes.