The conventional treatment of gloomy themes in the drama is like the ancient tale of the proud old coon who, driving a snail-paced and ramshackle horse and an even more ramshackle buggy down a Southern road used largely by automobilists, suddenly perceived a small boy hitching on behind. “Hey!” exclaimed the old brunette, “Yoh look out dar! Ef yoh ain’t careful yoh’ll be sucked under!” The mechanic of the gloomy dramatic theme, like the old dinge, too often takes his theme too pompously, too seriously. And is generally himself sucked under as a result. Clyde Fitch took a so-called gloomy theme in his play “The Climbers”--the play that started bang off with a funeral--but his play is still going with the public in the stock companies because he didn’t let the gloom of his story run away with the interest. The final curtain line in “The Shadow” is: “After all, real happiness is often to be found in tears.” Tears are often provocative of a greater so-called “up-lift” feeling than mere grins and laughter. Take a couple or more of illustrations of the most popular mob plays America has known, say, “Way Down East,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “The Old Homestead.” These, fundamentally, are what the mob calls “sad” plays. The yokelry would ever rather pay for the privilege of crying than laughing. What farce ever made as much money as “East Lynne”? The tears in “Cinderella” have made it the world’s most successful theatrical property. XL The difference ’twixt tragedy and comedy is the difference of a hair’s breadth. Tragedy ends with the hero’s death. Comedy, with the hero’s getting married. XLI To be effective, acting must interpret not so much the playwright’s work as the audience’s silent criticism of that work. XLII ... It is to be remarked that the New Movement in the theater, about which we hear so much, what with its scenery, lighting, stage architecture and what not, seems to concern everything but drama. XLIII The moving pictures will never supplant the spoken drama, contend a thousand and one critics. Well, anyway, not so long as the drama is being spoken as it is to-day in the majority of our Broadway theaters. XLIV Madame Karsavina of the Russian Ballet seeks in her chorographic pantomimes to interpret drama with the body. The Boston censors commanded that Madame Karsavina, who in her chorographic pantomimes seeks to interpret drama with the body, completely conceal her body in heavy draperies. The Boston censors may be expected next to command Mimi Aguglia, of the Sicilian Players, who seeks to interpret the body in terms of drama, to undress. XLV Comedy is but tragedy, cunningly disguised and popularized for the multitude. XLVI Men go to the theater to forget; women, to remember. XLVII Melodrama is that form of drama in which the characters are deliberately robbed of a sense of humor by the author. Problem drama, most often, that form in which the characters are deliberately robbed of a sense of humour by the audience.