Of course many plays are in the balance; some persons like them and some don’t; but there is little doubt in the minds of trained observers about the really fine plays, and even less about the really bad ones. A play comes to life for the first time when it is played before a wise audience, and their verdict is as a rule both just and final. A good play can take care of itself, and any fool knows a really bad one—when he sees it. Any of us, when we go out and buy a dozen eggs, is likely enough to get a bad one, but we are quick enough to gag over it when we try to eat it. The critic is simply a man who knows a little more, and usually cares a little more, about the theater than the ordinary man of cultivated taste, and he has been trained in a proper manner of expressing himself. What he tells his readers about a new play is first the truth. This in effect you or I could do as well as he does: it was a good play. The modern critic, however, goes beyond that in his influence upon the theater by insisting upon an increasingly higher standard both in writing and in acting, and by pointing out the virtues or the defects in the performance, instructing his public in what may fairly be expected of the modern drama. Naturally there are bad critics, just as there are bad writers and bad actors, and the bad ones do harm, just as the bad actors and bad writers do. The first night audience in itself, although still picturesque, has changed greatly in the last few years. Twenty years ago opening nights of any importance at all were naturally far fewer in number than they are to-day, and an opening at Daly’s, Palmer’s, the Lyceum and later at the Empire, drew a brilliant audience made up of the real lovers of the theater and the cream of the “four hundred” that then represented New York society. To be on the first night list in those days meant something. The first night audience of to-day is very different. First nights now are rarely social affairs, and the audience is very much more of the profession, actors, managers, critics, writers and all the moving picture crowd. These, together with the dressmakers and play agents and scouts from the various studios on the lookout for screen material, make up a colorful gathering and they know a lot about theatrical values even if they lack a little of the distinction of the old first night crowd.