The alleged faults of the old school, which the new was to correct, were (1) an over-elaboration of detail in the setting; (2) a realism which challenged reality. ("Challenge," I understand, is the catch-word they use.) Both these qualities were supposed to distract attention from the drama itself. The answer, almost too obvious to be worth stating, is that the grotesque and the eccentric are vastly more distracting than the elaborate; and that, if you only sound the loud symbol loud enough the audience has no ear left at all for the actual words. As for the "challenging" of reality the new school would argue that, as the stage is a thing of convention to start with--artificial light, no natural atmosphere or perspective, no fourth wall, and so on--all the rest should be convention too. The answer, again almost too obvious, is that, since the audience has to bear the strain of unavoidable convention, you should not wantonly add to their worry. And, anyhow, the human figures on your stage (I leave out fairies and superhumans for the moment) are bound to challenge reality by the fact that they are alive. If Mr. BARKER wants to be consistent (and he would probably repudiate so Philistine a suggestion) his figures should be marionettes worked by strings; and for words--if you _must_ have words--he might himself read the text from a corner of the top landing of his proscenium. [Illustration: _Hermia_ (Miss Laura Cowie). "I upon this bank will rest my head."] And the strange thing is that no one in the world has a nicer sense of the beauty of SHAKSPEARE'S verse than Mr. BARKER. Indeed he protests in his preface: "They (the fairies) must be not too startling.... _They mustn't warp your imagination--stepping too boldly between SHAKSPEARE'S spirit and yours._" (The italics are my own comment.) He is of course free, within limits, to choose his own convention about fairies, because we have never seen them, though some of us say we have. Mr. CHESTERTON naturally says they can be of any size; Mr. BARKER says they can be of any age from little _Peaseblossom_ and his young friends to hoary antiques with moustaches like ram's horns and beards trickling down to their knees. And as many as like it, and are not afraid of being poisoned, may have gilt faces that make them look like Hindoo idols with the miraculous gift of perspiration. But he should please remember that the play is not his own. It is, in point of fact, SHAKSPEARE'S, and I am certain he was not properly consulted about the Orientalisation of the fairies out of his Warwickshire woodlands. You will be told that he _has_ been properly consulted; that he himself makes _Titania_ say that _Oberon_ has "come from the furthest steppe of India," and that she too had breathed "the spiced Indian air." But on the same authority Mr. BARKER might just as well have fixed on Asia Minor or Greece as their provenance. She charges _Oberon_ with knowing _Hippolyta_ too well, and