The trouble with dramatic criticism in America, speaking generally, is that where it is not frankly reportorial it too often seeks to exhibit a personality when there exists no personality to exhibit. Himself perhaps conscious of this lack, the critic indulges in heroic makeshifts to inject into his writings a note of individuality, and the only individuality that comes out of his perspirations is of a piece with that of the bearded lady or the dog-faced boy. Individuality of this freak species is the bane of the native criticism. The college professor who, having nothing to say, tries to give his criticism an august air by figuratively attaching to it a pair of whiskers and horn glasses, the suburban college professor who sedulously practises an aloofness from the madding crowd that his soul longs to be part of, the college professor who postures as a man of the world, the newspaper reporter who postures as a college professor, the journalist who performs in terms of Art between the Saks and Gimbel advertisements--these and others like them are the sad comedians in the tragical crew. In their heavy attempts to live up to their fancy dress costumes, in their laborious efforts to conceal their humdrum personalities in the uncomfortable gauds of Petruchio and Gobbo, they betray themselves even to the bus boys. The same performer cannot occupy the rôles of Polonius and Hamlet, even in a tank town troupe. No less damaging to American dramatic criticism is the dominant notion that criticism, to be valuable, must be constructive. That is, that it must, as the phrase has it, “build up” rather than “tear down.” As a result of this conviction we have an endless repertoire of architectonic advice from critics wholly without the structural faculty, advice which, were it followed, would produce a drama twice as poor as that which they criticize. Obsessed with the idea that they must be constructive, the critics know no lengths to which they will not go in their sweat to dredge up cures of one sort or another. They constructively point out that Shaw’s plays would be better plays if Shaw understood the punctual technique of Pinero, thus destroying a “Cæsar and Cleopatra” to construct a “Second Mrs. Tanqueray.” They constructively point out the trashy aspect of some Samuel Shipman’s “Friendly Enemies,” suggest more serious enterprises to him, and get the poor soul to write a “The Unwritten Chapter” which is ten times as bad. They are not content to be critics; they must also be playwrights. They stand in mortal fear of the old recrimination, “He who can, does; he who can’t, criticizes,” not pausing to realize that the names of Mr. Octavus Roy Cohen and Matthew Arnold may be taken as somewhat confounding respective examples. They note with some irritation that the critic for the Wentzville, Mo., _Beacon_ is a destructive critic, but are conveniently ignorant of the fact--which may conceivably prove something more--that so was George Farquhar.