The chapter of the life of Edwin Booth which deals with his emergence as a tragic actor during his early years in San Francisco is haunted by a friendly but flickering ghost called Ferdinand Ewer, critic. Booth declared to Ewer, many years afterward, that, although many “puffs” had appeared previously, “the first criticism of my acting was written by yourself.” And ever since that remark was printed in Edwina Booth Grossmann's collection of her father's letters (Edwin Booth, 1893), the biographers have hunted for, and even satisfied themselves that they have found, what Ewer wrote that Booth prized so highly.

Of all the merits that may be claimed for the plays of Shakespeare, surely one of the greatest, though least extolled, is indestructibility. From drolls and burlettas to ballets and grand opera, from the archaeological extravaganzas of Charles Kean and the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen to Copeau's chaste representations on the tréteau nu, from an unceremonious Hamlet fencing in his undershirt (“rehearsal clothes,” or so we were told) to a Harry the Fifth barely visible through clouds of spent gunpowder—no matter how badly mutilated, “improved,” ludicrously performed, or grotesquely mounted, the plays of Shakespeare persistently demonstrate their ability to survive, despite the best efforts of their legion interpreters. And among these interpreters must be included the riders and actors of the circus, whose productions were perhaps no more bizarre than those of their brethren on the legitimate stage.

Producing Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen has never been an easy task for singers and musicians, yet it is no less difficult for stage mangers and machinists. One of the more troublesome staging problems of this opera cycle is presented by the initial scene of Das Rheingold, the first of the four operas making up the Ring. Not only is the scene set under the waters of the Rhine but the three Rhinemaidens (Woglinde, Wellgunde, and Flosshilde) must float up and down and around the stage with simulated swimming motions as they mock and elude the dwarf Alberich and guard the Rhinegold atop a high pinnacle at stage center.

Considering their importance in the history of the English theatre, we know remarkably little about the architectural features of the two Restoration playhouses which Thomas Killigrew and his King's Company built on the plot of ground where the modern Drury Lane now stands. In 1913 Hamilton Bell published reproductions of some designs by Sir Christopher Wren, two of which he felt might have some connection with these buildings, and of these the section view of a “Play House” has been frequently reprinted. The frontispiece to Perrin's Ariane (1674) shows the stage of Drury Lane, and we have two pictures from near the turn of the century depicting Joe Haines (or Haynes) mounted on an ass on the Drury Lane forestage. Other than these five prints, however, pictorial material on these important playhouses has been wanting. Therefore it may be worth considering more carefully what we already have and reporting on several new discoveries.

If, as Professor Quinn maintains, the national dramas centering about the American Revolution held the spotlight in the United States during the period from 1825 to 1860, certainly the Indian plays featuring the noble savage rivaled them as the second most popular form of stage entertainment. Relatively little is known of the early productions of these Indian plays by American authors.

One of the earliest American productions took the form of an “operatic spectacle,” called Tammany. It was put on at the John Street Theater in New York on March 3, 1794, with a Mrs. Hatton in the lead, and is often credited as originating “that impossible type of stage Indian” which never existed in real life.

Dates and events are frequently useful scholarly pigeonholes into which may be neatly tucked whole periods of literature or significant literary trends. The scholar knows them to be oversimplifications, but so long as their limitations are recognized, they remain useful tools for teaching, talking, and writing. Occasionally, however, history is hung from a date so unreliable and so unjustified that delineation of material is blurred rather than clarified, traditions are obscured rather than illuminated, and fields of research are closed rather than opened. American theatre history affords a perfect example of the misused common reference point. The year 1866, with its production of The Black Crook, has been accepted as the landmark indicating the beginnings of American musical comedy. Cecil Smith, in Musical Comedy in America, says, “For all important purposes, the history of musical comedy in America starts with The Black Crook, as everyone has always said it did.”

Every theatrical group which nerves itself to the effort of production has some goal which it hopes to achieve, but that of the Workers' Theatre was unique and the attempt to realize it resulted in unique organizations with unusual working methods. This goal was not cultural, but political—not art, but revolution. The production of a play was regarded as a means of organizing the workers of America into an army capable of winning the struggle for a classless society: “A theatrical performance becomes a communal rite, not unlike the primitive dances or religious ceremonies during which solo actors… tried to arouse the spectators… to participate in the rite, to take part in the struggle.” Because of this aim, each Workers' Theatre group in America between 1932 and 1942 attempted to be “an active political organization of… class conscious revolutionary workers” which would provide a model of effective revolutionary organization for its audience.

In 1959, after a sparse and dismal stage history, All's Well that Ends Well was given two productions in the professional theatre. Surprisingly both productions were well received by critics and audiences. Both productions enjoyed long and successful runs; the number of performances in each case surpassed that of any previous production of the play. Yet, the two productions differed markedly in interpretation. I am tempted to say that the audiences saw two different plays.