I have often wondered why theatrical managers everywhere have such a
marked predilection for what genuine artists, cultivated minds, and even
a certain section of the public itself persist in regarding as very poor
manufacture, short-lived productions, the handiwork of which is as
valueless as the raw material itself. Not as though platitudes always
succeeded better than good works; indeed, the contrary is often the
case. Neither is it that careful compositions entail more expense than
"shoddy." It is often just the other way. Perhaps it arises simply from
the fact that the good works demand the care, study, attention, and, in
certain cases, even the mind, talent, and inspiration of every one in
the theatre, from the manager down to the prompter. The others, on the
contrary, being made especially for lazy, mediocre, superficial,
ignorant, and silly people, naturally find a great many supporters.
Well! a manager likes, above everything, whatever brings him in amiable
speeches and satisfied looks from his underlings, he likes things that
require no learning and disturb no accepted ideas or habits, which
gently go with the stream of prejudice, and wound no self-love, because
they reveal no incapacity; in a word, things which do not take too long
to get up.