Intellectual Gymnastics
How Often Do You Take Out Your Brains to be Exercised?
A play is a sort of emotional dumbbell. An audience goes to the theatre much as it would go to a gymnasium, except that it wants its feelings exercised instead of its muscles.
There are very few more touching spectacles than that of row after row of eager theatre-goers, patiently waiting for something to happen to their emotions. Some are defiant. They set their teeth, adjust their faces to a sneer of quiet superiority, fortify themselves against any attack. Others...