The seats are cheap: in decency's name. Nobody wants to swank, to
sit in the front of a box like a geranium on a window-sill--"the
cynosure of many eyes." Nobody wants to profiteer. We all feel that
it is as humiliating to pay high prices as to charge them. No man
consents in his heart to pay high prices unless he feels that what he
pays with his right hand he will get back with his left, either out
of the pocket of a man who isn't looking, or out of the envy of the
poor neighbour who IS looking, but can't afford the figure. The seats
are cheap. Why should A People, fabulous and lofty giraffe, want to
charge or pay high prices? If it were THE PEOPLE now.--But it isn't.
It isn't Plebs, the proletariat. The seats are cheap.
The plays are good. Pah!--this has a canting smell. Any play is good
to the man who likes to look at it. And at that rate Chu Chin Chow is
extra-super-good. What about your GOOD plays? Whose good? PFUI to
your goodness!
That minor premiss is a bad egg: it will hatch no bird. Good plays?
You might as well say mimsy bomtittle plays, you'd be saying as much.
The plays are--don't say good or you'll be beaten. The plays--the
plays of A People's Theatre are--oh heaven, what are they?--not
popular nor populous nor plebian nor proletarian nor folk nor parish
plays. None of that adjectival spawn.
The only clue-word is People's for all that.
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