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The term "Commercial Theatre" is rarely used without disparagement. The critic or the playwright who speaks of the Commercial Theatre usually does so either for the purpose of reflecting on the cheapness of the entertainment afforded, or in order to call attention to spectacular receipts.

In this country the Commercial Theatre stands for that form of big business in the theatrical world that produces dividends on the money invested comparable to those earned by the most prosperous of the large industries. This system has been, on the whole, a bad thing for the drama, because managers with their eye on attractions that should yield a return, let us say, of over ten per cent on the investment, have been unable to produce the superior play with an appeal to a definite, though perhaps limited audience, and have had to offer to the public the kind of play that would draw large audiences over a long period of time. The "longest run for the safest possible play" is thus conspicuously associated with the Commercial Theatre. As Clayton Hamilton says: "The trouble with the prevailing theatre system in America to-day is not that this system is commercial; for in any democratic country, it is not unreasonable to expect the public to defray the cost of the sort of drama that it wishes, and that, therefore, it deserves. The trouble is, rather, that our theatre system is devoted almost entirely to big business; and that in ignoring the small profits of small business it tends to exclude not only the uncommercial drama, but the non-commercial drama as well."[4] Here he makes a distinction between an "uncommercial" play, that is, a play that is a failure with all kinds of audiences, and the "noncommercial" play, which is capable of holding its own financially and yielding modest returns.

In the days before the pooling of theatrical interests in this country there were indeed long runs, but in many of the large American cities "stock companies," composed of groups of actors and actresses all of about the same reputation and ability, were maintained that kept a number of plays, a "repertory," before the public in the course of a season and gave scope for experiment with various kinds of plays. But the "star system," which has now become common, has tended to drive out the "stock company" idea, with the result that the average company rests on the reputation of the "star" and dispenses with distinction in the "support." With the decay of the stock company, the repertory system, in the form in which it did once exist here in the Commercial Theatre, has also declined.

Both in Great Britain and in America the repertory system, long established on the Continent, has been reintroduced in order to combat the practices of the Commercial Theatre. For the most part the new repertory theatres have been endowed either by the State or by private individuals. "Absolute endowment for absolute freedom,"[5] has seemed to at least one American the only means of delivering the drama from commercial bondage. This phrase of Percy MacKaye's expresses his cherished belief that endowed civic theatres, which should encourage the participation of whole communities in a community form of drama, are what is needed in a democracy. John Masefield, in the following lines from the prologue written for the opening of the Liverpool Repertory Theatre, has found a poetic theme in this idea of an endowed theatre:

"Men will not spend, it seems, on that one art

Which is life's inmost soul and passionate heart;

They count the theatre a place for fun,

Where man can laugh at nights when work is done.

If it were only that, 'twould be worth while

To subsidize a thing which makes men smile;

But it is more; it is that splendid thing,

A place where man's soul shakes triumphant wing;

A place of art made living, where men may see

What human life is and has seemed to be

To the world's greatest brains. …

O you who hark

Fan to a flame through England this first spark,

Till in this land there's none so poor of purse

But he may see high deeds and hear high verse,

And feel his folly lashed, and think him great

In this world's tragedy of Life and Fate."[6]

In Great Britain repertory is associated with the interest and generosity of Miss A. E. F. Horniman, who will be mentioned in connection with the Irish National Theatre, and through whom, after some preliminary experiment, the Gaiety Theatre at Manchester was opened as the first repertory house in England, in the spring of 1908. Fifty-five different plays were produced in a little over two years—"twenty-eight new, seventeen revivals of modern English plays, five modern translations, and five classics."[7] In Miss Horniman's own words, her interest was in a Civilized Theatre. "A Civilized Theatre," she has written, "means that a city has something of cultivation in it, something to make literature grow; a real theatre, not a mere amusing toy. What we want is the opportunity for our men and women, our boys and girls to get a chance to see the works of the greatest dramatists of modern times, as well as the classics, for their pleasure as well as their cultivation. … Young dramatists should have a theatre where they can see the ripe works of the masters and see them well acted at a moderate price. There should be in every city a theatre where we can see the best drama worthily treated."[8] Owing to war conditions, the Manchester project has had to be abandoned, and so, for the most part, have other similar enterprises. They rarely became self-supporting, but depended on subsidy of one kind or another, which under new economic conditions is no longer forthcoming. The Birmingham Repertory Theatre continues, however, under the direction of John Drinkwater, and has become famous through its production of his Abraham Lincoln. "John Drinkwater, I see, has recently defined a Repertory Theatre," writes William Archer, in his latest article on the subject, "as one which 'puts plays into stock which are good enough to stay there.'" Enlarging this definition, I should call it a theatre which excluded the long unbroken run; which presents at least three different programs in each week (though a popular success may be performed three or even four times a week throughout a whole season); which can produce plays too good to be enormously popular; which makes a principle of keeping alive the great drama of the past, whether recent or remote; which has a company so large that it can, without overworking its actors, keep three or four plays ready for instant presentation; which possesses an ample stage equipped with the latest artistic and labor-saving appliances; and which offers such comfort in front of the house as to encourage an intelligent public to make it an habitual place of resort.

"That there exists in every great American city an intelligent public large enough to support one or more such playhouses is to my mind indisputable. But the theatre might have to be run at a loss for two or three opening seasons, until it had attracted and educated its habitual supporters. For even a public of high general intelligence needs a certain amount of special education in things of the theatre." This testimony is in a highly optimistic vein.

A talk with B. Iden Payne, once director of the Manchester Players, reveals the fact that in England at the present time the repertory idea is being taken over with more promise of success by the small groups that represent the Little Theatre movement in that country. The repertory theatre there did succeed in arousing in the locality in which, for the time being, it existed an interest in intelligent plays, but it was not equally successful in confirming a distaste for unintelligent plays. The study of these experiments will repay Americans who are interested in seeing the repertory idea fostered over here by endowment or otherwise.