It used at one time to be the fashion to add to the
advertisement of a play an entreaty that the audience should be
punctually in their seats, "as the interest began with the rise of the
curtain." One has seen this assertion made with regard to plays in
which, as a matter of fact, the interest had not begun at the fall of
the curtain. Nowadays, managers, and even leading ladies, are a good
deal less insistent on their "reception" than they used to be. They
realize that it may be a distinct advantage to hold the stage from the
very outset. There are few more effective openings than that of _The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, where we find Aubrey Tanqueray seated squarely
at his bachelor dinner-table with Misquith on his right and Jayne on his
left. It may even be taken as a principle that, where it is desired to
give to one character a special prominence and predominance, it ought,
if possible, to be the first figure on which the eye of the audience
falls. In a Sherlock Holmes play, for example, the curtain ought
assuredly to rise on the great Sherlock enthroned in Baker Street, with
Dr.
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