[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—May I give you
another playgoer's impressions of the epilogue to St. Joan ? I read the play three times before I saw it, and each time, in the bodiles-sness of print, was enchanted with the ending. Its characteristic Shavian " salt "----for one cannot call cynicism his rendering of the old truism about the sepulchres of the prophets, nor yet the " wise fool's " remark that if Joan were to return she would be burnt again in six months- -- seemed to me to round off the wonderful story, and complete its setting in the eternal fabric of self-repeating history. On the stage, I admit, it was a great disappointment. Still, I venture to think that what is required is not Mr. Shaw's scissors, but a stagecraft that would overcome the present crudity of presentment, and give the ghosts with something more of " ghostliness." --I am, Sir, &c., X.
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