The Black Cat

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The Black Cat

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Title: The Black Cat A Play in Three Acts
Author: John Todhunter
Release Date: December 4, 2005 [EBook #17218]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BLACK CAT ***

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THE BLACK CAT. A PLAY IN THREE ACTS BY JOHN
TODHUNTER. FIRST ACTED AT THE INDEPENDENT THEATRE
IN LONDON.

LONDON: HENRY AND CO. 93, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, W.C. 1895
_Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

Preface.
Mr. Grein has asked me to write a preface to THE BLACK CAT. I
cannot myself see much occasion for this. Why should an author be
called upon to make a speech before the curtain? Because, I presume,
people want to have something to talk about besides the play itself, and
an author must surely have "views." Well, it is a day of views--and of
talk.
THE BLACK CAT was produced at the Opera Comique on December
8th, 1893, at one of the Independent Theatre Society's performances. It
had a certain _succès d'estime_ before a special audience, for whom,
however, it was not written; and it has not been performed since.
The critics were wonderfully kind. They actually praised the play; some
reluctantly, some with a reckless enthusiasm which quite astonished me.
I had expected a much less pleasant reception.
The main objection they made to the thing was that it had a tragic
ending, which they kindly suggested I had tacked on to my comedy, to
appeal to the morbid taste of an "Independent" audience. Unfortunately
I had done nothing of the kind. The play was conceived before the
Independent Theatre had come into existence. The end was foreseen
from the beginning; the tragedy being implicit in the subject. The tragic
motive lay deeper than the death of the heroine, who might have been
allowed to live, if that last symbolic pageantry had not had its dramatic
fitness. Given the characters and the circumstances, the end is the
absolutely right one.
Of course the circumstances might have been altered, and a sort of
reconciliation patched up between husband and wife. But this would be
a somewhat flat piece of cynicism, only justifiable on the ground taken
by the Telegraph, that modern actors cannot play, and ought not to be

expected to play, modern tragedy.
The conventional "happy ending" demanded by sentimental critics to
suit the taste of sentimental playgoers, the divided parents left weeping
in each other's arms over the recovered child, would also be quite
possible. But surely even a modern dramatist may for once be allowed
to preserve a grain of respect for nature and dramatic art? This would
be an outrage against both. It would not be decent comedy, it would be
mere burlesque, as sentimentality always is to the judicious.
The only other alternative I see is the exodus of the wife, with or
without her child; or of the husband, with or without his mistress. But
this would be rank Ibsenism, and outrage British morality, which would
be still more dreadful. Only a "practical dramatist" could cut the
Gordian knot, and at the last moment introduce the erring Mrs.
Tremaine, still charming in the garb of a Sister of Mercy, to bring down
the curtain upon a tableau of Woman returning to her Duty, and Man to
his Morality. And I, alas! am not a "practical dramatist."
Still, if the play had been an experiment, I might have further
experimented with it, and rehandled its ending. But it was not in its
main lines an experiment. It was a thing seen and felt; and so it must
remain, in its printed form, at least--"a poor thing," it may be, "but
mine own!"
After the performance, came the managers, wanting to see the play, and
asking why I had not shown it to them before. Well, it never occurred
to me that any of them would seriously have considered the production
of a piece so far off the ordinary lines. They had not, like the
enterprising Director of the Independent Theatre, undertaken the
dreadful trade of educating the public. As a matter of fact, they fought
shy of a piece in which "the new hysteria" was studied, and which
ended badly, or at least sadly.
A Comedy of Sighs, produced at the