The paint's barely dry on West 44th Street, an usher is counting programmes twice because he's lost count once, and 1,218 seats sit there smelling of plaster. Then they open the new house with Misalliance, a Shaw comedy that had gone down like a stone in London seven years before. Cut to 1917, New York, same play, new curtains. Brave, or just a good lease.
Constance, pity the pit on a Shaw night — overture, then an hour and a half of talk while the bass player counts ceiling tiles, then a little something under the curtain call. Nicest job in 1917 if your arms are tired.
Herbert J. Krapp did that house, and he was the man for sightlines rather than gilding — shallow balconies pushed forward, so the cheap seats aren't looking at the back of somebody's hat. The plaster smell fades, the angles don't. 1917 was a busy year for him.
Shaw stuck a preface on Misalliance that runs longer than parts of the play itself — the one about parents and children — and he wasn't embarrassed about it; he wanted readers who'd never sit in a theatre. I've two copies of the collected prefaces on the shelf; one is falling apart, which tells you people did read them.