Details
SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. One typed letter signed and one autograph letter signed (both "G. Bernard Shaw") to the actor Harry Nicholls, Ayot St Lawrence and London, 26 July and 29 November 1912. 2 pages, 12mo and small 4to (for the autograph letter), usual fold creases, in a half morocco slipcase (defective). [With] a copy of Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion, London: Constable, 1907, small 8vo, original green cloth, uncut, a bit soiled and rubbed, First Separate Edition?, Harry Nicholl's prompt copy (he played the part of Felix Drinkwater in Gertrude Kingston's revival of the play, directed by Shaw himself, at the Little Theatre, London, opening 15 October 1912), with extensive pencilled marginal notes and markings by him.
"THEY...ALL...PLAY FOR THE LAUGHS INSTEAD OF FOR THE DOLLARS"
Some six weeks into the run of Captain Brassbound's Conversion, Shaw critiques Nicholls's performance (in the autograph letter): "Brassbound is wobbling in a very unsatisfactory way: something's wrong with it. I looked in some time ago...Stick to the character and don't trouble about the laughs: everyone knows you can make an audience laugh any time you like; but now that you are an established classic, it is your naturalness & grasp of character that they want from you. All the rest of it is fine as far as you are concerned; but they all are a bit disposed to play for the laughs instead of for the dollars; and that always means a failure with my plays, because the public does not feel that the play is in earnest; and all the laughs in the world won't get over that feeling. It's fatal. I am like yourself, a little too fond of a joke, and you must keep our serious side up as much as you can, or we shall be one another's ruin." With a draft of an autograph letter signed from Nicholls to Shaw in response to Shaw's criticism, 2 December 1912, 1 page, small 4to. (4)
"THEY...ALL...PLAY FOR THE LAUGHS INSTEAD OF FOR THE DOLLARS"
Some six weeks into the run of Captain Brassbound's Conversion, Shaw critiques Nicholls's performance (in the autograph letter): "Brassbound is wobbling in a very unsatisfactory way: something's wrong with it. I looked in some time ago...Stick to the character and don't trouble about the laughs: everyone knows you can make an audience laugh any time you like; but now that you are an established classic, it is your naturalness & grasp of character that they want from you. All the rest of it is fine as far as you are concerned; but they all are a bit disposed to play for the laughs instead of for the dollars; and that always means a failure with my plays, because the public does not feel that the play is in earnest; and all the laughs in the world won't get over that feeling. It's fatal. I am like yourself, a little too fond of a joke, and you must keep our serious side up as much as you can, or we shall be one another's ruin." With a draft of an autograph letter signed from Nicholls to Shaw in response to Shaw's criticism, 2 December 1912, 1 page, small 4to. (4)