Publisher's Synopsis
From the INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
Six years ago dramatic conventionality exercised, an even greater tyranny than it does to-day, and British playgoers were less prepared than now to look favourably upon any effort to resist it. That the persons in a play should be dealt with according to the probabilities of actual life, when these clashed with the dictates of theatrical custom and "poetical justice," was not to be endured. The expectations of an audience were held sacred, and were not to be tampered with. They were as inexorable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and any dramatist who had the temerity to bring down his curtain without having first made all his sympathetic characters happy might expect little favour. But even at that time Mr. Pinero was always inclined to fly in the face of the theatrically conventional in some way or another, and he actually dared to write a play in which a young clergyman, for whom the deep sympathy of the audience was enlisted, was permitted to fall innocently and honourably in love with a married woman whom he had thought to be single, and to suffer pain on her account, without the husband being conveniently killed off in the last act to prepare the way for the clergyman's expected matrimonial happiness. And this play Mr. Pinero, having his own dramatic purpose in view, described as a comedy.
"The Hobby-Horse" was produced at the St. James's Theatre, under the management of Mr. Hare and Mr. Kendal, on October 23, 1886, and it was acted until February 26, 1887, one hundred and nine performances being given in all. The following is a copy of the programme of the first representation: -
ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.
Lessees and Managers, Mr. Hare and Mr. Kendal.
THIS EVENING, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23rd, 1886,
At 8 o'clock,
Will Be Acted
An Original Comedy In Three Acts, Called
THE HOBBY-HORSE
WRITTEN BY
A. W. PINERO.