Publisher's Synopsis
From the INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
"The Magistrate" is, after " Sweet Lavender," perhaps the most popular of Mr. Pinero's plays, and it is particularly interesting as being the first of his works in which his own individuality found absolutely independent expression, and emphatically and triumphantly asserted itself. In fact, this farce marks an epoch in the dramatist's career, and shows him creating a really new and original order of English comic play, the further development of which may be traced in the successive plays which, together with "The Magistrate," formed the famous Court series of farces, namely, "The Schoolmistress," "Dandy Dick," and "The Cabinet Minister."
Because Mr. Pinero had previously written "The Rocket," and " In Chancery," for Mr. Edward Terry, who has performed them times out of number in London and the provinces with considerable success, it has been assumed that "The Magistrate" was also written for Mr. Terry. But this was not the case. As a matter of fact Mr. Pinero wrote the play quite independently, and on its completion he was to have read it fo Mr. Charles Wyndham, but the necessities of the Court Theatre intervened. The management of the late Mr. John Clayton and Arthur Cecil was decidedly in low water in 1884 and the earlier part of 1885; play after play had been produced without success, when at length application was made to Mr. Pinero for a new piece. They had been performing serious plays, and he read them "The Weaker Sex," which he had written some little time before; but Mr. Clayton felt uncertain about this play, which, by the way, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal have since produced, and then Mr. Pinero, mentioning the new comic play he had just finished, suggested that perhaps an entirely new order of entertainment might serve to change the fortunes of the house. "The Magistrate" was immediately accepted and produced, and his conjecture proved correct, for the luck of the theatre promptly turned.
"The Magistrate" was produced at the Court Theatre on Saturday, March 21, 1885.
