Masks and Minstrels of New Germany #229634

They must be songs you can sing. N extly, they must delight not merely a cultivated minority, but the average general public that simply wants to be entertained. Just as the In dependent Theatres succeeded in raising the wants of the playgoing public, so we hope, by introducing art into the variety-theatres, to better the general taste. Variety-theatres are as much typical expressions of our time and culture as electric street-cars. The townsman of to-day has, if you will permit the phrase, music-hall nerves; only rarely he troubles to follow great dramatic coherencies; he wants change variety. If, as artists, we wish to keep in touch with life itself, we must count on this realization.