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The Black Cat was produced at the Opera Comique on December 8th,
1893, at one of the Independent Theatre Society's performances. It
had a certain success before a special audience, for whom, however,
it was not written; and it has not been performed since. The
critics were wonderfully kind. They actually praised the play; some
reluctantly, some with a reckless enthusiasm which quite astonished
me. I had expected a much less pleasant reception. The main
objection they made to the thing was that it had a tragic ending,
which they kindly suggested I had tacked on to my comedy, to appeal
to the morbid taste of an Independent audience. Unfortunately I had
done nothing of the kind. The play was conceived before the
Independent Theatre had come into existence. The end was foreseen
from the beginning; the tragedy being implicit in the subject. The
tragic motive lay deeper than the death of the heroine, who might
have been allowed to live, if that last symbolic pageantry had not
had its dramatic fitness. Given the characters and the
circumstances, the end is the absolutely right one. reconciliation
patched up between husband and wife. But this would be a somewhat
flat piece of cynicism, only justifiable on the ground taken by the
Telegraph, that modern actors cannot play, and ought not to be
expected to play, modern tragedy. -- from the author's preface
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