Songs for an Impossible Musical #12

Finale

Every curtain has to tumble.
Could our theatres also crumble?
Do I hear a grumbling rumble
Deep in the foundations?

Theatre audiences dwindle.
Which new plays today will kindle
Fear or pity? "It's a swindle,"
Say the TV generations.

Trained to trust no gesture bigger
Than a shrug, they have to snigger
When some robed exotic figure
Does actorly orations.

Everyone knows, everything passes,
Including stage doors and opera glasses;
And if theatre gives youth restless arses
What price recriminations?

If audience skills are now verging
On extinct, don't think that preachy urging
Helps at all. Just hope something's emerging
Maybe, in luckier nations.

Something beyond our understanding,
Something without the classic standing
That has so helped our theatre's blanding.
But a human, meeting congregations...

George Simmers

If you've any reflections, criticisms or comments, George Simmers would be pleased to hear from you.

{snakelogo} This is the last (thank goodness) in a series of
Songs for an Impossible Musical.