Too long the tragic muse has awed the stage, And frightened wives and children with her rage. Too long Drakassir roars, Parthenope weeps, While every lady cries, and Critic sleeps. With ghosts, rapes, murders, tender hearts they wound, Or else, like thunder, terrify with sound. When the skilled actress to her weeping eyes, With artful sigh the handkerchief applies, How grieved each sympathizing nymph appears, And box and gallery both melt in tears. Or when in armor of Corinthian brass, Heroic actor stares you in the face, And cries aloud with emphasis that's fit On liberty, freedom, liberty, and Britain. While frowning, gaping for applause he stands, What generous Britain can refuse his hands, Like the tame animals designed for show, You have your cues to clap as they to bow. Taught to commend, your judgments have no share, By chance you guess a right, by chance you err. But handkerchiefs and Britain laid aside, Tonight we mean to laugh and not to chide. In days of yore, when fools were held in fashion, Though now, alas, all banished from the nation, A merry jester had reformed his lord, Who would have sworn the sterner stoic's word. Bred in Democritus, his laughing schools, Our author's lies set her glockitus rules. No tears, no terror plead in his behalf, The aim of farce is but to make you laugh. Beneath the tragic or the comic name, Farses and puppet shows ne 'er miss of fame. Since then, in borrowed dress, they've pleased the town, Condemned them not, appearing in their own. Smiles we expect from the good -natured few, As ye are done by, ye malicious, do, And kindly laugh at him who laughs at you. Persons in the Farse Luckless, the author and master of the show. Read by Adrian Stevens Whitmore, his friend. Read by Greg Giordano Marplay, Sr. Comedian Read by R. Mapstone Marplay, Jr. Comedian Read by Avayee Book -Waite, a bookseller. Read by Todd Scarecrow, a scribbler. Read by David Purdy Dash, a scribbler. Read by Joanna Michael Hoyt Quibble, a scribbler. Read by Grace Buchanan Blot page, a scribbler. Read by Sandra Index, read by Andrew Gontz Jack, servant to Luckless. Read by Jim Locke Jack Pudding, read by Thomas Peter Phantomite, read by Grace Buchanan Mrs. Moneywood, the author's landlady. Read by Sonia Harriet Moneywood, her daughter. Read by Devorah Allen Persons in the puppet show A Player, read by Alan Mapstone Constable, read by Jim Hedrick The Goddess of Nonsense, read by Kelly Taylor Sharon, read by Sandra Schmidt Curry, a bookseller. Read by Todd Poet, read by Sandra Signior Opera, read by Jake Milizia Dung Tragedio, read by Joanna Michael Hoyt Sir Fossical Comic, read by Jim Hedrick Dr. Orator, read by Algy Pug Mrs. Novel, read by Avaii Rob Rafe, the sexton. Read by Hannah Ponomarenko Sailor, read by David Purdy Somebody, read by Joanna Michael Hoyt Nobody, read by Sonia Punch, read by Alan Mapstone Joan, read by Michelle Eaton