It is far easier to tell
a story on the stage than to paint a picture, and few playwrights can
resist the temptation to foist a story upon their picture, thus marring
it by an inharmonious intrusion of melodrama or farce. This has often
been done upon deliberate theory, in the belief that no play can exist,
or can attract playgoers, without a definite and more or less exciting
plot. Thus the late James A. Herne inserted into a charming idyllic
picture of rural life, entitled _Shore Acres_, a melodramatic scene in a
lighthouse, which was hopelessly out of key with the rest of the play.
The dramatist who knows any particular phase of life so thoroughly as to
be able to transfer its characteristic incidents to the stage, may be
advised to defy both critical and managerial prejudice, and give his
tableau-play just so much of story as may naturally and inevitably fall
within its limits.
One of the most admirable and enthralling scenes I ever saw on any stage
was that of the Trafalgar Square suffrage meeting in Miss Elizabeth
Robins's _Votes for Women_.
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