I am not claiming superiority for either
method; I merely point to a good example of two different ways of
attacking the same problem.
In _The Benefit of the Doubt_, by Sir Arthur Pinero, we have a crisply
dramatic opening of the very best type. A few words from a contemporary
criticism may serve to indicate the effect it produced on a first-night
audience--
We are in the thick of the action at once, or at least in the thick
of the interest, so that the exposition, instead of being, so to
speak, a mere platform from which the train is presently to start,
becomes an inseparable part of the movement. The sense of dramatic
irony is strongly and yet delicately suggested. We foresee a
"peripety," apparent prosperity suddenly crumbling into disaster,
within the act itself; and, when it comes, it awakens our sympathy
and redoubles our interest.
Almost the same words might be applied to the opening of _The Climbers_,
by the late Clyde Fitch, one of the many individual scenes which make
one deeply regret that Mr.
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