The interest of Mr. Landon's play lay almost wholly in the story. There
was just enough character in it to keep the story going, so to speak.
The author might, on the other hand, have concentrated our attention on
character, and made his play a soul-tragedy; but in that case it would
doubtless have been necessary to take us some way backward in the
heroine's antecedents and the history of her marriage. In other words,
if the play had gone deeper into human nature, the preliminaries of the
crisis would have had to be traced in some detail, possibly in a first
act, introductory to the actual opening, but more probably, and better,
in an exposition following the crisply touched _einleitende Akkord_.
This brings us to the question how an exposition may best be managed.
It may not unreasonably be contended, I think, that, when an exposition
cannot be thoroughly dramatized--that is, wrung out, in the stress of
the action, from the characters primarily concerned--it may best be
dismissed, rapidly and even conventionally, by any not too improbable
device.
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