Watson sitting at his feet. The solitary entrance of Richard III
throws his figure into a relief which could by no other means have been
attained. So, too, it would have been a mistake on Sophocles' part to
let any one but the protagonist open the _Oedipus Rex_.
So long as the fashion of late dinners continues, however, it must
remain a measure of prudence to let nothing absolutely essential to the
comprehension of a play be said or done during the first ten minutes
after the rise of the curtain. Here, again, _A Doll's House_ may be
cited as a model, though Ibsen, certainly, had no thought of the British
dinner-hour in planning the play. The opening scene is just what the
ideal opening scene ought to be--invaluable, yet not indispensable. The
late-comer who misses it deprives himself of a preliminary glimpse into
the characters of Nora and Helmer and the relation between them; but he
misses nothing that is absolutely essential to his comprehension of the
play as a whole.
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