This was certainly not an economical form of exposition, but it
was not unsuited to the type of play.]
[Footnote 4: In that charming comedy, _Rosemary_, by Messrs. Parker and
Carson, there is a gap of fifty years between the last act and its
predecessor; but the so-called last act is only an "epi-monologue."]
[Footnote 5: Or at most two closely connected characters: for instance,
a husband and wife.]
_CHAPTER VIII_
THE FIRST ACT
Both in the theory and in practice, of late years, war has been declared
in certain quarters against the division of a play into acts. Students
of the Elizabethan stage have persuaded themselves, by what I believe to
be a complete misreading of the evidence, that Shakespeare did not, as
it were, "think in acts," but conceived his plays as continuous series
of events, without any pause or intermission in their flow. It can, I
think, be proved beyond any shadow of doubt that they are wrong in this;
that the act division was perfectly familiar to Shakespeare, and was
used by him to give to the action of his plays a rhythm which ought not,
in representation, to be obscured or falsified.
Pages:
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185