It is true that in the
Elizabethan theatre there was no need of long interacts for the change
of scenes, and that such interacts are an abuse that calls for remedy.
But we have abundant evidence that the act division was sometimes marked
on the Elizabethan stage, and have no reason to doubt that it was always
more or less recognized, and was present to Shakespeare's mind no less
than to Ibsen's or Pinero's.
Influenced in part, perhaps, by the Elizabethan theorists, but mainly by
the freakishness of his own genius, Mr. Bernard Shaw has taken to
writing plays in one continuous gush of dialogue, and has put forward,
more or less seriously, the claim that he is thereby reviving the
practice of the Greeks. In a prefatory note to _Getting Married_,
he says--
"There is a point of some technical interest to be noted in this
play. The customary division into acts and scenes has been disused,
and a return made to unity of time and place, as observed in the
ancient Greek drama.
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