You cannot well have virtuosity of form where there is no form.
What he did was to rely upon his virtuosity of dialogue to enable him to
dispense with form. Whether he succeeded or not is a matter of opinion
which does not at present concern us. The point to be noted is the
essential difference between the formless continuity of _Getting
Married_, and the sedulous ordering and balancing of clearly
differentiated parts, which went to the structure of a Greek tragedy. A
dramatist who can so develop his story as to bring it within the
quasi-Aristotelean "unities" performs a curious but not particularly
difficult or valuable feat; but this does not, or ought not to, imply
the abandonment of the act-division, which is no mere convention, but a
valuable means of marking the rhythm of the story. When, on the other
hand, you have no story to tell, the act-division is manifestly
superfluous; but it needs no "virtuosity" to dispense with it.
It is a grave error, then, to suppose that the act is a mere division of
convenience, imposed by the limited power of attention of the human
mind, or by the need of the human body for occasional refreshment.
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