Every complexity of relation or
of antecedent circumstance is in itself a weakness, which, if it cannot
be eliminated, must, so to speak, be lived down. No dramatic critic, I
think, can have failed to notice that the good plays are those of which
the story can be clearly indicated in ten lines; while it very often
takes a column to give even a confused idea of the plot of a bad play.
Here, then, is a preliminary test which may be commended to the would-be
playwright, in order to ascertain whether the subject he is
contemplating is or is not a good one: can he state the gist of it in a
hundred words or so, like the "argument" of a Boccaccian novella? The
test, of course, is far from being infallible; for a theme may err on
the side of over-simplicity or emptiness, no less than on the side of
over-complexity. But it is, at any rate, negatively useful: if the
playwright finds that he cannot make his story comprehensible without a
long explanation of an intricate network of facts, he may be pretty sure
that he has got hold of a bad theme, or of one that stands sorely in
need of simplification.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208