Very often, when
the curtain falls on a first or a second act, one says, "This is a
fairly good act in itself; but whither does it lead? what is to come of
it all?" It awakens no definite anticipation, and for two pins one would
take up one's hat and go home. The author has neglected the art of
carrying-forward the interest.
It is curious to note that in the most unsophisticated forms of
melodrama this art is deliberately ignored. In plays of the type of _The
Worst Woman in London_, it appears to be an absolute canon of art that
every act must have a "happy ending"--that the curtain must always fall
on the hero, or, preferably, the comic man, in an attitude of triumph,
while the villain and villainess cower before him in baffled impotence.
We have perfect faith, of course, that the villain will come up smiling
in the next act, and proceed with his nefarious practices; but, for the
moment, virtue has it all its own way. This, however, is a very artless
formula which has somehow developed of recent years; and it is doubtful
whether even the audiences to which these plays appeal would not in
reality prefer something a little less inept in the matter of
construction.
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