I have laid stress on the importance of carrying forward the interest of
the audience because it is a detail that is often overlooked. There is,
as a rule, no difficulty in the matter, always assuming that the theme
be not inherently devoid of interest. One could mention many plays in
which the author has, from sheer inadvertence, failed to carry forward
the interest of the first act, though a very little readjustment, or a
trifling exercise of invention, would have enabled him to do so.
_Pillars of Society_, indeed, may be taken as an instance, though not a
very flagrant one. Such interest as we feel at the end of the first act
is vague and unfocused. We are sure that something is to come of the
return of Lona and Johan, but we have no inkling as to what that
something may be. If we guess that the so-called black sheep of the
family will prove to be the white sheep, it is only because we know that
it is Ibsen's habit to attack respectability and criticize accepted
moral values--it is not because of anything that he has told us, or
hinted to us, in the play itself.
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