But pieces of a
more ambitious order have been known to follow the same formula--some of
the works, for instance, of Mr. Charles McEvoy, to say nothing of Mr.
Bernard Shaw.
We may take it, I think, that the architectural analogy holds good of
every play which can properly be said to be "constructed." Construction
means dramatic architecture, or in other words, a careful
pre-arrangement of proportions and interdependencies. But to carry
beyond this point the analogy between the two arts would be fantastic
and unhelpful. The one exists in space, the other in time. The one seeks
to beget in the spectator a state of placid, though it may be of
aspiring, contemplation; the other, a state of more or less acute
tension. The resemblances between music and architecture are, as is well
known, much more extensive and illuminating. It might not be wholly
fanciful to call music a sort of middle term between the two other arts.
A great part of the secret of dramatic architecture lies in the one word
"tension.
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