For this is not, in fact, the typical modern formula. In plays which do
not end in death, it will generally be found that the culminating scene
occurs in the penultimate act, and that, if anticlimax is avoided, it is
not by the maintenance of an unbroken tension, by its skilful renewal
and reinforcement in the last act. This is a resource which the
playwright will do well to bear in mind. Where he cannot place his
"great scene" in his last act, he should always consider whether it be
not possible to hold some development in reserve whereby the tension may
be screwed up again--if unexpectedly, so much the better. Some of the
most successful plays within my recollection have been those in which
the last act came upon us as a pleasant surprise. An anticlimax had
seemed inevitable; and behold! the author had found a way out of it.
_An Enemy of the People_ may perhaps be placed in this class, though, as
before remarked, the last act is almost an independent comedy. Had the
play ended with the fourth act, no one would have felt that anything was
lacking; so that in his fifth act, Ibsen was not so much grappling with
an urgent technical problem, as amusing himself by wringing the last
drop of humour out of the given situation.
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