more delicate and unemphatic art
eludes this danger, at any rate in _Strife_. We do not remember until
all is over that his characters represent classes, and his action is,
one might almost say, a sociological symbol. If, then, the theme does,
as a matter of fact, come first in the author's conception, he will do
well either to make it patently and confessedly dominant, as in the
_proverbe_, or to take care that, as in _Strife_, it be not suffered to
make its domination felt, except as an afterthought.[2] No outside force
should appear to control the free rhythm of the action.

The theme may sometimes be, not an idea, an abstraction or a principle,
but rather an environment, a social phenomenon of one sort or another.
The author's primary object in such a case is, not to portray any
individual character or tell any definite story, but to transfer to the
stage an animated picture of some broad aspect or phase of life, without
concentrating the interest on any one figure or group. There are
theorists who would, by definition, exclude from the domain of drama any
such cinematograph-play, as they would probably call it; but we shall
see cause, as we go on, to distrust definitions, especially when they
seek to clothe themselves with the authority of laws. Tableau-plays of
the type here in question may even claim classical precedent. What else
is Ben Jonson's _Bartholomew Fair_? What else is Schiller's
_Wallensteins Lager_? Amongst more recent plays, Hauptmann's _Die Weber_
and Gorky's _Nachtasyl_ are perhaps the best examples of the type. The
drawback of such themes is, not that they do not conform to this or that
canon of art, but that it needs an exceptional amount of knowledge and
dramaturgic skill to handle them successfully. It is far easier to tell
a story on the stage than to paint a picture, and few playwrights can
resist the temptation to foist a story upon their picture, thus marring
it by an inharmonious intrusion of melodrama or farce. This has often
been done upon deliberate theory, in the belief that no play can exist,
or can attract playgoers, without a definite and more or less exciting
plot. Thus the late James A. Herne inserted into a charming idyllic
picture of rural life, entitled _Shore Acres_, a melodramatic scene in a
lighthouse, which was hopelessly out of key with the rest of the play.
The dramatist who knows any particular phase of life so thoroughly as to
be able to transfer its characteristic incid