at drama may be very
good, indeed, in most respects while falling short of the caliber we
demand of masterpieces.

With the opening act, then, so handled as to avoid these pitfalls, the
dramatist is ready to go on with his task. He has sufficiently aroused
the interest of his audience to give it a pleasurable sense of
entertainment ahead, without imparting so much knowledge as to leave too
little for guesswork and lessen the curiosity necessary for one who must
still spend an hour and a half in a place of bad air and too heated
temperature. He has awakened attention and directed it upon a theme and
story, yet left it tantalizingly but not confusingly incomplete. Now he
has before him the problem of unfolding his play and making it center in
the climactic scene which will make or mar the piece. We must observe,
then, how he develops his story in that part of the play intermediate
between the introduction and the crisis; the second act of a three-act
drama or the third if the four-act form be chosen.

CHAPTER VIII

DEVELOPMENT

The story being properly started, it becomes the dramatist's business,
as we saw, so to advance it that it will develop naturally and with such
increase of interest as to tighten the hold upon the audience as the
plot reaches its crucial point, the obligatory scene. This can only be
done by the sternest selection of those elements of story which can be
fitly shown on the stage, or without a loss of interest be inferred
clearly from off-stage occurrences. Since action is of the essence of
drama, all narrative must be shunned that deals with matters which,
being vital to the play and naturally dramatic material, can be
presented directly to the eye and ear. And character must be
economically handled, so that as it is revealed the revelation at the
same time furthers the story, pushing it forward instead of holding it
static while the character is being unfolded. Dialogue should always do
one of these two things and the best dialogue will do both: develop plot
in the very moment that it exhibits the unfolding psychology of the
_dramatis personae_. The fact that in the best modern work plot is for
the sake of character rather than the reverse does not violate this
principle; it simply redistributes emphasis. Character without plot may
possibly be attractive in the hands of a Galsworthy or Barker; but the
result is extremely likely to be tame and inconclusive. And,
contrariwise, plot withou