een the
culmination in the third act and the catastrophe in the fifth.]

[Footnote 3: I think it may be said that the majority of modern serious
plays are in four acts. It is a favourite number with Sir Arthur Pinero,
Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. Clyde Fitch, and Mr. Alfred Sutro.]

[Footnote 4: This must not be taken to mean that in no case is a change
of scene within the act advisable. The point to be considered is whether
the author does or does not want to give the audience time for
reflection--time to return to the real world--between two episodes. If
it is of great importance that they should not do so, then a rapid
change of scene may be the less of two evils. In this case the lights
should be kept lowered in order to show that no interact is intended;
but the fashion of changing the scene on a pitch-dark stage, without
dropping the curtain, is much to be deprecated. If the revolving stage
should ever become a common institution in English-speaking countries,
dramatists would doubtless be more tempted than they are at present to
change their scenes within the act; but I doubt whether the tendency
would be wholly advantageous. No absolute rule, however, can be laid
down, and it may well be maintained that a true dramatic artist could
only profit by the greater flexibility of his medium.]

[Footnote 5: He was, in the first draft; and Lona Hessel was only a
distant relative of Bernick's.]

[Footnote 6: The Greeks, who knew most things, knew the value of
manageable dimensions and simple structure in a work of art, and had a
word to express that combination of qualities--the word _eusynopton_.]

_CHAPTER IX_

"CURIOSITY" AND "INTEREST"

The paradox of dramatic theory is this: while our aim is, of course, to
write plays which shall achieve immortality, or shall at any rate become
highly popular, and consequently familiar in advance to a considerable
proportion of any given audience, we are all the time studying how to
awaken and to sustain that interest, or, more precisely, that curiosity,
which can be felt only by those who see the play for the first time,
without any previous knowledge of its action. Under modern conditions
especially, the spectators who come to the theatre with their minds an
absolute blank as to what is awaiting them, are comparatively few; for
newspaper criticism and society gossip very soon bruit abroad a general
idea of the plot of any play which attains a reasonable measure of
su