e seems to have
believed that it did not matter much how dull the first act might be,
since the spectators had paid their money and would not abandon hope
until they had seen at least the second act, in which he sought always
to grip their interest.

In the 'League of Youth,' the earliest of his social dramas, Ibsen
follows in Scribe's footsteps; and the first act is little more than a
preparatory prolog. In this play the whole story is set forth in action
in the play itself; but in the following dramas, 'Pillars of Society'
and 'A Doll's House' Ibsen reveals his tendency to deal with the results
of deeds which took place before he begins the play itself. In other
words, he suppresses his prolog, preferring to plunge at once into his
action; and this forces him to modify Scribe's leisurely method. He does
not mass his explanations all in the earlier scenes; he scatters them
thruout the first act, and sometimes he even postpones them to the
later acts. But he is careful to supply information before it is needed,
adroitly letting out in the first scene what is required for the
understanding of the second scene, and artfully revealing in the second
scene what must be known before the third scene can be appreciated.

This method is less simple than Scribe's; it is not only more difficult,
it may be dangerous; but when it is managed successfully it lends to the
drama a swift directness delightful to all who relish a mastery of form.
In 'Ghosts,' for example, the play which is acted before us is little
more than a long fifth act, in three tense scenes; and the knowledge of
what had happened in the past is ingeniously communicated to the
audience at the very moment when the information is felt to be most
significant. But in 'Rosmersholm,' strong as the drama is and fine as
its technic is, Ibsen's method seems to be at fault in that we learn too
late what it would have interested us greatly to know earlier. It is
only at the end almost that we are allowed to perceive what were
_Rebecca West's_ real intentions in coming to Rosmersholm and how the
influence of the house itself has transformed her. When the curtain
rises she is presented to us already a changed woman; and we are at a
loss to understand her motives for the evil deeds she has wrought, until
we are told at last that she once was far different from what she now
is. Here Ibsen loses more than he gains by abandoning the simpler method
of massing his exposition in the e