t character, that is, with character that lacks
individuality and meaning and merely offers a peg upon which to hang a
series of happenings, results in primitive drama that, being destitute
of psychology, falls short of the finest and most serious possibilities
of the stage.

This portion of the play, then, intermediate between introduction and
climax, is very important and tries the dramatist's soul, in a way,
quite as truly as do beginning and end.

In a three-act play--which we may assume as normal, without forgetting
that four are often necessary to the best telling of the story, and that
five acts are still found convenient under certain circumstances, as in
Rostand's _Cyrano de Bergerac_ and Shaw's _Pygmalion_--the work of
development falls on the second act, in the main. The climax of action
is likely to be at the end of the act, although plays can be mentioned,
and good ones, where the playwright has seen fit to place his crucial
scene well on into act three. In this matter he is between two dangers
and must steer his course wisely to avoid the rocks of his Scylla and
Charybdis. If his climax come too soon, an effect of anti-climax is
likely to be made, in an act too long when the main stress is over. If,
on the other hand, he put his strongest effect at the end of the piece
or close to it, while the result is admirable in sustaining interest and
saving the best for the last, the close is apt to be too abrupt and
unfinished for the purposes of art; sending the audience out into the
street, dazed after the shock of the obligatory scene.

Therefore, the skillful playwright inclines to leave sufficient of the
play after the climax to make an agreeable rounding out of the fable,
tie up loose ends and secure an artistic effect of completing the whole
structure without tedium or anti-climax. He thus preserves unity, yet
escapes an impression of loose texture in the concluding part of his
play. It may be seen that this makes the final act a very special
problem in itself, a fact we shall consider in the later treatment.

And now, with the second-act portion of the play in mind, standing for
growth, increased tension, and an ever-greater interest, a peculiarity
of the play which differentiates it from the fiction-story can be
mentioned. It refers to the nature of the interest and the attitude of
the auditor toward the story.

In fiction, interest depends largely upon suspense due to the
uncertainty of the happening