The+Well-made+play.DH

The Well-Made Play

This style of play originated in France and was developed and perfected by a dramatist named Eugene Scribe.

A critic, George Bernard Shaw said of Scribe in a famous comment, "Why the devil should a man write like Scribe when he can write like Shakespeare or Molière, Aristophanes or Euripides?"

It is characterized by a methodological plot in which there was a strong build-up of suspense.Suspense was built through misunderstandings between characters, mistaken identities, secret information, and lost or stolen documents. The plot eventually resulted in a climax which after, all the conflicts are resolved.

Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House follows most of the conventions presented by Scribe, however, the protagonist of the play, Nora, does not return to normalaity through the rejection of the evidence presented to her. This differs from Scribe's formula as in Scribe's Well-made play, the characters resolve all of their conflicts and their life returns to normal.



Sources

"Eugene Scribe.jpg" //Wikimedia Commons//. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. .

"The Well-Made Play Criticism." //ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More.// Web. 11 Jan. 2011. . "Well-made Play (theatre) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia." //Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia//. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. []. ** The Well-made Play: ** A term used by French playwright Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) to describe a play with the following elements: 
 * a very tight PLOT that typically revolves around a missing element--letters, a lost or stolen document, and absent person. 
 * SUBPLOTS that are related to the missing element and add tension to the work. These subplots do not have to be substantial, and they often involve revelation of information, that is, who knows what at any given time in the story. 
 * a CLIMX or scene of revelation, in which the missing element is revealed. This scene often saves the hero of the play from ruin or embarrassment. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">
 * <span style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo4; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; font-size: 10pt;">a DÉNOUEMENT, or closing scene, in which explanations are supplied to resolve all the earlier questions or mysteries in the play. This scene is to follow soon after the climax. In French, the word means "untying" so the term suggests unraveling all the knotted conditions or circumstances in which the initial problems--and the plot--were based.