Well-Made Play

The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre | 1996 | 700+ words | Copyright

Well-Made Play, English version of une pièce bien faite, a label applied in early 19th-century France, at first in a complimentary sense, to plays written by dramatists skilled above all in putting together a plot. It soon took on a pejorative meaning, and came to be used ironically of all plays in which the action develops artificially, according to the strict laws of logic and not to the unpredictable demands of human nature; and in which the plot, to which the characters are completely subordinated, is conceived in terms of exposition, knot, and denouement, with a series of contrived climaxes to create suspense. It is commonly used in France of the works of Scribe and Sardou, and in Britain of such playwrights as Robertson, Jones, Pinero, Coward, and Rattigan. The well-made play was the chief target of Zola and other proponents of naturalism in France, and of Shaw's hostile criticism of productions in London from 1895 to 1898.

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PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Well-Made Play." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 30 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Well-Made Play." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (May 30, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-WellMadePlay.html

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Well-Made Play." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved May 30, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-WellMadePlay.html

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