Getting Married
N.B.--There is a point of some technical interest to be noted
in this play. The customary division into acts and scenes has
been disused, and a return made to unity of time and place, as
observed in the ancient Greek drama. In the foregoing tragedy,
The Doctor's Dilemma, there are five acts; the place is altered
five times; and the time is spread over an undetermined period
of more than a year. No doubt the strain on the attention of
the audience and on the ingenuity of the playwright is much
less; but I find in practice that the Greek form is inevitable
when drama reaches a certain point in poetic and intellectual
evolution. Its adoption was not, on my part, a deliberate
display of virtuosity in form, but simply the spontaneous
falling of a play of ideas into the form most suitable to it,
which turned out to be the classical form. Getting Married, in
several acts and scenes, with the time spread over a long
period, would be impossible. (GBS)
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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