THE PROBLEM PLAYWRIGHT'S VADE MECUM.
Question. Has the Problem Play a solution?
Answer. Certainly; it answers the purposes of the author and the manager.
Q. From this I take it that it is invariably successful?
A. Well, it is never a failure; or, rather, hardly ever.
Q. Can you make your meaning a little plainer?
A. If it is not invariably a triumph of coin, it is a success of esteem. The house is crowded for a couple of months.
Q. And after?
A. The Problem Play is not expected to have an after.
Q. What is the essence of such a creation?
A. The unconventional treatment of the conventional.
Q. Give an example?
A. Two men tossing up for a lady. In Box and Cox the transaction was conducted with the assistance of a sixpence in the politest fashion imaginable; in a later version the affair could not be arranged without a pack of cards and much forcible language.
Q. Was the scene the same in both, like the situation?
A. No, in Box and Cox the spot was a second-floor back; in the other, the interior of an observatory on the summit of a mountain.
Q. Can you mention any other characteristic of the Problem Play?
A. The dramatist should be daring. People should say of his work that it would have surprised their parents and startled their grandmothers into fits.
Q. How can this desirable end be attained?
A. By the playwright causing his heroine to throw a pocket-bible into the fire, or perform some other act of parallel eccentricity.
Q. Should the heroine have any peculiarity?
A. As a rule she should be a woman with a past.
Q. But has not this type been worked to death?
A. It has certainly seen much service, to that the newest kind of heroine is to be preferred.
Q. What is the newest kind of heroine?
A. The woman who, without having a past, has, under the influence of drink, seriously damaged the possibility of enjoying a future.
Q. When does the leading situation arrive?
A. At the end of the second act. What goes before and comes after that climax is, to a large extent, immaterial.
Q. What is the customary fate of the heroine after the leading situation?
A. On rare occasions, suicide "off." But the usual exit is a retreat in rear of the clergy.
Q. What is the customary effect of the Problem Play?
A. That for a considerably longer time than nine days it is a wonder. Every one talks about it, and many see it during that period. When the wonder is exhausted according to precedent the cause of the amazement is forgotten.
Q. And, when this last season arrives, what does the author do?
A. A dramatist, having written one Problem Play, usually writes another.
