The Dumb Show, Chorus, and Soliloquy are now outworn devices for setting forth necessary initial expository facts. Today any experienced dramatist knows that such preliminary exposition demands the art which conceals art, for an audience resents a mere recital of necessary facts. Examine the first act of Schnitzler’s The Lonely Way.[7] All of it is interesting for characterization and statement of facts essential to an understanding of the play, but it does not grip the attention as do the other acts where drama, not exposition, is of first consequence.
Early steps in advance on the Chorus were the butler and the maid servant, garrulously talking of what each must have known ever since he came into his position. A closely related form is unbosoming oneself to a male or female confidant.
ACT I
(Enter Hippolytus, Theramenes.)
Hippolytus. My mind is settled, dear Theramenes,
And I can stay not more in lovely Troezen.
In doubt that racks my soul with mortal anguish,
I grow ashamed of such long idleness.
Six months and more my father has been gone,