It is interesting to watch how playwrights nowadays try to steal the
thunder of the photoplay and experiment with time reversals on the
legitimate stage. We are esthetically on the borderland when a
grandfather tells his grandchild the story of his own youth as a
warning, and instead of the spoken words the events of his early years
come before our eyes. This is, after all, quite similar to a play
within a play. A very different experiment is tried in "Under Cover."
The third act, which plays on the second floor of the house, ends with
an explosion. The fourth act, which plays downstairs, begins a quarter
of an hour before the explosion. Here we have a real denial of a
fundamental condition of the theater. Or if we stick to recent products
of the American stage, we may think of "On Trial," a play which perhaps
comes nearest to a dramatic usurpation of the rights of the photoplay.
We see the court scene and as one witness after another begins to give
his testimony the courtroom is replaced by the scenes of the actions
about which the witness is to report. Another clever play, "Between the
Lines," ends the first act with a postman bringing three letters from
the three children of the house. The second, third, and fourth acts lead
us to the three different homes from which the letters came and the
action in the three places not only precedes the writing of the letters;
but goes on at the same time.
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