well-made play

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English

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Etymology

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Calque of French pièce bien faite, developed by the French dramatist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861).

Noun

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well-made play (plural well-made plays)

  1. A play belonging to a 19th-century neoclassical theatrical genre involving a tight plot and a climax close to the end. The story depends upon a key piece of information kept from some characters, and moves forward in a chain of actions that use minor reversals of fortune to create suspense.
    • 1983, George Stade, European Writers: The Romantic century[1], Charles Baudelaire to the well-made play, Scribner, →ISBN:
      Ultimately Ibsen denies the basic philosophy of the well-made play, that there is meaning and progress in time, and that all human beings are rational creatures, subject to the reassuring process of cause and effect.