Well-Made Play

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The Well-Made Play is a genre of theatre from the 19th century, codified by Eugène Scribe. It has a strong neo-classical flavor, involving a very tight plot and a climax that takes place very close to the end of the story, with most of the story taking place before the action of the play; much of the information regarding such previous action would be revealed through thinly veiled exposition. Following that would be a series of causally related plot complications. One of the hallmarks of the Well-Made Play is the use of letters or papers falling into unintended hands in order to bring about plot twists and climaxes. Following the recommendations found in Aristotle's POETICS, the letters must bring about an unexpected reversal of fortune, in which it is often revealed that someone is not who he/she pretends to be. The reversal will allow for a quick denouement, and a return to order, at which point the curtain falls.

Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest exaggerates many of the conventions of the well-made play, such as the missing papers conceit (the hero, as an infant, was confused with the manuscript of a novel) and a final revelation (which, in this play, occurs about thirty seconds before the final curtain).

Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House follows most of the conceits of the well-made play, but transcends the genre when, after incriminating papers are recovered, Nora (rather shockingly) rejects the expected return to normality. Several of Ibsen's subsequent plays seem to build on the general construction principles of the Well-Made Play. The Wild Duck (1884) can be seen as a deliberate, metatheatrical deconstruction of the Scribean formula.

Although George Bernard Shaw scorned the "well-made play" and actively attempted to create works which defied its conventions, his use of the General's coat and the hidden photograph in "Arms and the Man" generate the classic plot twist of a "well-made play".

Also, J. B. Priestley's 1946 'An Inspector Calls' may in some ways be considered a "well-made play" in that its action happens before the play starts, and in the case of the older Birlings no moral change takes place. The similarity between Priestley's play and this rather conservative genre might strike some readers/audiences as surprising because Priestley was a socialist. However, his play, like Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' transcends this genre by providing another plunge into chaos after the return to normality.