Plays: Well‐complicated

Well‐Made Play is a term frequently used but inadequately defined. According to critics, Eugene Scribe, the acknowledged “Father of the Well‐Made Play,” used “lots of plot.” The implication seems to be that the number and development of complications within his plays is a significant factor in characterizing them as well‐made.A methodical investigation of complication, crisis, and denouement in Scribe's plays reveals certain recurring features: multilinear plots with complications developed in sequence, assault, or frame patterns, usually building to an intermediate or late crisis. Discovery of these patterns provides one component of an eventual definition of the well‐made play and suggests an explanation for the so‐called mechanical or machine‐like plots attributed to Scribe.