violated; nor am I at all sure, being a product of this
generation, but that we should be quite right.

Matters standing as they do, then, it seems to me that the talk
we frequently hear about reviving "the art of the one-act play"
by restoring the curtain raisers or afterpieces to the programs
of our theatres is reactionary and futile. All recent attempts to
pad out a slim play with an additional short one have failed to
meet with approval, even when the short piece was so masterly a
work as Barrie's "The Will," splendidly acted by John Drew, or
the same author's "Twelve Pound Look," acted by Miss Barrymore.
Nor is it at all certain that the one-act plays of our parents
and grandparents and great-grandparents, the names of which you
may read by the thousands on ancient playbills, added anything to
the store of dramatic literature. Some of them are decently
entombed in the catacombs of Lacy's British Drama, or still
available for amateurs in French's library. Did you ever try to
read one? Of course, there was "Box and Cox," but it is doubtful
if there will be any great celebration at the tercentenary of
Morton's death. For the most part, those ancient afterpieces were
frankly padding, conventional farces to fill up the bill and send
the audiences home happy. To the real art of the drama or the
development of the one-act play as a form of serious literary
expression, they made precious little contribution. They were a
theatrical tradition, a convention.

But the one-act play, nonetheless, has an obvious right to
existence, as much as the short story, and there are plentiful
proofs that it can be as terse, vivid, and significant. Most
novelists don't tack on a short story at the end of their books