To read a one-act play merely to get its story is not in itself an exercise of any extraordinary value. This sort of approach to any form of literature does not require much appreciation of . literary art nor much intelligence. Almost any normal-minded person can read a play for its story with but little expenditure of mental effort. Proper appreciation of a one-act play requires more than a casual reading whose chief aim is no more than getting the plot.

If the shorter form of drama is to be appreciated properly as a real literary form, it must be approached from the point of view of its artistry and technique. This means that the student should understand its organic construction and technique, just as he should understand the organic construction and technique of a short story, a ballad, or a perfect sonnet, if he is to appreciate them properly.

The student should know what the dramatist intends to get across the footlights to his audience, and should be able to detect how he accomplishes the desired result.

It must not be thought that the author urges a study of construction at the expense of the human values m a play. On the contrary, such a study is but the means whereby the human values are made the more manifest. Surely no one would argue that the less one knows about the technique of music the better able is one to appreciate music. Indeed, it is not too much to say that, within reasonable limits, no one can really appreciate a one-act play if one does not know at least the fundamentals of its dramatic organization.

In fact, students of the one-act play recognize in its constructive regularity not a hindrance to its beauty but a genuine power. This but lends to it the charm of perfection. The sonnet and the cameo are admirable, if for no other reason than their superior workmanship. The one-act play does not lose by any reason of its technical requirements; indeed, this is one of its greatest assets. And the student who will take the pains to familiarize himself with the organic construction of a typical one-act play will have gone a long way in arriving at a proper appreciation of this shorter form of drama.