Thérèse Raquin is a new departure, but since it is adapted from a novel it is still not perfect in form. The author has had the feeling, however, that through greater unity of place his audience would receive a more complete illusion, by which the action would impress its main feature more forcefully on the spectators. At every curtain rise, the spectator had to be haunted by the memories of the preceding act and thus through the impact of the recurring milieu be captivated by the action. But because of the difficulty in having a before and after the crime sequence, Zola commits the error of letting a year elapse between the first and second acts. Presumably he did not dare offend against the prevailing law about a year's widowhood, otherwise a day between the acts would have been enough, and the play would have made a more unified impression. I therefore once suggested to a director of a theatre, whom I wanted to persuade to produce Thérèse Raquin, that he remove the first act. This can be done without any harm to the play, and recently I have seen a deceased French Zolaist make the same suggestion in a work on naturalism.

With Renée, Zola seems to have returned to the form of the traditional Parisian comedy, with greater leaps in time and space than are compatible with the difficulty which a modern skeptical mind feels in allowing itself to be tricked into a belief in the conventions of the theatre. At the same time psychology is neglected in this play; the portrayal of character is superficial, and the whole thing is sketchy and melodramatic, which may be the usual result of adapting novels to the stage.


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