SOURCE: "Plays, Well-Constructed and Weil-Made," in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 58, No. 3, October, 1972, pp. 313-21.

In this essay, Giliespie differentiates the well-made play from the well-constructed play, using the distinction to critically evaluate Scribe's dramatic style.

Critical allusions to the plays of Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) are confused, ambiguous, and often contradictory. The literature surrounding this playwright discloses several curious situations. The name of Scribe is well known to students of the drama; the plays of Scribe are not. The success and esteem of Scribe in his own day were remarkable;¹ his subsequent reputation has been largely unfavorable.² Dramaturgical patterns which supposedly describe Scribe's practices are proposed;³ a substantial number of Scribe's plays do not fit the patterns.⁴ Eugene Scribe is the acknowledged "father" of something called the "well-made play"; the meaning of the phrase "well-made play" remains obscure, imprecisely defined, inadequately understood.

None of these problems...