The point to be observed is that, under modern conditions, it is difficult to produce a play of very complex psychological, moral, or emotional substance, in which the whole crisis comes within the frame of the picture.  The method of attacking the crisis in the middle or towards the end is really a device for relaxing, in some measure, the narrow bounds of theatrical representation, and enabling the playwright to deal with a larger segment of human experience.  It may be asked why modern conditions should in this respect differ from Elizabethan conditions, and why, if Shakespeare could produce such profound and complex tragedies as Othello and King Lear without a word of exposition or retrospect, the modern dramatist should not go and do likewise?  The answer to this question is not simply that the modern dramatist is seldom a Shakespeare.  That is true, but we must look deeper than that.  There are, in fact, several points to be taken into consideration.  For one thing—­this is a minor point—­Shakespeare had really far more elbow-room than the playwright of to-day. Othello and King Lear, to say nothing of Hamlet, are exceedingly long plays.  Something like a third of them is omitted in modern representation; and when we speak of their richness and complexity of characterization, we do not think simply of the plays as we see them compressed into acting limits, but of the plays as we know them in the study.  It is possible, no doubt, for modern playwrights to let themselves go in the matter of length, and then print their plays with brackets or other marks to show the “passages omitted in representation.”  This is, however, essentially an inartistic practice, and one cannot regret that it has gone out of fashion.  Another point to be considered is this:  are Othello and Lear really very complex character-studies?  They are extremely vivid:  they are projected with enormous energy, in actions whose violence affords scope for the most vehement self-expression; but are they not, in reality, colossally simple rather than complex?  It is true that in Lear the phenomena of insanity are reproduced with astonishing minuteness and truth; but this does not imply any elaborate analysis or demand any great space.  Hamlet is complex; and were I “talking for victory,” I should point out that Hamlet is, of all the tragedies, precisely the one which does not come within the frame of the picture.  But the true secret of the matter does not lie here:  it lies in the fact that Hamlet unpacks his heart to us in a series of soliloquies—­a device employed scarcely at all in the portrayal of Othello and Lear, and denied to the modern dramatist.[1] Yet again, the social position and environment of the great Shakespearean characters is taken for granted.  No time is spent in “placing” them in a given stratum of society, or in establishing their heredity, traditions, education, and so forth.  And, finally, the very copiousness of expression permitted