ACT II.—­THE COMPACT MAJORITY.—­Dr. Stockmann finds that he will have to fight vested interests before the evils he has discovered can be remedied, but is assured that the Compact Majority is at his back.

  ACT III.—­THE TURN OF FORTUNE.—­The Doctor falls from the pinnacle
  of his optimistic confidence, and learns that he will have the
  Compact Majority, not at, but on his back.

ACT IV.—­THE COMPACT MAJORITY ON THE WARPATH.—­The crowd, finding that its immediate interests are identical with those of the privileged few, joins with the bureaucracy in shouting down the truth, and organizing a conspiracy of silence.

ACT V.—­OPTIMISM DISILLUSIONED BUT INDOMITABLE.—­Dr. Stockmann, gagged and thrown back into poverty, is tempted to take flight, but determines to remain in his native place and fight for its moral, if not for its physical, sanitation.

Each of these acts is a little drama in itself, while each leads forward to the next, and marks a distinct phase in the development of the crisis.

When the younger Dumas asked his father, that master of dramatic movement, to initiate him into the secret of dramatic craftsmanship, the great Alexandre replied in this concise formula:  “Let your first act be clear, your last act brief, and the whole interesting.”  Of the wisdom of the first clause there can be no manner of doubt.  Whether incidentally or by way of formal exposition, the first act ought to show us clearly who the characters are, what are their relations and relationships, and what is the nature of the gathering crisis.  It is very important that the attention of the audience should not be overstrained in following out needlessly complex genealogies and kinships.  How often, at the end of a first act, does one turn to one’s neighbour and say, “Are Edith and Adela sisters or only half-sisters?” or, “Did you gather what was the villain’s claim to the title?” If a story cannot be made clear without an elaborate study of one or more family trees, beware of it.  In all probability, it is of very little use for dramatic purposes.  But before giving it up, see whether the relationships, and other relations, cannot be simplified.  Complexities which at first seemed indispensable will often prove to be mere useless encumbrances.

In Pillars of Society Ibsen goes as far as any playwright ought to go in postulating fine degrees of kinship—­and perhaps a little further.  Karsten Bernick has married into a family whose gradations put something of a strain on the apprehension and memory of an audience.  We have to bear in mind that Mrs. Bernick has (a) a half-sister, Lona Hessel; (b) a full brother, Johan Toennesen; (c) a cousin, Hilmar Toennesen.  Then Bernick has an unmarried sister, Martha; another relationship, however simple, to be borne in mind.  And, finally, when we see Dina Dorf living in Bernick’s house,