English

well-made play

A play belonging to a 19th-century neoclassical theatrical genre involving a tight plot and a climax close to the end. The story depends upon a key piece of information kept from some characters, and moves forward in a chain of actions that use minor reversals of fortune to create suspense.

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    Origin

    Calque of French pièce bien faite, developed by the French dramatist Eugène Scribe (1791–1861).

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • calqueFrenchpièce bien faite

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