Plays in this form produced conflict via the “quiproquo,” in which two characters would misinterpret the same situation in opposing ways. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this formulaic 19th-century dramatic genre developed by Eugène Scribe (“oo-zhen skreeb”) and popularized by Victorien Sardou.
ANSWER: well-made play [or pièce bien faite]
[10e] George Bernard Shaw criticized the well-made play in an essay titled for the “quintessence” of this author, which laments that his play A Doll’s House may be acted as a “melodrama or farcical comedy.”
ANSWER: Henrik Ibsen [or Henrik Johan Ibsen; accept “The Quintessence of Ibsenism”]
[10m] An author with this surname adapted his didactic novel The Lady of the Camellias as a well-made play. Another author with this surname drew on his African ancestry in the novel Georges.
ANSWER: Dumas [accept Alexandre Dumas fils or Alexandre Dumas père]
<Purdue, European Literature>