Browning and the Dramatic Monologue Part 21

The interpretation of the monologue thus brings us to a unique form of what may be called platform action, demanding specific attention. If the interpreter is not supposed to speak directly to his audience but to address an imaginary hearer, where must this imaginary hearer be located, and why there? Usually somewhat to one side. Only in this way can the speaker suggest his differing relations to listener and audience.

The suggestion of these relations is an aspect of expression frequently overlooked. In society or on the street it is not polite to talk to any one over the shoulder, and turning the back upon a man repels him most effectively. The turning away of the body may show contempt or inattention. It may, however, also show subjectivity and indicate the fact that the man is turning his attention within to ponder upon the subject another has mentioned, or is reflecting on what he is going to say.

Attention is the basis of all expression, and the first cause of all action, since we turn our attention toward a person and listen to what he has to say before we speak to him. Accordingly, pivotal action of the body is important in life, and is of great importance in all forms of dramatic art, whether on the stage or in the rendering of a monologue.

A speaker, especially a dramatic speaker, pivots from his audience when he becomes subjective, and suggests an imaginary listener, or represents a conversation between two or more in a story. He does not do this consciously and deliberately, but from instinct. Primarily, it is obedience to the dramatic instinct that causes this pivotal action. Any one who will observe the natural actions of men on the street, in business, in society, or in impa.s.sioned oratory, can recognize the meaning and importance of the pivotal actions of the body. It is one of the fundamental manifestations of dramatic instinct.

Pivoting toward any one expresses attention and politeness. Attention is the secret of politeness. To listen to another is a primary characteristic of good breeding. Pivoting toward one is also indicative of emphasis. In conversation, even in walking on the street, when one has something emphatic to say he turns directly to his interlocutor, and often adds gesture; on the other hand, turning away, or failing to pivot toward some one, indicates an estimate that something is trivial or unimportant.

In the delivery of a monologue there is often an object referred to which the interlocutor naturally places on one side, while he locates his listener on the other. Thus, in the unemphatic parts he would turn away and not be continually "nosing his interlocutor" or talking directly to him. This would cause him to give his ideas to the audience directly or indirectly. Whenever he talks emphatically, he would turn toward his interlocutor. When the object referred to is more directly in the field of attention, he would turn toward that.

Ruth McEnery Stuart, for example, is the author of a monologue in which an old countryman talks about his son winning a "diplomy." The speaker in the monologue would naturally locate the diploma on one side and the listener on the other.

It is easy to see that this pivotal action is of great importance on the stage. It is the very basis of all true stage representation. The amateur always "noses" his interlocutor. The artist is able to show all degrees of attention by the pivotal action of the body, and thus reveal to an audience the very rank of the person addressed, whether that consists in dignity of character, which makes him a special object of interest, or in a royal or conventionally superior station.

That the pivotal action of the body in a monologue is especially important can be seen at once. The object of attention is an invisible listener, and the turning of the body to the side not only shows the speaker's own attention, but it helps the auditor to locate the person addressed.

Without this pivotal action, the reader is apt to declaim a monologue, and confuse it with a speech. The monologue is never a direct endeavor to impress an audience. Only occasionally can the audience be made to stand for the person addressed.

Some one will ask, Why at the side? Because if we hold out two objects for an audience to observe, we shall put them side by side. The placing of one before the other will cause confusion or prevent the possibility of discrimination. In art, the law of rhythm, or of composition, demands that objects be distributed side by side in order to win different degrees of attention. A picture of any kind demands such an arrangement of objects as will hold the attention concentrated. An object in the background may aid the sustaining of attention upon something in the foreground. Objects are placed in opposition to cause the mind to alternate from one to the other, and thus to sustain attention until it penetrates the meaning of the smallest scene. This is the soul, not only of pictorial, but of dramatic art.

Placing an imaginary character at the side does not make words necessarily dramatic. This may be only an external aspect of the poem. The most pa.s.sionate lyrics may be given with this change of att.i.tude because of their great subjectivity. They are often as subjective as a soliloquy.

Again, this turning of the body to the side does not mean that the person to whom the speaker seems to be talking is definitely represented. The listener may be located at the side for a moment, it may be unconsciously, and lost sight of almost entirely. The feeling must often absorb the speaker and pa.s.s into the most subjective lyric intensity. Dramatic art must move; there must be continual progressive transitions. Hence, the picture must continually change, and pivotal flexibility is especially necessary. Such turning of the body can be seen in every-day conversation.

The degree of attention to a listener varies in all intercourse. While talking to another, the speaker may become dominated by a subjective idea or mood and turn away; yet the listener's presence is always felt.

Transition to the side as expressive of attention takes place in the platform reading of a drama with several characters. In this case, the interpreter distributes the characters in various directions; but this must be done according to their importance, and as each one speaks, the person addressed must be indicated as in the monologue.

Hence, it is not an artificial arrangement to place the character you address somewhat to the side, but in accordance with the laws of the mind and with every-day conversation. By this placing of an imaginary listener, all degrees of attention and inattention toward another can be indicated.

You can show a subjective action of the mind by pivoting naturally away from the person to whom you speak, but at the moment an idea comes to you clearly and definitely, it dominates you, and you turn towards him.

In pivoting the body, or showing attention, the eye always leads. An impolite man has little control of his eyes or of his pivotal action. An embarra.s.sed or nervous man shows his agitation especially in his eye. The polite man gives the attention of his eye, the head follows that, and then the whole body turns attentively. Accordingly, the turn of the eye, the head, and the whole body must be brought into sympathetic unity.

The interpreter of the monologue must have a free use of his entire body, must be able to step and move with ease in any direction. But a single step is all that is necessary, except in rare cases. The simpler the movements and att.i.tudes of the interpreter the better, and the more impressive and suggestive will he be to the imagination of his audience.

Chaotic movements backward and forward will confuse the hearer's attention and fail to indicate the direction of his own, which is of vital moment.

Often the slightest turn of the head is all that is necessary.

The interpretation of a monologue must be more suggestive in its action than that of a play. On the stage there may be many actors, and the pivotal movements of many characters toward each other must often bring a large number into unity, so that a group can express the situation by co-operative action. The attention of a hundred can be focussed on one picture or on one idea. But the interpreter of the monologue has only his own eye, head, and body to lead the attention of his auditors and to suggest the most profound impressions.

In the nature of the case, accordingly, the situation of the monologue must be more simple and definite; and for the same reason, the actions must be more p.r.o.nounced and sustained. The interpretation of the monologue thus calls for the ablest dramatic artist.

There are many important phases of this peculiar pivotal action. The speed of the movement, for example, shows the degree of excitement. The eye only, or the eye and the head, or both with the body, may turn. Each of these cases indicates a difference in the degree of attention or in the relations of the speaker to the listener.

Again, this pivotal action has a direct relation to the advancing of the body forward toward a listener, the gravitation of pa.s.sion which shows sympathy and feeling as well as attention.

The student may think such directions mechanical, especially when it is said that the body in turning must sustain its centrality, and that there must be no confusion or useless steps; but in this case the foot acts as a kind of eye, by a peculiar instinct which always indicates the proper direction, if the speaker is really thinking dramatically.

The turning action of the body has been discussed more at length than the other elements of action on account of its importance in the rendering of a monologue, and also because it is usually misunderstood or entirely overlooked. There are many other expressive actions a.s.sociated with this turning of the body which need discussion. They, however, belong to the subject of pantomimic expression, rather than to a general discussion of the nature of the monologue and the chief peculiarities of its interpretation.

The same may be said regarding the innumerable and extremely subtle and complex actions of other parts of the body. The actions concerned in the rendering of a monologue are those a.s.sociated with the every-day intercourse of men in conversation, and are often so delicate and unp.r.o.nounced that an auditor will hardly notice them. He will simply feel the general impression of truthfulness. The interpreter of the monologue, for this very reason, needs to give the most careful attention to action as a language. Neglect of action is the most surprising fault of modern delivery.

Anything like an adequate discussion of action as a language is impossible in this place. There are, however, certain dangers which call for special though brief attention.

In the first place, action must never be declamatory or oratoric. Swinging actions of the arms and extravagant movements of the body--possibly pardonable in oratory, on account of the great desire to impress truth upon men, to drive home a point energetically--are out of place in a monologue. The manner must be forcible, but simple and natural. Activity must manifest thought and pa.s.sion; it should not be merely descriptive, but must arise from the relations of the interlocutor. The monologue requires great accentuation of the subjective element in pantomime.

This brings us to a second danger. The dramatic artist is tempted merely to represent or imitate. He desires to locate not only his listener, but every object, and so is tempted to objective descriptions.

Action is of two kinds,--representative and manifestative. In representative action one ill.u.s.trates, describes, indicates objects, places, and directions. One shows the objective situations and relations.

Manifestative pantomime, on the contrary, reveals the feelings and experiences of the human mind, or the subjective situations and relations.

Representative pantomime is apt to degenerate into mere imitative movements. Manifestative pantomime centres in the eye or the face, but belongs to the whole body. Even when we make representative movements with the hand and arm, the att.i.tude of the hand shows the conditions prompting the gesture, and face and body show the real experiences and feelings.

In the giving of humorous monologues, representative action is often appropriate and necessary. The hearer must be located, objects must often be distributed and rightly related to a.s.sist the audience in conceiving the situation.

The need of representative action is seen in Day's "Old Boggs' Slarnt."

OLD BOGGS' SLARNT

Old Bill Boggs is always sayin' that he'd like to, but he carnt; He hain't never had no chances, he hain't never got no slarnt.

Says it's all dum foolish tryin', 'less ye git the proper start, Says he's never seed no op'nin' so he's never had no heart.

But he's chawed enough tobacker for to fill a hogset up, And has spent his time a-trainin' some all-fired kind of pup; While his wife has took in washin' and his children hain't been larnt 'Cause old Boggs is allus whinin' that he's never got no slarnt.

Them air young uns round the gros'ry hadn't oughter done the thing!

Now it's done, though, and it's over, 'twas a cracker-jack, by jing.

Boggs, ye see, has been a-settin' twenty years on one old plank, One end h'isted on a saw-hoss, t'other on the cistern tank.

T'other night he was a-chawin' and he says, "I vum-spt-ooo-- Here I am a-owin' money--not a gol durn thing to do!

'Tain't no use er buckin' chances, ner er fightin' back at Luck, --Less ye have some way er startin', feller's sartin to be stuck.

Needs a slarnt to get yer going"--then them young uns give a carnt, --Plank went up an' down old Boggs went--yas, he got it, got his slarnt.

Course, the young uns shouldn't done it--sent mine off along to bed-- Helped to pry Boggs out the cistern--he warn't more 'n three-quarters dead.

Didn't no one 'prove the actions, but when all them kids was gone, Thunder mighty! How we hollered! Gab'rel couldn't heered his horn.

When the speaker in the monologue describes the plank which has

"One end h'isted on a saw-hoss, t'other on the cistern tank,"

he would naturally in conversation describe and indicate the tank and the saw-horse and the direction of the slope of the plank. Then, when

"... them young uns give a carnt,"

and the plank went up, it might be indicated that one end went up, by one hand, and by the other that old Boggs went down. This can be done easily and naturally and in character. The genius of the "gros'ry," who is speaking, would indicate these very simply with hand and eye. This action will not only express the humor, but help the audience to conceive the situation.

In a serious monologue, such as "A Grammarian's Funeral" (p. 72), the speaker looks down toward the town, and talks about the condition of those there who did not appreciate his master. The reader must indicate where the speaker locates his friends who are carrying the body, and suggest also, by looking upward to the hill-top, where they are to bury him. This representative action, when only suggestive, in no way interferes with, but rather a.s.sists, the manifestation of feeling.

It must not be forgotten that there is great danger in exaggerating the objective or representative action of a monologue. The exaggeration of accidents is the chief means of degrading n.o.ble literature in delivery.

For example, one of the finest monologues, "The Vagabonds," by J. T.

Trowbridge, has been made by public readers a mere means of imitating the oddities of a drunkard. The true centring of attention should be on the mental characteristics of such a man. A degraded method of delivering this centres everything on the mere accidents and oddities of manner. Thus a most pathetic and tragic situation may be portrayed in a way not to awaken sympathy, but laughter.

THE VAGABONDS