Dramatic Technique Part 10

[26] _Some Plat.i.tudes Concerning Drama._ John Galsworthy. _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1909.

[27] _Shakespeare Library_, vol. I, pp. 387-412. Ed. W. C. Hazlitt.

[28] _Hamburg Dramaturgy_, p. 279. Lessing. Bohn ed.

[29] _The United States of Playwrights_, Henry Savage. _The Bookman_, September, 1909.

[30] _De la Poesie Dramatique._ Diderot. _Oeuvres_, vol. VII, p. 321.

Garnier Freres, Paris.

[31] _Sardou and the Sardou Plays_, p. 125. J. A. Hart. J. B.

Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.

CHAPTER IV

FROM SUBJECT THROUGH STORY TO PLOT. CLEARNESS THROUGH WISE SELECTION

Dumas the younger, at twenty, wishing to write his first play, asked his father for the secret of a successful play. That man of many successful novels and plays replied: "It's very simple: First Act, clear; Third Act, short; and everywhere, interest." Though play-writing is not always so easy a matter as when a man of genius like Dumas the elder wrote the relatively simple romantic dramas of his day, he emphasized one of the fundamentals of drama when he called for clearness in the first act. He might well have called for it everywhere. First of all, a dramatist who has found his point of departure must know just what it means to him, what he wants to do with it. Is he merely telling a story for its own sake, satisfied if the incidents be increasingly interesting till the final curtain falls? Is he writing his play, above all, for one special scene in it, as was Mr. H. A. Jones, in _Mrs. Dane's Defence_,[1] in its third act? Does he merely wish to set people thinking about conditions of today, to write a drama of ideas, like Mr. Galsworthy in _The Pigeon_,[2] or M. Paul Loyson, in _The Apostle_?[3] Has he, like Brieux in _Damaged Goods_[4] or _The Cradle_,[5] an idea he wishes to convey, and so must write a problem play? Is his setting significant for one scene only or has it symbolic values for the whole play? As Dumas the younger well said, "How can you tell what road to take unless you know where you are going?"[6]

The trouble with most would-be dramatists is that they make too much of the mere act of writing, too little of the thinking preliminary to composition and accompanying it. With the point of departure clearly in mind, seeing some characters who immediately connect themselves with the subject, forecasting some scenes and a few bits of dialogue, they rush to their desks before they see with equal clearness, we will not say the plot but even the story necessary for the proposed play. What is the result? "They have a general view of their subject, they know approximately the situations, they have sketched out the characters, and when they have said to themselves, 'This mother will be a coquette, this father will be stern, this lover a libertine, this young girl impressionable and tender,' the fury of making their scenes seizes them.

They write, they write, they come upon ideas, fine, delicate, and even strong; they have charming details ready to hand: but when they have worked much and come to plotting, for always one must come to that, they try to find a place for this charming bit; they can never make up their minds to put aside this delicate or strong idea, and they will do exactly the opposite of what they should,--make the plot for the sake of the scenes when the scenes should grow out of the plot. Consequently the dialogue will be constrained in movement and much trouble and time will be lost."[7]

A modern play recently submitted to the writer in ma.n.u.script showed just this trouble. Act I was in itself good. Act II was good in one scene, bad in the other. Act III was in itself right. Yet at the end of the play one queried: "What is the meaning of it all?" Nothing bound the parts together. There was no clear emphasis on some central purpose.

The author, when questioned, admitted that with certain characters in mind, he had written the scenes as they came to him. When pressed to state his exact subject, he advanced first one, then another, at last admitting candidly: "I guess I never have been able to get far enough away from the play to see quite what all of it does mean." Asked whether there was not underlying all his scenes irony of fate, in that a man trying his best to do what the world holds commendable is bound in such relationship to two or three people that always they give his career a tragic turn, he said, after consideration, "Yes. What if I call my play _The Irony of Life_?" With the purpose of making that his meaning he reworked his material. Quickly the parts fell into line, with a clear and interesting play as the result. Many and many a play containing good characterization, good dialogue and some real individuality of treatment has gone to pieces in this way. A recent play opened with a well-written picture of the life of a group of architects' draughtsmen. Apparently we were started on a story of their common or conflicting interests. After that first act, however, the play turned into a story of the way in which one of these young draughtsmen, a kind of mixture of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford and D'Artagnan, forced his way to professional and social success. Once or twice, scenes seemed intentional satire on our social cla.s.ses. The fact is, the author had in the back of his mind social satire, characterization of the central figure, and a picture of the life of young draughtsmen. As material for any one of these came to him when he was writing, he gave his attention wholly to it. Though this might do for a rough draft, it must be rewritten to make the chief interest stand out as most important, and to give the other interests clearly their exact part in a perfectly clear whole. Left as written, the play seemed to have a first act somewhat off the question, and a later development going off now and then at a tangent. Its total effect, in spite of some admirable characterization, considerable truth to life, and real cleverness, was confusion for the audience and consequent dissatisfaction.

Another play, often extremely well characterized, had, as an apparent central purpose, study of a mother who has been trying to give her son such surroundings that he cannot go the way of his father who, many years since, had embezzled. Yet almost as frequently the purpose seemed to be a very close study of the son, who, although the mother, blinded by her affection, does not see it, is mentally and morally almost the duplicate of his father. Moved with sympathy, now for one and now for the other, just as the interest of the writer led him, the audience came away confused and dissatisfied. How can an audience be expected to know what a dramatist has not settled for himself, the chief of his interests among several?

When M. de Curel, with his original idea or picture for _L'Envers d'une Sainte_ sat down to reflect, "he noticed that the interest in the subject lies in the feelings a woman must experience when she returns after a long absence to a place full of memories, and finds herself face to face with her past life. There was the psychological idea which seemed to him alluring,--to paint a special phase of emotion."[8] There, for him, lay the heart of his subject. Bulwer-Lytton, writing to Macready in September, 1838, of a proposed play on the life of the Chevalier de Marillac, in which Cardinal Richelieu must also be an important figure, said: "Now look well at this story, you will see that incident and position are good. But then there is one great objection.

Who is to do Richelieu? Marillac has the princ.i.p.al part and requires you; but a bad Richelieu would spoil all. On the other hand, if you took Richelieu, there would be two great acts without you, which will never do; and the main interest of the plot would not fall on you. Tell me what you propose. Must we give up this idea?"[9] Bulwer-Lytton had not yet found the dramatic centre in his material. At first the story and character of Marillac blinded him to the fact that the material was best fitted for a dramatic study of the great Cardinal. When, shortly after his letter, he came to see that the dramatic centre lay in Richelieu, his famous play began developing. With that magnet in hand, he quickly drew to him the right filaments of incident to make a unified and interesting story.

Any dramatist has the right to decide first, what is the real importance of his subject to him, but before he finishes he may find that he will discard what originally seemed to him important, either because something interests him more as he reflects or because he comes to see in his subject an interest other than his own which will be stronger for the audience. M. de Curel, thinking over his proposed play, abandoned his first idea because "in ten minutes s.p.a.ce it transformed itself. He abandoned his first idea in order to try to paint the slightly a.n.a.logous feelings of a nun. He imagined a young girl who, at a former time, in a moment of madness, had wished to kill the wife of the man with whom she was infatuated. To expiate her crime, she entered a convent, took the vows, and lived in retirement for twenty years. Then she learned that the man whom she loved had just died. Whereupon, perhaps from desire for freedom, perhaps from curiosity, she comes out of her exile, returns to her family and finds herself in the presence of the widow and her child." Here was the beginning, not of _L'Envers d'une Sainte_,[10] but of another play, _L'Invitee_. "It may happen--something certainly surprising--that the idea which allured the author into writing the piece makes no part of the piece itself. It is excluded from it; no trace of it remains. Note that the point of departure of _L'Invitee_ is an idea of a woman capable of murder who is pa.s.sed off as insane. Of the murder nothing remains, and as to the mother's madness it is reduced to almost nothing: it is no more than a rumor that has been going about, and the mother has not been really insane."[11] Not to yield to such a compelling new aspect of the subject is to find one's way blocked. The resulting tragedy, or comedy, for the unyielding playwright, Mr. Archer states amusingly. "'Here,' says a well-known playwright, 'is a common experience. You are struck with an idea with which you fall in love.

"Ha!" you say. "What a superb scene where the man shall find the will under the sofa! If that doesn't make them sit up, what will?" You begin the play. The first act goes all right, and the second act goes all right. You come to the third act and somehow it won't go at all. You battle with it for weeks in vain; and then it suddenly occurs to you, "Why, I see what's wrong! It's that confounded scene where the man finds the will under the sofa. Out it must come!" You cut it out and at once all goes smooth again. But you have thrown overboard the great effect that first tempted you.'"[12]

The point is not that when a dramatist first begins to think over his subject, he must decide exactly what is for him the heart of it. He may shift, reject, and change his own interest again and again, as attractive aspects of his subject suggest themselves. The point is that this shifting of interest should take place before he begins to put his play on paper. Not to be perfectly clear with one's self which of three or four possible interests offered by a subject is the one really interesting is to waste time. As the play develops, a writer wobbles from one subject to another and so leaves no clear final impression. Or he is obliged to rewrite the play, placing the emphasis properly for clearness. In one case he fails. In the other he does his work twice.

The present writer has seen many a ma.n.u.script, after a year or more of juggling with shifting interests, given up in despair and thrown into the waste basket.

Probably it is best to leave till revision the question whether the interest presented will appeal to the general audience just as it does to the writer. It certainly can do no harm, however, and may save labor, when an author knows just what he wants to treat and how he wishes to treat it, for him to consider whether this interest is likely to be as important for his public as for him. Many years ago, Mr. A.M. Palmer produced _The Parisian Romance_, a play so trite in subject and treatment that, as written, it might easily have failed. A young actor, seeing in a minor role the opportunities for a popular success built up a fine piece of characterization in the part of Baron Chevrial. That gave Richard Mansfield his first real start. The play was remodeled so that this element of novelty, this fresh piece of characterization, became central. Thus re-emphasized the play became known all over the country.[13] Not long since a play written by its author to be wholly amusing, proved so hilarious in the second act that the actors rehea.r.s.ed it with difficulty. When produced, however, the audience was so won by the hero in Act I that they took his mishaps in the second act with sympathetic seriousness. The play had to be rewritten.

It is at careful planning or plotting that the inexperienced dramatist balks. Scenarios, the outlines which will show any intelligent reader what plot the dramatist has in mind and its exact development, are none too popular. They are, however, the very best means by which a dramatist may force himself to find what for him is the heart of his subject.[14] The moment that is clear to him, it is the open sesame to whatever story his play will demand. It is, too, the magnet which draws to him the bits of thought, character, action and dialogue which he shapes into plot.

With his purpose clearly in mind, the dramatist, as he pa.s.ses from point of departure through story to plot, selects, and selects, and selects.

Among all the possible people who might be the main figure in accomplishing his purpose, he picks the one most interesting him, or which he believes will most interest his public. From all the people who might surround his central figure he chooses the few who will best accomplish his purpose. If his people first appear to him as types, as in the case of _The Country Boy_ to be cited in a moment, selectively he moves from type to individuals. Sooner or later he must determine how many of the possible characteristics of his figures he cares to present.

As he writes, he selects from all that his people might say, and from all they might do in the way of ill.u.s.trative action, only what seems to him necessary for his purpose. No dramatist uses all that occurs to him in the way of dramatic incident, characters, or dialogue. As he shapes his story; as he reshapes his story into plot; in many cases before he touches pen to paper, he has rejected much, always selecting what he uses by the touchstone of the definite purpose which knowing the heart of his subject has given him.

Doubtless some writers see situation first, and others character, but sooner or later all must come to some story. Now as story is only incident so unified that it has interesting movement from a beginning to an end, ultimately the task of all dramatists is to find ill.u.s.trative action which as clearly and quickly as possible will present the characters of the story or make clear the purpose of the dramatist.

Here is the selective process by which Mr. Selwyn got at the story of his _Country Boy_:

It happened to be just before Christmas of last year. The season some way impressed itself on me, and I began to think what a desolate place New York must be for a lot of fellows who had come here from small towns and who were thinking of the homes they had left there, and longing to go back to them for the Christmas season. Doubtless there are hundreds of them here who came here years ago vowing that they would never go back till they had "made good," with the result that they have never since spent Christmas in the old home. [_The initial idea._] There is always somebody to whom we are always successful, and some one to whom we are never successful, and many times, if these fellows would go back to their old homes, among the people who really care for them, they would be regarded as successes, whereas in the great city they are looked upon as failures. [_Type character._]

It seemed to me that a character of that kind would make a good subject for a play, and then I began to look around for some one tangible to work from. Suddenly I thought of a newspaper man I used to know when I lived at a boarding house on 51st Street, here in New York. He was a free lance, and a grouchy, rheumatic, envious, bitter fellow, who had all the "dope" on life--was a philosopher and could tell every one else how to live, but didn't seem to be able to apply any of his knowledge to himself. He wouldn't even speak to any one in the boarding house but me, and why he singled me out for the honor I don't know. But anyway he did, and he used to tell me all of his troubles--how he had come from a little town with great ambitions, and had vowed never to go back till he had attained all that he had set out to get. And yet he had never been back. He was a failure; dressed shabbily and had given up hope for himself--and still, as I say, he could tell everybody else just what to do to succeed. When I lived there in the boarding house and used to see him, I thought he was the only one of his kind in town, but since then I have found that there are many others just like him. [_Individual character._]

So it occurred to me that he would be a good subject for _The Country Boy_, and I worked out his life as it had actually been lived here in New York. Though the character was good I presently discovered that it would not do for my central figure, for the reason that he had been here too long. He had gone through the mill and knew all about it, and what I really needed was a boy who could be shown to come from the country, and who could be taken through the temptations and discouragements that a boy of that sort would have to endure. So I just drew this younger character from my imagination. [_Selection of special figure._]

I had to have this chap a b.u.mptious, conceited sort of youth so as to have the contrast stronger when he met the hard knocks that were to come to him in the city. There are many boys of that sort in small towns. They do not see the opportunities around them but imagine nothing short of a big city has s.p.a.ce enough for them to develop in.

[_Purpose determining characterization._][15]

From idea through type-character to the individual Mr. Selwyn worked to the life in New York of the older man, and the story of the temptations and discouragements of the boy. When he had reached these, Mr. Selwyn saw that the best story for his purpose would be a mingling of the two.

The boy "worked, in very well with the character of the old newspaper man, because it allowed him to give the youngster the benefit of his experience, and to succeed eventually by taking advantage of it. That brought a happy ending for both of them."[16]

Any one of these stories as it lay in the mind of Mr. Selwyn before he turned it into plot, was a sequence of incidents, actions ill.u.s.trative of one or both of the two characters, and, through them, of the original idea. Just what is meant by this "ill.u.s.trative action" so often mentioned? In _Les Oberle_, by Rene Bazin, is a charming chapter describing the Alsatian vintage festival. At their work the women sing the song of the Black Bow of Alsace--in the novel but one detail of an interesting description. The account comes about midway in the book.

When the novel was dramatized it became necessary to make the audience understand, even before the hero, Jean, enters in Act I, that absorbed in his studies in Germany, he has been unaware of the constant friction in the home land between the governing Germans and the Alsatians. Here is the way the dramatist, emotionalizing the description of the novel, turned it into dramatic ill.u.s.tration of Jean's ignorance of the condition of the country. Uncle Ulrich, Bastian, a neighbor, and his daughter, Odile, at sunset are waiting in a wood road for Jean, just arrived from Germany and walking home from the station.

(_Outside a voice sings as it approaches in the distance._)

_The Black Bow of the daughters of Alsace Is like a bird with spreading wings._

_Ulrich._ Ah, look there! Who can be so imprudent as to sing that air of Alsace?

_The Voice._ _It can overpa.s.s the mountains._

_Bastian._ If it should be he!

_The Voice_.

_And watch what goes on there._

_Odile._ I am sure it is Jean's voice.

_Ulrich._ Foolhardy! They will hear him!

_The Voice._ (_Nearer._) _The Black Bow of the daughters of Alsace--_

_Ulrich._ Again, and louder than ever!

_The Voice._ _Is like a cross we carry In memory of those men and women Whose souls were like our own._

_Ulrich._ Jean! Upon my word that young lawyer cannot know the laws.

Jean![17]

Just at the end of the same act it is necessary to ill.u.s.trate the constant presence, the activity and alertness of the German forces and the irritation all this means to the Alsatians. In a story much of this would be described by the author. In the play we feel with each of the speakers the irritating presence of the troops, and so have perfect dramatic ill.u.s.trative action.

(_They are just starting off when Bastian stops them._)

_Bastian._ Chut!

_Jean._ What?