Dramatic Technique Part 19

THE PROLOGUE

In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece The princes orgillous, their high blood chaf'd, Have to the port of Athens sent their ships, Fraught with the ministers and instruments Of cruel war. Sixty and nine, that wore Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen, With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel.

To Tenedos they come, And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Their warlike fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch Their brave pavilions. Priam's six-gated city, Dardan, and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, And Antenorides, with ma.s.sy staples And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts Spar up the sons of Troy.

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, On one and other side, Troyan and Greek, Sets all on hazard; and hither am I come A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited In like conditions as our argument, To tell you, fair beholders, that our play Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils, Beginning in the middle, starting thence away To what may be digested in a play.

Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are.

Now good or bad; 'tis but the chance of war.[34]

A growing technique led the dramatists from Dumb Show and Chorus to soliloquy, in order to provide this necessary preliminary exposition. Is Richard, Duke of Gloucester, at the opening of _Richard III_, much more than a re-christened Chorus?

ACT I. SCENE I. (_London. A street._)

_Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, solus_

_Gloucester._ Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visag'd War hath smooth'd his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-gla.s.s; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them; Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pa.s.s away the time, Unless to see my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity.

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate the one against the other; And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up About a prophecy, which says that G Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul; here Clarence comes.

Led by Shakespeare, dramatists have come to understand that such information should, if in any way possible, be conveyed not by soliloquy but within the play itself. It should, too, be so incorporated with the text that it is acquired almost unconsciously by an auditor held absorbed by the immediate dramatic action.

Sometimes, however, it is well-nigh impossible thus to incorporate needed exposition with the dramatic action. For instance, a play depicted the fortunes of a Jacobite's daughter. All that is dramatic in her story as a young woman is predetermined by terrible scenes attending the death of her father, when she was a child of six. Somehow the audience must be made to understand very early in the play what these scenes were which made a lasting, intense impression on the child. That the young woman, when twenty, should recall the scenes with such minuteness as to make the audience perfectly understand their dramatic values is hardly plausible. To have some one come out of the past to reawaken the old memories is commonplace, and likely, by long descriptions to clog the movement of the act. Facing this problem, present-day dramatists, avoiding chorus, soliloquy, and lengthy description, have chosen to put such needed material into a division which, because it is preliminary, they have at will distinguished from the other acts as the Induction or more frequently the Prologue. The latter term is a confusing use. Historically, it signifies the single figure or group of figures who, before the curtain, bespeak the favor of the audience for the play to follow. Very rarely, the Prologue partook a little of the nature of Chorus, stating details that must be understood, were the play to have its full effect. Dramatists, feeling that the relation of this introductory division to the other divisions is not so close as are the inter-relations of the other divisions, have called this preliminary action, not _Act I_, but _Prologue_. A similar situation exists for what has been dubbed Epilogue. Historically, a figure from the play just ended, or an entirely new figure, strove, often in lines not written by the dramatist, to point the story or, at least, to win for it the final approval of the audience. Today, when a dramatist wishes to point the meaning of a play which he seems to have brought to a close, or to include it in some larger scheme, he writes what he prefers to call, not an additional act, but an Epilogue.

A dramatist should be very careful that what he calls Prologue or Epilogue is not merely an additional act. An act does not cease to be an act, and become a prologue or an epilogue, because its length is shorter than that usual for an act. True it is that most prologues and epilogues are short, but that is not their distinguishing characteristic. If they are brief, it is because the dramatist wants to move as quickly as possible from his induction or prologue to his main story, or knows that when the play proper is ended, he cannot with his epilogue hold his audience long. Not always, however, are prologues, or epilogues short.

That of _Madame Sans Gene_[35] has the same number of pages as Act II, seventeen. The Prologue of _The Pa.s.sing of the Third Floor Back_[36]

fills some sixty-two pages. The Epilogue of the same play covers fifty-six pages. An act in this play makes seventy-eight pages. In _A Celebrated Case_[37] the Prologue covers twenty-one pages; the subsequent acts run from eight to twelve pages each.

Nor is an act changed into a prologue or epilogue because the s.p.a.ce of time between it and the other divisions is longer than between any two of them. Does an act cease to be an act and become a prologue or epilogue, when the s.p.a.ce of time between it and the other acts is twenty-five years, or should it be thirty? The absurdity of making the use of the words Prologue or Epilogue depend upon the s.p.a.ce of time between one division and another is evident. It is true that the Prologue of _Madame Sans Gene_ takes place nineteen years before the three acts which follow, but it concerns the same people. It might equally well be called Act I. _The Pa.s.sing of the Third Floor Back_ might just as correctly be announced as a play in three acts instead of "An idle fancy in a Prologue, a Play, and an Epilogue." Recently _A Successful Calamity_ was stated to be in two acts, each preceded by a Prologue. Except for the novel appearance of the statement in the program, it might more correctly have been called a play in four acts.

Little except the will of the dramatist settled that the last division of Pinero's _Letty_ should be called an Epilogue. It occurs only two years and a half after the preceding act. It presents the same people.

Similarly the Prologue to Tennyson's _Becket_ might just as well be called Act I, except that this nomenclature would give the play six acts. In the stage version by Henry Irving, the four acts and a Prologue might correctly be called five acts.

The anonymous play, _The Taming of a Shrew_,[38] on which Shakespeare founded his farce-comedy of similar t.i.tle, shows a good use of Prologue and Epilogue. By a practical joke, _Christopher Sly_ the beggar is made to believe he is a Lord. As a part of the joke, the play is acted before him. Now and again, in the course of it, he comments on it. He and his group finish the performance in a sort of Epilogue. When Shakespeare uses Sly, only to let him shortly withdraw for good, the arrangement seems curiously incomplete and unsatisfactory. _Romance_, by Edward Sheldon, shows right use of so-called epilogue and prologue. As the curtain falls on the brief prologue, the aged Bishop is telling his grandson the story of his love for the Cavallini. Then the play, which is the Bishop's story, unrolls itself for three acts. In turn they fade into the epilogue, in which the grandson, as the Bishop finishes his story, goes off in spite of it to marry the girl he loves. By means of the epilogue and prologue Mr. Sheldon gains irony and contrast, relates the main play to larger values, and answers the inevitable question of his audience at the end of his third act: What happened to them afterward? Not to have used the so-called epilogue and prologue here would have forced total reconstruction of the material and probably a clumsier result. Such setting of a long play within a very brief play is one of the conditions for the legitimate use of the so-called prologue and epilogue.

Another legitimate use, though perhaps not so clear-cut, is ill.u.s.trated by the Prologue to _A Celebrated Case_.[39] The play might, perhaps, be written without it, but, if it were, the scene of Act I in which Adrienne recognizes the convict as her father, would be filled with much more exposition, and the present emphasis on the powerful emotions of the moment would be somewhat blurred by the emotions called up by exposition of the past. Clearly, the play gains rather than loses by the presence of the prologue. Obviously the latter stands somewhat apart from the three acts which follow, less definitely related to them than they are to one another. So it may, perhaps, better be called a prologue than an act.

Of course, the distinction between prologue and act is a matter of nomenclature, not of effectiveness in acting. Look at _My Lady's Dress_, by Edward k.n.o.bloch. Scene 1, Act I, and Scene 3, Act III, have the same setting, a boudoir, and are more closely related to each other than to the rest of the play.[40] Indeed, what stands between are one-act plays making the dream of Anne. According to present usage, Mr. k.n.o.bloch could have called these scenes Prologue and Epilogue, and treated all that stands between as the play proper. That he did or didn't makes no difference in the acting. The growing use of the two words, Prologue and Epilogue, merely marks an increasing sense of dramatic technique which tries by nomenclature to emphasize for a reader nice differences which the dramatist discerns in the inter-relations of his material.

To sum up, there is real significance, though present confusion, in recent use of the words, Prologue and Epilogue. The use rests on a fact: that sometimes a play is best proportioned, when it has at the beginning or end, or both, a brief division related to the story and essential to it, but not so closely related to any act as are the acts to one another. The names Prologue and Epilogue should not, however, be used interchangeably for acts. They should be kept for their historical use--verse or prose spoken in front of the curtain before or at an end of the play, in order to win or intensify sympathy for it. We should find different names for these divisions,--perhaps, Induction and Finale?

What should be the length of an act? There can be no rule as to this.

Naturally, the work of the first and last acts differs somewhat from the intervening acts, whether one or three in number. While it is the chief business of the intervening acts to maintain and increase interest already created, the first act must obviously create that interest as swiftly as possible, and the last act bring that interest to a climactic close. The first act, because in it the characters must be introduced, necessary past history stated, and the story well started, is likely to be longer than the other acts. The last act, inasmuch as even at its beginning we are usually not distant from the climax of the play, is most often the shortest division, for as soon as the climax is reached, we should drop the curtain as quickly as possible. A glance at certain notable plays of different periods will show, however, that the length of an act most depends, not on any given rule, but on the skill of the dramatist in accomplishing what he has decided the particular act must do. In the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's _Lear_ (printed in two columns of fine type) the acts run as follows:

Act I 9 pages Act II 7 pages Act III 6 pages Act IV 6 pages Act V 5 pages

_Kismet_, a play modeled on the Elizabethan, shows this division:

Act I 48 pages Act II 33 pages Act III 22 pages

For three plays of Richard Steele it is possible to give the exact playing-time:[41]

_The Funeral_ _The Conscious Lovers_ _The Tender Husband_ Act I 30 min. Act I 33 min. Act I 25 min.

Act II 36 min. Act II 28 min. Act II 22 min.

Act III 20 min. Act III 24 min. Act III 14 min.

Act IV 20 min. Act IV 28 min. Act IV 15 min.

Act V 20 min. Act V 31 min. Act V 18 min.

Total, 2 hrs. 6 min. Total, 2 hrs. 24 min. Total, 1 hr. 34 min.

Two recent plays divide thus:

_Candida_ _The Silver Box_ Act I 27 pages Act I 27 pages Act II 24 pages Act II 27 pages Act III 21 pages Act III 21 pages

The plays just cited are of very different lengths: _Kismet_[42] took nearly three hours in performance; _Candida_[43] and _The Silver Box_[44] are so short that they force a manager, if he is to provide an entertainment of the usual length, to a choice: he must begin his performance late, or allow long waits between the acts, or give a one-act piece with the longer play. Yet it is noteworthy that in all these plays except Steele's, the first is as long as any other act, or longer, and the last act is the shortest. However, the only safe principle is that of Dumas _pere_ already quoted: "First act clear, last act short, and everywhere interest."

In proportioning the whole material into acts, it should be remembered, of course, that the time allowed for a theatrical performance ranges from two hours to two hours and three quarters. Five to fifteen minutes should be allowed for each _entr'acte_ unless the usual waits are to be avoided by some mechanical device. Figure that a double-s.p.a.ced type-written page takes in acting something more than a minute, though necessary dramatic pauses and "business" make it difficult to estimate exactly the playing time of any page. Speaking approximately, it may be said that a three-act play of one hundred and twenty typewritten pages will fill, with the _entr'actes_, at least two hours and a half. In apportioning the story into acts the first requisite is, then, that the total, even with the necessary waits between acts, shall not exceed the length of time during which the public will be attentive.

The length of each act must in every case be determined by the work in the total which it has to do. Since pre-Shakespearean days, the artistry of the act has been steadily developing. Until _circa_, 1595, what dramatists "strove to do was, not so to arrange their material that its inner relations should be perfectly clear, but to narrate a series of events that did not, of necessity, possess such inner relations. It is much to be doubted whether any thought of such relations ever entered their heads."[45] Influenced particularly by Shakespeare, the drama from that time has steadily improved in knowledge of what each act should do in the sum total, and how it should be done. The act is "more than a convenience in time. It is imposed by the limited power of attention of the human mind, or by the need of the human body for occasional refreshment. A play with a well-marked, well-balanced act-structure is a higher artistic organism than a play with no act-structure, just as a vertebrate animal is higher than a mollusc. In every crisis of real life (unless it be so short as to be a mere incident) there is a rhythm of rise, progress, culmination, and solution. Each act ought to stimulate and temporarily satisfy an interest of its own, while definitely advancing the main action."[46] Each act, then, should be a unit of the whole, which accomplishes its own definite work.

Here is Ibsen's rough apportioning of the work for each act in a play of which he was thinking.

Do you not think of dramatising the story of Faste? It seems to me that there is the making of a very good popular play in it. Just listen!

Act 1.--Faste as the half-grown boy, eating the bread of charity and dreaming of greatness.

Act 2.--Faste's struggle in the town.

Act 3.--Faste's victory in the town.

Act 4.--Faste's defeat and flight from the country.

Act 5.--Faste's return as a victorious poet. He has found himself.

It is a fine adventurous career to depict dramatically. But of course you would have to get farther away from your story first. You perhaps think this a barbarous and inhuman suggestion. But all your stories have the making of a drama in them.[47]

In _The Princess and the b.u.t.terfly_,[48] Act I not only disposes of preliminary necessary exposition, but depicts different kinds of restlessness in a group of women at or nearing middle age. Act II does the same for a group of men, and in the proposed duel provides what later may be made to reveal to Sir George how much Fay Zuliani cares for him. Act III complicates the story by showing that Fay is not the niece of Sir George, and ill.u.s.trates the growing affection between the Princess and Edward Oriel. Act IV reveals to Sir George and Fay how much each cares for the other. The fifth act shows how Sir George and the Princess, who have tried to be wise and restrained, impulsively and instinctively choose the path of seeming unwisdom but immediate happiness.

In _The Trail of the Torch_,[49] Act I states the thesis of the play and offers the first great sacrifice by Sabine for her daughter, Marie-Jeanne. Sabine gives up Stangy in order to be with Marie-Jeanne, only to find that her daughter is in love with Didier. Act II ill.u.s.trates that a mother will make every sacrifice for her children: Madame Fontenais, the grandmother, when her daughter Sabine begs her to sacrifice her fortune in order that Marie-Jeanne's anxiety as to the finances of Didier may be set at rest, refuses, thinking to protect Sabine's future. In turn, Sabine, putting aside all pride, calls Stangy back to her, believing that he will give her the aid she desires for Marie-Jeanne. Act III shows the extremes of sacrifice to which a mother may go,--here the forgery, and the sacrifice by Sabine of her mother to her daughter. Act IV ill.u.s.trates the retribution for Sabine: the revelation by Stangy that, after Sabine sent him away, he married; Marie-Jeanne's announcement to her mother that she is to go to America with her father and that Sabine cannot go; and the death of Madame Fontenais caused, at least indirectly, by Sabine.

In all three cases we have only the baldest outline of what the act must do. The ill.u.s.trative dramatic action by which each act is to accomplish its task is either in hand as part of a clearly defined story in the mind of the dramatist, or must be found immediately. Granted that it has been discovered (see chap. III, pp. 47-72), then as each act is shaped up from this material it should have certain qualities. It should be clear. It should lead the hearer on to the acts which follow: in other words, it should at least maintain an interest already established, and in most cases should increase that interest. To put these requisites more briefly, each act should have clearness and movement. Movement in an act means that, while thoroughly interesting itself, the act leads a hearer on to its immediate successor and, above all, the finale. Good movement depends on clearness and right emphasis. The emphasis in each act and in the whole play should be such that ultimately it accomplishes the purpose of the dramatist. How may these qualities, clearness, right emphasis, and consequent movement be gained?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Essay on Comedy_, p. 8. George Meredith. Copyright, 1897, by Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[2] _The Trojan Women._ Translated by Gilbert Murray. G. Allen & Sons, London.