Dramatic Technique Part 28

_Clayton._ You spoke to him?

_Hoover. Called_ to him.

_Clayton._ Called?

_Hoover._ Yes--I was forty feet away.

_Clayton._ Had your nerve with you.

_Hoover._ The girl dropped something--I thought it was a fan.

_Clayton._ Well?

_Hoover._ 'Twasn't--but that's why I called De Lota.

_Clayton._ How do you know it wasn't?

_Hoover._ I picked it up.

_Clayton._ What was it?

_Hoover._ A libretto.

_Clayton._ What libretto?

_Hoover._ Don't know--but grand opera--I remember that and libretto--

_Clayton._ You threw it away?

_Hoover._ No--kept it.

_Clayton._ Where is it?

_Hoover._ Overcoat pocket.

_Clayton._ (_Pause._) I'd like to see it. Think I could have some fun with De Lota.

_Hoover._ (_Going up the hallway._) My idea too--fun and word of caution. (_Gets coat and returns, feeling in pocket for libretto._)

_Clayton._ Caution--naturally.

_Hoover._ Here it is. (_Reads._) Aida.

_Clayton._ (_Taking libretto savagely._) Aida--let me see it.

_Hoover._ What's the matter? (_Puts coat on a chair._)

_Clayton._ (_In sudden anger, throws book._) The dog! d.a.m.n him--d.a.m.n both of them!

_Hoover._ What is it? See here--Who's with d.i.c.k?

_Clayton._ Not his mother--no! (_Points to libretto on the floor._) Marked. _I_ did that myself, not an hour ago, and gave it to her.

_Hoover._ To Elinor?

_Clayton._ (_Calling as he rushes to the hall._) Sutton! Sutton!

_Hoover._ Hold on, Frank--there's some mistake.

_Clayton._ Get me a cab--never mind--I'll take Seelig's machine.

(_Disappears._) Here! Doctor Seelig says to take me to-- (_He goes out. Door bangs._)

_Sutton enters from the dining-room_

_Sutton._ Is Master d.i.c.k in danger, sir?

_Hoover._ (_Nervously._) I don't know, Sutton. Where's his mother?

_Sutton._ Opera, sir.

_Hoover._ With whom?

_Sutton._ Mr. De Lota.

Because of the emphasis given the libretto in the first quotation, the audience's suspicions are roused at the same time as Clayton's and his emotions are theirs. Yet, even in this last scene, note the care of Mr.

Thomas to make all absolutely clear. He does not stop when Hoover says "A libretto," and "Of grand opera," but he lets the audience see the same libretto which pa.s.sed from Elinor to De Lota pa.s.s from Hoover to Clayton, the latter identifying it in his cry, "Aida." That there may be absolutely no doubt in the evidence piling up against Elinor, he has Clayton point to the marked place with the words: "I did that myself."

Emphasis, as in these three instances, may come on some detail--handkerchief, fan, libretto--which is to be made important later in the development of the plot. It may come within a scene or act, or at the end of either to emphasize a part or the whole of the scene or act.

The soliloquies of Iago referred to on page 183 are of this sort.

Emphasis may stress little by little or with one blow what the play means. The significance of the whole play _Strife_--the utter uselessness of the conflict chronicled--is thus emphasized in the last lines of the play:

_Harness._ A woman dead; and the two best men both broken!

_Tench._ (_Staring at him--suddenly excited._) D'you know, sir--these terms, they're the _very same_ we drew up together, you and I, and put to both sides before the fight began? All this--all this--and--and what for?

_Harness._ (_In a slow, grim voice._) That's where the fun comes in!

(_Underwood without turning from the door makes a gesture of a.s.sent._)

_The curtain falls_[26]

_The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_[27] ill.u.s.trates the play in which emphasis little by little brings out the meaning of the whole piece. Examine even the first act. It is full of the feeling: "It cannot nor it will not come to good." Tanqueray himself says frankly, "My marriage is not even the conventional sort of marriage likely to satisfy society." Drummle coming in declares that George Orreyed is "a thing of the past,"

because he has married Mabel Hervey. The group of old friends show anxiety, and it is clear that to the mind of Cayley Drummle Tanqueray is but repeating the rash step of Orreyed. The whole act prepares for the finale of the play.

Hervieu's _The Trail of the Torch_ shows the emphasis which strikes one hard blow and leaves to the rest of the play ill.u.s.tration of what has been clearly stressed. About one third of the way through Act I, Maravon explains to Sabine the thesis which the entire play ill.u.s.trates:

_Sabine._ (_Pointing to the two who have just gone._) Ah, my dear Maravon, what an absurd friend I have there!

_Maravon._ Mme. Gribert, you mean?