Dramatic Technique Part 34

(_Kisses her behind music._)

_Ma.s.sey._ (_Looking around._) Take a bigger sheet.

(_Sybil sits at piano quickly and plays the chorus to "Count Your Many Blessings." To which they all sing:_)

Count your many blessings, count them one by one, Count your blessings, see what G.o.d has done.

Count your blessings, count them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.[55]

Is not the irony of this group of unsatisfied or dissatisfied people singing "Count your many blessings," fully climactic?

Not quietness of speech or action, then, but appropriateness makes any of these approved endings climactic and artistic.

There can hardly be any question that the original ending of _Still Waters Run Deep_ is theatrical in the sense that it is climactic only by the dramatic convention of its time. Except when theatricality is intentionally part of the artistic design, it is, of course, undesirable. Rostand, letting the figures in _The Romancers_ comment on their own play as a kind of epilogue, has a really artistic though theatrical climax.

_Sylvette._ (_Summoning the actors about her._) And now we five--if Master Straforel please-- Let us expound the play in which we've tried to please.

(_She comes down stage and addresses the audience, marking time with her hand._)

Light, easy rhymes; old dresses, frail and light; Love in a park, fluting an ancient tune. (_Soft music._)

_Bergamin._ A fairy-tale quintet, mad as Midsummer-night.

_Pasquin._ Some quarrels. Yes!--but all so very slight!

_Straforel._ Madness of sunstroke; madness of the moon!

A worthy villain, in his mantle dight.

_Sylvette._ Light, easy rhymes; old dresses, frail and light; Love in a park, fluting an ancient tune.

_Percinet._ A Watteau picture--not by Watteau, quite; Release from many a dreary Northern rune; Lovers and fathers; old walls, flowery-bright; A brave old plot--with music--ending soon.

_Sylvette._ Light, easy rhymes; old dresses, frail and light.

(_The stage gradually darkens; the last lines are delivered in voices that grow fainter as the actors appear to fade away into mist and darkness._)

_Curtain._[56]

So light the finale, as in London, that the figures fade from sight till only their voices are faintly heard, and theatricality helps to place the play as a mere bit of fantasy. On the other hand, there is something like genuine theatricality at the end of Sudermann's _Fritzschen_. Fritz is going to his death in a prospective duel with a man who is an unerring shot. Though the others present suspect or know the truth, his mother thinks he is going to new and finer fortunes. Isn't the following the real climax?

_Fritz._ (_Stretching out his hand to her cheerfully._) Dear Ag--(_Looks into her face, and understands that she knows. Softly, earnestly._) Farewell, then.

_Agnes._ Farewell, Fritz!

_Fritz._ I love you.

_Agnes._ I shall always love you, Fritz!

_Fritz._ Away, then, Hallerpfort! Au revoir, papa! Au revoir! Revoir!

(_Starts for the door on the right._)

_Frau von Drosse._ Go by the park, boys--there I have you longer in sight.

_Fritz._ Very well, mamma, we will do it! (_Pa.s.ses with Hallerpfort through the door at the centre; on the terrace, he turns with a cheerful gesture, and calls once more._) Au Revoir! (_His voice is still audible._) Au revoir!

(_Frau von Drosse throws kisses after him, and waves her handkerchief, then presses her hand wearily to her heart and sighs heavily._)[57]

Because the history of the theatre shows that the contained appeal always moves an audience, Sudermann adds one more touch of misery as the mother dwells on her dream of the night before:

(_Agnes hurries to her, and leads her to a chair, then goes over to the Major, who, with heaving breast, is lost in thought._)

_Frau von Drosse._ Thank you, my darling!--Already, I am quite well again!... G.o.d, the boy! How handsome he looked! And so brown and so healthy.... You see, I saw him exactly like that last night.... No, that is no illusion! And I told you how the Emperor led him in among all the generals! And the Emperor said--(_More softly, looking far away with a beatific smile_.) And the Emperor said--

_Curtain_.[58]

Though a new twist is given our emotions, is not something lost to the artistry of the play?

If the means to climax be various, the ways in which it may elude a writer are several. If an audience foresees it, much of the value of climax, perhaps all, disappears. Bulwer-Lytton, in writing _Money_, recognized this:

And princ.i.p.ally with regard to Act 5 I don't feel easy. The first idea suggested by you & worked on by me was of course to carry on Evelyn's trick to the last--& bring in the creditors &c when it is discovered that he is as rich as ever. I so made Act 5 at first. But ... the trick was so palpable to the audience that having been carried thro'

Acts 3 & 4, it became stale in Act 5--& the final discovery was much less comic than you w^d suppose.[59]

If antic.i.p.ating a climax will impair it for an audience, repet.i.tion may kill it. In the civic masque, _Caliban_,[60] as performed, many of the historical scenes were introduced in the same way: Ariel asked his master, Prospero, what he should show him next, and at his bidding summoned the episode. No variety in phrasing could surmount the monotony of this. There was consequent loss in suspense and climax.

It is easy, also, to miss possible climax by using more at a given point than is absolutely necessary. Sometimes it is wiser to postpone part or all of thoroughly desirable material for later treatment. In the novel, _Les Oberle_,[61] father and daughter sympathize with the Germans, mother and son with the old French tradition. In patriarchal fashion, the half-paralytic grandfather, as head of the house, keeps the keys.

When a young German officer, favored by the daughter, asks her hand, feeling becomes intense and strained between the parents and the brother and the sister. Suddenly the old paralytic enters, half-supported by his attendant. Furious to think of his granddaughter as the wife of a German he cries, with a superb gesture of dismissal, "Clear out! This is my house!" (_Va t'en! Ici chez moi!_) The dramatizer saw that with the accompanying action of all concerned, especially the silent going of the German suitor, "Ici chez moi" made a sufficient climax. Therefore, with a touch of real genius, he saved the "Va t'en" for a climax to a totally different scene. Later in the play, Jean, who has determined to escape across the French boundary rather than serve longer in the German army, has been locked in his room by his outraged father. As usual, after the house has been locked up for the night, the keys have been handed to the old, half-paralytic grandfather, who lies sleepless in a room near Jean's. Learning from Uncle Ulrich what has occurred, the grandfather totters into the living room with his keys. Unlocking Jean's door, with a fine gesture of affection, and command toward the outer door, he cries to Jean, "Va." Here the dramatist gets two fine climaxes where the novelist gained but one.

Sometimes a very effective climax at a given point should be postponed because it will be even more effective later, and if given the first position would check preferable movement in the play. At the end of Act IV of _Magda_ (_Heimat_) by Sudermann, we seem all ready for a scene in which Magda confesses the truth about her past life to her father.

_Schwartze._ Magda,--I want Magda.

_Marie._ (_Goes to the door and opens it._) She's coming now,--down the stairs.

_Schwartze._ So! (_Pulls himself together with an effort._)

_Marie._ (_Clasping her hands._) Don't hurt her!

(_Pauses with the door open. Magda is seen descending the stairs. She enters in travelling dress, hat in hand, very pale but calm._)

_Magda._ I heard you call, father.

_Schwartze._ I have something to say to you.

_Magda._ And I to you.

_Schwartze._ Go in,--into my room.

_Magda._ Yes, father.

(_She goes to the door left. Schwartze follows her. Marie, who has drawn back frightened to the dining-room, makes an unseen gesture of entreaty._)[62]