Dramatic Technique Part 41

I will not struggle; I will stand stone-still.

For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound.

Nay, hear me Hubert: drive these men away, And I will sit as quiet as a lamb; _Hub._ But that same Essence hath I will not stir nor wince, nor ordained a law, speak a word, A death for guilt, to keepe the Nor look upon the iron angerly.

world in awe. Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you, _Arth._ I pleade, not guiltie, Whatever torment you do put me to.

treasonlesse and free.

_Hub._ Go, stand within: let me _Hub._ But that appeale, my alone with him.

Lord, concernes not me.

_1. Attend._ I am best pleas'd to _Arth._ Why thou art he that be from such a deed.

maist omit the perill.

(_Exeunt Attendants._) _Hub._ I, if my Soveraigne would remit his quarrell. _Arth._ Alas! I then have chid away my friend: _Arth._ His quarrell is He hath a stern look, but a gentle unhallowed false and wrong. heart.-- Let him come back that his _Hub._ Then be the blame to whom compa.s.sion may it doth belong. Give life to yours.

_Arth._ Why thats to thee if _Hub._ Come, boy, prepare yourself.

thou as they proceede, Conclude their judgement with so _Arth._ Is there no remedy?

vile a deede.

_Hub._ None but to lose your eyes.

_Hub._ Why then no execution can be lawfull, _Arth._ O heaven!--that there were If Judges doomes must be reputed but a mote in yours, doubtfull. A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair, _Arth._ Yes where in forme of Any annoyance in that precious Lawe in place and time, sense!

The offended is convicted of the Then, feeling what small things are crime. boisterous there, Your vile intent must needs seem _Hub._ My Lord, my Lord, this horrible.

long expostulation, Heapes up more griefe, than _Hub._ Is this your promise? go to; promise of redresse; hold your tongue.

For this I know, and so resolude I end, _Arth._ Hubert, the utterance of a That subjects lives on Kings brace of tongues commaunds depend. Must needs want pleading for a pair I must not reason why he is your of eyes: foe, Let me not hold my tongue; let me But doo his charge since he not, Hubert: commaunds it so. Or Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue.

_Arth._ Then doo thy charge, and So I may keep mine eyes. O! spare charged be thy soule mine eyes; With wrongfull persecution don Though to no use, but still to look this day. on you.

You rowling eyes, whose Lo! by my troth, the instrument is superficies yet cold, I doo behold with eyes that And would not harm me.

Nature lent: Send foorth the terror of your _Hub._ I can heat it, boy.

Moovers frowne, To wreake my wrong upon the _Arth._ No, in good sooth; the fire murtherers is dead with grief, That rob me of your faire Being create for comfort, to be reflecting view: us'd Let h.e.l.l to them (as earth they In undeserv'd extremes: see else wish to me) yourself; Be darke and direfull guerdon There is no malice in this burning for their guylt, coal; And let the black tormentors of The breath of heaven hath blown his deepe Tartary spirit out, Upbraide them with this d.a.m.ned And strew'd repentant ashes on his enterprise, head.

Inflicting change of tortures on their soules. _Hub._ But with my breath I can Delay not Hubert, my orisons are revive it, boy.

ended, Begin I pray thee, reave me of _Arth._ And if you do, you will but my sight: make it blush, But to performe a tragedie And glow with shame of your indeede, proceedings, Hubert: Conclude the period with a Nay, it, perchance, will sparkle in mortal stab. your eyes; Constance farewell, tormenter And like a dog that is compell'd to come away, fight, Make my dispatch the Tyrants s.n.a.t.c.h at his master that doth tarre feasting day. him on.

All things that you should use to do _Hub._ I faint, I feare, my me wrong, conscience bids desist: Deny their office: only you do lack Faint did I say? fear was it That mercy, which fierce fire, and that I named: iron, extends, My King commaunds, that warrant Creatures of note for mercy-lacking sets me free: uses.

But G.o.d forbids, and he commandeth Kings, _Hub._ Well, see to live; I will not That great Commaunder touch thine eyes counterchecks my charge, For all the treasures that thine He stayes my hand, he maketh uncle owes: soft my heart. Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, Goe cursed tooles, your office boy, is exempt, With this same very iron to burn Cheere thee young Lord, thou them out.

shalt not loose an eye, Though I should purchase it with _Arth._ O! now you look like Hubert; losse of life. all this while Ile to the King and say his will You were disguised.

is done, And of the langor tell him thou _Hubert._ Peace! no more. Adieu.

art dead, Your uncle must not know but you Goe in with me, for Hubert was are dead: not borne I'll fill these dogged spies with To blinde those lampes that false reports; nature pollisht so. And pretty child, sleep doubtless, and secure, _Arth._ Hubert, if ever Arthur That Hubert for the wealth of all be in state, the world Looke for amends of this Will not offend thee.

received gift, I tooke my eyesight by thy _Arth._ O heaven!-- curtesie, I thank you, Hubert.

Thou lentst them me, I will not be ingrate. _Hub._ Silence! no more. Go closely But now procrastination may in with me; offend Much danger do I undergo for thee.

The issue that thy kindness (_Exeunt._) undertakes: Depart we Hubert, to prevent the worst. (_Exeunt._)[36]

For further ill.u.s.tration of Shakespeare's clear understanding that the emotions of well-characterized figures are better means of controlling an audience than a merely horrific situation, study his handling of the ghost scene in _Richard III_ or _Julius Caesar_ in contrast with similar places in _Hamlet_. What most trans.m.u.ted the _Ur-Hamlet_ of Thomas Kyd into one of the greatest tragedies of all time was the characterization Shakespeare put into it. Certainly, characterization makes for dramatists the stepping-stones on which they may rise from dead selves to higher things.

How may all this needed characterization best be done? A dramatist should not permit himself to describe his characters, for in his own personality he has no proper place in the text. There the characters must speak and act for themselves. There has been, however, an increasing tendency lately to describe the _dramatis personae_ of the play in programs, either in the list of characters or in a summary of the plot. Some writers apparently a.s.sume that every auditor reads his program carefully before the curtain goes up. Such an a.s.sumption is false: more than that it is lazy, incompetent, and thoroughly vicious, putting a play on the level with the motion pictures, which cannot depend wholly on themselves but would often be wholly vague without explanatory words thrown upon the canvas. Nor can the practice of the older dramatists like Wycherley and Shadwell, who often prefixed to their printed plays elaborate summaries describing the _dramatis personae_, be cited as a final defense.

Sir William Belfond, a Gentleman of above 3,000 per annum, who in his youth had been a spark of the town, but married and retired into the country, where he turned to the other extreme, rigid and morose, most sordidly covetous, clownish, obstinate, positive, and froward.

Sir Edward Belfond, his Brother, a merchant, who by lucky hits had gotten a great estate, lives single, with ease and pleasure, reasonably and virtuously. A man of great humanity and gentleness and compa.s.sion towards mankind; well read in good books possessed with all gentleman-like qualities.

Belfond, Senior, eldest son to Sir William; bred after his father's rustic, swinish manner, with great rigour and severity; upon whom his father's estate is entailed; the confidence of which makes him break out into open rebellion to his father, and become lewd, abominably vicious, stubborn, and obstinate.

Belfond, Junior, second Son to Sir William; adopted by Sir Edward, and bred from his childhood by him, with all tenderness, and familiarity, and bounty, and liberty that can be, instructed in all the liberal sciences, and in all gentlemanlike education. Somewhat given to women, and now and then to good fellowship, but an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman: a man of honour, and of excellent disposition and temper.

Truman, his friend, a man of honour and fortune.

Cheatly, a rascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir out of Whitefriars, but there inveigles young heirs in tail, and helps them to goods and money upon great disadvantages; is bound for them, and shares with them, till he undoes them. A lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the cant about town.

Shamwell, cousin to the Belfonds, an heir, who being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others; not daring to stir out of Alsatia, where he lives. Is bound with Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon them a dissolute, debauched life.

Captain Hack.u.m, a blockheaded bully of Alsatia; a cowardly, impudent, bl.u.s.tering fellow; formerly a sergeant in Flanders, run from his colours, retreated into Whitefriars for a very small debt, where, by the Alsatians, he is dubbed a captain; marries one that lets lodgings, sells cherry brandy, and is a bawd.

Sc.r.a.peall, a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise fellow, pretending to great piety, a G.o.dly knave, who joins with Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money.

Attorney to Sir William Belfond, who solicits his business and receives all his packets.

Lolp.o.o.p, a North-country fellow, servant to Belfond, Senior, much displeased at his master's proceedings.[37]

It is more than doubtful if anything so elaborate could be found in the ma.n.u.scripts of Wycherley and Shadwell. Their purpose was doubtless the same as that of certain modern dramatists who, with a view to making plays less difficult for those unaccustomed to reading them, greatly amplify the stage directions before their plays go to print. Mr.

Granville Barker in the ma.n.u.scripts of his plays is particularly frugal of stage directions, but in the printed form of _The Madras House_,[38]

practically the whole history of Julia is given in the opening stage direction:

_Julia started life--that is to say, left school--as a genius. The head mistress had had two or three years of such dull girls that really she could not resist this excitement. Watercolour sketches were the medium. So Julia was dressed in brown velveteen, and sent to an art school, where they wouldn't let her do watercolour drawing at all.

And in two years she learnt enough about the trade of an artist not ever to want to do those watercolour drawings again. Julia is now over thirty, and very unhappy. Three of her watercolours (early masterpieces) hang on the drawing-room wall. They shame her, but her mother won't have them taken down. On a holiday she'll be off now and then for a solid day's sketching; and as she tears up the vain attempt to put on paper the things she has learnt to see, she sometimes cries.

It was Julia, Emma, and Jane who, some years ago, conspired to present their mother with that intensely conspicuous cosy corner. A cosy corner is apparently a device for making a corner just what the very nature of a corner should forbid it to be. They beggared themselves; but one wishes that Mr. Huxtable were more lavish with his dress allowances, then they might at least have afforded something not quite so hideous._

Such characterizing is an implied censure on the ability of most readers to see the full significance of deft touches in the dialogue. If not, then it is necessary because some part of it is not given in the text as it should be, or it is wholly unnecessary and undesirable, for the text, repeating all this detail, will be wearisome to an intelligent reader.

The safest principle is, in preparing a ma.n.u.script for acting, to keep stage directions to matters of setting, lighting, essential movements, and the intonations which cannot, by the utmost efforts of the author, be conveyed by dialogue.[39] In this last group belong certain every-day phrases susceptible of so many shadings that the actor needs guidance.

In the last line of this extract from the opening of Act III of _Mrs.

Dane's Defence_, the "tenderly" is necessary.

_Enter Wilson right, announcing Lady Eastney. Enter Lady Eastney.

Exit Wilson._

_Lady Eastney._ (_Shaking hands._) You're busy?

_Sir Daniel._ Yes, trying to persuade myself I am forty--solely on your account.

_Lady Eastney._ That's not necessary. I like you well enough as you are.

_Sir Daniel._ (_Tenderly._) Give me the best proof of that.

Notice that the statement just formulated as to stage directions reads, "cannot be conveyed," not "may not." Cross the line, and differences between the novel and the play are blurred, for the author runs a fair chance of omitting exposition needed in the text and of writing colorless dialogue. A recently published play prefaces not only every speech, but even parts of the speeches with careful statements as to how they should be given, even when the text is perfectly clear. Nothing is left to the imagination, and the text is often emotionally colorless.

Let it be remembered, then, that the stage direction is not a pocket into which a dramatist may stuff whatever explanation, description, or a.n.a.lysis a novelist might allow himself, but is more a last resort to which he turns when he cannot make his text convey all that is necessary.

The pa.s.sing of the soliloquy and the aside[40] makes the dramatist of today much more limited than were his predecessors in letting a character describe itself. Today everything depends on the naturalness of the self-exposition. The vainglorious, the self-centered, the garrulous will always talk of themselves freely. The reserved, the timid, and persons under suspicion will be sparing of words. When the ingenuity of the dramatist cannot make self-exposition plausible, the scene promptly becomes unreal. The point to be remembered is, as George Meredith once said, that "The verdict is with the observer." Not what seems plausible to the author but what, as he tries it on auditors, proves acceptable, may stand.

Description of one character by another is usually more plausible than the method just treated. Even here, however, the test remains plausibility. It requires persuasive acting to make the following description of Tartuffe perfectly natural. There is danger that it will appear more the detailed picture the dramatist wishes to place in our minds than the description the speaker would naturally give his listeners:

_Orgon._ Ah! If you'd seen him, as I saw him first, You would have loved him just as much as I.

He came to church each day, with contrite mien, Kneeled, on both knees, right opposite my place, And drew the eyes of all the congregation, To watch the fervor of his prayers to heaven; With deep-drawn sighs and great e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.

He humbly kissed the earth at every moment; And when I left the church, he ran before me To give me holy water at the door.

I learned his poverty, and who he was, By questioning his servant, who is like him, And gave him gifts; but in his modesty He always wanted to return a part.

"It is too much," he'd say, "too much by half; I am not worthy of your pity." Then, When I refused to take it back, he'd go, Before my eyes, and give it to the poor.

At length Heaven bade me take him to my home, And since that day, all seems to prosper here.

He censures nothing, and for my sake He even takes great interest in my wife; He lets me know who ogles her, and seems Six times as jealous as I am myself.

You'd not believe how far his zeal can go: He calls himself a sinner just for trifles; The merest nothing is enough to shock him; So much so, that the other day I heard him Accuse himself for having, while at prayer, In too much anger caught and killed a flea.[41]