Dramatic Technique Part 43

_Touch. jun._ Ma.s.s, that's true: posy? i'faith, e'en thus, sir: "Love that's wise Blinds parents' eyes."

_Yel._ How, how? if I may speak without offence, sir, I hold my life--

_Touch. jun._ What, sir?

_Yel._ Go to,--you'll pardon me?

_Touch. jun._ Pardon you? ay, sir.

_Yel._ Will you, i' faith?

_Touch. jun._ Yes, faith, I will.

_Yel._ You'll steal away some man's daughter: am I near you?

Do you turn aside? you gentlemen are mad wags!

I wonder things can be so warily carried, And parents blinded so: but they're served right, That have two eyes and were so dull a' sight.

_Touch. jun._ (_Aside._) Thy doom take hold of thee!

_Yel._ Tomorrow noon Shall show your ring well done.

_Touch. jun._ Being so, 'tis soon.-- Thanks, and your leave, sweet gentlewoman.

_Moll._ Sir, you're welcome.-- (_Exit Touchwood junior._) O were I made of wishes, I went with thee![45]

Could any description or a.n.a.lysis by the author or another character paint as perfectly as does the action of the following lines the wistful grief of the child pining for his mother?

_Enter Giovanni, Count Lodovico._

_Francisco._ How now, my n.o.ble cossin! what, in blacke?

_Giovanni._ Yes, unckle, I was taught to imitate you In vertue, and you must imitate mee In coloures of your garments: my sweete mother Is--

_Fran._ How? where?

_Giov._ Is there; no, yonder; indeed, sir, Ile not tell you, For I shall make you weepe.

_Fran._ Is dead.

_Giov._ Do not blame me now, I did not tell you so.

_Lodovico._ She's dead, my lord.

_Fran._ Dead!

_Monticelso._ Blessed lady; thou art now above thy woes!

Wilt please your lordships to withdraw a little?

(_Exeunt Amba.s.sadors._)

_Giov._ What do the deade do, uncle? do they eate, Heare musicke, goe a hunting, and bee merrie, As wee that live?

_Fran._ No, cose; they sleepe.

_Giov._ Lord, Lord, that I were dead!

I have not slept these sixe nights. When doe they wake?

_Fran._ When G.o.d shall please.

_Giov._ Good G.o.d let her sleepe ever!

For I have knowne her wake an hundredth nights, When all the pillow, where she laid her head, Was brine-wet with her teares. I am to complaine to you, sir.

Ile tell you how they have used her now shees dead: They wrapt her in a cruell fould of lead, And would not let me kisse her.

_Fran._ Thou didst love her.

_Giov._ I have often heard her say she gave mee sucke, And it would seeme by that shee deerely lov'd mee Since princes seldome doe it.

_Fran._ O, all of my poore sister that remaines!

Take him away, for G.o.ds sake!

(_Exeunt Giovanni, Lodovico, and Marcello._)[46]

In brief, then, understand your characters thoroughly, but do not, in your own personality, describe them anywhere. Let them describe themselves, or let other people on the stage describe or a.n.a.lyze them, when this is naturally convincing or may be made plausible by your skill. Trust, however, above all, to letting your characters live before your audience the emotions which interest you, thus making them convey their characters by the best means of communication between actor and audience--namely, action.

In the chapter (VI) dealing with clearness in exposition the extreme importance of identifying the characters for the audience has been carefully treated.[47] Closely connected with this identifying is the matter of entrances and exits.

The characterizing value of exits and entrances is usually little understood by the inexperienced dramatist. Yet in real life, men and women cannot enter or leave a room without characterization. Watch the people in a railroad car as it nears the terminus. The people who rise and stand in the aisles are clearly of different natures from those who remain quietly seated till the train reaches its destination. The twenty or thirty standing wait differently and leave the car with different degrees of haste, nervousness or antic.i.p.ation. Those who remain seated differ also. Some are absorbed in conversation, oblivious of the approaching station; others, somewhat ostentatiously, watch the waiters in the aisles with amused contempt. Study, therefore, exits and entrances. Very few will be found negative in the sense that they add nothing to the knowledge of the characters. How did Claude enter in the following extract from a recent play? Claude, it should be said, has been mentioned just in pa.s.sing, as a suitor of Marna. Other matters, however, have been occupying attention.

_Enter Claude_

_Claude._ (_Sitting beside her on the settle._) I thought I should not see you tonight.

_Marna._ I wondered if you would come.

Claude must really have entered in character--quickly, impetuously, or ardently. He may have paused an instant on the threshold; he may have dashed in, leaving the door ajar; he may have closed it cautiously; he may have come in through the window. And how did they get to the settle?

The author may know all this, but he certainly does not tell. He should visualize his figures as he writes, seeing them from moment to moment as they move, sit, or stand. Otherwise, he will miss much that is significant and characterizing in their actions.

In a play that was largely a study of a self-indulgent, self-centred youth, to the annoyance of all he is late at the family celebration of his cousin's birthday. Sauntering in, he meets a disappointing silence.

Looking about, he says, "n.o.body has missed me." And then, as all wait for his excuses, he shifts the burden of speech to his mother with the words, "Hasn't her ladyship anything to say?" Surely this entrance characterizes.

Illusion disappears, also, when people needed on the stage, from taxi-cab drivers to amba.s.sadors, are apparently waiting just outside the door. A play of very interesting subject-matter became almost ridiculous because whenever anybody was needed, he or she was apparently waiting just outside one of the doors. As some of these were persons involved in affairs of state and others supposedly lived at a distance, their prompt appearance partook of wizardry. People should not only come on in character, but after time enough has been allowed or suggested to permit them to come from the places where they are supposed to have been.

How much the entrance of a character should be prepared for must be left to the judgment of the dramatist. Whatever is needed to make the entrance produce the effect desired must be planted in the minds of the audience before the character appears. Phormio, in Terence's play of that name, does not appear before the second act. His entrance is undoubtedly held back both to whet curiosity to the utmost before he appears, and in order to set forth clearly the tangle of events which his ingenuity must overcome. Magda, in Sudermann's _Heimat_, also appears first in the second act. This is not done because some leading lady wished to make as triumphant an entrance as possible, an inartistic but time-honored reason in some plays, but because, till we have lived with Magda's family in the home from which she was driven by her father's narrowness and inflexibility, we cannot grasp the full significance of her character in this environment when she returns.

Usually, of course, a character of importance does appear in the first act, but naturalness first and theatrical effectiveness second determine the point at which it is proper that a character should appear. The supposed need in the audience for detailed information, slight information, or no information as to a figure about to enter must decide the amount of preliminary statement in regard to him. If possible, a character enters, identifies himself, and places himself with regard to the other persons involved in the action as nearly as possible at one and the same time. The more important the character, the more involved the circ.u.mstances which we must understand before he can enter properly, the greater the amount of preliminary preparation for him. In _Phormio_[48] and _Heimat_ (or _Magda_) this preparation fills an act; in Tartuffe it fills two acts. More often bits here and there prepare the way, or some one pa.s.sage of dialogue, as in the introduction of Sir Amorous La-Foole in Ben Jonson's _Epicoene_.[49]

_Dauphine._ We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, Sir La-Foole.

_Clerimont._ I, that's a precious mannikin!