Dramatic Technique Part 66

ACT III. _Scene opens. Sir John, Lady Brute, and Belinda rising from the Table_

_Sir John._ Will it so, Mrs. Pert? Now I believe it will so increase it, (_sitting and smoaking_) I shall take my own House for a Papermill.

_Lady Brute._ (_To Belinda aside._) Don't let's mind him; let him say what he will.

_Sir John._ (_Aside._) A Woman's Tongue a Cure for the Spleen--Oons--If a Man had got the Head-ach, they'd be for applying the same Remedy.

_Lady Brute._ You have done a great deal, Belinda, since yesterday.

_Belinda._ Yes, I have work'd very hard; how do you like it?

_Lady Brute._ O, 'tis the prettiest Fringe in the World. Well, Cousin, you have the happiest fancy. Prithee advise me about altering my Crimson Petticoat.

_Sir John._ A Pox o' your Petticoat; here's such a Prating, a Man can't digest his own Thoughts for you.

_Lady Brute._ (_Aside._) Don't answer him.--Well, what do you advise me?

_Belinda._ Why really I would not alter it at all. Methinks 'tis very pretty as it is.[56]

Sir John's aside, if addressed to the audience, is bad; if meant to ill.u.s.trate his habit of grumbling to himself, it is permissible.

Mr. Henry Arthur Jones protests against complete disuse of the aside.

"In discarding the 'aside' in modern drama we have thrown away a most valuable and, at times, a most necessary convention. Let any one glance at the 'asides' of Sir John Brute in _The Provoked Wife_, and he will see what a splendid instrument of rich comedy the 'aside' may become.

How are we as spectators to know what one character on the stage thinks of the situation and of the other characters, unless he tells us; or unless he conveys it by facial play and gestures which are the equivalent of an 'aside'? The 'aside' is therefore as legitimate a convention of drama as the removal of the fourth wall. More and more the English modern drama seems to be sacrificing everything to the mean ambition of presenting an exact photograph of real life."[57]

Of course Mr. Jones is quite right in wishing to keep the aside for cases in which it is perfectly natural. His ill.u.s.tration of Sir John Brute is, however, not wholly fortunate, for his asides are not conventional but are characterizing touches. Surely we must all admit that a certain type of drunkard likes to mumble to himself insulting speeches which he hasn't quite the courage to speak directly to other people, but rather hopes they may overhear. Study the asides of Sir John Brute--they are not very many after all--and note that practically every one might be said directly to the people on the stage. All of them help to present Sir John as the heavy drinker who talks to himself and selects for his speeches to himself his particularly insulting remarks.

Why, too, are "facial play and gestures" more objectionable than the conventional aside? The fundamental trouble with the aside which should not be overheard by people on the stage is that, if spoken naturally, it would be too low for the audience to hear, and if spoken loud enough to be heard, would so affect the other characters as to change materially the development of the scene. The aside should, therefore, be used with great care.

Congreve, writing of ordinary human speech said, "I believe if a poet should steal a dialogue of any length, from the extempore discourse of the two wittiest men upon earth, he would find the scene but coldly received by the town."[58] In everyday speech, that is, we do not say our say in the most compact, characteristic, and entertaining fashion.

To gain all that, we must use more concentration and selection than we give to ordinary human intercourse. Just that concentration of attention, which produces needed selection, a dramatist must give his dialogue. To this concentration and selection he is forced by the time difficulty already explained. Into the period sometimes consumed by a single bit of gossiping, perhaps shot through with occasional flashes of wit, but more probably dull,--into the s.p.a.ce of two hours and a quarter,--the dramatist must crowd all the happenings, the growth of his characters, and the close reasoning of his play. Dramatic dialogue is human speech so wisely edited for use under the conditions of the stage that far more quickly than under ordinary circ.u.mstances the events are presented, in character, and perhaps in a phrasing delightful of itself.

Picking just the right words to convey with gesture, voice and the other stage aids of dialogue the emotions of the characters is so exacting a task that many a writer tries to dodge it. He thinks that by prefacing nearly every speech with "Tenderly," "Sarcastically," "With much humor,"

in other words a statement as to how his lines should be read, commonplace phrasings may be made to pa.s.s for the right emotional currency. This is a lazy trick of putting off on the actor what would be the delight of the writer if he really cared for his work and knew what he wished to say. Of course, from time to time one needs such stage directions, but the safest way is to insist, in early drafts, on making the text convey the desired emotion without such statements. Otherwise a writer easily falls into writing unemotionalized speeches, the stage directions of which call upon the actor to provide the emotion.

A similar trick is to write incomplete sentences, usually ending with dashes. Though it is true, as Carlyle long ago pointed out, that a thought or a climax which a reader or hearer completes for himself is likely to give him special satisfaction, the device is easily overdone, and too often the uncompleted line means either that the author does not know exactly what he wishes to say, or that, though he knows, the hearer or reader may not complete the thought as he does. The worst of this last trick is that it may confuse the reader and, as was explained earlier in this chapter, clearness in gaining the desired effect is the chief essential in dialogue.

An allied difficulty comes from writing dialogue in blocks, the author forgetting, in the first place, that the other people on the stage are likely to interrupt and break up such speech, and secondly, that when several ideas are presented to an audience in the same speech, they are likely to confuse hearers. In these parallel pa.s.sages from the two quartos of _Hamlet_, is not the right-hand column, with its mingling of rapidly exchanged speech and description, much more vivid and moving?

_Enter Ofelia;_ _Enter Ophelia._

_Corambis._ Farewel, how now _Polonius._ Farewell. How now Ofelia, what's the news with you? Ophelia, what's the matter?

_Ophelia._ O my Lord, my Lord, _Ofelia._ O my deare father, I have been so affrighted.

such a change in nature, So great an alteration in a _Polonius._ With what i'th Prince, name of G.o.d?

So pitifull to him, fearefull to mee, _Ophelia._ My Lord, as I was A maiden's eye ne're looked on. sowing in my closset, Lord Hamlet with his doublet _Corambis._ Why, what's the all unbrac'd, matter my Ofelia? No hat upon his head, his stockins fouled, _Ofelia._ O yong Prince Hamlet, Ungartred, and downe gyved to the only floure of Denmark, his ancle, Hee is bereft of all the wealth Pale as his shirt, his knees he had, knocking each other, The Jewell that adorn'd his And with a look so pittious in feature most purport Is filcht and stolne away, his As if he had been loosed out wit's bereft him. of h.e.l.l To speake of horrors, he comes before me.

_Polonius._ Mad for thy love?

_Ophelia._ My lord I doe not know, But truly I doe feare it.

_Polonius._ What said he?

_Ophelia._ He took me by the wrist, and held me hard, Then goes he to the length of all his arme, And with his other hand thus ore his brow, He falls to such perusall of my face As a would draw it.[59]

Is it probable that in the following extract from _A Soul's Tragedy_ of Browning the deeply interested and excited audience would permit the first bystander to complete uninterrupted his third and very long speech? Are the phrasing and thought really his, or Robert Browning's?

ACT II. _Scene. The market place. Luitolfo in disguise mingling with the Populace a.s.sembled opposite the Provost's Palace._

_1st Bystander._ (_To Luitolfo._) You, a friend of Luitolfo's? Then, your friend is vanished,--in all probability killed on the night that his patron the tyrannical Provost was loyally suppressed here, exactly a month ago, by our ill.u.s.trious fellow-citizen, thrice-n.o.ble saviour, and new Provost that is like to be, this very morning,--Chiappino!

_Luitolfo._ (_Aside._) (If I had not lent that man the money he wanted last spring, I should fear this bitterness was attributable to me.) Luitolfo is dead then, one may conclude?

_3rd Bystander._ Why, he had a house here, and a woman to whom he was affianced; and as they both pa.s.s naturally to the new Provost, his friend and heir...

_Luitolfo._ Ah, I suspected you of imposing upon me with your pleasantry! I know Chiappino better.

_1st Bystander._ (Our friend has the bile. After all, I do not dislike finding somebody vary a little this general gape of admiration at Chiappino's glorious qualities.) Pray, how much may you know of what has taken place in Faenza since that memorable night?

_Luitolfo._ It is most to the purpose, that I know Chiappino to have been by profession a hater of that very office of Provost, you now charge him with proposing to accept.

_1st Bystander._ Sir, I'll tell you. That night was indeed memorable.

Up we rose, a ma.s.s of us, men, women, children; out fled the guards with the body of the tyrant; we were to defy the world; but, next gray morning, "What will Rome say?" began everybody. You know we are governed by Ravenna, which is governed by Rome. And quietly into the town, by the Ravenna road, comes on muleback a portly personage, Ogniben by name, with the quality of Pontifical Legate; trots briskly through the streets humming a "Cur fremuere gentes," and makes directly for the Provost's Palace--there it faces you. "One Messer Chiappino is your leader? I have known three-and-twenty leaders of revolts!" (laughing gently to himself)--"Give me the help of your arm from my mule to yonder steps under the pillar--So! And now, my revolters and good friend what do you want? The guards burst into Ravenna last night bearing your wounded Provost; and, having had a little talk with him, I take on myself to come and try appease the disorderliness, before Rome, hearing of it, resort to another method: 'tis I come, and not another, from a certain love I confess to, of composing differences. So, do you understand, you are about to experience this unheard-of tyranny from me, that there shall be no heading nor hanging, no confiscation nor exile: I insist on your simply pleasing yourselves. And, now, pray, what does please you? To live without any government at all? Or having decided for one, to see its minister murdered by the first of your body that chooses to find himself wronged, or disposed for reverting to first principles and a justice anterior to all inst.i.tutions,--and so will you carry matters, that the rest of the world must at length unite and put down such a den of wild beasts? As for vengeance on what had just taken place,--once for all, the wounded man a.s.sures me that he cannot conjecture who struck him; and this so earnestly, that one may be sure he knows perfectly well what intimate acquaintance could find admission to speak with him late last evening. I come not for vengeance therefore, but from pure curiosity to hear what you will do next." And thus he ran on, easily and volubly, till he seemed to arrive quite naturally at the praise of law, order, and paternal government by somebody from rather a distance. All our citizens were in the snare and about to be friends with so congenial an adviser; but that Chiappino suddenly stood forth, spoke out indignantly and set things right again.

_Luitolfo._ Do you see? I recognize him there![60]

People who think ramblingly and not clearly must undoubtedly on the stage speak in similar fashion, but it is wise when possible to avoid stating two or three ideas in the same sentence, or developing two or three ideas in one long speech. An idea to a sentence, with the development of one thought in a speech, is a fairly safe principle, though not unalterable. For instance, the daughter of a widowed mother is facing the fact that if they are to stay in their meagre quarters she may have to ask this as a favor from her employer, Mr. Hollings. The mother, not knowing that he has pressed his attentions objectionably, does not understand the unwillingness of the girl to ask his help. In answer to her pleadings the girl cries, "Oh, I would do anything for you! Poor dear father! Mother, go to Mr. Hollings." Here are three different trains of thought in one speech. The first exclamation is a direct answer to the mother's preceding speech. For the audience there is no clearness of transition to the second exclamation, nor from it to the third. Cut the girl's answer to the first sentence. Then the mother, seizing on the idea that her daughter is willing to do anything, urges her for this and that reason to see her employer, emphasizing the idea that, had the father lived, all their present sorrow would not exist.

In this case the second exclamation falls into its proper place, as a natural reply of the girl to her mother. If, too, as the mother urges reason after reason for going to the employer for aid, the girl at last pleads, "Mother, you go to Mr. Hollings," this sentence also falls into its proper place. It becomes the first sign of her yielding, for she is at last willing that some one should intercede with the man. When a writer finds himself skipping from idea to idea within a speech or a sentence, with transitions likely to be unclear for the audience, he should break what he has written into its component parts and let the other people on the stage, by their interruptions, queries, and comments, provide the connectives of speech and thought which will bind these ideas together properly. The following rearrangement by Miss Anglin of the original text of _Lady Windermere's Fan_ shows her correct feeling that ideas originally treated together should be separated. Lord Windermere's reply is to the first sentence of Mrs. Erlynne's speech. It is therefore much clearer to shift her two succeeding exclamations to her next speech.

ORIGINAL REVISION

_Mrs. Erlynne._ (_C._) How do _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_C._) How do you do, again, Lord Windermere? you do, again, Lord Windermere?

How charming your sweet wife looks! Quite a picture! _Lord Windermere._ (_In a low voice._) It was terribly rash _Lord Windermere._ (_In a low of you to come!

voice._) It was terribly rash of you to come! _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_Smiling._) The wisest thing I ever did in my _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_Smiling._) The life. How charming your sweet wisest thing I ever did in my life. wife looks! Quite a picture! And, And, by the way, you must pay by the way, you must pay me a me a good deal of attention this good deal of attention this evening.[61] evening.

Often dialogue which is clear sentence by sentence is, as a whole, somewhat confusing to an audience. Frequently a careful re-ordering of the parts of the speech, or of a group of speeches, will dispose of the trouble. Occasionally a playwright allows his ordering of his ideas to obscure the cue, or important idea. Undoubtedly the important word in what follows is "christenings," but Chasuble runs on into various other matters before Jack speaks. Consequently a hearer is a little startled when Jack takes up the idea of christenings instead of anything following it.

_Chasuble._ In Paris! (_Shakes his head._) I fear that hardly points to any very serious state of mind at the last. You would no doubt wish me to make some slight allusion to this tragic domestic affliction next Sunday. (_Jack presses his hand convulsively_.) My sermon on the meaning of the manna in the wilderness can be adapted to almost any occasion, joyful, or, as in the present case, distressing. (_All sigh_.) I have preached it at harvest celebrations, christenings, confirmations, on days of humiliation and festal days. The last time I delivered it was in the Cathedral, as a charity sermon on behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Discontent among the Upper Orders.

The Bishop, who was present, was much struck by some of the a.n.a.logies I drew.

_Jack._ Ah! That reminds me, you mentioned christenings I think, Dr.

Chasuble? I suppose you know how to christen all right? (_Dr. Chasuble looks astounded._) I mean, of course, you are continually christening, aren't you?[62]

It is true that the last part of Chasuble's speech ill.u.s.trates his volubility, and that the way in which Jack picks up the idea, "christening," shows that he is so absorbed in his purpose as to pay no attention to anything Chasuble says after "christenings." Here, therefore, the method is probably justified, but ordinarily the end of one speech leads into the next, and when something which breaks the sequence stands between, it must prove its right to be there, or be postponed for later treatment, or be cut out altogether. What re-ordering will do for a dialogue which is uninteresting and somewhat confused was shown in the revising of the extract from the John Brown play (pp. 309-313). There is a brilliant instance, in Miss Anglin's version of _Lady Windermere's Fan_, of re-ordering such that a climax of interest develops from groups of somewhat independent sentences.

ORIGINAL REVISION