Dramatic Technique Part 71

[41] Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.

[42] _The Great Divide_, Act I. The Macmillan Co., New York.

[43] Translated by Arthur Symons. Brentano, New York.

[44] For such skilful subst.i.tution of pantomime for words, see pp.

388-89, _Lady Windermere's Fan_.

[45] _Robert Louis Stevenson, the Dramatist_, p. 15. Sir A.W. Pinero.

Chiswick Press, London. For the play see _Three Plays_, Henley and Stevenson. Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[46] Samuel French, New York.

[47] _The d.u.c.h.esse of Malfi_, Act V, Scene 4. Belles-Lettres Series.

M. W. Sampson, ed. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston and New York.

[48] _Oth.e.l.lo_, Act II, Scene 1.

[49] _Oth.e.l.lo_, Act III, Scene 3.

[50] _Drama League Series_. Hannah Lynch, tr. Doubleday, Page & Co.

[51] _Plays_, vol. 1. J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[52] _Plays_, vol. 1. J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[53] _Introduction to Browning_, pp. 85-86. H. Corson. D. C. Heath & Co.

[54] _The Ring and the Book_. Robert Browning. Tauchnitz ed., vol.

IV. Leipzig.

[55] Act II, Scene 2. Samuel French, New York.

[56] _Plays_, vol. II, pp. 150-51. J. Tonson. London, 1730.

[57] _The Foundations of a National Drama_, p. 23. H. A. Jones.

George H. Doran Company, New York.

[58] _Concerning Humour in Comedy. A Letter. European Theories of the Drama_, pp. 213-214. Ed. B. H. Clark. Stewart and Kidd Co., Cincinnati.

[59] _The Devonshire Hamlets_, p. 28.

[60] Belles-Lettres Series, pp. 271-273. A. Bates, ed. D.C. Heath & Co., Boston.

[61] _Plays of Oscar Wilde_, vol. 1, _Lady Windermere's Fan_. J. W.

Luce & Co., Boston.

[62] _Idem_, vol. II. _The Importance of Being Earnest._

[63] _Plays of Oscar Wilde_, vol. 1. J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[64] Walter H. Baker Co., Boston.

[65] _Dramatic Works_, vol. II, pp. 222-223. London, 1773.

[66] Geo. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. _Selected Dramas of John Dryden, with The Rehearsal_, p. 399. G.R. Noyes, ed. Scott, Freeman & Co.

[67] _Richard the Second_, Act IV. Scene 1.

[68] _Twelfth Night_, Act I, Scene 5.

[69] _Plays of Oscar Wilde_, vol. II. J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[70] _Dramatic Works of William Congreve_, vol. II. pp. 111-117. S.

Crowder, London, 1773.

[71] J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[72] _The Letters of Henrik Ibsen_, p. 269. Letter to Edmund Gosse, January 15, 1874. Fox, Duffield & Co., New York.

CHAPTER IX

MAKING A SCENARIO

There is frequent and decided divergence of opinion among dramatists as to the value of a scenario,--the outline of a play which the dramatist purposes to write or has already written. Some dramatists very carefully prepare a detailed outline before they settle down to writing a play.

Others, equally well-known on the stage a.s.sert: "I never think of mapping out in detail what I intend to write. When I begin, I may know only my central situation or little more than my main characters in broadest outline. I simply write and rewrite until the perfected ma.n.u.script lies before me." Another declares that although he has no scenario, he does use some notes. Showing these notes,--an acc.u.mulation of ideas as they have come to him from time to time, written anywhere on a single sheet without apparent order or form,--he asks triumphantly whether this can be called a scenario. Whatever the opinion of a dramatist as to the usual value to him of a scenario, he can hardly deny that there are times when it is very convenient to have a scenario of a play not yet completed. Plays sometimes have a curious, unexpected way of forcing themselves on the attention of a writer when his mind should be engrossed with another play. Ideas wholly irrelevant to the play in question keep surging into the dramatist's mind and drawing his attention from the subject in which he wishes to be interested. Often he can relieve his mind of this Banquo-like play, not by stopping to write it out in full, but by putting a careful outline of it on paper and storing this away until such time as he has opportunity to work out the play from this scenario. Or it may be that a dramatist sees that plays he has submitted to some manager or actor are not attractive, but that some subject which as yet lies only half-formed in his mind finds, when mentioned, a ready response. Here is the best opportunity for use of a good scenario. Submit such to the actor or manager in question and even if a contract does not follow, the promise, "I will produce your play if it is as good as your scenario" is very likely to be made. Admitting then, for the moment, that some dramatists believe they can get on equally well without a scenario as a prerequisite for one of their plays, what are the main characteristics of a good scenario--this form of outline which some dramatists have found very useful in their work?

In the first place, the word "scenario" has been very carelessly used.

It is often applied to as brief a set of notes as the following, intended by Ibsen merely to suggest to his correspondent in the broadest possible way the play which he thinks might be made from the poem which he has been discussing:

Have you not noticed that you have in the division of your poem ent.i.tled, _A Norwegian Sculptor_, the subject for a five-act popular play (Folkeskuespil)? Act 1. In the Mountains. The wood-carver. The art-enthusiast from the capital discovers him and takes him away with him. Act 2. In Christiania. The boy the hero of the day; great hopes; sent to Rome. Act. 3. In Rome. Life there among the artists and the Italian lower cla.s.s. Act 4. Many years later. Return to Christiania; forgotten; everything changed. Act 5. At home again in the mountain parish; ruin. Write this with songs and dances and popular costumes and irony and devilry.[1] ...

In the following from _Little Stories of New Plays_ we have a far better summary than in the instance just cited, but surely even this is an outline and not a dramatic scenario, for intentionally it does not convey to a reader just that for which he would go to the theatre, the emotional treatment of the scenes--here given only in the merest outline.

GENERAL JOHN REGAN

BY GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM

_Characters_

_Dr. Lucius O'Grady._ _Constable Moriarity, R.I.C._ _Timothy Doyle._ _Tom Kerrigan, bandmaster._ _Major Ken._ _Rev. Father McCormack._ _Thaddeus Golligher._ _Lord Alfred Blakeney._ _Horace P. Billing._ _Mrs. de Courvy._ _C. Gregg, district inspector._ _Mrs. Gregg._ _Sergeant Colgan, R.I.C._ _Mary Ellen._

_Into Ballymoy, a sleepy little town in the west of Ireland, comes Horace P. Billing, one gentle summer day, and spins in the market place a tale of a certain General John Regan, who, he said, these many years agone had been born and had sailed from Ballymoy to free the oppressed people of Bolivia, and who was the great national hero of that Republic from that time to the present day._