How To Produce Amateur Plays Part 4

This elementary diagram will serve as a working basis. A very little rehearsing will soon make it necessary to arrange the furniture, and so on, in a manner more pleasing to the eye and more convenient to the actor.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There is one more kind of text with which amateurs have to do: it is the reprint of actual prompt-copies, and is usually accurate in material details. The following extract is from the opening pages of the fourth act of Henry Arthur Jones's "The Liars" (in the special edition published by Samuel French):

_Scene: Drawing-room in Sir Christopher's flat in Victoria Street. L. at back is a large recess, taking up half the stage.

The right half is taken up by an inner room furnished as library and smoking-room. Curtains dividing library from drawing-room.

Door up-stage, L. A table down-stage, R. The room is in great confusion, with portmanteau open, clothes, etc., scattered over the floor; articles which an officer going to Central Africa might want are lying about._

The diagram, as given in the text, is this:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This is merely a skeleton, as it were, of a diagram, but first, the preliminary stage directions--quoted above--and the detailed and full marginal and other stage directions in the text, make clear every crossing, entrance, and exit, and designate at least the important articles of furniture and "props." For example, it is learned from the text on the first and second pages of the act, that there is a uniform case "up-Center"--up-stage, that is, in the center of it; a folding stool by the table; a trunk to the left of Center; and a sofa on the extreme left. Unlike the quotations from the Wilde and Shaw plays, those of Jones supply all necessary information to the stage manager and the actors. Of course, as always, modifications must be made to meet the exigencies of certain stages and certain actors, but these are minor matters.

The fundamental principles of this preliminary blocking-out having been laid down, we shall now proceed to a consideration of the infinitely varied problems of grouping and detailed stage business.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SET FOR MUSSET'S "WHIMS", PRODUCED BY THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PLAYERS.

(Courtesy of The Washington Square Players).]

CHAPTER V

REHEARSING

II

While it is true that the possibilities of variation in the matter of grouping, crossing, and so on, are infinite, still there are some definite principles to be followed.

Suppose that the blocking-out process is over with, and the actors have a fair idea of their entrances, positions, business, and exits. The two following extracts (the first from the third act of Jones's "The Liars", the second from Edouard Pailleron's "The Art of Being Bored") serve to ill.u.s.trate two ways of going about the problem of grouping actors on the stage. The first contains specific directions, the second only the merest suggestions. Below is the diagram of the stage in the third act of "The Liars":

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Up to page 107, which is reproduced on page 50, the characters are grouped as indicated:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Following carefully the stage directions in the text and on the margin, the action is traced as follows:

Mrs. Crespin shakes hands with Sir Christopher. Then (marginal note) "_Sir C. opens door L. for Mrs. Crespin_":

[Ill.u.s.tration]

(_Exit_ MRS. CRESPIN.[5] _They all stand looking at each other, nonplussed._ SIR CHRISTOPHER _slightly touching his head with perplexed gesture_.)

[5] _Sir C. opens door L. for Mrs. Crespin; after her exit, closes door. They all turn and look at Sir C. He sinks into a chair up C., and shakes his head at them._

SIR C.

Our fib won't do.

LADY R.

Freddie, you incomparable nincomp.o.o.p!

FREDDIE.

I like that! If I hadn't asked her, what would have happened?

George Nepean would have come in, you'd have plumped down on him with your lie, and what then? Don't you think it's jolly lucky I said what I did?[6]

[6] _Lady Jess. sits L.C. Sir Chris. puts hat on bookcase C., and comes down C._

SIR C.

It's lucky in this instance. But if I am to embark any further in these imaginative enterprises, I must ask you, Freddie, to keep a silent tongue.

FREDDIE.

What for?

SIR C.

Well, old fellow, it may be an unpalatable truth to you, but you'll never make a good liar.[7]

[7] _Lady R. and Lady Jess. agree with Sir C._

FREDDIE.

Very likely not. But if this sort of thing is going on in my house, I think I ought to.

LADY R.[8]

[8] _Crosses to him C. Freddie sits R.C. annoyed._

Oh, do subside, Freddie, do subside!

LADY J.[9]

[9] _5th call. George._

Yes, George--and perhaps Gilbert--will be here directly. Oh, will somebody tell me what to do?