Public Speaking Part 33

HOPPER

You don't mind my taking Agatha off to Australia, then, d.u.c.h.ess?

d.u.c.h.eSS

[_Indignantly_] To Australia? Oh, don't mention that dreadful vulgar place.

HOPPER

But she said she'd like to come with me.

d.u.c.h.eSS

[_Severely_] Did you say that, Agatha?

AGATHA

Yes, mamma.

d.u.c.h.eSS

Agatha, you say the most silly things possible.

Descriptions of Characters. In addition to definite directions at special times during the course of the dialogue, modern writers of plays describe each character quite fully at his first entrance into the action. This gives the delineator of each role a working basis for his guidance. Such directions carefully followed out a.s.sure the tone for the whole cast. They keep a subordinate part always in the proper relation to all others. They make certain the impression of the whole story as a consistent artistic development. They prevent misunderstandings about the author's aim. They provide that every character shall appear to be swayed by natural motives. They remove from the performance all suggestions of unregulated caprice.

Dramatists vary in the exactness and minuteness of such descriptive character sketches, but even the shortest and most general is necessary to the proper appreciation of every play, even if it is being merely read. When a student is a.s.similating a role for rehearsing or acting, these additions of the author are as important as the lines themselves.

EXERCISES

a.n.a.lyze the following. Discuss the suitability of various members of the cla.s.s for each part. Which details do you think least essential?

1. He is a tall, thin, gaunt, withered, domineering man of sixty. When excited or angry he drops into dialect, but otherwise his speech, though flat, is fairly accurate. He sits in an arm-chair by the empty hearth working calculations in a small shiny black notebook, which he carries about with him everywhere, in a side pocket.

2. When the curtain rises a man is seen climbing over the balcony. His hair is close cut; his shirt dirty and blood-stained. He is followed by another man dressed like a sailor with a blue cape, the hood drawn over his head. Moonlight.

3. Enter Dinah Kippen quickly, a dingy and defiant young woman carrying a tablecloth. She is a nervous creature, driven half-mad by the burden of her cares. Conceiving life, necessarily, as a path to be traversed at high speed, whenever she sees an obstacle in her way, whether in the physical or in the moral sphere, she rushes at it furiously to remove it or destroy it.

4. Mrs. Rhead, a woman of nearly sixty, is sitting on the sofa, crocheting some lace, which is evidently destined to trim petticoats.

Her hair is dressed in the style of 1840, though her dress is of the 1860 period.

5. The song draws nearer and Patricia Carleon enters. She is dark and slight, and has a dreamy expression. Though she is artistically dressed, her hair is a little wild. She has a broken branch of some flowering tree in her hand.

6. Enter a Neat-herd, followed by King Alfred, who is miserably clad and shivering from cold; he carries a bow and a few broken arrows. A log fire is burning smokily in a corner of the hut.

7. Enter from the right Ito, the cynic philosopher, book in hand.

8. The rising of the curtain discovers the two Miss Wetherills--two sweet old ladies who have grown so much alike it would be difficult for a stranger to tell the one from the other. The hair of both is white, they are dressed much alike, both in some soft lavender colored material, mixed with soft lace.

9. Newte is a cheerful person, attractively dressed in clothes suggestive of a successful follower of horse races. He carries a white pot hat and ta.s.selled cane. His gloves are large and bright. He is smoking an enormous cigar.

10. She is young, slender, graceful; her yellow hair is in disorder, her face the color of ruddy gold, her teeth white as the bones of the cuttle-fish, her eyes humid and sea-green, her neck long and thin, with a necklace of sh.e.l.ls about it; in her whole person something inexpressibly fresh and glancing, which makes one think of a creature impregnated with sea-salt dipped in the moving waters, coming out of the hiding-places of the rocks. Her petticoat of striped white and blue, torn and discolored, falls only just below the knees, leaving her legs bare; her bluish ap.r.o.n drips and smells of the brine like a filter; and her bare feet in contrast with the brown color that the sun has given her flesh, are singularly pallid, like the roots of aquatic plants. And her voice is limpid and childish; and some of the words that she speaks seem to light up her ingenuous face with a mysterious happiness.

Studying Plays. In nearly every grade of school and college, plays are either read or studied. The usual method of study is to read the lines of the play in rotation about the cla.s.s, stopping at times for explanations, definitions, impressions, general discussions. Such minute a.n.a.lysis may extend to the preparation of outlines and diagrams. The methods used to get pupils to know plays are almost as varied as teachers. After such a.n.a.lytical study has been pursued it is always a stimulating exercise to get another impression of the play--not as mere poetry or literature, but as acted drama.

This may be accomplished in a short time by very simple means. Pupils should memorize certain portions and then recite them before the cla.s.s. Neither costumes nor scenery will be required. All the members of the cla.s.s have in their minds the appearances of the surroundings and the persons. What they need is to _hear_ the speeches the dramatist put into the hearts and mouths of his characters.

The best presentation would be the delivery of the entire play running through some four or five cla.s.s periods. If so much time cannot be allotted to this, only certain scenes need be delivered. The teacher might a.s.sign the most significant ones to groups of pupils, allowing each group to arrange for rehearsals before appearing before the cla.s.s. In some cla.s.ses the pupils may be trusted to arrange the entire distribution of scenes and roles. When their preliminary planning has been finished, they should hand to the teacher a schedule of scenes and partic.i.p.ants.

Whenever a play is read or studied, pupils will be attracted more by some pa.s.sages than by others. A teacher may dispense with all a.s.signments. The pupils could be directed merely to arrange their own groups, choose the scenes they want to offer, and to prepare as they decide. In such a voluntary a.s.sociation some members of the cla.s.s might be uninvited to speak with any group. These then might find their material in prologue, epilogue, chorus, soliloquy, or inserted songs. Nearly every play contains long pa.s.sages requiring for their effect no second speaker. Shakespeare's plays contain much such material. All the songs from a play would const.i.tute a delightful offering. Nothing in all the acted portion of _Henry V_ is any better than the stirring speeches of the Chorus. _Hamlet_ has three great soliloquies for boys. _Macbeth_ contains the sleepwalking scene for girls. Milton's _Comus_ is made up of beautiful poetic pa.s.sages. Every drama studied or read for school contains enough for every member of a cla.s.s.

Some pupils may object that unless an exact preliminary a.s.signment is made, two or more groups may choose the same scene. Such a probable happening, far from being a disadvantage to be avoided, is a decided advantage worthy of being purposely attempted. Could anything be more stimulating than to see and hear two different casts interpret a dramatic situation? Each would try to do better than the other. Each would be different in places. From a comparison the audience and performers would have all the more light thrown upon what they considered quite familiar.

It would be a mistake to have five quartettes repeat the same scene over and over again. Yet if twenty pupils had unconsciously so chosen, three presentations might be offered for discriminating observation.

Then some other portion could be inserted and later the first scene could be gone through twice.

a.s.signing Roles. Teacher and pupils should endeavor to secure variety of interest in roles. At first, a.s.signments are likely to be determined by apparent fitness. The quiet boy is not required to play the part of the braggart. The retiring girl is not expected to impersonate the shrew. In one or two appearances it may be a good thing to keep in mind natural apt.i.tude.

Then there should be a departure from this system. Educational development comes not only from doing what you are best able to do, but from developing the less-marked phases of your disposition and character. The opposite practice should be followed, at least once.

Let the prominent cla.s.s member a.s.sume a role of subdued personality.

Let the timid take the lead. Induce the silent to deliver the majority of the speeches. You will be amazed frequently to behold the best delineations springing from such a.s.signments.

Such rehearsing of a play already studied should terminate the minute a.n.a.lysis in order to show the material for what it is--actable drama.

It will vivify the play again, and make the characters live in your memory as mere reading never will. You will see the moving people, the grouped situations, the developed story, the impressive climax, and the satisfying conclusion.

In dealing with scenes from a long play--whether linked or disconnected--pupils will always have a feeling of incompleteness. In a full-length play no situation is complete in itself. It is part of a longer series of events. It may finish one part of the action, but it usually merely carries forward the plot, pa.s.sing on the complication to subsequent situations.

Short Plays. To deal with finished products should be the next endeavor. There are thousands of short plays suitable for cla.s.s presentation in an informal manner. Most of them do not require intensive study, as does a great Greek or English drama, so their preparation may go on entirely outside the cla.s.sroom. It should be frankly admitted that the exercises of delivering lines "in character"

as here described is not acting or producing the play. That will come later. These preliminary exercises--many or few, painstaking or sketchy--are processes of training pupils to speak clearly, interestingly, forcefully, in the imagined character of some other person. The pupil must not wrongly believe that he is acting.

Though the delivery of a complete short play may seem like a performance, both partic.i.p.ants and audience must not think of it so.

It is cla.s.s exercise, subject to criticism, comment, improvement, exactly as all other cla.s.s recitations are.

Since the entire cla.s.s has not had the chance to become familiar with all the short plays to be presented, some one should give an introductory account of the time and place of action. There might be added any necessary comments upon the characters. The cast of characters should be written upon the board.

This exercise should be exactly like the preceding, except that it adds the elements of developing the plot of the play, creating suspense, impressing the climax, and satisfactorily rounding off the play. In order to accomplish these important effects the partic.i.p.ants will soon discover that they must agree upon certain details to be made most significant. This will lead to discussions about how to make these points stand out. In the concerted attempt to give proper emphasis to some line late in the play it will be found necessary to suppress a possible emphasis of some line early in the action. To reinforce a trait of some person, another character may have to be made more self-a.s.sertive.

To secure this unified effect which every play should make the persons involved will have to consider carefully every detail in lines and stage directions, fully agree upon what impression they must strive for, then heartily cooperate in attaining it. They must forget themselves to remember always that "the play's the thing."

The following list will suggest short plays suitable for informal cla.s.sroom training in dramatics. Most of these are also general enough in their appeal to serve for regular production upon a stage before a miscellaneous audience.

Aldrich, T.B. _Pauline Pavlovna_ Baring, M. _Diminutive Dramas_ Butler, E.P. _The Revolt_ Cannan, G. _Everybody's Husband_ Dunsany, Lord _Tents of the Arabs_ The Lost Silk Hat Fame and the Poet_ Fenn and Pryce. _'Op-o-Me-Thumb_ Gale, Z. _Neighbors_ Gerstenberg, A. _Overtones_ Gibson, W. W. Plays in Collected Works Gregory, Lady. _Spreading the News The Workhouse Ward Coats,_ etc.

Houghton, S. _The Dear Departed_ Jones, H. A. _Her Tongue_ Kreymborg, A. _Mannikin and Minnikin_ Moeller, P. _Pokey_ Quintero, J. and S.A. _A Sunny Morning_ Rice, C. _The Immortal Lure_ Stevens, T.W. _Ryland_ Sudermann, H. _The Far-Away Princess_ Tchekoff, A. _A Marriage Proposal_ Torrence, R. _The Rider of Dreams_ Walker, S. _Never-the-Less_ Yeats, W.B. _Cathleen Ni Houlihan_

Producing Plays. Any cla.s.s or organization which has followed the various forms of dramatics outlined thus far in this chapter will find it an easy matter to succeed in the production of a play before an audience.

The Play. The first thing to decide upon is the play itself. This choice should be made as far in advance of performance as is possible.

Most of the work of producing a play is in adequate preparation. Up to this time audiences have been members of the cla.s.s, or small groups with kindly dispositions and forbearing sympathies. A general audience is more critical. It will be led to like or dislike according to the degree its interest is aroused and held. It will be friendly, but more exacting. The suitability of the play for the audience must be regarded. A comedy by Shakespeare which delights and impresses both performers and audience is much more stimulating and educating than a Greek tragedy which bores them.