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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32433-8.txt b/32433-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0a2165 --- /dev/null +++ b/32433-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4126 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of How to See a Play, by Richard Burton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: How to See a Play + +Author: Richard Burton + +Release Date: May 19, 2010 [EBook #32433] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO SEE A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at the Digital & Multimedia +Center, Michigan State University Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +HOW +TO SEE A PLAY + +BY +RICHARD BURTON + +New York +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1914 + + +Now here are twenty criticks ... and yet every one is a critick after +his own way; that is, such a play is best because I like it. A very +familiar argument, methinks, to prove the excellence of a play, and to +which an author would be very unwilling to appeal for his success. + +--_From Farquhar's A Discourse Upon Comedy._ + + +COPYRIGHT, 1914 +BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Set up and Electrotyped. Published November, 1914 +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK--BOSTON--CHICAGO +DALLAS--ATLANTA--SAN FRANCISCO + +MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED +LONDON--BOMBAY--CALCUTTA +MELBOURNE +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. +TORONTO + +* * * + +PREFACE + +Chapter: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI + +NOTES + +* * * + + + + +PREFACE + + +This book is aimed squarely at the theater-goer. It hopes to offer a +concise general treatment upon the use of the theater, so that the +person in the seat may get the most for his money; may choose his +entertainment wisely, avoid that which is not worth while, and +appreciate the values artistic and intellectual of what he is seeing and +hearing. + +This purpose should be borne in mind, in reading the book, for while I +trust the critic and the playwright may find the discussion not without +interest and sane in principle, the desire is primarily to put into the +hands of the many who attend the playhouse a manual that will prove +helpful and, so far as it goes, be an influence toward creating in this +country that body of alert theater auditors without which good drama +will not flourish. The obligation of the theater-goer to insist on sound +plays is one too long overlooked; and just in so far as he does insist +in ever-growing numbers upon drama that has technical skill, literary +quality and interpretive insight into life, will that better theater +come which must be the hope of all who realize the great social and +educative powers of the playhouse. The words of that veteran +actor-manager and playwright of the past, Colley Cibber, are apposite +here: "It is not to the actor therefore, but to the vitiated and low +taste of the spectator, that the corruptions of the stage (of what kind +soever) have been owing. If the publick, by whom they must live, had +spirit enough to discountenance and declare against all the trash and +fopperies they have been so frequently fond of, both the actors and the +authors, to the best of their power, must naturally have served their +daily table with sound and wholesome diet." And again he remarks: "For +as their hearers are, so will actors be; worse or better, as the false +or true taste applauds or discommends them. Hence only can our theaters +improve, or must degenerate." Not for a moment is it implied that this +book, or any book of the kind, can make playwrights. Playwrights as well +as actors are born, not made--at least, in the sense that seeing life +dramatically and having a feeling for situation and climax is a gift and +nothing else. The wise Cibber may be heard also upon this. "To excel in +either art," he declares, "is a self-born happiness, which something +more than good sense must be mother of." But this may be granted, while +it is maintained stoutly that there remains to the dramatist a technic +to be acquired, and that practice therein and reflection upon it makes +perfect. The would-be playwright can learn his trade, even as another, +and must, to succeed. And the spectator (our main point of attack, as +was said), the necessary coadjutor with player and playwright in theater +success, can also become an adept in his part of this coöperative +result. This book is written to assist him in such coöperation. + + + + +HOW TO SEE A PLAY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE PLAY, A FORM OF STORY TELLING + + +The play is a form of story telling, among several such forms: the short +story, or tale; the novel; and in verse, the epic and that abbreviated +version of it called the ballad. All of them, each in its own fashion, +is trying to do pretty much the same thing, to tell a story. And by +story, as the word is used in this book, it will be well to say that I +mean such a manipulation of human happenings as to give a sense of unity +and growth to a definite end. A story implies a connection of characters +and events so as to suggest a rounding out and completion, which, looked +back upon, shall satisfy man's desire to discover some meaning and +significance in what is called Life. A child begging at the mother's +knee for "the end of the story," before bedtime, really represents the +race; the instinct behind the request is a sound one. A story, then, has +a beginning, middle and end, and in the right hands is seen to have +proportion, organic cohesion and development. Its parts dovetail, and +what at first appeared to lack direction and connective significance +finally is seen to possess that wholeness which makes it a work of art. +A story, therefore, is not a chance medley of incidents and characters; +but an artistic texture so woven as to quicken our feeling that a +universe which often seems disordered and chance-wise is in reality +ordered and pre-arranged. Art in its story-making does this service for +life, even if life does not do it for us. And herein lies one of the +differences between art and life; art, as it were, going life one better +in this rearrangement of material. + +Of the various ways referred to of telling a story, the play has its +distinctive method and characteristics, to separate it from the others. +The story is told on a stage, through the impersonation of character by +human beings; in word and action, assisted by scenery, the story is +unfolded. The drama (a term used doubly to mean plays in general or some +particular play) is distinguished from the other forms mentioned in +substituting dialogue and direct visualized action for the indirect +narration of fiction. + +A play when printed differs also in certain ways; the persons of the +play are named apart from the text; the speakers are indicated by +writing their names before the speeches; the action is indicated in +parentheses, the name business being given to this supplementary +information, the same term that is used on the stage for all that lies +outside dialogue and scenery. And the whole play, as a rule, is +sub-divided into acts and often, especially in earlier drama, into +scenes, lesser divisions within the acts; these divisions being used for +purposes of better handling of the plot and exigencies of scene +shifting, as well as for agreeable breathing spaces for the audience. +The word scene, it may be added here, is used in English-speaking lands +to indicate a change of scene, whereas in foreign drama it merely refers +to the exit or entrance of a character, so that a different number of +persons is on the stage. + +But there are, of course, deeper, more organic qualities than these +external attributes of a play. The stern limits of time in the +representation of the stage story--little more than two hours, "the two +hours traffic of the stage" mentioned by Shakespeare--necessitates +telling the story with emphasis upon its salient points; only the high +lights of character and event can be advantageously shown within such +limits. Hence the dramatic story, as the adjective has come to show, +indicates a story presenting in a terse and telling fashion only the +most important and exciting things. To be dramatic is thus to be +striking, to produce effects by omission, compression, stress and +crescendo. To be sure, recent modern plays can be named in plenty which +seem to violate this principle; but they do so at their peril, and in +the history of drama nothing is plainer than that the essence of good +play-making lies in the power to seize the significant moments of the +stage story and so present them as to grip the interest and hold it with +increasing tension up to a culminating moment called the climax. + +Certain advantages and certain limitations follow from these +characteristics of a play. For one thing, the drama is able to focus on +the really interesting, exciting, enthralling moments of human doings, +where a novel, for example, which has so much more leisure to accomplish +its purpose to give a picture of life, can afford to take its time and +becomes slower, and often, as a result, comparatively prolix and +indirect. This may not be advisable in a piece of fiction, but it is +often found, and masterpieces both of the past and present illustrate +the possibility; the work of a Richardson, a Henry James, a Bennett. But +for a play this would be simply suicide; for the drama must be more +direct, condensed and rapid. And just in proportion as a novel adopts +the method of the play do we call it dramatic and does it win a general +audience; the story of a Stevenson or a Kipling. + +Again, having in mind the advantages of the play, the stage story is +both heard and seen, and important results issue from this fact. The +play-story is actually seen instead of seen by the eye of the +imagination through the appeal of the printed page; or indirectly again, +if one hears a narrative recited. And this actual seeing on the stage +brings conviction, since "seeing is believing," by the old saw. Scenery, +too, necessitates a certain truthfulness in the reproducing of life by +word and act and scene, because the spectator, who is able to judge it +all by the test of life, will more readily compare the mimic +representation with the actuality than if he were reading the words of a +character in a book, or being told, narrative fashion, of the +character's action. In this way the stage story seems nearer life. + +Moreover, the seeing is fortified by hearing; the spectator is also the +auditor. And here is another test of reality. If the intonation or +accent or tone of voice of the actor is not life-like and in consonance +with the character portrayed, the audience will instantly be quicker to +detect it and to criticize than if the same character were shown in +fiction; seeing, the spectator insists that dress and carriage, and +scenery, which furnishes a congruous background, shall be plausible; and +hearing, the auditor insists upon the speech being true to type. + +The play has an immense superiority also over all printed literature in +that, making its appeal directly through eye and ear, it is not literary +at all; I mean, the story in this form can be understood and enjoyed by +countless who read but little or even cannot read. Literature, in the +conventional sense, may be a closed book to innumerable theater-goers +who nevertheless can witness a drama and react to its exhibition of +life. The word, which in printed letters is so all-important, on the +stage becomes secondary to action and scene, for the story can be, and +sometimes is, enacted in pantomime, without a single word being spoken. +In essence, therefore, a play may be called unliterary, and thus it +makes a wider, more democratic appeal than anything in print can. Yet, +by an interesting paradox, when the words of the play are written by +masters like Calderón, Shakespeare, Molière or Ibsen, the drama becomes +the chief literary glory of Spain, England, France and Norway. For in +the final reckoning only the language that is fit and fine preserves the +drama of the world in books and classifies it with creative literature. +Thus the play can be all things to all men; at once unliterary in its +appeal, and yet, in the finest examples, an important contribution to +letters. + +A peculiar advantage of the play over the other story-telling forms is +found in the fact that while one reads the printed story, short or long, +the epic or ballad, by oneself in the quiet enjoyment of the library, +one witnesses the drama in company with many other human beings--unless +the play be a dire failure and the house empty. And this association, +though it may remove some of the more refined and aristocratic +experiences of the reader, has a definite effect upon individual +pleasure in the way of enrichment, and even reacts upon the play itself +to shape its nature. A curious sort of sympathy is set up throughout an +audience as it receives the skillful story of the playwright; common or +crowd emotions are aroused, personal variations are submerged in a +general associative feeling and the individual does not so much laugh, +cry and wonder by himself as do these things sympathetically in +conjunction with others. He becomes a simpler, less complex person whose +emotions dominate the analytic processes of the individual brain. He is +a more plastic receptive creature than he would be alone. Any one can +test this for himself by asking if he would have laughed so uproariously +at a certain humorous speech had it been offered him detached from the +time and place. The chances are that, by and in itself, it might not +seem funny at all. And the readiness with which he fell into cordial +conversation with the stranger in the next seat is also a hint as to his +magnetized mood when thus subjected to the potent influence of mob +psychology. For this reason, then, among others, a drama heard and seen +under the usual conditions secures unique effects of response in +contrast with the other sister forms of telling stories. + +A heightening of effect upon auditor and spectator is gained--to mention +one other advantage--by the fact that the story which in a work of +fiction may extend to a length precluding the possibility of its +reception at one sitting, may in the theater be brought within the +compass of an evening, in the time between dinner and bed. This secures +a unity of impression whereby the play is a gainer over the novel. A +great piece of fiction like _David Copperfield_, or _Tom Jones_, or _A +Modern Instance_, or _Alice for Short_ cannot be read in a day, except +as a feat of endurance and under unusual privileges of time to spare. +But a great play--Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ or Ibsen's _A Doll's +House_--can be absorbed in its entirety in less than three hours, and +while the hearer has perhaps not left his seat. Other things being +equal, and whatever the losses, this establishes a superiority for the +play. A coherent section of life, which is what the story should be, +conveyed in the whole by this brevity of execution, so that the +recipient may get a full sense of its organic unity, cannot but be more +impressive than any medium of story telling where this is out of the +question. The merit of the novel, therefore, supreme in its way, is +another merit; "one star differeth from another in glory." It will be +recalled that Poe, with this matter of brevity of time and unity of +impression in mind, declared that there was no such thing as a long +poem; meaning that only the short poem which could be read through at +one sitting could attain to the highest effects. + +But along with these advantages go certain limitations, too, in this +form of story telling; limitations which warn the play not to encroach +upon the domain of fiction, and which have much to do with making the +form what it is. + +From its very nature the novel can be more thorough-going in the +delineation of character. The drama, as we have seen, must, under its +stern restrictions of time, seize upon outstanding traits and assume +that much of the development has taken place before the rise of the +first curtain. The novel shows character in process of development; the +play shows what character, developed to the point of test, will do when +the test comes. Its method, especially in the hands of modern +playwrights like Ibsen and Shaw, is to exhibit a human being acted upon +suddenly by a situation which exposes the hidden springs of action and +is a culmination of a long evolution prior to the plot that falls within +the play proper. In the drama characters must for the most part be +displayed in external acts, since action is of the very essence of a +play; in a novel, slowly and through long stretches of time, not the +acts alone but the thoughts, motives and desires of the character may be +revealed. Obviously, in the drama this cannot be done, in any like +measure, in spite of the fact that some of the late psychologists of the +drama, like Galsworthy, Bennett and others, have tried to introduce a +more careful psychology into their play-making. At the best, only an +approximation to the subtlety and penetration of fiction can be thus +attained. It were wiser to recognize the limitation and be satisfied +with the compensating gain of the more vivid, compelling effect secured +through the method of presenting human beings, natural to the playhouse. + +There are also arbitrary and artificial conventions of the stage +conditioning the story which may perhaps be regarded as drawbacks where +the story in fiction is freer in these respects. Both forms of story +telling strive--never so eagerly as to-day--for a truthful +representation of life. The stage, traditionally, in its depiction of +character through word and action, has not been so close to life as +fiction; the dialogue has been further removed from the actual idiom of +human speech. It is only of late that stage talk in naturalness has +begun to rival the verisimilitude of dialogue in the best fiction. This +may well be for the reason (already touched upon) that the presence of +the speakers on the stage has in itself a reality which corrects the +artificiality of the words spoken. "I did not know," the theater auditor +might be imagined as saying, "that people talked like that; but there +they are, talking; it must be so." + +The drama in all lands is trying as never before to represent life in +speech as well as act; and the strain hitherto put upon the actor, who +in the past had as part of his function to make the artificial and +unreal plausible and artistic, has been so far removed as to enable him +to give his main strength to genuine interpretation. + +The time values on the stage are a limitation which makes for +artificiality; actual time must of necessity be shortened, for if true +chronology were preserved the play would be utterly balked in its +purpose of presenting a complete story that, however brief, must cover +more time than is involved in what is shown upon the boards of a +theater. As a result all time values undergo a proportionate shrinkage. +This can be estimated by the way meals are eaten on the stage. In actual +life twenty minutes are allotted for the scamped eating time of the +railway station, and we all feel it as a grievance. Half an hour is +scant decency for the unpretentious private meal; and as it becomes +more formal an hour is better, and several hours more likely. Yet no +play could afford to allow twenty minutes for this function, even were +it a meal of state; it would consume half an act, or thereabouts. +Consequently, on the stage, the effect of longer time is produced by +letting the audience see the general details of the feast; food eaten, +wine drunk, servants waiting, and conversation interpolated. It is one +of the demands made upon the actor's skill to make all these condensed +and selected minutiæ of a meal stand for the real thing; once more art +is rearranging life, under severe pressure. If those interested will +test with watch in hand the actual time allowed for the banquet in _A +Parisian Romance_, so admirably envisaged by the late Richard Mansfield, +or the famous Thanksgiving dinner scene in _Shore Acres_, fragrantly +associated with the memory of the late James A. Herne, they will +possibly be surprised at the brevity of such representations. + +Because of this necessary compression, a scale of time has to be adopted +which shall secure an effect of actualness by a cunning obeyance of +proportion; the reduction of scale is skillful, and so the result is +congruous. And it is plain that fiction may take more time if it so +desires in such scenes; although even in the novel the actual time +consumed by a formal dinner would be reproduced by the novelist at great +risk of boring his reader. + +Again, with disadvantages in mind, it might be asserted that the stage +story suffers in that some of the happenings involved in the plot must +perforce transpire off stage; and when this is so there is an inevitable +loss of effect, inasmuch as it is of the nature of drama, as has been +noted, to show events, and the indirect narrative method is to be +avoided as undramatic. Tyros in play-writing fail to make this +distinction; and as a generalization it may be stated that whenever +possible a play should show a thing, rather that state it. "Seeing is +believing," to repeat the axiom. Yet a qualifier may here be made, for +in certain kinds of drama or when a certain effect is striven for the +indirect method may be powerfully effective. The murder in _Macbeth_ +gains rather than loses because it takes place outside the scene; +Maeterlinck in his earlier Plays for Marionettes, so called, secured +remarkable effects of suspense and tension by systematically using the +principle of indirection; as where in _The Seven Princesses_ the +princesses who are the particular exciting cause of the play are not +seen at all by the audience; the impression they make, a great one, +comes through their effect upon certain characters on the stage and this +heightens immensely the dramatic value of the unseen figures. We may +point to the Greeks, too, in illustration, who in their great folk +dramas of legend regularly made use of the principle of indirect +narration when the aim was to put before the vast audiences the terrible +occurrences of the fable, not _coram populo_, as Horace has it, not in +the presence of the audience, but rather off stage. Nevertheless, these +exceptions can be explained without violating the general principle that +in a stage story it is always dangerous not to exhibit any action that +is vital to the play. And this compulsion, it will be evident, is a +restriction which may at times cripple the scope of the dramatist, while +yet it stimulates his skill to overcome the difficulty. + +Summarizing the differences which go to make drama distinctive as a +story-telling form and distinguish it from other story molds: a play in +contrast with fiction tells its tale by word, act and scene in a rising +scale of importance, and within briefer time limits, necessitating a far +more careful selection of material, and a greater emphasis upon salient +moments in the handling of plot; and because of the device of act +divisions, with certain moments of heightened interest culminating in a +central scene and thus gaining in tension and intensity by this enforced +method of compression and stress; while losing the opportunity to +amplify and more carefully to delineate character. It gains as well +because the story comes by the double receipt of the eye and ear to a +theater audience some of whom at least, through illiteracy, might be +unable to appreciate the story printed in a book. The play thus is the +most democratic and popular form of story telling, and at the same time +is capable of embodying, indeed has embodied, the greatest creative +literature of various nations. And for a generation now, increasingly, +in the European countries and in English-speaking lands, the play has +begun to come into its own as an art form with unique advantages in the +way of wide appeal and cultural possibilities. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PLAY, A CULTURAL OPPORTUNITY + + +Certain remarks at the close of the preceding chapter hint at what is in +mind in giving a title to the present one. The play, this democratic +mode of story telling, attracting vast numbers of hearers and +universally popular because man is ever avid of amusement and turns +hungrily to such a medium as the theater to satisfy a deeply implanted +instinct for pleasure, can be made an experience to the auditor properly +to be included in what he would call his cultural opportunity. That is +to say, it can take its place among those civilizing agencies furnished +by the arts and letters, travel and the higher aspects of social life. A +drama, as this book seeks to show, is in its finest estate a work of art +comparable with such other works of art as pictures, statuary, musical +compositions and the achievements of the book world. I shall endeavor +later to show a little more in detail wherein lie the artistic +requirements and successes of the play; and a suggestion of this has +been already made in chapter one. + +But this thought of the play as a work of art has hardly been in the +minds of folk of our race and speech until the recent awakening of an +enlightened interest in things dramatic; a movement so brief as to be +embraced by the present generation. The theater has been regarded +carelessly, thoughtlessly, merely as a place of idle amusement, or +worse; ignorant prejudice against it has been rife, with a natural +reaction for the worse upon the institution itself. The play has neither +been associated with a serious treatment of life nor with the refined +pleasure derivable from contact with art. Nor, although the personality +of actors has always been acclaimed, and an infinite amount of silly +chatter about their private lives been constant, have theater-goers as a +class realized the distinguished skill of the dramatist in the handling +of a very difficult and delicate art, nor done justice to the art which +the actor represents, nor to his own artistry in it. But now a change +has come, happily. The English-speaking lands have begun at least to get +into line with other enlightened countries, to comprehend the +educational value of the playhouse, and the consequent importance of the +play. The rapid growth to-day in what may be called social consciousness +has quickened our sense of the social significance of an institution +that, whatever its esthetic and intellectual status, is an enormous +influence in the daily life of the multitude. Gradually those who think +have come to see that the theater, this people's pleasure, should offer +drama that is rational, wholesome amusement; that society in general has +a vital stake in the nature of an entertainment so widely diffused, so +imperatively demanded and so surely effective in shaping the ideals of +the people at large. The final chapter will enlarge upon this +suggestion. + +And this idea has grown along with the now very evident re-birth of a +drama which, while practical stage material, has taken on the literary +graces and makes so strong an appeal as literature that much of our best +in letters is now in dramatic form: the play being the most notable +contribution, after the novel, of our time. Leading writers everywhere +are practical dramatists; men of letters, yet also men of the theater, +who write plays not only to be read but to be acted, and who have +conquered the difficult technic of the drama so as to kill two birds +with the one stone. + +The student of historical drama will perceive that this welcome change +is but a return to earlier and better conditions when the mighty +play-makers of the past--Calderón, Molière, Shakespeare and their +compeers--were also makers of literature which we still read with +delight. And, without referring to the past, a glance at foreign lands +will reveal the fact that other countries, if not our own, have always +recognized this cultural value of the stage and hence given the theater +importance in the civic or national life, often spending public moneys +for its maintenance and using it (often in close association with +music) as a central factor in national culture. The traveler to-day in +Germany, France, Russia and the Scandinavian lands cannot but be +impressed with this fact, and will bring home to America some suggestive +lessons for patriotic native appreciation. In the modern educational +scheme, then, room should be made for some training in intelligent +play-going. So far from there being anything Quixotic in the notion, all +the signs are in its favor. The feeling is spreading fast that school +and college must include theater culture in the curriculum and people at +large are seeking to know something of the significance of the theater +in its long evolution from its birth to the present, of the history of +the drama itself, of the nature of a play regarded as a work of art; of +the specific values, too, of the related art of the actor who alone +makes the drama vital; and of the relative excellencies, in the actual +playhouses of our time, of plays, players and playwrights; together with +some idea of the rapidly changing present-day conditions. Such changes +include the coming of the one-act play, the startling development of +the moving picture, the growth of the Little Theater, the rise of the +masque and pageant, and so on with other manifestations yet. Surely, +some knowledge in a field so broad and humanly appealing, both for +legitimate enjoyment of the individual and in view of his obligations to +fellow man, is of equal moment to a knowledge of the chemical effect of +hydrochloric acid upon marble, or of the working of a table of +logarithms. These last are less involved in the living of a normal human +being. + +Here are signs of the time, which mark a revolution in thought. In the +light of such facts, it is curious to reflect upon the neglect of the +theater hitherto for centuries as an institution and the refusal to +think of the play as worthy until it was offered upon the printed page. +The very fact that it was exhibited on the stage seemed to stamp it as +below serious consideration. And that, too, when the very word _play_ +implies that it is something to be played. The taking over of the +theaters by uneducated persons to whom such a place was, like a +department store, simply an emporium of desired commodities, together +with the Puritanic feeling that the playhouse, as such, was an evil +thing frowned upon by God and injurious to man, combined to set this +form of entertainment in ill repute. Bernard Shaw, in that brilliant +little play, _The Dark Lady of the Sonnets_, sets certain shrewd words +in the mouths of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth pertinent to this +thought: + +SHAKESPEARE: "Of late, as you know, the Church taught the people by +means of plays; but the people flocked only to such as were full of +superstitious miracles and bloody martyrdoms; and so the Church, which +also was just then brought into straits by the policy of your royal +father, did abandon and discountenance playing; and thus it fell into +the hands of poor players and greedy merchants that had their pockets to +look to and not the greatness of your kingdom." + +ELIZABETH: "Master Shakespeare, you speak sooth; I cannot in anywise +amend it. I dare not offend my unruly Puritans by making so lewd a +place as the playhouse a public charge; and there be a thousand things +to be done in this London of mine before your poetry can have its penny +from the general purse. I tell thee, Master Will, it will be three +hundred years before my subjects learn that man cannot live by bread +alone, but by every word that cometh from the mouth of those whom God +inspires." + +The height of the incongruous absurdity was illustrated in the former +teaching of Shakespeare. Here was a writer incessantly hailed as the +master poet of the race; he bulked large in school and college, +perforce. Yet the teacher was confronted by the embarrassing fact that +Shakespeare was also an actor: a profession given over to the sons of +Belial; and a playwright who actually wrote his immortal poetry in the +shape of theater plays. This was sad, indeed! The result was that in +both the older teaching and academic criticism emphasis was always +placed upon Shakespeare the poet, the great mind; and Shakespeare the +playwright was hardly explained at all; or if explained the +illumination was more like darkness visible, because those in the seats +of judgment were so ignorant of play technic and the requirements of the +theater as to make their attempts well-nigh useless. It remained for our +own time and scholars like George P. Baker and Brander Matthews, with +intelligent, sympathetic comprehension of the play as a form of art and +the playhouse as conditioning it, to study the Stratford bard primarily +as playwright and so give us a new and more accurate portrait of him as +man and creative worker. + +I hope it is beginning to be apparent that intelligent play-going starts +long before one goes to the theater. It means, for one thing, some +acquaintance with the history of drama, and the theater which is its +home, both in the development of English culture and that of other +important nations whose dramatic contribution has been large. This +aspect of culture will be enlarged upon in the following chapters. + +Much can be done--far more than has been done--in this historical +survey in school and college to prepare American citizens for rational +theater enjoyment. There is nothing pedantic in such preparation. Nobody +objects to being sufficiently trained in art to distinguish a chromo +from an oil masterpiece or to know the difference in music between a +cheap organ-grinder jingle and the rhythmic marvels of a Chopin. It is +equally foolish to be unable to give a reason for the preference for a +play by Shaw or Barrie over the meaningless coarse farce by some stage +hack. It is all in the day's culture and when once the idea that the +theater is an art has been firmly seized and communicated to many all +that seems bizarre in such a thought will disappear--and good riddance! + +The first and fundamental duty to the theater is to attend the play +worthy of patronage. If one be a theater-goer, yet has never taken the +trouble to see a certain drama that adorns the playhouse, one is open to +criticism. The abstention, when the chance was offered, must in fact +either be a criticism of the play or of the person himself because he +refrained from supporting it. + +But let it be assumed that our theater-goer is in his seat, ready to do +his part in the patronage of a good play. How, once there, shall he show +the approval, or at least interest, his presence implies? + +By making himself a part of the sympathetic psychology of the audience, +as a whole; not resisting the effect by a position of intellectual +aloofness natural to a human being burdened with the self-consciousness +that he is a critic; but gladly recognizing the human and artistic +qualities of the entertainment. Next, by giving external sign of this +sympathetic approval by applause. Applause in this country generally +means the clapping of the hands; only exceptionally, and in large +cities, do we hear the _bravos_ customary in Europe. + +But suppose the play merit not approval but the reverse; what then? The +gallery gods, those disthroned deities, were wont more rudely to +supplement this manual testimony by the use of their other extremities, +the feet. The effect, however, is not desirable. Yet, in respect of +this matter of disapproval, it would seem as if the British in their +frank booing of a piece which does not meet their wishes were exercising +a valuable check upon bad drama. In the United States we signify +positive approval, but not its negation. The result is that the cheaper +element of an audience may applaud and so help the fate of a poor play, +while the hostility of those better fitted to judge is unknown to all +concerned with the fortunes of the drama, because it is thus silent. A +freer use of the hiss, heard with us only under rare circumstances of +provocation, might be a salutary thing, for this reason. An audible +expression of reproof would be of value in the case of many unworthy +plays. + +But perhaps in the end the rebuke of non-attendance and the influence of +the minatory word passed on to others most assists the failure of the +play that ought to fail. If the foolish auditor approve where he should +condemn, and so keep the bad play alive by his backing, the better view +has a way of winning at the last. Certainly, for conspicuous success +some qualities of excellence, if not all of them, must be present. + +But intelligent play-going means also a perception of the art of acting, +so that the technic of the player, not his personality, will command the +auditor's trained attention and he will approve skill and frown upon its +absence. + +And while it is undoubtedly more difficult to convey this information +educationally, the ideal way being to see the best acting early and late +and to reflect upon it in the light of acknowledged principles, +something can certainly be done to prepare prospective theater-goers for +appreciation of the profession of the player; substituting for the +blind, time-honored "I know what I like," the more civilized: "I approve +it for the following good and sufficient reasons." Even in school, and +still more in college, the teacher can coöperate with the taught by +suggesting the plays to be seen, amateur as well as professional; and by +classroom discussion afterward, not only of the plays but concerning +their rendition. Students are quick to respond when this is done, for +the vital object lesson of current drama always appeals to them, and +they are glad to observe a connection between their amusement and their +culture. At present, or at least up to a very recent time, the +eccentricity of such a procedure would all but have endangered the +position of the teacher so foolhardy as to act upon the assumption that +the drama seen the night before could be in any way used to impart +permanent lessons concerning a great art to the minds of the pupils. +Luckily, a more liberal view is taking the place of this crass +Philistinism. + +In a proper appreciation of the actor the hearer will look beyond the +pulchritude of an actress or the fit of an actor's clothes; he will +judge Miss Ethel Barrymore by her power of envisaging the part she +assumes, and not be overly interested in an argument as to her increase +of avoirdupois of late years. He will not allow himself to consume time +over the question whether Mr. William Gillette in private life is +addicted to chloral because Sherlock Holmes is a victim of that most +reprehensible habit. + +And above all he will constantly remind himself that acting is the art +of impersonation, exactly that; and, therefore, just as high praise goes +to the player who admirably portrays a disagreeable part as to one in +whose mouth the playwright has set lines which make him beloved from +curtain to curtain. Yet the majority of persons in a typical American +theater audience hopefully confuse the part with the player, and award +praise or blame according as they like or dislike the part itself. + +The intelligent auditor will also give approval to the stage artist who, +instead of drawing attention to himself by the use of exaggerated +methods, quietly does his work, keeps always within the stage picture, +and trusts to his truthful representation to secure conviction and +reward. How common is it to see some player overstressing his part, who, +instead of being boohed and hissed as he deserves and as he infallibly +would be in some countries, receives but the more applause for his +inexcusable overstepping of the modesty of his art. It becomes part of +the duty of our intelligent play-goer to teach such pseudo-artists their +place, for as long as they win the meed of ill-timed and ignorant +approval, so long will they flourish. + +Nor will the critic of the acceptable actor fail to observe that the +latter prefers working for the ensemble--_team work_, in the sporting +phrase--to that personal display disproportionate to the general effect +which will always make the judicious grieve. In theatrical parlance, +"hogging the stage" has flourished simply for the reason that it +deceives a sufficient number in the seats to secure applause and so +throws dust in the eyes of the general public as to its true iniquity. +The actor is properly to be judged, not by his work detached from that +of his fellows, but ever in relation to the totality of impression which +means a play instead of a personal exhibition. It is his business to +coöperate with others in a single effect in which each is a factor in +the exact measure of the importance of his part as conceived by the +dramatist. Where a minor part becomes a major one through the ability of +a player, as in the famous case of the elder Sothern's Lord Dundreary, +it is at the expense of the play; _Our American Cousin_ was negligible +as drama, and hence it did not matter. But if the drama is worth while, +serious injury to dramatic art may follow. + +Again, the intelligent play-goer will carefully distinguish in his mind +between actor and playwright. Realizing that "the play's the thing," he +will demand that even the so-called star (too often an actor foisted +into prominence for a non-artistic reason) shall obey the laws of his +art and those of drama, and not unduly minimize for personal reasons the +work of his coadjutors in the play, nor that of the playwright who +intended him to go so far and no further. The actor who, whatever his +fame, and no matter how much an unthinking audience is complaisant when +he does it, makes a practice of giving himself a center-of-the-stage +prominence beyond what the drama calls for, is no artist, but a show +man, neither more nor less, who deserves to be rated with the +mountebanks rather than with the artists of his profession. But it may +be feared that "stars" will continue to seek the stage center and crowd +others of the cast out of the right focus, to say nothing of distorting +the work of the dramatist, under the goad of megalomania, so long as a +goodly number of unintelligent spectators egg him on. His favorite line +of poetry will be that of Wordsworth: + +"Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky." It is to help the +personnel of such an audience that our theater-goer needs his training. + +A general realization of all this will definitely affect one's theater +habit and make for the good of all that concerns the art of the +playhouse. It will lead the properly prepared person to see a good play +competently done, but with no supreme or far-famed actor in the company, +in preference to a foolish play, or worse, carried by a "star"; or a +play negligible as art or hopelessly _passé_ as art or interpretation +of life for which an all-star cast has been provided, as if to take the +eye of the spectator off the weaknesses of the drama. Often a standard +play revived by one of these hastily gathered companies of noted players +resolves itself into an interest in individual performances which must +lack that organic unity which comes of longer association. The +opportunity afforded to get a true idea of the play is made quite +secondary, and sometimes entirely lost sight of. + +Nor will the trained observer in the theater be cheated by the dollar +mark in his theatrical entertainment. He will come to feel that an +adequate stock company, playing the best plays of the day, may afford +him more of drama culture for an expenditure of fifty cents for an +excellent seat than will some second-rate traveling company which +presents a drama that is a little more recent but far less worthy, to +see which the charge is three or four times that modest sum. All over +the land to-day nominally cultivated folk will turn scornfully away from +a fifty-cent show, as they call it, only because it is cheap in the +literal sense, whereas the high-priced offering is cheap in every other +sense but the cost of the seat. Such people overlook the nature of the +play presented, the playwright's reputation, and the quality of the +performance; incapable of judging by the real tests, they stand +confessed as vulgarians and ignoramuses of art. We shall not have +intelligent audiences in American theaters, speaking by and large, until +theater-goers learn to judge dramatic wares by some other test than what +it costs to buy them. Such a test is a crude one, in art, however +infallible it may be in purely material commodities; indeed, is it not +the wise worldling in other fields who becomes aware in his general +bartering that it is unsafe to estimate his purchase exclusively by the +price tag? + +To one who in this way makes the effort to inform himself with regard to +the things of the theater--plays, players and playwrights--concerning +dramatic history both as it appertains to the drama and the theater; and +concerning the intellectual as well as esthetical and human values of +the theater-going experience, it will soon become apparent that it +offers him cultural opportunity that is rich, wide and of ever deepening +enjoyment. And taking advantage of it, he will dignify one of the most +appealing pleasures of civilization by making it a part of his permanent +equipment for satisfactory living. + +Other aspects of this thought may now be expounded, beginning with a +review of the play in its history; some knowledge of which is obviously +an element in the complete appreciation of a theater evening. For the +proper viewing of a given play one should have reviewed plays in +general, as they constitute the body of a worthy dramatic literature. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +UP TO SHAKESPEARE + + +The recent vogue of plays like _The Servant in the House_, _The Passing +of the Third Floor Back_, _The Dawn of To-morrow_, and _Everywoman_ +sends the mind back to the early history of English drama and is full of +instruction. Such drama is a reversion to type, it suggests the origin +of all drama in religion. It raises the interesting question whether the +blasé modern theater world will not respond, even as did the primitive +audiences of the middle ages, to plays of spiritual appeal, even of +distinct didactic purpose. And the suggestion is strengthened when the +popularity is recalled of the morality play of _Everyman_ a few years +since, that being a revival of a typical mediæval drama of the kind. It +almost looks as if we had failed to take into account the ready response +of modern men and women to the higher motives on the stage; have failed +to credit the substratum of seriousness in that chance collection of +human beings which constitutes a theater audience. After all, they are +very much like children, when under the influence of mob psychology; +sensitive, plastic to the lofty and noble as they are to the baser +suggestions that come to them across the footlights. In any case, these +late experiences, which came by way of surprise to the professional +purveyors of theatrical entertainment, give added emphasis to the +statement that the stage is the child of mother church, and that the +origin of drama in the countries whereof we have record is always +religious. The mediæval beginnings in Europe and England have been +described in their details by many scholars. Suffice it here to say that +the play's birthplace is at the altar end of the cathedral, an extension +of the regular service. The actors were priests, the audience the vast +hushed throngs moved upon by incense, lights, music, and the intoned +sacred words, and, for the touch of the dramatic which was to be the +seed of a wonderful development, we may add some portion of the sacred +story acted out by the stoled players and envisaged in the scenic pomp +of the place. The lesson of the holy day was thus brought home to the +multitude as it never would have been by the mere recital of the Latin +words; scene and action lent their persuasive power to the natural +associations of the church. Such is the source of modern drama; what was +in the course of time to become "mere amusement," in the foolish phrase, +began as worship; and if we go far back into the Orient, or to the +south-lying lands on the Mediterranean, we find in India and Greece +alike this union of art and worship, whether the play began within +church or temple or before Dionysian altars reared upon the green sward. +The good and the beautiful, the esthetic and the spiritual, ever +intertwined in the story of primitive culture. + +And the gradual growth from this mediæval beginning is clear. First, a +scenic elaboration of part of the service, centering in some portion of +the life and death of Christ; then, as the scenic side grew more +complex, a removal to the grounds outside the cathedral; an extension of +the subject-matter to include a reverent treatment of other portions of +the Bible narrative; next, the taking over of biblical drama by the +guilds, or crafts, under the auspices of the patron saints of the +various organizations, as when, on Corpus Christi day, one of the great +saints' days of the year, a cycle of plays was presented in a town with +the populace agog to witness it, and the movable vans followed each +other at the street corners, presenting scene after scene of the story. +Then a further extension of motives which admitted the use of the lives +of the saints who presided over the guilds; and finally the further +enlargement of theme due to the writing of drama of which the personages +were abstract moral qualities, giving the name of Morality to this kind +of play. Such, described with utter simplicity and brevity, was the +interesting evolution. + +Aside from all technicalities, and stripped of much of moment to the +specialist, we have in this origin and early development a blend of +amusement and instruction; a religious purpose linked with a frank +recognition of the fact that if you make worship attractive you +strengthen its hold upon mankind--a truth sadly lost sight of by the +later Puritans. The church was wise, indeed, to unite these elements of +life, to seize upon the psychology of the show and to use it for the +purpose of saving souls. It was not until the sixteenth century and the +immediate predecessors of Shakespeare that the play, under the influence +of renaissance culture and the inevitable secularization of the theater +in antagonism to the Puritan view of amusement, waxed worldly, and +little by little lost the ear-marks of its holy birth and upbringing. + +The day when the priests, still the actors of the play, walked down the +nave and issued from the great western door of the cathedral, to +continue the dramatic representations under the open sky, was truly a +memorable one in dramatic history. The first instinct was not that of +secularization, but rather the desire for freer opportunity to enact the +sacred stories; a larger stage, more scope for dramatic action. Yet, +although for generations the play remained religious in subject-matter +and intent, it was inevitable that in time it should come to realize +that its function was to body forth human life, unbounded by Bible +themes: all that can happen to human beings on earth and between heaven +and hell and beyond them, being fit material for treatment, since all +the world's a stage, and flesh and blood of more vital interest to +humanity at large than aught else. The rapid humanization of the +religious material can be easily traced in the coarse satire and broad +humor introduced into the Bible narratives: a free and easy handling of +sacred scene and character natural to a more naïve time and by no means +implying irreverence. Thus, in the Noah story, Mrs. Noah becomes a stout +shrew whose unwillingness to come in out of the wet and bestow herself +in dry quarters in the Ark must have been hugely enjoyed by the +fifteenth century populace. And the Vice of the morality play +degenerates into the clown of the performance, while even the Devil +himself is made a cause for laughter. + +Another significant step in the advance of the drama was made when the +crafts took over the representations; for it democratized the show, +without cheapening it or losing sight of its instructional nature. When +the booths, or pageants as they were called, drew up at the crossing of +the ways and performed their part in some story of didactic purport and +broadly human, hearty, English atmosphere, with an outdoor flavor and +decorative features of masque and pageantry, the spectators saw the +prototype of the historic pageants which just now are coming again into +favor. The drama of the future was shaping in a matrix which was the +best possible to assure a long life, under popular, natural conditions. +These conditions were to be modified and distorted by other, later +additions from the cultural influence of the past and under the +domination of literary traditions; but here was the original mold. + +The method of presentation, too, had its sure effect upon the theater +which was to follow this popular folk beginning. The movable van, set +upon wheels, with its space beneath where behind a curtain the actors +changed their costumes, suggests in form and upfitting the first +primitive stages of the playhouses erected in the second half of the +sixteenth century. Since but one episode or act of the play was to be +given, there was no need of a change of scene, and the stage could be +simple accordingly. Contemporary cuts show us the limited dimensions, +the shallow depth and the bareness of accessories typical of this +earliest of the housings of the drama, for such it might fairly be +called. Obviously, on such a stage, the manner and method of portrayal +are strictly defined: done out of doors, before a shifting multitude of +all classes, with no close cohesion or unity, since another part of the +story was told in another spot, the play, to get across--not the +footlights, for there were none--but the intervening space which +separated actors and audience, must be conveyed in broad simple outline +and in graphic episodes, the very attributes which to-day, despite all +subtleties and finesse, can be relied upon to bring response from the +spectators in a theater. It must have been a great event when, in some +quiet English town upon a day significant in church annals, the players' +booths began their cycle, and the motley crowd gathered to hear the +Bible narratives familiar to each and all, even as the Greek myths which +are the stock material of the Greek drama were known to the vast +concourse in the hillside theater of that day. In effect the circus had +come to town, and we may be sure every urchin knew it and could be found +open-mouthed in the front row of spectators. No possibility here of +subtlety and less of psychologic morbidity. The beat of the announcing +drum, the eager murmur of the multitude, the gay costumes and colorful +booth, all ministered to the natural delight of the populace in show and +story. The fun relieved the serious matter, and the serious matter made +the fun acceptable. With no shift of scenery, the broadest liberty, not +to say license, in the particulars of time and place were practiced; +the classic unities were for a later and more sophisticate drama. There +was no curtain and therefore no entr'act to interrupt the two hours' +traffic of the stage; the play was continuous in a sense other than the +modern. + +As a result of these early conditions, the English play was to show +through its history a fluidity, a plastic adaptation of material to end, +in sharp contrast with other nations, the French, for one, whose first +drama was enacted in a tennis court of fixed location, deep perspective +and static scenery. + +On the holy days which, as the etymology shows, were also holidays from +the point of view of the crowd, drama was vigorously purveyed which made +the primitive appeals of pathos, melodrama, farce and comedy. The actors +became secular, but for long they must have been inspired with a sense +of moral obligation in their work; a beautiful survival of which is to +be seen at Oberammergau to-day. And the play itself remained religious +in content and intention for generations after it had walked out of the +church door. The church took alarm at last, aware that an instrument of +mighty potency had been taken out of its hands. It is not surprising to +find various popes passing edicts against this new and growingly +influential form of public entertainment. It seemed to be on the way to +become a rival. This may well have had its effect in the rapid taking +over of the drama by the guilds, as later it was adopted by still more +worldly organizations. + +It was not from the people that the change to complete secularization of +subject-matter and treatment came; but from higher cultural sources: +from the schools and universities, touched by renaissance influences; as +where Bishop Still produced _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ for school use, the +first English comedy; or from court folk, as when Lord Buckhurst with +his associate, Sackville, wrote the frigid _Gorbudoc_ based on the +Senecan model and honorable historically because it is the first English +tragedy. The play of Plautian derivation, _Ralph Roister Doister_, our +first comedy of intrigue, is another example of cultural influences +which came in to modify the main stream of development from the folk +plays. + +This was in the sixteenth century, but for over two centuries the +genuine English play had been forming itself in the religious nursery, +as we saw. Now these other exotic and literary influences began to blend +with the native, and the story of the drama becomes therefore more +complex. The school and the court, classic literature and that of +mediæval Europe, which represented the humanism it begot, fast qualified +the product. But the straightest, most natural issue from the naïve +morality and miracle genre is the robustious melodrama illustrated by +such plays as Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_ and Marlowe's _Edward II_; which +in turn lead directly on to Shakespeare's _Titus Andronicus_, _Hamlet_ +and chronicle history drama like _Richard III_; and on the side of +farce, _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, so broadly English in its fun, is in +the line of descent. And in proportion as the popular elements of +rhetoric, show and moralizing were retained, was the appeal to the +general audience made, and the drama genuinely English. + +Up to 1576 we are concerned with the history of the drama and there is +no public theater in the sense of a building erected for theatrical +performances. After the strolling players with their booths, plays were +given in scholastic halls, in schools and in private residences; while +the more democratic and direct descendant of the pageants is to be seen +in the inn yards where the stable end of the courtyard, inclosed on +three sides by its parallelogram of galleries, is the rudimentary plan +for the Elizabethan playhouse, when it comes, toward the end of the +sixteenth century. But with the year 1576 and the erection in Shoreditch +of the first Theater on English soil--so called, because it had no +rivals and the name was therefore distinctive--the proper history of the +institution begins. It marks a most important forward step in dramatic +progress. + +There is significance in the phrase descriptive of this first building; +it was set up "in the fields," as the words run: which means, beyond +city limits, for the city fathers, increasingly Puritan in feeling, +looked dubiously upon an amusement already so much a favorite with all +classes; it might prove a moral as well as physical plague spot by its +crowding together of a heterogeneous multitude within pent quarters. +Once started, the theater idea met with such hospitable reception that +these houses were rapidly increased, until by the century's end half a +dozen of the curious wooden hexagonal structures could be seen on the +southward bank of the Thames, near the water, central in interest as we +now look back upon them being The Globe, built in 1599 from the material +of the demolished Shoreditch playhouse, and famed forever as +Shakespeare's own house. Here at three o'clock of the afternoon upon a +stage open to the sky and with the common run of spectators standing in +the pit where now lounge the luxuriant occupants of orchestra seats, +while those of the better sort sat on the stage or in the boxes which +flanked the sides of the house and suggested the inn galleries of the +earlier arrangement, were first seen the robust predecessors of +Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Kyd and Peele and Nash; and later, +Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson and the other immortals +whose names are names to conjure with, even to this day. Played in the +daylight, and most crudely lighted, the play was deprived of the +illusion produced by modern artificial light, and the stage, projecting +far down into the audience, made equally impossible the illusion of the +proscenium arch, a picture stage set apart from life and constituting a +world of its own for the representation of the mimic story. There was +small need for make-up on the part of the actors, since the garish light +of day is a sad revealer of grease paint and powder; and the flaring +cressets of oil that did service as footlights must, it would seem, have +made darkness visible, when set beside the modern devices. It is plain +enough that under these conditions a performance of a play in the +particulars of seeing and hearing must have been seriously limited in +effect. To reach the audience must have meant an appeal that was +broadly human, and essentially dramatic. Fine language was +indispensable; and a language drama is exactly what the Elizabethan +theater gives us. Compelling interest of story, skillful mouthing of +splendid poetry, virile situations that contained the blood and thunder +elements always dear to the heart of the groundlings, these the play of +that period had to have to hold the audiences. Impudent breakings in +from the gentles who lounged on the stage and blew tobacco smoke from +their pipes into the faces perchance of Burbage and Shakespeare himself; +vulgar interpolations of some clown while the stage waited the entrance +of a player delayed in the tiring room must have been daily occurrences. +And yet, from such a stage, confined in extent and meager in fittings, +and under such physical limitations of comfort and convenience, were the +glories of the master poet given forth to the world. Our sense of the +wonder of his work is greatly increased when we get a visualized +comprehension of the conditions under which he accomplished it. It is +well to add that one of the most fruitful phases of contemporary +scholarship is that which has thrown so much light upon the structure of +the first English theaters. We now realize as never before the limits of +the scenic representation and the necessary restriction consequent upon +the style of drama given. + +Another interesting and important consideration should also be noted +here; and one too generally overlooked. The groundlings in the pit, +albeit exposed to wind and weather and deprived of the seats which +minister to man's ease and presumably dispose him to a better reception +of the piece, were yet in a position to witness the play as a play +superior to that of the more aristocratic portions of the assemblage. +However charming it may have been for the sprigs of the nobility to +touch elbows with Shakespeare on the boards as he delivered the tender +lines of old Adam in _As You Like It_, or to exchange a word aside with +Burbage just before he began the immortal soliloquy, "To be or not to +be," it is certain that these gentry were not so advantageously placed +to enjoy the rendition as a whole as were master Butcher or Baker at +the front. And it would seem reasonable to believe that the nature of +the Elizabethan play, so broadly humorous, so richly romantic, so large +and obvious in its values and languaged in a sort of surplusage of +exuberance, is explained by the fact that it was the common herd to whom +in particular the play was addressed in these early playhouses: not the +literature in which it was written so much as the unfolding story and +the tout ensemble which they were in a favorable position to take in. To +the upper-class attendant at the play the unity of the piece must have +been less dominant. And surely this must have tended to shape the play, +to make it a democratic people's product. For it is an axiom that the +dominant element in an audience settles the fate of a play. + +But this new plaything, the theater, was not only the physical +embodiment of the drama, it became a social institution as well. Nor was +it without its evils. The splendors of Elizabethan literature have often +blinded criticism to the more sleazy aspects of the problem. But +investigation has made apparent enough that the Puritan attitude toward +the new institution was not without its excuse. As we have seen, from +the very first a respectable middle class element of society looked +askance at the playhouse, and while this view became exaggerated with +the growth of Puritanism in England, there is nothing to be gained in +idealizing the stage conditions of that time, nor, more broadly, to deny +that the manner of life involved and in some regards the nature of the +appeal at any period carry with them the likelihood of license and of +dissipation. The actor before Shakespeare's day had little social or +legal status; and despite all the leveling up of the profession due to +him and his associates, the "strolling player" had to wait long before +he became the self-respecting and courted individuality of our own day. +Women did not act during the Elizabethan period, nor until the +Restoration; so that one of the present possibilities of corruption was +not present. But on the other hand, the stage was without the +restraining, refining influence of their presence; a coarser tone could +and did prevail as a result. The fact that ladies of breeding wore masks +at the theater and continued to do so into the eighteenth century speaks +volumes for the public opinion of its morals; and the scholar who knows +the wealth of idiomatic foulness in the best plays of Shakespeare, +luckily hidden from the layman in large measure, does not need to be +told of the license and lewdness prevalent at the time. The Puritans are +noted for their repressive attitude toward worldly pleasures and no +doubt part of their antagonism to the playhouse was due to the general +feeling that it is a sin to enjoy oneself, and that any institution +which was thronged by society for avowed purposes of entertainment must +derive from the devil. But documentary evidence exists to show that an +institution which in England made possible the drama of Shakespeare, +Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Ford, Jonson and Dekkar, writings which +we still point to with pride as our chief contribution to the creative +literature of the world, could include abuses so flagrant as to call +forth the stern denunciations of a Cromwell, and later even shock the +decidedly easy standards of a Pepys. The religious element in society +was, at intervals, to break out against the stage from pulpit or through +the pen, in historical iteration of this early attitude; as with Collier +in his famed attack upon its immorality at the close of the seventeenth +century, and numerous more modern diatribes from such clergymen as +Spurgeon and Buckley. + +And in order to understand the peculiar relation of the respectable +classes in America to the theater, it is necessary to realize that those +cherishing this antipathy were our forefathers, the Puritan settlers. +The attitude was inimical, and of course the circumstances were all +against a proper development of the function of the playhouse. Art and +letters upon American soil, forsooth, had to await their day in the +seventeenth and following centuries, when our ancestors had to give +their full strength to more utilitarian matters, or to the grave demands +of the future life. The Anglo-Saxon notion that the theater is evil is +to be traced directly to these historic causes; and transplanted to so +favorable a soil as America, it has produced most unfortunate results in +our dramatic history, the worst of all being the general unenlightened +view respecting the use and usufruct of an institution in its nature +capable of so much good alike to the masses and the classes. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +GROWTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY + + +Preparedness in the appreciation of a modern play presupposes a +knowledge of the origin and early development of English drama, as +briefly sketched in the preceding pages. It also, and more obviously, +involves some acquaintance with the master dramatists who led up to or +flourished in the Elizabethan period, with Shakespeare as the central +figure; it must, too, be cognizant of the gradual deterioration of the +product in the post-Elizabethan time; of the temporary close of the +public theaters under Puritan influence during the Commonwealth; and of +the substitution for the mighty poetry of Shakespeare and his mates of +the corrupt Restoration comedy which was introduced into England with +the return of the second Stuart to the throne in 1660. This brilliant +though brutally indecent comedy of manners, with Congreve, Wycherley, +Etherage, Vanbrugh and Farquhar as chief playwrights, while it +represents in literature the moral nadir of the polite section of +English society, is of decided importance in our dramatic history, +because it reflected the manners and morals of the time, and quite as +much because it is conspicuous for skillful characterization, effective +dialogue and a feeling for scene and situation--all elements in good +dramaturgy. + +This intelligent attempt to know what lies historically behind present +drama will also make itself aware of the falling away early in the +eighteenth century, in favor of the new literary form, the Novel; and +the all too brief flashing forth of another comedy of manners with +Sheridan and Goldsmith, which retained the sparkle, wit and literary +flavor of the Restoration, with a later decency and a wholesomer social +view; to be followed again by a well-nigh complete divorce of literature +and the stage until well past the middle of the nineteenth century, when +began the gradual re-birth of a drama which once more took on the +quality of letters and made a serious appeal as an esthetic art and a +worthy interpretation of life: what may be called the modern school +initiated by Ibsen. + +All this interesting growth and wonderfully varied accomplishment may be +but lightly touched upon here, for admirable studies of the different +periods and schools by many scholars are at hand and the earnest theater +student may be directed thereto for further reading. The work of +Professor Schelling on Elizabethan drama is thorough and authoritative. +The modern view of Shakespeare and his contribution (referred to in +Chapter III) will be found in Professor Baker's _Development of +Shakespeare as a Dramatist_ and Professor Matthews' _Shakespeare as a +Playwright_. The general reader will find in The Mermaid Series of plays +good critical treatment of the main Elizabethan and post-Elizabethan +plays, together with the texts, so that a practical acquaintance with +the product may be gained. The series also includes the Restoration +dramas in their best examples. For the Sheridan-Goldsmith plays a +convenient edition is that in the Drama section of the Belles Lettres +series of English Literature, where the representative plays of an +author are printed with enlightening introductions and other critical +apparatus. In becoming familiar with these aids the reader will receive +the necessary hints to a further acquaintance with the more technical +books which study the earlier, more difficult part of dramatic +evolution, and give attention to the complex story of the development of +the theater as an institution. + +A few things stand out for special emphasis here in regard to this +developmental time. Let it be remembered that the story of English drama +in its unfolding should be viewed in twin aspects: the growth of the +play under changing conditions; and the growth of the playhouse which +makes it possible. What has been said already of the physical framework +of the early English theater throws light at once, as we saw, upon the +nature of the play. And in fact, throughout the development, the play +has changed its form in direct relation to the change in the nature of +the stage upon which the play has been presented. The older type is a +stage suitable for the fine-languaged, boldly charactered, steadily +presented play of Shakespeare acted on a jutting platform where the +individual actor inevitably is of more prominence, and so poorly lighted +and scantily provided with scenery that words perforce and robustious +effects of acting were necessitated, instead of the scenic appeals, +subtler histrionism and plastic face and body work of the modern stage +which has shrunk back to become a framed-in picture behind the +proscenium arch. As the reader makes himself familiar with Marlowe, who +led on to Shakespeare, with the comedy and masque of Ben Jonson, with +the romantic and social plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, the lurid tragic +writing of Webster, the softer tragedy of Ford and the rollicking folk +comedy, pastoral poetry or serious social studies of Dekkar and Heywood, +he will come to realize that on the one hand what he supposed to be the +sole touch of Shakespeare in poetic expression was largely a general +gift of the spacious days of Elizabeth, poetry, as it were, being in the +very air men breathed[A]; and yet will recognize that the Stratford man +walked commonly on the heights only now and again touched by the others. +And as he reads further the plays of dramatists like Massinger, +Tourneur, Shirley, and Otway he will find, along with gleams and +glimpses of the grand manner, a steady degeneration from high poetry and +tragic seriousness to rant, bombast, and the pseudo-poetry that is +rhetoric, with the declension of tragedy into melodrama. High poetry +gradually disintegrates, and the way is prepared for the Restoration +comedy. + +In reflecting upon the effect of a closing of the public theaters for +nearly twenty years (1642-1660) the student will appreciate what a body +blow this must have been to the true interests of the stage; and find in +it at least a partial explanation of the rebound to the vigorous +indecencies of Congreve and his associates (Wycherley, Etherage, +Vanbrugh, Farquhar) when the ban was removed; human nature, pushed too +far, ever expressing itself by reactions. + +The ineradicable and undeniable literary virtues of the Restoration +writers and their technical advancement of the play as a form and a +faithful mirror of one phase of English society will reconcile the +investigator to a picture of life in which every man is a rake or +cuckold and every woman a light o' love; a sort of boudoir atmosphere +that has a tainted perfume removing it far from the morning freshness of +the Elizabethans. And consequently he will experience all the more +gratitude in reaching the eighteenth century plays: _The School for +Scandal_, _The Rivals_, and _She Stoops to Conquer_, when they came a +generation later. While retaining the polish and the easy carriage of +good society, these dramas got rid of the smut and the smirch, and added +a flavor of hearty English fun and a saner conception of social life; a +drama rooted firmly in the fidelities instead of the unfaithfulnesses +of human character. These eighteenth century plays, like those of the +Restoration--_The Plain Dealer_, _The Way of the World_, _The Man of +Mode_, _The Relapse_, and _The Beaux Stratagem_--were still played in +the old-fashioned playhouses, like Drury Lane, or Covent Garden, with +the stage protruding into the auditorium and the classic architecture +ill adapted to acoustics, and the boxes so arranged as to favor +aristocratic occupants rather than in the interests of the play itself. +The frequent change of scene, the five-act division of form, the +prologue and epilogue and the free use of such devices as the soliloquy +and aside remind us of the subsequent advance in technic. These marks of +a by-gone fashion we are glad to overlook or accept, in view of the +essential dramatic values and permanent contribution to letters which +Sheridan and Goldsmith made to English comedy. But at the same time it +is only common sense to felicitate ourselves that these methods of the +past have been outgrown, and better methods substituted. And we shall +never appreciate eighteenth century play-making to the full until we +understand that the authors wrote in protest against a sickly sort of +unnatural sentimentality, mawkish and untrue to life, which had become +fashionable on the English stage in the hands of Foote, Colman and +others. Sheridan brought back common sense and Goldsmith dared to +introduce "low" characters and laughed out of acceptance the +conventional separation of the socially high and humble in English life. +His preface to _The Good Natured Man_ will be found instructive reading +in relation to this service. + +From 1775 to 1860 the English stage, looked back upon from the vantage +point of our time, appears empty, indeed. It did not look so barren, we +may believe, to contemporaries. Shakespeare was doctored to suit a false +taste; so great an actor-manager as Garrick complacently playing in a +version of _Lear_ in which the ruined king does not die and Cordelia +marries Edgar; an incredible prettification and falsification of the +mighty tragedy! Jonson writes for the stage, though the last man who +should have done so. Sheridan Knowles, in the early nineteenth century, +gives us _Virginius_, which is still occasionally heard, persisting +because of a certain vigor and effectiveness of characterization, though +hopelessly old-fashioned in its rhetoric and its formal obeyance of +outworn conventions, both artistic and intellectual. The same author's +_The Honeymoon_ is also preserved for us through possessing a good part +for the accomplished actress. Later Bulwer, whose feeling for the stage +cannot be denied, in _Money_, _Richelieu_, and _The Lady of Lyons_, +shows how a certain gift for the theatrical, coupled with less critical +standards, will combine to preserve dramas whose defects are now only +too apparent. + +As the nineteenth century advances the fiction of Reade and Dickens is +often fitted to the boards and the fact that the latter was a natural +theater man gave and still gives his product a frequent hearing on the +stage. To meet the beloved characters of this most widely read of all +English fictionists is in itself a pleasure sufficient to command +generous audiences. Boucicault's _London Assurance_ is good stage +material rather than literature. Tom Taylor produced among many stage +pieces a few of distinct merit; his _New Men and Old Acres_ is still +heard, in the hands of experimental amateurs, and reveals sterling +qualities of characterization and structure. + +But the fact remains, hardly modified by the sporadic manifestations, +that the English stage was frankly separating itself from English +literature, and by 1860 the divorce was practically complete. There was +a woful lack of public consideration for its higher interests on the one +hand, and no definite artistic endeavor to produce worthy stage +literature on the other. Authors who wrote for the stage got no +encouragement to print their dramas and so make the literary appeal; +there was among them no esprit de corps, binding them together for a +self-conscious effort to make the theater a place where literature +throve and art maintained its sovereignty. No leading or representative +writers were dramatists first of all. If such wrote plays, they did it +half heartedly, and as an exercise rather than a practical aim. It is +curious to ask ourselves if this falling away of the stage might not +have been checked had Dickens given himself more definitely to dramatic +writing. His bias in that direction is well known. He wrote plays in his +younger days and was throughout his life a fine amateur actor: the +dramatic and often theatric character of his fiction is familiar. It was +his intention as a youth to go on the stage. But he chose the novel and +perhaps in so doing depleted dramatic history. + +Literature and the stage, then, had at the best a mere bowing +acquaintance. Browning, who under right conditions of encouragement +might have trained himself to be a theater poet, was chagrined by his +experience with _The Blot on the 'Scutcheon_ and thereafter wrote closet +plays rather than acting drama. Swinburne, master of music and mage of +imagination, was in no sense a practical dramatist. Shelley's dramas are +also for book reading rather than stage presentation, in spite of the +fact that his _Cenci_ has theater possibilities to make one regret all +the more his lack of stage knowledge and aim. Bailey's _Festus_ is not +an acting play, though it was acted; the sporadic drama, in fact, +between 1850 and 1870, light or serious, was frankly literary in the +academic sense and not adapted to stage needs; or else consisted of book +dramatizations from Reade and Dickens; or simply represented the +journeymen work of prolific authors with little or no claim to literary +pretensions. + +The practical proof of all this can be found in the absence of drama of +the period in book form, except for the acting versions, badly printed +and cheaply bound, which did not make the literary appeal at all. Where +to-day our leading dramatists publish their work as a matter of course, +offering it as they would fiction or any other form of literature, the +reading public of the middle century neither expected nor received plays +as part of their mental pabulum, and an element in the contemporary +letters. The drama had not only ceased to be a recognized section of +current literature, but was also no longer an expression of national +life. The first faint gleam of better things came when T. W. Robertson's +genteel light comedies began to be produced at the Court Theater in +1868. As we read or see _Caste_ or _Society_ to-day they seem somewhat +flimsy material, to speak the truth; and their technic, after the rapid +development of a generation, has a mechanical creak for trained ears. +But we must take them at the psychologic moment of their appearance, and +recognize that they were a very great advance on what had gone before. +They brought contemporary social life upon the stage as did Congreve in +1680, Sheridan in 1765; and they made that life interesting to large +numbers of theater-goers who hitherto had abstained from play acting. +And so _Caste_ and its companion plays, of which it is the best, drew +crowded houses and the stage became once more an amusement to reckon +with in polite circles. The royal box was once more occupied, the +playhouse became fashionable, no longer quite negligible as a form of +art. To be sure, this was a town drama, and for the upper classes, as +was the Restoration Comedy and that of the eighteenth century. It was +not a people's theater, the Theater Robertson, but it had the prime +merit of a more truthful representation of certain phases of the life of +its day. And hence Robertson will always be treated as a figure of some +historical importance in the British drama, though not a great +dramatist. + +In the eighteen eighties another influence began to be felt, that of +Ibsen. The great dramatist from the North was made known to English +readers by the criticism and translations of Gosse and Archer; and +versions of his plays were given, tentatively and occasionally, in +England, as in other lands. Thus readers and audiences alike gradually +came to get a sense of a new force in the theater: an uncompromisingly +truthful, stern portrayal of modern social conditions, the story told +with consummate craftsmanship, and the national note sounding beneath +the apparent pessimism. Here were, it was evident, new material, new +method and a new insistence upon intellectual values in the theater. It +can now be seen plainly enough that Ibsen's influence upon the drama of +the nineteenth century is commensurate in revolutionary results with +that of Shakespeare in the sixteenth. He gave the play a new and +improved formula for play-writing; and he showed that the theater could +be used as an arena for the discussion of vital questions of the day. +Even in France, the one country where dramatic development has been +steadily important for nearly three centuries, his influence has been +considerable; in other European lands, as in England, his genius has +been a pervasive force. Whether he will or no, the typical modern +dramatist is a son of Ibsen, in that he has adopted the Norwegian's +technic and taken the function of playwright more seriously than before. + +Both with regard to intellectual values and technic, then, it is no +exaggeration to speak of the modern drama, although it be an expression +of the spirit of the time in reflecting social evolution, as bearing the +special hallmark of Ibsen's influence. A word follows on the varied and +vital accomplishment of the present period. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MODERN SCHOOL + + +We have noted that Ibsen's plays began to get a hearing in England in +the eighteen nineties. In fact, it was in 1889 that Mr. J. T. Grein had +the temerity to produce at his Independent Theater in London _A Doll's +House_, and followed it shortly afterward by the more drastic _Ghosts_. +The influence in arousing an interest in and knowledge of a kind of +drama which entered the arena for the purpose of social challenge and +serious satiric attack was incalculable. Both Jones and Pinero, +honorable pioneers in the making of the new English drama, and still +actively engaged in their profession, had begun to write plays some +years before this date; but it may be believed that the example of +Ibsen, if not originating their impulse, was part of the encouragement +to let their own work reflect more truthfully the social time spirit +and to study modern character types with closer observation, allowing +their stories to be shaped not so much by theatric convention as by +honest psychologic necessity. + +Jones began with melodrama, of which _The Silver King_ (1882), _Saints +and Sinners_ (1884) and _The Middle Man_ (1889) are examples; Pinero +with ingenious farces happily associated with the fortunes of Sir Squire +Bancroft and his wife, _The Magistrate_ (1885) being an excellent +illustration of the type. The dates are significant in showing the +turning of these skillful playwrights to play-making that was more +serious in the handling of life and more artistic in constructive +values; they are practically synchronous with the introduction of Ibsen +into England. Both authors have now long lists of plays to their credit, +with acknowledged masterpieces among them. Pinero's earlier romantic +style may be seen in the enormously successful _Sweet Lavender_, a style +repeated ten years later in _Trelawney of the Wells_; his more mature +manner being represented in _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, the best of a +number of plays which center in the woman who is a social rebel, the +dramatist's tone being almost austerely grim in carrying the study to +its logical conclusion. For a time Sir Arthur seemed to be preoccupied +with the soiled dove as dramatic inspiration; but so fine a recent play +as _The Thunderbolt_ shows he can get away from it. Jones' latest and +best work as well has a tendency to the serious satiric showing-up of +the failings of prosperous middle-class English society; this, however, +in the main, kept in abeyance to story interest and constructive skill +in its handling: _Mrs. Dane's Defense_, _The Case of Rebellious Susan_, +_The Liars_, _The Rogue's Comedy_, _The Hypocrites_, and _Michael and +His Lost Angel_ stand for admirably able performances in different ways. + +At the time when these two dramatists were beginning to produce work +that was to change the English theater Bernard Shaw, after writing +several pieces of fiction, had begun to give his attention to plays so +advanced in technic and teaching that he was forced to wait more than a +decade to get a wide hearing in the theater. His debt to the Norwegian +has been handsomely acknowledged by the Irish dramatist, wit and +philosopher who was to become the most striking phenomenon of the +English theater: with all the differences, an English Ibsen. A little +later, in the early eighteen nineties, another brilliant Irishman, Oscar +Wilde, wrote a number of social comedies whose playing value to-day +testifies to his gift in telling a stage story, while his epigrammatic +wit and literary polish gave them the literary excellence likely to +perpetuate his name. For the comedy of manners, light, easy, elegant, +keen, and with satiric point in its reflection of society, nothing of +the time surpasses such dramas as _Lady Windermere's Fan_ and _A Woman +of No Importance_. The author's farce--farce, yet more than farce in +dialogue and characterization--_The Importance of Being Earnest_, is +also a genuine contribution in its kind. And the strange, somber, +intensely poetic _Salome_ is a remarkable _tour de force_ in an unusual +field. + +The tendency to turn from fiction to the drama as another form of story +telling fast coming into vogue is strikingly set forth and embellished +in the case of Sir James Barrie, who, after many successes in novel and +short story, became a dramatist some twenty years ago and is now one of +the few men of genius writing for the stage. His _Peter Pan_, _The +Little Minister_, _The Admirable Crichton_, and _What Every Woman Knows_ +are four of over a dozen dramas which have given him world fame. +Uniquely, among English writers whose work is of unquestionable literary +quality, he refrains from the publication of plays; a very regrettable +matter to countless who appreciate his rare quality. He is in his droll +way of whimsy a social critic beneath the irresponsible play of a poet's +fancy and an idealist's vision. His keen yet gentle interpretations of +character are solidly based on truth to the everlasting human traits, +and his poetry is all the better for its foundation of sanity and its +salt of wit. One has an impulse to call him the Puck of the English +theater; then feels compelled to add a word which recognizes the loving +wisdom mingling with the pagan charm. Sir James is as unusual in his way +as Shaw in his. Of late he has shown an inclination to write brief, +one-act pieces, thereby adding to our interest in a form of drama +evidently just beginning to come into greater regard. + +For daring originality both of form and content Bernard Shaw is easily +the first living dramatist of England. He is a true son of Ibsen, in +that he insists on thinking in the theater, as well as in the +experimental nature of his technic, which has led him to shape for +himself the drama of character and thesis he has chosen to write. To the +thousands who know his name through newspaper publicity or the vogue of +some piece of his in the playhouse, Shaw is simply a witty Irishman, +dealer in paradox and wielder of a shillelah swung to break the heads of +Philistines for the sheer Celtic love of a row. To the few, however, an +honorable minority now rapidly increasing, he is a deeply earnest, +constructive social student and philosopher, who uses a popular +amusement as a vehicle for the wider dissemination of perfectly serious +views: a socialist, a mystic who believes in the Life Force sweeping man +on (if man but will) to a high destiny, and a lover of fellow man who in +his own words regards his life as belonging to the community and wishes +to serve it, in order that he may be "thoroughly used up" when he comes +to die. He has conquered as a playwright because beneath the sparkling +sally, the startling juxtaposition of character and the apparent +irreverence there hides a genuinely religious nature. Shaw shows himself +an "immoralist" only in the sense that he attacks jejune, vicious +pseudo-morals now existent. For sheer acting values in the particulars +of dialogue, character, scenic effectiveness, feeling for climax and +unity of aim such plays as _Candida_, _Arms and the Man_, _Captain +Brassbound's Profession_, _The Devil's Disciple_, _John Bull's Other +Island_, _Man and Superman_, _The Showing Up of Blanco Posnett_, and +others yet, are additions to the serious comedy of England likely to be +of lasting luster, so far as contemporary vision can penetrate. + +One of the most interesting developments of recent years has been the +Irish theater movement, in itself part of the general rehabilitation of +the higher imaginative life of that remarkable people. The drama of the +gentle idealist poet Yeats, of the shrewdly observant Lady Gregory and +of the grimly realistic yet richly romantic Synge has carried far beyond +their little country, so that plays like Yeats' _The Land of Heart's +Desire_ and _The Hour Glass_, Lady Gregory's _Spreading the News_ and +Synge's _Riders to the Sea_ and _The Playboy of the Western World_ are +heard wherever the English language is understood, this stage literature +being aided in its travels by the excellent company of Irish Players +founded to exploit it and giving the world a fine example of the success +that may come from a single-eyed devotion to an ideal: namely, the +presentation for its own sake of the simple typical native life of the +land. + +It should be remembered that while these three leaders are best known, +half a dozen other able Irish dramatists are associated with them, and +doing much to interpret the farmer or city folk: writers like Mayne, +Boyle, McComas, Murray, and Robinson. + +Under the stimulus of Shaw in his reaction against the machine-made +piece and the tiresome reiteration of sex motives, there has sprung up a +younger school which has striven to introduce more varied subject-matter +and a broader view, also greater truth and subtler methods in +play-making. Here belong Granville Barker, with his _Voysey Inheritance_ +(his best piece), noteworthy also as actor-manager and producer; the +novelists, Galsworthy and Bennett; and Masefield, whose _Tragedy of Nan_ +contains imaginative poetry mingled with melodrama; and still later +figures, conspicuous among them the late Stanley Houghton, whose _Hindle +Wakes_ won critical and popular praise; others being McDonald Hastings +with _The New Sin_; Githa Sowerby, author of the grim, effective play, +_Rutherford and Son_; Elizabeth Baker, with _Chains_ to her credit; +Wilfred Gibson, who writes brief poignant studies of east London in +verse that in form is daringly realistic; Cosmo Hamilton, who made us +think in his attractive _The Blindness of Virtue_; and J. O. Francis, +whose Welsh play, _Change_, was recognized as doing for that country the +same service as the group led by Yeats and Synge has performed for +Ireland. + +A later Synge seems to have arisen in Lord Dunsany, whose dramas in book +form have challenged admiration; and since his early death St. John +Hankin's dramatic work is coming into importance as a masterly +contribution to light comedy, the sort of drama that, after the Wilde +fashion, laughs at folly, satirizes weakness, refrains from taking +sides, and never forgets that the theater should offer amusement. + +Of all these playwrights, rising or risen, who have got a hearing after +the veterans first mentioned, Galsworthy seems most significant for the +profound social earnestness of his thought, the great dignity of his art +and the fact that he rarely fails to respect the stage demand for +objective interest and story appeal. Some of these new dramatists go too +far in rejecting almost scornfully the legitimate theater mood of +amusement and the necessity of a method differing from the more analytic +way of fiction. Mr. Galsworthy, however, though severe to austerity in +his conceptions and nothing if not serious in treatment, certainly puts +upon us something of the compelling grip of the true dramatist in such +plays as _The Silver Box_, _Strife_ and, strongest of them all and one +of the finest examples of modern tragedy, Justice, where the themes are +so handled as to increase their intrinsic value. This able and +high-aiming novelist, when he turns to another technic, takes the +trouble to acquire it and becomes a stage influence to reckon with. _The +Pigeon_, the most genial outcome of his dramatic art, is a delightful +play: and _The Eldest Son_, _The Fugitive_ and _The Mob_, if none of +them have been stage successes, stand for work of praiseworthy strength. + +On the side of poetry, and coming a little before the Irish drama +attracted general attention, Stephen Phillips proved that a poet could +learn the technic of the theater and satisfy the demands of reader and +play-goer. Saturated with literary traditions, frankly turning to +history, legend, and literature itself for his inspiration, Mr. Phillips +has written a number of acting dramas, all of them possessing stage +value, while remaining real poetry. His best things are _Paolo and +Francesca_ and _Herod_, the former a play of lovely lyric quality and +genuinely dramatic moments of suspense and climax; the latter a powerful +handling of the Bible motive. Very fine too in its central character is +_Nero_; and _Ulysses_, while less suited to the stage, where it seems +spectacle rather than drama, is filled with noble poetry and has a last +act that is a little play in itself. Several of Mr. Phillips' best plays +have been elaborately staged and successfully produced by representative +actor-managers like Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Sir George Alexander. + +Still with poetry in mind, it may be added that Lawrence Binyon has +given evidence of distinct power in dramatic poetry in his _Attila_, +and the delicate Pierrot play, _Prunella_, by Messrs. Housman and +Granville Barker is a success in quite another genre. + +Israel Zangwill has turned, like Barrie, Galsworthy and Bennett, from +fiction to the play, and _The Children of the Ghetto_, _Merely Mary +Ann_, _The Melting Pot_, _The War God_ and _The Next Religion_ show +progressively a firmer technic and the use of larger themes. Other +playwrights like Alfred Sutro, Sidney Grundy, W. S. Maugham, Hubert +Davies, and Captain Marshall have a skillful hand, and in the cases of +Maugham and Davies, especially the latter, clever social satire has come +from their pens. Louis R. Parker has shown his range and skill in +successful dramas so widely divergent as _Rosemary_, _Pomander Walk_ and +_Disraeli_. + +It may be seen from this category, suggestive rather than complete, that +there is in England ample evidence for the statement that drama is now +being vigorously produced and must be reckoned with as an appreciable +and welcome part of contemporary letters. In the United States, so far, +the showing is slighter and less impressive. Yet it is within the facts +to say that the native play-making has waxed more serious-minded and +skillful (this especially in the last few years) and so has become a +definite adjunct to the general movement toward the reinvestiture of +drama. + +In the prose drama which attempts honestly to reproduce American social +conditions, elder men like Howard and Herne, and later ones like Thomas, +Gillette and Clyde Fitch, have done worthy pioneer work. Among many +younger playwrights who are fast pressing to the front, Eugene Walter, +who in _The Easiest Way_ wrote one of the best realistic plays of the +day, Edward Sheldon, with a dozen interesting dramas to his credit, +notably _The Nigger_ and _Romance_; and William Vaughan Moody, whose +material in both _The Great Divide_ and _The Faith Healer_ is +healthfully American and truthful, although the handling is romantic and +that of the poet, deserve first mention. + +Women are increasingly prominent in this recent activity and in such +hands as those of Rachel Crothers, Ann Flexner, Marguerite Merrington, +Margaret Mayo and Eleanor Gates our social life is likely to be +exploited in a way to hint at its problems, and truthfully and amusingly +set forth its types. + +Moody, though he wrote his stage plays in prose, was essentially the +poet in viewpoint and imagination. A poet too, despite the fact that +more than half his work is in prose, is Percy Mackaye, the son of a +distinguished earlier playwright and theater reformer, author of _Hazel +Kirke_ and _Paul Kauvar_. Mr. Mackaye's prose comedy _Mater_, high +comedy in the best sense, and his satiric burlesque, _Anti-Matrimony_, +together with the thoughtful drama _Tomorrow_, which seeks to +incorporate the new conception of eugenics in a vital story of the day, +are good examples of one aspect of his work; and _Jeanne d'Arc_, _Sapho_ +and _Phaon_, verse plays, and the romantic spectacle play, _A Thousand +Years Ago_, illustrate his poetic endeavor. Taking a hint from a short +story by Hawthorne, he has written in _The Scarecrow_ one of the +strongest and noblest serious dramas yet wrought by an American. He has +also done much for the pageant and outdoor masque, as his _The +Canterbury Pilgrims_, _Sanctuary_ and _St. Louis, A Civic Masque_, +presented in May of 1914 on an heroic scale in that city, testify. A +poet, whether in lyric or dramatic expression, is Josephine Preston +Peabody. Her lovely reshaping of the familiar legend known best in the +hands of Browning, _The Piper_, took the prize at the Stratford on Avon +spring Shakespeare festival some years ago, and has been successful +since both in England and America. Her other dramatic writing has not as +yet met so well the stage demands, but is conspicuous for charm and +ideality. + +In the imaginative field of romance, poetry and allegory we may also +place the Americanized Englishman, Charles Rann Kennedy, who has put the +touch of the poet and prophet upon homely modern material. His beautiful +morality play, _The Servant in the House_, secured his reputation and +later plays from _The Winter Feast_ to _The Idol Breaker_, inclusive of +several shorter pieces, the one act form being definitely practiced by +this author, have been interesting work, skillful of technic and +surcharged with social sympathy and significance. Edward Knoblauch, the +author of _The Faun_, of _Milestones_ in collaboration with Mr. Bennett, +and of the fantastic oriental divertissement, _Kismet_; and Austin +Strong, who wrote _The Toymaker of Nuremberg_, are among the younger +dramatists from whom much may yet be expected. + +In this enumeration, all too scant to do justice to newer drama in the +United States, especially in the field of realistic satire and humorous +perception of the large-scaled clashes of our social life, it must be +understood that I perforce omit to mention fully two score able and +earnest young workers who are showing a most creditable desire to depict +American conditions and have learned, or are rapidly learning, the use +of their stage tools. The purpose here is to name enough of personal +accomplishment to buttress the claim that a promising school has arisen +on the native soil with aims and methods similar to those abroad. + +And all this work, English or American, shows certain ear-marks to bind +it together and declare it of our day in comparison with the past. What +are these distinctive features? + +On the side of technic, a greater and greater insistence on telling the +story dramatically, with more of truth, to the exclusion of all that is +non-dramatic, although preserved in the conventions of the theater for +perhaps centuries; the elimination of subplot and of subsidiary +characters which were of old deemed necessary for purposes of +exposition; the avoidance of the prologue and such ancient and useful +devices as the aside and the soliloquy; and such simplification of form +that the typical play shall reduce itself most likely to three acts, and +is almost always less than five; a play that often has but one scene +where the action is compressed within the time limits of a few hours, +or, at the most, a day or two. All this is the outcome of the influence +of Ibsen with its subtlety, expository methods and its intenser +psychology. In word, dress, action and scene, too, this modern type of +drama approximates closer to life; and inclines to minimize scenery save +as congruous background, thus implying a distinct rebellion from the +stupidly literal scenic envisagement for which the influence of a +Belasco is responsible. The new technic also has, in its seeking for an +effect of verisimilitude, adopted the naturalistic key of life in its +acting values and has built small theaters better adapted to this +quieter, more penetrating presentation. + +In regard to subject matter, and the author's attitude to his work, a +marked tendency may be seen to emphasize personality in the character +drawing, to make it of central interest (contrasted with plot) and a +bold attempt to present it in the more minute variations of motive and +act rather than in those more obvious reactions to life which have +hitherto characterized stage treatment; and equally noticeable if not +the dominant note of this latter-day drama, has been the social sympathy +expressed in it and making it fairly resonant with kindly human values: +the author's desire to see justice done to the under-dog in the social +struggle; to extend a fraternal hand to the derelicts of the earth, to +understand the poor and strive to help those who are weak or lost; all +the underlings and incompetents and ill-doers of earth find their +explainers and defenders in these writers. This is the note which sounds +in the fraternalism of Kennedy's _The Servant in the House_, the +arraignment of society in Walter's _The Easiest Way_ and Paterson's +_Rebellion_, the contrast of the ideals of east and west in Moody's _The +Great Divide_, and the democratic fellowship of Sheldon's _Salvation +Nell_. It is the note abroad which gives meaning to Hauptmann's _The +Weavers_, Galsworthy's _Justice_ and Wedekind's _The Awakening of +Spring_, different as they are from each other. It stands for a +tolerant, even loving comprehension of the other fellow's case. There is +in it a belief in the age, too, and in modern man; a faith in democracy +and an aspiration to see established on the earth a social condition +which will make democracy a fact, not merely a convenient political +catch-word. + +Some authors, in their obsession with truth on the stage, have too much +neglected the fundamental demands of the theater and so sacrificed the +crisp crescendo treatment of crisis in climax as to indulge in a tame, +undramatic and bafflingly subtle manipulation of the story; a remark +applicable, for example, to a writer like Granville Barker. + +But the growth and gains in both countries, with America modestly +second, are encouraging. In these modern hands the play has been +simplified, deepened, made more truthful, more sympathetic; and is now +being given the expressional form that means literature. The bad, the +cheap, the flimsy are still being produced, of course, in plenty; so has +it always been, so ever will be. But the drama that is worthy, skillful, +refreshing in these different kinds--farce, comedy light, polite, or +satiric; broad comedy or high, melodrama, tragedy, romance and +morality--is now offered, steadily, generously, and it depends upon the +theater-goer who has trained himself to know, to reject and accept +rightly, to appreciate and so make secure the life of all drama that is +worth preservation. + + * * * * * + +This survey of the English theater and the drama which has been produced +in it from the beginning--a survey the brevity of which will not +detract, it may be hoped, from its clearness, may serve to place our +play-goer in a position the better to appreciate the present conditions; +and to give him more respect for a form of literature which he turns to +to-day for intelligent recreation, deeming it a helpfully stimulating +form of art. From this vantage-point, he may now approach a +consideration of the drama as an artistic problem. He will be readier +than before, perhaps, to realize that the playwright, with this history +behind him, is the creature of a long and important development, in a +double sense: in his treatment of life, and in the manner of that +treatment. + +Naturally, the theater-goer will not stop with the English product. The +necessity alone of understanding Ibsen, as the main figure in this +complex modern movement, will lead him to a study of the author of _A +Doll's House_. And, working from center to circumference, he will with +ever increasing stimulation and delight become familiar with many other +foreign dramatists of national or international importance. He will give +attention to those other Scandinavians, Strindberg, Drachman and +Björnson; to the Russians, Tolstoy, Tchekoff and Gorky; to Frenchmen +like Rostand and Maeterlinck, Becque, Hervieu, Lavedan, Donnay and +Brieux; to the Germans and Austrians, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Wedekind, +Hofmansthal and Schnitzler; to the Italian, D'Annunzio, and the Spanish +Echgeragay,--to mention but a few. It may even be that, once aroused to +the value of the expression of the Present in these representative +writers for the stage, he will wish to trace the dramatic history behind +them in their respective countries, as he has (supposedly) already done +with the dramatists of his own tongue. If he do so, the play-goer will +surely add greatly not only to his general literary culture but to his +power of true appreciation of the play of the moment he may be +witnessing. For all this reading and reflection and comparison will tend +to make him a critic-in-the-seat who settles the fate of plays to-day +because he knows the plays of yesterday and yesteryear. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PLAY AS THEME AND PERSONAL VIEW + + +We may now come directly to a consideration of the play regarded as a +work of art and a piece of life. After all, this is the central aim in +the attempt to become intelligent in our play-going. A play may properly +be thought of as a theme; it has a definite subject, which involves a +personal opinion about life on the author's part; a view of human beings +in their complex interrelations the sum of which make up man's existence +on this globe. + +The play has a story, of course, and that story is so handled as to +constitute a plot: meaning a tangle of circumstances in which the fates +of a handful of human beings are involved, a tangle to which it is the +business of the plot to give meaning and direction. But back of the +story, in any drama that rises to some worth, there is a theme, in a +sense. Thus, the theme of _Macbeth_ is the degenerating effect of sin +upon the natures of the king and his spouse; and the theme of Ibsen's _A +Doll's House_ is the evil results of treating a grown-up woman as if she +were a mere puppet with little or no relation to life's serious +realities. + +The thing that gives dignity and value to any play is to be found just +here: a distinctive theme, which is over and above the interest of +story-plot, sinks into the consciousness of the spectator or reader, and +gives him stimulating thoughts about life and living long after he may +have quite forgotten the fable which made the framework for this +suggestive impulse of the dramatist. Give the statement a practical +test. Plenty of plays suffice well enough perhaps to fill an evening +pleasantly, yet have no theme at all, no idea which one can take with +him from the playhouse and ruminate at leisure. For, although the story +may be skillfully handled and the technic of the piece be satisfying, if +it is not _about_ anything, the rational auditor is vaguely dissatisfied +and finds in the final estimate that all such plays fall below those +that really have a theme. To illustrate: Mr. Augustus Thomas's fine +play, _The Witching Hour_, has a theme embedded in a good, old-fashioned +melodramatic story; and this is one of the reasons for its great +success. But the same author's _Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots_, though +executed with practiced skill, has no theme at all and therefore is at +the best an empty, if amusing, trifle, far below the dramatist's full +powers. Frankly, it is a pot boiler. And, similarly, Mr. Thomas's +capital western American drama, _Arizona_, while primarily and +apparently story for its own sake, takes on an added virtue because it +illustrates, in a story-setting, certain typical and worthy American +traits to be found at the time and under those conditions in the far +west. To have a theme is not to be didactic, neither to argue for a +thesis nor moot a problem. It is simply to have an opinion about life +involved in and rising naturally out of the story, and never, never +lugged in by the heels. The true dramatist does not tell a story because +he has a theme he wishes to impose upon the audience; on the contrary, +he tells his story because he sees life that way, in terms of plot, of +drama, and in its course, and in spite of himself, a certain notion or +view about sublunary things enters into the structure of the whole +creation, and emanates from it like an atmosphere. One of the very best +comedies of modern times is the late Sidney Grundy's _A Pair of +Spectacles_. It has sound technic, delightful characterization, and a +simple, plausible, coherent and interesting fable. But, beyond this, it +has a theme, a heart-warming one: namely, that one who sees life through +the kindly lenses of the optimist is not only happier, but gets the best +results from his fellow beings; in short, is nearer the truth. And no +one should doubt that this theme goes far toward explaining the +remarkable vogue of this admirable comedy. Without a theme so clear, +agreeable and interpretive, a play equally skillful would never have had +like fortune. + +And this theme in a play, as was hinted, must, to be acceptable, express +the author's personal opinion, honestly, fearlessly put forth. If it be +merely what he ought to think in the premises, what others +conventionally think, what it will, in his opinion, or that of the +producer of the play, pay to think, the drama will not ring true, and +will be likely to fail, even if the technic of a lifetime bolster it up. +It must embody a truth relative to the writer, a fact about life as he +sees it, and nothing else. A theme in a play cannot be abstract truth, +for to tell us of abstract truth is the _métier_ of the philosopher, and +herein lies his difference from the stage story-teller. Relative truth +is the play-maker's aim and the paramount demand upon him is that he be +sincere. He must give a view of life in his story which is an honest +statement of what human beings and human happenings really are in his +experience. If his experience has been so peculiar or unique as to make +his themes absurd and impossible to people in general, then his play +will pretty surely fail. He pays the penalty of his warped, or too +limited or degenerate experience. No matter: show the thing as he sees +it and knows it, that he must; and then take his chances. + +And so convincing, so winning is sincerity, that even when the view that +lies at the heart of the theme appears monstrous and out of all belief, +yet it will stand a better chance of acceptance than if the author had +trimmed his sails to every wind of favor that blows. + +Mr. Kennedy wrote an odd drama a few years ago called _The Servant in +the House_, in which he did a most unconventional thing in the way of +introducing a mystic stranger out of the East into the midst of an +ordinary mundane English household. Anybody examining such a play in +advance, and aware of what sort of drama was typical of our day, might +have been forgiven had he absolutely refused to have faith in such a +work. But the author was one person who did have faith in it; he had a +fine theme: the idea that the Christ ideal, when projected into daily +life--instead of cried up once a week in church--and there acted on, is +efficacious. He had an unshaken belief in this idea. And he conquered, +because he dared to substitute for the conventional and supposed +inevitable demand an apparently unpopular personal conviction. He +found, as men who dare commonly do, that the assumed personal view was +the general view which no one had had the courage before to express. + +In the same way, M. Maeterlinck, another idealist of the day, wrote _The +Blue Bird_. It is safe to say that those in a position to be wise in +matters dramatic would never have predicted the enormous success of this +simple child play in various countries. But the writer dared to vent his +ideas and feelings with regard to childhood and concerning the spiritual +aspirations of all mankind; in other words, he chose a theme for some +other reason than because it was good, tried theater material; and the +world knows the result. It may be said without hesitation that more +plays fail in the attempt to modify view in favor of the supposed view +of others--the audience, the manager or somebody else--than fail because +the dramatist has sturdily stuck to his point of view and honestly set +down in his story his own private reaction to the wonderful thing called +life; a general possession and yet not one thing, but having as many +sides as there are persons in the world to live it. + +Consider, for example, the number of dramas that, instead of carrying +through the theme consistently to the end, are deflected from their +proper course through the playwright's desire (more often it is an +unwilling concession to others' desire) to furnish that +tradition-condiment, a "pleasant ending." Now everybody normal would +rather have a play end well than not; he who courts misery for its own +sake is a fool. But, if not a fool, he does not wish the pleasantness at +the expense of truth, because then the pleasantness is no longer +pleasant to the educated taste, and so defeats its own end. And it is an +observed fact that some stories, whether fiction or drama, "begin to end +well," as Stevenson expressed it; while others, just as truly, begin to +end ill. Hence, when such themes are manhandled by the cheap, dishonest +wresting of events or characters or both, so as presumably to send the +audience home "happy," we get a wretched malversion of art,--and without +at all attaining the object in view. For even the average, or +garden-variety, of audience is uneasy at the insult offered its +intelligence in such a nefarious transaction. It has been asked to +witness a piece of real life, for, testimony to the contrary +notwithstanding, that is what an audience takes every play to be. Up to +a certain point, this presentation of life is convincing; then, for the +sake of leaving an impression that all is well because two persons are +united who never should be, or because the hero didn't die when he +really did, or because coincidence is piled on coincidence to make a +fairy tale situation at which a fairly intelligent cow would rebel, +presto, a lie has to be told that would not deceive the very children in +the seats. It is pleasant to record truthfully that this miserable and +mistaken demand on the part of the short-sighted purveyors of +commercialized dramatic wares is yielding gradually to the more +enlightened notion that any audience wants a play to be consistent with +itself, and feels that too high a price can be paid even for the good +ending whose false deification has played havoc with true dramatic +interests. + +Another mode of dishonesty, in which the writer of a play fails in +theme, is to be found whenever, instead of sticking to his subject +matter and giving it the unity of his main interest and the wholeness of +effect derived from paying it undivided attention, extraneous matter is +introduced for the sake of temporary alleviation. Not to stick to your +theme is almost as bad at times as to have none. No doubt the temptation +comes to all practical playwrights and is a considerable one. But it +must be resisted if they are to remain self-respecting artists. The late +Clyde Fitch, skilled man of the theater though he was, sinned not seldom +in this respect. He sometimes introduced scenes effective for novelty +and truth of local color, but so little related to the whole that the +trained auditor might well have met him with the famous question asked +by the Greek audiences of their dramatists who strayed from their theme: +"What has this to do with Apollo?" The remark applies to the +drastically powerful scene in his posthumous play _The City_, where the +theme which was plainly announced in the first act is lost sight of in +the dramatist's desire to use material well adapted to secure a +sensational effect in his climax. It is only fair to say that, had this +drama received the final molding at the author's hands, it might have +been modified to some extent. But there is no question that this was a +tendency with Fitch. + +The late Oscar Wilde had an almost unparalleled gift for witty +epigrammatic dialogue. In his two clever comedies, _Lady Windermere's +Fan_ and _A Woman of No Importance_, he allowed this gift to run away +with him to such an extent that the opening acts of both pieces contain +many speeches lifted from his notebooks, seemingly, and placed +arbitrarily in the mouths of sundry persons of the play: some of the +speeches could quite as well have been spoken by others. This +constituted a defect which might have seriously militated against the +success of those dramas had they not possessed in full measure brilliant +qualities of genuine constructive play-making. The theme, after all, +was there, once it was started; and so was the deft handling. But +dialogue not motivated by character or necessitated by story is always +an injury, and much drama to-day suffers from this fault. The producer +of the play declares that its tone is too steadily serious and demands +the insertion of some humor to lighten it, and the playwright, poor, +helpless wight, yields, though he knows he is sinning against the Holy +Ghost of his art. Or perhaps the play is too short to fill the required +time and so padding is deemed necessary;[B] or it may be that the +ignorance or short-sightedness of those producing the play will lead +them to confuse the interests of the chief player with that of the piece +itself; and so a departure from theme follows, and unity be sacrificed. +That is what unity means: sticking to theme. + +And unity of story, be sure, waits on unity of theme. This insistence +upon singleness of purpose in a play, clinging to it against all +allurements, does not imply that what is known as a subplot may not be +allowed in a drama. It was common in the past and can still be seen +to-day, though the tendency of modern technic is to abandon it for the +sake of greater emphasis upon the main plot and the resulting tightening +of the texture, avoiding any risk of a splitting of interest. However, a +secondary or subplot in the right hands--as we see it in Shakespeare's +_Merchant of Venice_, or, for a modern instance, in Pinero's _Sweet +Lavender_--is legitimate enough. Those who manipulate it with success +will be careful to see that the minor plot shall never appear for a +moment to be major; and that both strands shall be interwoven into an +essential unity of design, which is admirably illustrated in +Shakespeare's comedy just mentioned. + +Have a theme then, let it be quite your own, and stick to it, is a +succinct injunction which every dramatist will do well to heed and the +critic in the seat will do well to demand. Neither one nor the other +should ever forget that the one and only fundamental unity in drama, +past, present and to come, is unity of idea, and the unity of action +which gathers about that idea as surely as iron filings around the +magnetized center. The unities of time and place are conditional upon +the kind of drama aimed at, and the temporal and physical characteristic +of the theater; the Greeks obeyed them for reasons peculiar to the +Greeks, and many lands, beginning with the Romans, have imitated these +so-called laws since. But Shakespeare destroyed them for England, and +to-day, if unity of time and place are to be seen in an Ibsen play, it +simply means that, in the psychological drama he writes, time and place +are naturally restricted. But in the unity of action which means unity +of theme we have a principle which looks to the constitution of the +human mind; for the sake of that ease of attention which helps to hold +interest and produce pleasure, such unity there must be; the mind of man +(when he has one) is made that way. + +There is a special reason why the intelligent play-goer must insist upon +this fundamental unity: because much in our present imaginative +literature is, as to form, in direct conflict with that appeal to a +sustained effect of unity offered by a well-wrought drama. The short +story that is all too brief, the vaudeville turn, the magazine habit of +reading a host of unrelated scamped trifles, all militate against the +habit of concentrated attention; all the more reason why it should be +cultivated. + +Let me return to the thought that the dramatist, in making the theme his +own, may be tempted to present a view of life not only personal but +eccentric and vagarious to the point of insanity. + +His view, to put it bluntly, may represent a crack-brained distortion of +life rather than life as it is experienced by men in general. In such a +case, and obviously, his drama will be ineffective and objectionable, in +the exact degree that it departs from what may be called broadly the +normal and the possible. As I have already asserted, distortion for +distortion, even a crazy handling of theme that is honest is to be +preferred to one consciously a deflection from belief. But the former is +not right because the latter is wrong. Both should be avoided, and will +be if the play-maker be at the same time sincere and healthily +representative in his reaction to life of humanity at large. The really +great plays, and the good plays that have shown a lasting quality, have +sinned in neither of these particulars. + +It is especially of import that our critic-in-the-seat should insist on +this matter of normal appeal, because ours happens to be a day when +personal vagaries, extravagant theories and lawless imaginings are +granted a freedom in literary and other art in general such as an +earlier day hardly conceived of. The abuses under the mighty name of Art +are many and flagrant. All the more need for the knowing spectator in +the theater, or he who reads the play at home, to be prepared for his +function, quick to reprimand alike tame subserviency or the +abnormalities of unrestrained "genius." It is fair to say that absolute +honesty on the dramatist's part in the conception and presentation of +theme will meet all legitimate criticisms of his work. Within his +limitations, we shall get the best that is in him, if he will only show +us life as he sees it, and have the courage of his convictions, allowing +no son of man to warp his work from that purpose. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +METHOD AND STRUCTURE + + +I + +So far we have considered the material of the dramatist, his theme and +subject matter, and his attitude toward it. But his method in conceiving +this material and of handling it is of great importance and we may now +examine this a little in detail, to realize the peculiar problem that +confronts him. + +At the beginning let it be understood that the dramatist must see his +subject dramatically. Every stage story should be seen or conceived in a +central moment which is the explanation of the whole play, its reason +for being. Without that moment, the drama could not exist; if the story +were told, the plot unfolded without presenting that scene, the play +would fall flat, nay, there would, strictly speaking, be no play there. +That is why the French (leaders in nomenclature, as in all else +dramatic) call it the _scène à faire_, the scene that one must do; or, +to adopt the English equivalent offered by Mr. Archer in his interesting +and able manual of stagecraft entitled _Playmaking_, the obligatory +scene: that is, the scene one is obliged to show. This moment in the +story is a climax, because it is the crowning result of all the +preceding growth of the drama up to a point where the steadily +increasing interest has reached its height and an electric effect of +suspense and excitement results. This suspensive excitement depends upon +the clash of human wills against each other or against circumstances; +events are so tangled that they can be no further involved and something +must happen in the way of cutting the knot; the fates of the persons are +so implicated that their lives must be either saved or destroyed, in +order to break the deadlock. Thus along with the clash goes a crisis +presented in a breathless climactic effect which is the central and +imperative scene of the piece, the backbone of every good play. + +If this obligatory scene be absent, you may at once suspect the +dramatist; whatever his other virtues (fine dialogue, excellent +characterization, or still other merits), it is probable he is not one +genuinely called to tell a story in the manner of drama within stage +limitations. + +It is sometimes said that a play is written backward. The remark has in +mind this fundamental fact of the climax; all that goes before leads up +to it, is preparation for it, and might conceivably be written after the +obligatory scene has been conceived and shaped; all that comes after it +is an attempt to retire gracefully from the great moment, rounding it +out, showing its results, and conducting the spectator back to the +common light of day in such a way as not to be dull, or conventional or +anti-climactic. What follows this inevitable scene is (however +disguised) at bottom a sort of bridge conveying the auditor from the +supreme pleasure of the theater back to the rather humdrum experience of +actual life; it is an experiment in gradation. And the prepared +play-goer will deny the coveted award of _well done_ to any play, albeit +from famous hands and by no means wanting in good qualities, which +nevertheless fails in this prime requisite of good drama: the central, +dynamic scene illuminating all that goes before and follows after, +without which the play, after all, has no right to existence. + +With the coming of the modern psychologic school of which Galsworthy, +Barker and Bennett are exemplars, there is a distinct tendency to +minimize or even to eliminate this obligatory scene; an effort which +should be carefully watched and remonstrated against; since it is the +laying of an axe at the roots of dramatic writing. It may be confessed +that in some instances the results of this violation of a cardinal +principle are so charming as to blind the onlooker perhaps to the +danger; as in the case of _Milestones_ by Messrs. Bennett and Knoblauch, +or _The Pigeon_ by Galsworthy, or Louis Parker's Georgian picture, +_Pomander Walk_. But this only confuses the issue. Such drama may prove +delightful for other reasons; the thing to bear in mind is that they are +such in spite of the giving up of the peculiar, quintessential merit of +drama in its full sense. Their virtues are non-dramatic virtues, and +they succeed, in so far as success awaits them, in spite of the +violation of a principle, not because of it. They can be, and should be, +heartily enjoyed, so long as this is plainly understood and the two +accomplishments are perceived as separate. For it may be readily granted +that a pleasant and profitable evening at the theater may be spent, +without the very particular appeal which is dramatic coming into the +experience at all. There are more things in the modern theater than +drama; which is well, if we but make the discrimination. + +But for the purposes of intelligent comprehension of what is drama, just +that and naught else, the theater-goer will find it not amiss to hold +fast to the idea that a play without its central scene hereinbefore +described is not a play in the exact definition of that form of art, +albeit ever so enjoyable entertainment. The history of drama in its +failures and successes bears out the statement. And of all nations, +France can be studied most profitably with this in mind, since the +French have always been past masters in the feeling for the essentially +dramatic, and centuries ago developed the skill to produce it. The fact +that we get such a term as the _scène à faire_ from them points to this +truth. + +Accepting the fact, then, that a play sound in conception and +construction has and must have a central scene which acts as a +centripetal force upon the whole drama, unifying and solidifying it, the +next matter to consider is the subdivision of the play into acts and +scenes. Since the whole story is shown before the footlights, scenes and +acts are such divisions as shall best mark off and properly accentuate +the stages of the story, as it is unfolded. Convention has had something +to do with this arrangement and number, as we learn from a glance at the +development of the stage story. The earlier English drama accepted the +five-act division under classic influence, though the greatest dramatist +of the past, Shakespeare, did so only half-heartedly, as may be realized +by looking at the first complete edition of his plays, the First Folio +of 1621. _Hamlet_, for instance, as there printed, gives the first two +acts, and thereafter is innocent of any act division; and _Romeo and +Juliet_ has no such division at all. But with later editors, the classic +tradition became more and more a convention and the student with the +modernized text in hand has no reason to suspect the original facts. An +old-fashioned work like Freitag's _Technique of the Drama_ assumes this +form as final and endeavors to study dramatic construction on that +assumption. + +The scenes, too, were many in the Elizabethan period, for the reason +that there was no scene shifting in the modern sense; as many scenes +might therefore be imagined as were desirable during the continuous +performance. It has remained for modern technic to discover that there +was nothing irrevocable about this fivefold division of acts; and that, +in the attempt at a general simplification of play structure, we can do +better by a reduction of them to three or four. Hence, five acts have +shrunk to four or three; so that to-day the form preferred by the best +dramatic artists, looking to Ibsen for leadership, is the three-act +play, though the nature of the story often makes four desirable. A +careful examination of the best plays within a decade will serve to show +that this is definitely the tendency. + +The three-act play, with its recognition that every art structure should +have a beginning, middle and end--Aristotle's simple but profound +observation on the tragedy of his day--might seem to be that which marks +the ultimate technic of drama; yet it would be pedantic and foolish to +deny that the simplification may proceed further still and two acts +succeed three, or, further still, one act embrace the complete drama, +thus returning to the "scene individable" of the Greeks and Shakespeare. +Certainly, the whole evolution of form points that way. + +But, whatever the final simplification, the play as a whole will present +certain constructive problems; problems which confront the aim ever to +secure, most economically and effectively, the desired dramatic result. +The first of these is the problem of the opening act, which we may now +examine in particular. + + +II + +The first act has a definite aim and difficulties that belong to itself +alone. Broadly speaking, its business is so to open the story as to +leave the audience at the fall of the first curtain with a clear idea of +what it is about; not knowing too much, wishing to know more, and having +well in mind the antecedent conditions which made the story at its +beginning possible. If, at the act's end, too much has been revealed, +the interest projected forward sags; if too little, the audience fails +to get the idea around which the story revolves, and so is not +pleasurably anxious for its continuance. If the antecedent conditions +have not clearly been made manifest, some omitted link may throw +confusion upon all that follows. On the other hand, if too much time has +been expended in setting forth the events that lead up to the story's +start on the stage, with the rise of the curtain, not enough time may be +left, within act limits, to hold the attention and fix interest so it +may sustain the entr'act break and fasten upon the next act. + +Thus it will be seen that a successful opening act is a considerable +test of the dramatist's skill. + +Another drawback complicates the matter. The playwright has at his +disposal in the first act from half to three-quarters of an hour in +which to effect his purpose. But he must lose from five to ten minutes +of this precious time allotment, at the best very short, because, +according to the detestable Anglo-Saxon convention, the audience is not +fairly seated when the play begins, and general attention therefore not +riveted upon the stage action. Under ideal conditions, and they have +never existed in all respects in any time or country, the audience will +be in place at the curtain's rise, alert to catch every word and +movement. As a matter of fact, this practically never occurs; +particularly in America, where the drama has never been taken so +seriously as an art as music; for some time now people have not been +allowed, in a hall devoted to that gentle sister art, to straggle in +during the performance of a composition, or the self-exploitation of a +singer, thereby disturbing the more enlightened hearers who have come on +time, and regard it, very properly, as part of their breeding to do so. +But in the theater, as we all know, the barbarous custom obtains of +admitting late comers, so that for the first few minutes of the +performance a steady insult is thus offered to the play, the players, +and the portion of the audience already in their seats. It may be hoped, +parenthetically, that as our theater gradually becomes civilized this +survival of the manners of bushmen may become purely historic. At +present, however, the practical playwright accepts the existing +conditions, as perforce he must, and writes his play accordingly. And so +the first few minutes of a well-constructed drama, it may be noticed, +are generally devoted to some incident, interesting or amusing in +itself, preferably external so as to catch the eye, but not too vital, +and involving, as a rule, minor characters, without revealing anything +really crucial in the action. The matter presented thus is not so much +important as action that leads up to what is important; and its lack of +importance must not be implied in too barefaced a way, lest attention be +drawn to it. This part of the play marks time, and yet is by way of +preparation for the entrance of the main character or characters. + +Much skill is needed, and has been developed, in regard to the +marshaling of the precedent conditions: to which the word _exposition_ +has been by common consent given. Exposition to-day is by no means what +it was in Shakespeare's; indeed, it has been greatly refined and +improved upon. In the earlier technic this prefatory material was +introduced more frankly and openly in the shape of a prologue; or if the +prologue was not used, at least the information was conveyed directly +and at once to the audience by means of minor characters, stock figures +like the servant or confidante, often employed mainly, or even solely, +for that purpose. This made the device too obvious for modern taste, and +such as to injure the illusion; the play lost its effect of presenting +truthfully a piece of life, just when it was particularly important to +seem such; that is, at the beginning. For with the coming of the subtler +methods culminating in the deft technic of an Ibsen, which aims to draw +ever closer to a real presentation of life on the stage, and so strove +to find methods of depiction which should not obtrude artifice except +when unavoidable, the stage artist has learned to interweave these +antecedent circumstances with the story shown on the stage before the +audience. And the result is that to-day the exposition of an Ibsen, a +Shaw, a Wilde, a Pinero or a Jones is so managed as hardly to be +detected save by the expert in stage mechanics. The intelligent +play-goer will derive pleasure and profit from a study of Ibsen's growth +in this respect; observing, for example, how much more deftly exposition +is hidden in a late work like _Hedda Gabler_ than in a comparatively +early one like _Pillars of Society_; and, again, how bald and obvious +was this master's technic in this respect when he began in the middle +of the nineteenth century to write his historical plays. + +In general, it is well worth while to watch the handling of the first +act on the part of acknowledged craftsmen with respect to the important +matter of introducing into the framework of a two hours' spectacle all +that has transpired before the picture is exhibited to the spectators. + +One of the definite dangers of the first act is that of giving an +audience a false lead as to character or turn of story. By some bit of +dialogue, or even by an interpolated gesture on the part of an actor who +transcends his rights (a misleading thing, as likely as not to be +charged to the playwright), the auditor is put on a wrong scent, or +there is aroused in him an expectation never to be realized. Thus the +real issue is obscured, and later trouble follows as the true meaning is +divulged. A French critic, commenting on the performance in Paris of a +play by Bernard Shaw, says that its meaning was greatly confused because +two of the characters took the unwarranted liberty of exchanging a +kiss, for which, of course, there was no justification in the stage +business as indicated by the author. All who know Shaw know that he has +very little interest in stage kisses. + +Closely associated with this mistake, and far more disastrous, is such a +treatment of act one as to suggest a theme full of interest and +therefore welcome, which is then not carried through the remainder of +the drama. Fitch's _The City_ has been already referred to with this in +mind. A more recent example may be found in Veiller's popular melodrama, +_Within the Law_. The extraordinary vogue of this melodrama is +sufficient proof that it possesses some of the main qualities of +skillful theater craft: a strong, interesting fable, vital +characterization, and considerable feeling for stage situation and +climax, with the forthright hand of execution. Nevertheless, it +distinctly fails to keep the promise of the first act, where, at the +fall of the curtain, the audience has become particularly interested in +a sociological problem, only to be asked in the succeeding acts to +forget it in favor of a conventional treatment of stock melodramatic +material, with the usual thieves, detectives pitted against each other, +and gunplay for the central scene of surprise and capture. That such +current plays as _The City_ and _Within the Law_ can get an unusual +hearing, in spite of these defects, suggests the uncritical nature of +American audiences; but quite as truly implies that drama may be very +good, indeed, in most respects while falling short of the caliber we +demand of masterpieces. + +With the opening act, then, so handled as to avoid these pitfalls, the +dramatist is ready to go on with his task. He has sufficiently aroused +the interest of his audience to give it a pleasurable sense of +entertainment ahead, without imparting so much knowledge as to leave too +little for guesswork and lessen the curiosity necessary for one who must +still spend an hour and a half in a place of bad air and too heated +temperature. He has awakened attention and directed it upon a theme and +story, yet left it tantalizingly but not confusingly incomplete. Now he +has before him the problem of unfolding his play and making it center in +the climactic scene which will make or mar the piece. We must observe, +then, how he develops his story in that part of the play intermediate +between the introduction and the crisis; the second act of a three-act +drama or the third if the four-act form be chosen. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +DEVELOPMENT + + +The story being properly started, it becomes the dramatist's business, +as we saw, so to advance it that it will develop naturally and with such +increase of interest as to tighten the hold upon the audience as the +plot reaches its crucial point, the obligatory scene. This can only be +done by the sternest selection of those elements of story which can be +fitly shown on the stage, or without a loss of interest be inferred +clearly from off-stage occurrences. Since action is of the essence of +drama, all narrative must be shunned that deals with matters which, +being vital to the play and naturally dramatic material, can be +presented directly to the eye and ear. And character must be +economically handled, so that as it is revealed the revelation at the +same time furthers the story, pushing it forward instead of holding it +static while the character is being unfolded. Dialogue should always do +one of these two things and the best dialogue will do both: develop plot +in the very moment that it exhibits the unfolding psychology of the +_dramatis personæ_. The fact that in the best modern work plot is for +the sake of character rather than the reverse does not violate this +principle; it simply redistributes emphasis. Character without plot may +possibly be attractive in the hands of a Galsworthy or Barker; but the +result is extremely likely to be tame and inconclusive. And, +contrariwise, plot without character, that is, with character that lacks +individuality and meaning and merely offers a peg upon which to hang a +series of happenings, results in primitive drama that, being destitute +of psychology, falls short of the finest and most serious possibilities +of the stage. + +This portion of the play, then, intermediate between introduction and +climax, is very important and tries the dramatist's soul, in a way, +quite as truly as do beginning and end. + +In a three-act play--which we may assume as normal, without forgetting +that four are often necessary to the best telling of the story, and that +five acts are still found convenient under certain circumstances, as in +Rostand's _Cyrano de Bergerac_ and Shaw's _Pygmalion_--the work of +development falls on the second act, in the main. The climax of action +is likely to be at the end of the act, although plays can be mentioned, +and good ones, where the playwright has seen fit to place his crucial +scene well on into act three. In this matter he is between two dangers +and must steer his course wisely to avoid the rocks of his Scylla and +Charybdis. If his climax come too soon, an effect of anti-climax is +likely to be made, in an act too long when the main stress is over. If, +on the other hand, he put his strongest effect at the end of the piece +or close to it, while the result is admirable in sustaining interest and +saving the best for the last, the close is apt to be too abrupt and +unfinished for the purposes of art; sending the audience out into the +street, dazed after the shock of the obligatory scene. + +Therefore, the skillful playwright inclines to leave sufficient of the +play after the climax to make an agreeable rounding out of the fable, +tie up loose ends and secure an artistic effect of completing the whole +structure without tedium or anti-climax. He thus preserves unity, yet +escapes an impression of loose texture in the concluding part of his +play. It may be seen that this makes the final act a very special +problem in itself, a fact we shall consider in the later treatment. + +And now, with the second-act portion of the play in mind, standing for +growth, increased tension, and an ever-greater interest, a peculiarity +of the play which differentiates it from the fiction-story can be +mentioned. It refers to the nature of the interest and the attitude of +the auditor toward the story. + +In fiction, interest depends largely upon suspense due to the +uncertainty of the happenings; the reader, unaware of the outcome of +events, has a pleasing sense of curiosity and a stimulating desire to +know the end. He reads on, under the prick of this desire. The novelist +keeps him more or less in the dark, and in so doing fans the flame of +interest. What will be the fate of the hero? Will the heroine escape +from the impending doom? Will the two be mated before the Finis is +written? Such are the natural questions in a good novel, in spite of all +our modern overlaying of fiction with subtler psychologic suggestions. + +But the stage story is different. The audience from the start is taken +into the dramatist's confidence; it is allowed to know something that is +not known to the _dramatis personæ_ themselves; or, at least, not known +to certain very important persons of the story, let us say, the hero and +heroine, to give them the simple old-fashioned description. And the +audience, taken in this flattering way into the playwright's secret, +finds its particular pleasure in seeing how the blind puppets up on the +stage act in an ignorance which if shared by the spectators would +qualify, if not destroy, the special kind of excitement they are +enjoying. + +Just why this difference between play and novel exists is a nice +question not so easily answered; that it does exist, nobody who has +thought upon the subject can doubt. Occasionally, it is true, successful +plays are written in apparent violation of this principle. That +eminently skillful and effective piece of theater work, Bernstein's _The +Thief_, is an example; a large part of the whole first act, if not all +of it, takes place without the spectator suspecting that the young wife, +who is the real thief, is implicated in the crime. Nevertheless, such +dramas are the exception. Broadly speaking, sound dramaturgy makes use +of the principle of knowing coöperation of the audience in the plot, and +always will; if for no other reason, because the direct stage method of +showing a story makes it impracticable to hoodwink those in the +auditorium and also perhaps because the necessary compression of events +in a play would make the suddenness of the discovery on the part of the +audience that they had been fooled unpleasant: an unpleasantness, it may +be surmised, intensified by the additional fact that the fooling has +been done in the presence of others--their fellow theater-goers. The +quickness of the effects possible to the stage and inability of the +playwright to use repetition no doubt also enter in the result. The +novelist can return, explain, dwell upon the causes of the reader's +readjustment to changed characters or surprising turns of circumstance; +the dramatist must go forthright on and make his strokes tell for once +and for all. + +Be this as it may, the theater story, as a rule, by a tradition which in +all probability roots in an instinct and a necessity, invites the +listener to be a sort of eavesdropper, to come into a secret and from +this vantage point watch the perturbations of a group of less-knowing +creatures shown behind the footlights: he not only sees, but oversees. +As an outcome of this trait, results follow which also set the play in +contrast with the other ways of story telling. The playwright should not +deceive his audience either in the manipulation of characters or +occurrences. Pleasurable as this may be in fiction, in the theater it is +disastrous. The audience, disturbed in its superior sense of knowledge, +sitting as it were like the gods apart and asked suddenly, peremptorily, +to reconstruct its suppositions, is baffled and then irritated. This is +one of several reasons why, in the delineation of character on the +stage, it is of very dubious desirability to spring a surprise; making +the seeming hero turn out a villain or the presumptive villain blossom +into a paragon of all the virtues: as Dickens does in _Our Mutual +Friend_; in that case, to the added zest of the reader. The risk in +subtilizing stage character lies just here. Persons shown so fleetingly +in a few selected moments of their whole lives, after the stage fashion, +must be seen in high relief, if they are to be clearly grasped by the +onlookers. Conceding that in actual life folk in general are an +indeterminate gray rather than stark black and white, it is none the +less necessary to use primary colors, for the most part, in painting +them, in order that they may be realized. Here again we encounter the +limitations of art in depicting life, and its difference therefrom. In a +certain sense, therefore, stage characters must be more primitive, more +elemental, as well as elementary, than the characters in novels, a +thought we shall have occasion to come back to, from another angle, +later on. + +Equally is it true that good technic forbids the false lead: any hint or +suggestion which has the appearance of conducting on to something to +come later in the play, which shall verify and fortify the previous +allusion or implication. Every word spoken is thus, besides its +immediate significance, a preparation for something ahead. It is a +continual temptation to a dramatist with a feeling for character (a gift +most admirable in itself) to do brushwork on some person of his play, +which, while it may illuminate the character as such, may involve +episodic treatment that will entirely mislead an audience into supposing +that the author has far more meaning in the action shown than he +intended. These false leads are of course always the enemies of unity +and to be all the more carefully guarded against in proportion to their +attraction. So attractive, indeed, is this lure into by-paths away from +the main path of progress that it is fairly astonishing to see how +often even veteran playwrights fall in love with some character, +disproportionately handle it, and invent unnecessary tangential +incidents in order to exhibit it. And, rather discouragingly, an +audience forgives episodic treatment and over-emphasis in the enjoyment +of the character, as such; willing to let the drama suffer for the sake +of a welcome detail. + +In developing his story in this intermediate part of it, a more +insidious, all-pervasive lure is to be seen in the change in the very +type of drama intended at first, or clearly promised in act one. The +play may start out to be a comedy of character and then be deflected +into one where character is lost sight of in the interest of plot; or a +play farcical in the conditions given may turn serious on the +dramatist's hands. Or, worse yet, that which is a comedy in feeling and +drift, may in the course of the development become tragic in conclusion. +Or, once more, what begins for tragedy, with its implied seriousness of +interest in character and philosophy of life, may resolve itself, under +the fascination of plot and of histrionic effectivism, into melodrama, +with its undue emphasis upon external sensation and its correlative loss +in depth and artistry. + +All these and still other permutations a play suffers in the sin +committed whenever the real type or genre of a drama, implied at the +start, is violated in the later handling. The history of the stage +offers many illustrations. In a play not far, everything considered, +from being the greatest in the tongue, Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, it may be +questioned if there be not a departure in the final act from the +emphasis placed upon psychology in the acts that lead up to it. The +character of the melancholy prince is the main thing, the pivot of +interest, up to that point; but in the fifth act the external method of +completing the story, which involves the elimination of so many of the +persons of the play, has somewhat the effect of a change of kind, an +abrupt and incongruous cutting of the Gordian knot. Doubtless, the facts +as to the composite nature of this play viewed in its total history may +have much to do with such an effect, if it be set down here aright.[C] +In any case, it is certain that every week during the dramatic season in +New York new plays are to be seen which, by this mingling of genres, +fall short of the symmetry of true art. + +One other requirement in the handling of the play in the section between +introduction and climax: the playwright must not linger too long over +it, nor yet shorten it in his eagerness to reach the scene which is the +crown and culmination of all his labors. Probably the experienced +craftsman is likely to make the second mistake rather than the first, +though both are often to be noted. He fails sometimes to realize the +increase in what I may call reverberatory power which is gained by a +slower approach to the great moment through a series of deft suggestions +of what is to come; appetizing hints and withdrawals, reconnaitres +before the actual engagement, all of it preparatory to the real struggle +that is pending. It is a law of the theater, applying to dialogue, +character and scene, that twice-told is always an advantage. One +distinguished playwright rather cynically declared that you must tell an +audience you are going to do it, are doing it, and have done it. +Examples in every aspect of theater work abound. The catch phrase put in +the mouth of the comic character is only mildly amusing at first; it +gains steadily with repetition until, introduced at just the right +moment, the house rocks with laughter. Often the difference between a +detached witticism, like one of Oscar Wilde's _mots_, and a bit of +genuine dramatic humor rests in the fact that the fun lies in the +setting: it is a _mot de situation_, to borrow the French expression, +not a mere _mot d'esprit_. By appearing to be near a crisis, and then +introducing a barrier from which it is necessary to draw back and +approach once more over the same ground, tension is increased and +tenfold the effect secured when at last the match is laid to the fire. + +Plenty of plays fail of their full effect because the climax is come at +before every ounce of value has been wrung out of preceding events. If +the screen scene in _The School for Scandal_ be studied with this +principle in mind, the student will have as good an object lesson as +English drama can show of skilled leading up to a climax by so many +little steps of carefully calculated effect that the final fall of the +screen remains one of the great moments in the theater, despite the +mundane nature of the theme and the limited appeal to the deeper +qualities of human nature. Within its limitations (and theater art, as +any other, is to be judged by success under accepted conditions) +Sheridan's work in this place and play is a permanent master-stroke of +brilliant technic, as well as one explanation of the persistence of that +delightful eighteenth century comedy. + +But the dramatist, as I have said, may also err in delaying so long in +his preparation and growth, that the audience, being ready for the +climax before it arrives, will be cold when it comes, and so the effect +will hang fire. It is safe to say that in a three-act play, where the +first act has consumed thirty-five to forty minutes, and the climax is +to occur at the fall of the second curtain, it is well if the +intermediate act does not last much above the same length of time. Of +course, the nature of the story and the demands it makes will modify the +statement; but it applies broadly to the observed phenomena. The first +act, for reasons already explained, is apt to be the longest of the +three, as the last act is the shortest, other things being equal. If the +first act, therefore, run fifty minutes, forty to forty-five, or even +thirty-five, would be shapely for act two; which, with twenty to +twenty-five minutes given to the final act, would allot to the entire +play about two hours and ten minutes, which is close to an ideal playing +time for a drama under modern conditions. This time allowance, with the +added fraction of minutes given to the entr'acts thrown in, would, for a +play which began at 8:15, drop the final curtain at about 10:30. + +In case the climax, as has been assumed of a three-act play, be placed +at the end of the second act, the third act will obviously be shorter. +Should, however, the growth be projected into the third act, and the +climax be sprung at a point within this act--beyond the middle, let us +say--then the final act is lengthened and act two shortened in +proportion. The principle is that, with the main interest over, it is +hard to hold the auditor's attention; whereas if the best card is still +up the sleeve we may assume willingness to prolong the game. + +With the shift of climax from an earlier to a later place in the piece, +the technic of the handling is changed only according to these +commonsense demands. A knowledge of the psychology of human beings +brought together for the purpose of entertainment will go far toward +settling the question. And whether the playwright place his culminating +effect in act two or three, or whether for good and sufficient reasons +of story complication the three acts become four or even five, the +principles set forth in the above pages apply with only such +modifications as are made necessary by the change. + +The theater-goer, seeking to pass an intelligent opinion upon a drama as +a whole, will during this period of growth ask of the playwright that +he keep the auditor's interest and increase it symmetrically; that he +show the plot unfolding in action, instead of talking about it; that he +do not reach the eagerly expected conflagration too soon, nor delay it +too long; and that he make more and more apparent the meaning of the +characters in their relations to each other and to the plot. If the +spectator be confused, baffled, irritated or bored, or any or all of +these, he has a legitimate complaint against the dramatist. And be it +noted that while the majority of a theater audience may not with +self-conscious analysis know why they are dissatisfied, under these +conditions, the dissatisfaction is there, just the same, and thus do +they become critics, though they know it not, even as M. Jourdain talked +prose all his days without being aware of it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CLIMAX + + +With the play properly introduced in act one, and the development +carried forward upon that firm foundation in the following act or acts, +the playwright approaches that part of his play which will, more than +anything else, settle the fate of his work. As we have noted, if he have +no such scene, he will not have a play at all. If on arrival it fail to +seem indispensable and to be of dynamic quality, the play will be +broken-winged, at best. The proof that he is a genuine playwright by +rightful calling and not a literary person, producing books for closet +reading, lies just here. The moment has come when, with his complication +brought to the point where it must be solved, and all that has gone +before waiting upon that solution, he must produce an effect with one +skillful right-arm stroke which shall make the spectators a unit in the +feeling that the evening has been well spent and his drama is true to +the best tradition of the stage. + +The stress has steadily increased to a degree at which it must be +relieved. The strain is at the breaking point. The clash of characters +or of circumstances operating upon characters is such that a crisis is +at hand. By some ingenious interplay of word, action and scene, by an +emotional crescendo crystallizing in a stage picture, by some unexpected +reversion of incident or of human psychology (known in stage technic as +peripety) or by an unforeseen accident in the fall of events, an +electric change is exhibited, with the emotions of the _dramatis +personæ_ at white heat and the consequent enthraldom of the audience. Of +all the varied pleasures of the playhouse, this moment, scene, turn of +story, is that which appeals to the largest number and has made the +theater most distinctive. This is not to say that a profound revelation +of character, or a pungent reflection on life, made concrete in a +situation, may not be a finer thing to do. It is merely to recognize a +certain unique thing the stage can do in story telling, as against other +forms, and to confess its universal attraction. While there is much in +latter day play-making that seems to deaden the thrill of the obligatory +scene, a clear comprehension of its central importance is basal in +appreciation of the drama. A play may succeed without it, and a +temporary school of psychologues may even pretend to pooh-pooh it as an +outworn mode of cheap theatrics. The influence of Ibsen, and there is +none more potent, has been cited as against the _scène à faire_, in the +French sense; and it is true that his curtains are less obviously +stressed and appear to aim not so much at the palpably heightened +effects traditional of the development in French hands,--the most +skillful hands in the world. But it remains true that this central and +dominant scene is inherent in the very structure of dramatic writing. To +repeat what was said before, the play that abandons climax may be good +entertainment, but is by so much poorer drama. The best and most +successful dramaturgy of our day therefore will seek to preserve the +obligatory scene, but hide under more subtle technic the ways and means +by which it is secured. The ways of the past became so open in the +attempt to reach the result as to produce in many cases a feeling of +bald artifice. This the later technic will do all in its power to avoid, +while clinging persistently to the principle of climax, a principle of +life just as truly as a principle of art. Physicians speak in a +physiological sense of the grand climacteric of a man's age. + +A test of any play may be found in the readiness with which it lends +itself to a simple threefold statement of its story; the proposition, as +it is called by technicians. This tabloid summary of the essence of the +play is valuable in that it reveals plainly two things: whether there is +a play in hand, and what and where is its obligatory scene. All who wish +to train themselves to be critical rather than captious or silly in +their estimate of drama, cannot be too strongly urged to practice this +exercise of reducing a play to its lowest terms, its essential elements. +It will serve to clarify much that might remain otherwise a muddle. And +one of the sure tests of a good play may be found here; if it is not a +workable drama, either it will not readily reduce to a proposition or +else cannot be stated propositionally at all. Further, a play that is a +real play in substance, and not a hopelessly undramatic piece of writing +arbitrarily cut up into scenes or acts, and expressed in dialogue (like +some of the dramas of the Bengalese Taghore), can be stated clearly and +simply in a brief paragraph. This matter of reduction to a skeleton +which is structurally a _sine qua non_ may be illustrated. + +A proposition, to define it a little more carefully, is a threefold +statement of the essence of a play, so organically related that each +successive part depends upon and issues from the other. It contains a +condition (or situation), an action, and a result. For instance, the +proposition of _Macbeth_ may be expressed as follows: + +I. A man, ambitious to be king, abetted by his wife, gains the throne +through murder. + +II. Remorse visits them both. + +III. What will be the effect upon the pair? + +Reflection upon this schematic summary will show that the interest of +Shakespeare's great drama is not primarily a story interest; plot is not +the chief thing, but character. The essential crux lies in the painful +spectacle of the moral degeneration of husband and wife, sin working +upon each according to their contrasted natures. Both have too much of +the nobler elements in them not to experience regret and the prick of +conscience. This makes the drama called _Macbeth_ a fine example of +psychologic tragedy in the true sense. + +Or take a well-known modern play, _Camille:_ + +I. A young man loves and lives with a member of the demi-monde. + +II. His father pleads with her to give him up, for his own sake. + +III. What will she do? + +It will be observed that the way the lady of the camellias answers the +question is the revelation of her character; so that the play again, +although its story interest is sufficient, is primarily a character +study, surrounded by Dumas fils with a rich atmosphere of understanding +sympathy and with sentiment that to a later taste becomes +sentimentality. + +_The School for Scandal_ might be stated in this way: + +I. An old husband brings his gay but well-meaning wife to town. + +II. Her innocent love of fun involves her in scandal. + +III. Will the two be reconciled, and how? + +Ibsen's _A Doll's House_ may be thus expressed in a proposition: + +I. A young wife has been babified by her husband. + +II. Experiences open her eyes to the fact that she is not educated to be +either wife or mother. + +III. She leaves her husband until he can see what a woman should be in +the home: a human being, not a doll. + +These examples will serve to show what is meant by proposition and +indicate more definitely the central purpose of the dramatic author and +the technical demand made upon him. Be assured that under whatever +varied garb of attraction in incident, scene and character, this +underlying stern architectural necessity abides, and a drama's inability +to reduce itself thus to a formula is a confession that in the +structural sense the building is lop-sided and insecure, or, worse, that +there is no structure there at all: nothing, so to put it, but a front +elevation, a mere architect's suggestion. + +As the spectator breathlessly enjoys the climax and watches to see that +unknotting of the knot which gives the French word _dénouement_ +(unknotting) its meaning, he will notice that the intensity of the +climactic effect is not derived alone from action and word; but that +largely effective in the total result is the picture made upon the +stage, in front of the background of setting which in itself has +pictorial quality, by the grouped characters as the curtain falls. + +This effect, conventionally called a _situation_, is for the eye as well +as for the ear and the brain,--better, the heart. It would be an +unfortunate limitation to our theater culture if we did not comprehend +to the full how large a part of the effect of a good play is due to the +ever-changing series of artistic stage pictures furnished by the +dramatist in collaboration with the actors and the stage manager. This +principle is important throughout a play, but gets its most vivid +illustration in the climax; hence, I enlarge upon it at this point. + +Among the most novel, fruitful and interesting experiments now being +made in the theater here and abroad may be mentioned the attempts to +introduce more subtle and imaginative treatment of the possibilities of +color and form in stage setting than have hitherto obtained. The +reaction influenced by familiarity with the unadorned simplicity of the +Elizabethans, the Gordon Craig symbolism, the frank attempt to +substitute artistic suggestion for the stupid and expensive reproduction +on the stage of what is called "real life," are phases of this movement, +in which Germany and Russia have been prominent. The stage manager and +scene deviser are daily becoming more important factors in the +production of a play; and along with this goes a clearer perception of +the values of grouping and regrouping on the part of the plastic +elements behind the footlights.[D] Many a scenic moment, many a climax, +may be materially damaged by a failure to place the characters in such +relative positions as shall visualize the dramatic feeling of the scene +and reveal in terms of picture the dramatist's meaning. After all, the +time-honored convention that the main character, or characters, should, +at the moment when they are dominant in the story, take the center of +the stage, is no empty convention; it is based on logic and geometry. +There is a direct correspondence between the unity of emotion +concentrated in a group of persons and the eye effect which reports that +fact. I have seen so fine a climax as that in Jones's _The +Hypocrites_--one of the very best in the modern repertory--well nigh +ruined by a stock company, when, owing to the purely arbitrary demand +that the leading man should have the center at a crucial moment, +although in the logic of the action he did not belong there, the two +young lovers who were dramatically central in the scene were shunted off +to the side, and the leading man, whose true position was in the deep +background, delivered his curtain speech close up to the footlights on a +spot mathematically exact in its historic significance. True dramatic +relations were sacrificed to relative salaries, and, as a result, a +scene which naturally receives half a dozen curtain calls, went off with +comparative tameness. It was a striking demonstration of the importance +of picture on the stage as an externalization of dramatic facts. + +If the theater-goer will keep an eye upon this aspect of the drama, he +will add much of interest to the content of his pleasure and do justice +to a very important and easily overlooked phase of technic. It is common +in criticism, often professional, to sneer at the tendency of modern +actors, under the stage manager's guidance, continually to shift +positions while the dialogue is under way; thus producing an +unnecessarily uneasy effect of meaningless action. As a generalization, +it may be said that this is done (though at times no doubt, overdone) on +a principle that is entirely sound: it expresses the desire for a new +picture, a recognition of the law that, in drama, composition to the eye +is as truly a principle as it is in painting. And with that +consideration goes the additional fact that motion implies emotion; than +which there is no surer law in psycho-physics. Abuse of the law, on the +stage, is beyond question possible, and frequently met. But a +redistribution of the positions of actors on the boards, when not +abused, means they have moved under the compulsion of some stress of +feeling and then the movement is an external symbol of an internal state +of mind. The drama must express the things within by things without, in +this way; that is its method. The audience is only properly irritated +when a stage moment which, from the nature of its psychology, calls for +the static, is injured by an unrelated, fussy, bodily activity. Motion +in such a case becomes as foolish as the scene shifting in one of the +highest colored and most phantasmagoric of our dreams. The wise stage +director will not call for a change of picture unless it represents a +psychologic fact. + +Two men converse at a table; one communicates to the other, quietly and +in conversational tone, a fact of alarming nature. The other leaps to +his feet with an exclamation and paces the floor as he talks about it; +nothing is more fitting, because nothing is truer to life. The +repressive style of acting to-day, which might try to express this +situation purely by facial work, goes too far in abandoning the +legitimate tools of the craft. Let me repeat that, despite all the +refining upon older, more violent and crudely expressive methods of +technic, the stage must, from its very nature, indicate the emotions of +human beings by objective, concrete bodily reaction. The Greek word for +drama means _doing_. To exhibit feeling is to do something. + +Or let us take a more composite group: that which is seen in a drawing +room, with various knots of people talking together just before dinner +is announced. A shift in the groups, besides effecting the double +purpose of pleasing the eye and allowing certain portions of the +dialogue to come forward and get the ear of the audience, also +incidentally tells the truth: these groups in reality would shift and +change more or less by the law of social convenience. The general +greetings of such an occasion would call for it. In a word, then, the +stage is, among other things, a plastic representation of life, forever +making an appeal to the eye. The application of this to the climax shows +how vastly important its pictorial side may be. + +The climax that is prolonged is always in danger. Lead up to it slowly +and surely, secure the effect, and then get away from it instantly by +lowering the curtain. Do not fumble with it, or succumb to the +insinuating temptation of clinging to what is so effective. The +dramatist here is like a fond father loath to say _farewell_ to his +favorite child. But say the parting word he must, if he would have his +offspring prosper and not, like many a father ere this, keep the child +with him to its detriment. A second too much, and the whole thing will +he imperiled. At the _dénouement_, every syllable must be weighed, nor +found wanting; every extraneous word ruthlessly cut out, the feats of +fine language so welcome in other forms of literary composition shunned +as an arch enemy. Colloquialism, instead of literary speech, even bad +grammar where more formal book-speech seems to dampen the fire, must be +instinctively sought. And whenever the action itself, backed by the +scenery, can convey what is aimed at, silence is best of all; for then, +if ever, silence is indeed golden. All this the spectator will quietly +note, sitting in his seat of judgment, ready to show his pleasure or +displeasure, according to what is done. + +A difficulty that blocks the path of every dramatist in proportion as +its removal improves his piece, is that of graduating his earlier +curtains so that the climax (third act or fourth, as it may) is +obviously the outstanding, over-powering effect of the whole play. The +curtain of the first act will do well to possess at least some slight +heightening of the interest maintained progressively from the opening of +the drama; an added crispness perceptible to all who look and listen. +And the crisis of the second act must be differentiated from that of the +first in that it has a tenser emotional value, while yet it is +distinctly below that of the climax, if the obligatory scene is to come +later. Sad indeed the result if any curtain effect in appeal and power +usurp the royal place of the climactic scene! And this skillful +gradation of effects upon a rising scale of interest, while always aimed +at, is by no means always secured. This may happen because the +dramatist, with much good material in his hands, has believed he could +use it prodigally, and been led to overlook the principle of relative +values in his art. A third act climax may secure a tremendous sensation +by the device of keeping the earlier effects leading up to it +comparatively low-keyed and quiet. The tempest may be, in the abstract, +only one in a teapot; but a tempest in effect it is, all the same. + +Ibsen's plays often illustrate and justify this statement, as do the +plays of the younger British school, Barker, Baker, McDonald, Houghton, +Hankin. And the reverse is equally true: a really fine climax may be +made pale and ineffective by too much of sensational material introduced +earlier in the play. + +The climax of the drama is also the best place to illustrate the fact +that the stage appeal is primarily emotional. If this central scene be +not of emotional value, it is safe to say that the play is doomed; or +will at the most have a languishing life in special performances and be +cherished by the élite. The stage story, we have seen, comes to the +auditor warm and vibrant in terms of feeling. The idea which should be +there, as we saw, must come by way of the heart, whence, as George +Meredith declares, all great thoughts come. Herein lies another +privilege and pitfall of the dramatist. Privilege, because teaching by +emotion will always be most popular; yet a pitfall, because it sets up +a temptation to play upon the unthinking emotions which, once aroused, +sweep conviction along to a goal perhaps specious and undesirable. To +say that the theater is a place for the exercise of the emotions, is not +to say or mean that it is well for it to be a place for the display and +influence of the unregulated emotions. Legitimate drama takes an idea of +the brain, or an inspiration of the imaginative faculties, and conveys +it by the ruddy road of the feelings to the stirred heart of the +audience; it should be, and is in its finest examples, the happy union +of the head and heart, so blended as best to conserve the purpose of +entertainment and popular instruction; popular, for the reason that it +is emotional, concrete, vital; and instructive, because it sinks deeper +in and stays longer (being more keenly felt) than any mere exercise of +the intellect in the world. + +The student, whether at home with the book of the play in hand or in his +seat at the theater, will scrutinize the skilled effects of climax, +seeking principles and understanding more clearly his pleasure therein. +In reading Shakespeare, for example, he will see that the obligatory +scene of _The Merchant of Venice_ is the trial scene and the exact +moment when the height is reached and the fall away from it begins, that +where Portia tells the Jew to take his pound of flesh without the +letting of blood. In modern drama, he will think of the scene in +Sudemann's powerful drama, _Magda_, in which Magda's past is revealed to +her fine old father as the climax of the action; and in Pinero's +strongest piece, _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, will put his finger on the +scene of the return of Paula's lover as the crucial thing to show. And +so with the scene of the cross-examination of the woman in Jones's _Mrs. +Dane's Defense_, and the scene in Lord Darlington's rooms in Wilde's +_Lady Windermere's Fan_, and the final scene in Shaw's _Candida_, where +the playwright throws forward the _scène à faire_ to the end, and makes +his heroine choose between husband and lover. These, and many like them, +will furnish ample food for reflection and prove helpful in clarifying +the mind in the essentials of this most important of all the phenomena +of play-building. + +It is with the climax, as with everything else in art or in life: +honesty of purpose is at the bottom of the success that is admirable. +Mere effectivism is to be avoided, because it is insincere. In its place +must be effectiveness, which is at once sincere and dramatic. + +The climax, let it be now assumed, has been successfully brought off. +The curtain falls on the familiar and pleasant buzz of conversation +which is the sign infallible that the dramatist's dearest ambition has +been attained. Could we but listen to the many detached bits of talk +that fly about the house, or are heard in the lobby, we might hazard a +shrewd guess at the success of the piece. If the talk be favorable, and +the immediate reception of the obligatory scene has been hearty, it +would appear as if the playwright's troubles were over. But hardly so. +Even with his climax a success, he is not quite out of the woods. A +task, difficult and hedged in with the possibilities of mistake, awaits +him; for the last act is just ahead, and it may diminish, even nullify +the favorable impression he has just won by his manipulation of the +_scène à faire_. And so, girding himself for the last battle, he enters +the arena, where many a good man before him has unexpectedly fallen +before the enemy. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +ENDING THE PLAY + + +To one who is watchful in his theater seat, it must have become evident +that many plays, which in the main give pleasure and seem successful, +have something wrong with the last act. The play-goer may feel this, +although he never has analyzed the cause or more than dimly been aware +of the artistic problem involved. An effect of anti-climax is produced +by it, interest flags or utterly disappears; the final act seems to lag +superfluous on the stage, like Johnson's player. + +Several reasons combine to make this no uncommon experience. One may +have emerged from the discussion of the climax. It is the hard fortune +of the last act to follow the great scene and to suffer by contrast; +even if the last part of the play be all that such an act should be, +there is in the nature of the case a likelihood that the auditor, +reacting from his excitement, may find this concluding section of the +drama stale, flat and unprofitable. To overcome this disadvantage, to +make the last act palatable without giving it so much attraction as to +detract from the _scène à faire_ and throw the latter out of its due +position in the center of interest, offers the playwright a very +definite labor and taxes his ingenuity to the utmost. The proof of this +is that so many dramas, up to the final act complete successes and +excellent examples of sound technic, go to pieces here. I am of the +opinion that in no one particular of construction do plays with matter +in them and some right of existence come to grief more frequently than +in this successful handling of the act which closes the drama. It may +even be doubted if the inexperienced dramatist has so much trouble with +his climax as with this final problem. If he had no _scène à faire_ he +would hardly have written a play at all. But this tricky ultimate +portion of the drama, seemingly so minor, may prove that which will +trip him in the full flush of his victory with the obligatory scene. + +At first blush, it would seem as if, with the big scene over, little +remained to be done with the play, so far as story is concerned. In a +sense this is true. The important elements are resolved; the main +characters are defined for good or bad; the obstacles which have +combined to make the plot tangle have been removed or proved +insurmountable. The play has, with an increasing sense of struggle, +grown to its height; it must now fall from that height by a plausible +and more gentle descent. If it be a tragedy, the fall spells +catastrophe, and is more abrupt and eye-compelling. If comedy be the +form, then the unknotting means a happy solution of all difficulties. +But in either case, the chief business of this final part of the play +would appear to be the rounding out of the fable, the smoothing off of +corners, and the production of an artistic effect of finish and +finality. If any part of the story be incomplete in plot, it will be in +all probability that which has to do with the subplot, if there be one, +or with the fates of subsidiary characters. If the playwright, wishing +to make his last act of interest, and in order to justify the retention +of the audience in the theater for twenty minutes to half an hour more, +should leave somewhat of the main story to be cleared up in the last +act, he has probably weakened his obligatory scene and made a strategic +mistake. And so his instinct is generally right when he prefers to get +all possible dramatic satisfaction into the _scène à faire_, even at the +expense of what is to follow. + +A number of things this act can, however, accomplish. It can, with the +chief stress and strain over, exhibit characters in whom the audience +has come to have a warm interest in some further pleasant manifestation +of their personality, thus offering incidental entertainment. The +interest in such stage persons must be very strong to make this a +sufficient reason for prolonging a play. Or, if the drama be tragic in +its nature, some lighter turn of events, or some brighter display of +psychology, may be presented to mitigate pain and soften the awe and +terror inspired by the main theme; as, for instance, Shakespeare +alleviates the deaths of the lovers in Romeo and Juliet by the +reconciliation of the estranged families over their fair young bodies. A +better mood for leaving the playhouse is thus created, without any lying +about life. The Greeks did this by the use of lyric song at the end of +their tragedies; melodrama does it by an often violent wresting of +events to smooth out the trouble, as well as by lessening our interest +in character as such. + +Also, and here is, I believe, its prime function, the last act can show +the logical outflow of the situation already laid down and brought to +its issue in the preceding acts of the drama. Another danger lurks in +this for the technician, as may be shown. It would almost seem that, in +view of the largely supererogatory character of this final act, inasmuch +as the play seems practically over with the _scène à faire_, it might be +best honestly to end the piece with its most exciting, arresting scene +and cut out the final half hour altogether. + +But there is an artistic reason for keeping it as a feature of good +play-making to the end of the years; I have just referred to it. I mean +the instinctive desire on the part of the dramatic artist and his +coöperative auditors so to handle the cross-section of life which has +been exhibited upon the stage as to make the transition from stage scene +to real life so gradual, so plausible, as to be pleasant to one's sense +of esthetic _vraisemblance_. To see how true this is, watch the effect +upon yourself made by a play which rings down the last curtain upon a +sensational moment, leaving you dazed and dumb as the lights go up and +the orchestra renders its final banality. Somehow, you feel that this +sudden, violent change from life fictive and imaginative to the life +actual of garish streets, clanging trolleys, tooting motor cars and +theater suppers is jarring and wrong. Art, you whisper to yourself, +should not be so completely at variance with life; the good artist +should find some other better way to dismiss you. The Greeks, as I said, +sensitive to this demand, mitigated the terrible happenings of their +colossal legendary tragedies by closing with lofty lyric choruses. Turn +to the last pages of Sophocles's _OEdipus Tyrannus_, perhaps the most +drastic of them all, for an example. I should venture to go so far as to +suggest it as possible that in an apparent exception like _Othello_, +where the drama closes harshly upon the murder of the ewe lamb of a +wife, Shakespeare might have introduced the alleviation of a final +scene, had he ever prepared this play, or his plays in general, after +the modern method of revision and final form, for the Argus-eyed +scrutiny they were to receive in after-time. However, that his instinct +in this matter, in general, led him to seek the artistic consolation +which removes the spectator from too close and unrelieved proximity to +the horrible is beyond cavil. If he do furnish a tragic scene, there +goes with it a passage, a strain of music, an unforgettable phrase, +which, beauty being its own excuse for being, is as balm to the soul +harrowed up by the agony of a protagonist. Horatio, over the body of his +dear friend, speaks words so lovely that they seem the one rubric for +sorrow since. And, still further removing us from the solemn sadness of +the moment, enters Fortinbras, to take over the cares of kingdom and, in +so doing, to remind us that beyond the individual fate of Hamlet lies +the great outer world of which, after all, he is but a small part; and +that the ordered cosmos must go on, though the Ophelias and Hamlets of +the world die. The mere horrible, with this alleviation of beauty, +becomes a very different thing, the terrible; the terrible is the +horrible, plus beauty, and the terrible lifts us to a lofty mood of +searching seriousness that has its pleasure, where the horrible repels +and dispirits. Thus, the sympathetic recipient gets a certain austere +satisfaction, yes, why not call it pleasure, from noble tragedy. But he +asks that the last act pour the oil of peace, of beauty and of +philosophic vision upon the troubled waters of life. + +There is then an artistic justification, if I am right, for the act +following the climax, quite aside from the conventional demand for it as +a time filler, and its convenience too in the way of binding up loose +ends. + +As the function of the great scene is to develop and bring to a head +the principal things of the play, so that of this final act would seem +to be the taking care of the lesser things, to an effect of harmonious +artistry. And whenever a playwright, confronting these difficulties and +dangers, triumphs over them, whenever your comment is to the effect +that, since it all appears to be over, it is hard to see what a last act +can offer to justify it, and yet if that act prove interesting, freshly +invented, unexpectedly worth while, you will, if you care to do your +part in the Triple Alliance made up of actors, playwright and audience, +express a sentiment of gratitude, and admiration as well, for the +theater artist who has manipulated his material to such good result. + +The last act of Thomas's _The Witching Hour_ can be studied with much +profit with this in mind. It is a masterly example of added interest +when the things vital to the story have been taken care of. Another, and +very different, example is Louis Parker's charming play, _Rosemary_, +where at the climax a middle-aged man parts from the young girl who +loves him and whom he loves, because he does not realize she returns +the feeling, and, moreover, she is engaged to another, and, from the +conventions of age, the match is not desirable. The story is over, +surely, and it is a sad ending; nothing can ever change that, unless the +dramatist tells some awful lies about life. Had he violently twisted the +drama into a "pleasant ending" in the last act he would have given us an +example of an outrageous disturbance of key and ruined his piece. What +does he do, indeed, what can he do? By a bold stroke of the imagination, +he projects the final scene fifty years forward, and shows the man of +forty an old man of ninety. He learns, by the finding of the girl's +diary, that she loved him; and, as the curtain descends, he thanks God +for a beautiful memory. Time has plucked out the sting and left only the +flower-like fragrance. This is a fine illustration of an addendum that +is congruous. It lifts the play to a higher category. I believe it is +true to say that this unusual last act was the work of Mr. Murray +Carson, Mr. Parker's collaborator in the play. + +One more example may be given, for these illustrations will bring out +more clearly a phase of dramatic writing which has not received overmuch +attention in criticism. The recent clever comedy, _Years of Discretion_, +by the Hattons, conducts the story to a conventional end, when the +middle-aged lovers, who have flirted, danced and motored themselves into +an engagement and marriage, are on the eve of their wedding tour. If the +story be a love story, and it is in essence, it ought to be over. The +staid Boston widow has been metamorphosed by gay New York, her maneuvers +have resulted in the traditional end; she has got her man. What else can +be offered to hold the interest? + +And just here is where the authors have been able, passing beyond the +conventional limits of story, to introduce, in a lightly touched, +pleasing fashion, a bit of philosophy that underlies the drama and gives +it an enjoyable fillip at the close. We see the newly wed pair, facing +that wedding tour at fifty, and secretly longing to give it up and +settle down comfortably at home. They have been playing young during +the New York whirl, why not be natural now and enjoy life in the decade +to which they belong? So, in the charming garden scene they confess, and +agree to grow old gracefully together. It is excellent comedy and sound +psychology; to some, the last act is the best of all. Yet, regarded from +the act preceding, it seemed superfluous. + +Still another trouble confronts the playwright as he comes at grapples +with the final act. He falls under the temptation to make a +conventionally desirable conclusion, the "pleasant ending" already +animadverted against, which is supposed to be the constant petition of +the theater Philistine. Here, it will be observed, the pleasant ending +becomes part of the constructive problem. Shall the playwright carry out +the story in a way to make it harmonious with what has gone before, both +psychologically and in the logic of events? Shall he make the conclusion +congruous with the climax, a properly deduced result from the situation +therein shown? If he do, his play will be a work of art, tonal in a +totality whose respective parts are keyed to this effect. Or shall he, +adopting the tag line familiar to us in fairy tales, "and so they lived +happily ever after," wrest and distort his material in order to give +this supposed-to-be-prayed-for condiment that the grown-up babes in +front are crying for? Every dramatist meets this question face to face +in his last act, unless his plan has been to throw his most dramatic +moment at the play's very end. A large percentage of all dramas weaken +or spoil the effect by this handling of the last part of the play. The +ending either is ineffective because unbelievable; or unnecessary, +because what it shows had better be left to the imagination. + +An attractive and deservedly successful drama by Mr. Zangwill, _Merely +Mary Ann_, may be cited to illustrate the first mistake. Up to the last +act its handling of the relation of the gentleman lodger and the quaint +little slavey is pitched in the key of truth and has a Dickens-like +sympathy in it which is the main element in its charm. But in the final +scene, where Mary Ann has become a fashionable young woman, meets her +whilom man friend, and a match results, the improbability is such (to +say nothing about the impossibility) as to destroy the previous illusion +of reality; the auditor, if intelligent, feels that he has paid too high +a price for such a union. I am not arguing that the improbable may not +be legitimate on the stage; but only trying to point out that, in this +particular case, the key of the play, established in previous acts, is +the key of probability; and hence the change is a sin against artistic +probity. The key of improbability, as in some excellent farces, _Baby +Mine_, _Seven Days_, _Seven Keys to Baldpate_, and their kind--where it +is basal that we grant certain conditions or happenings not at all +likely in life--is quite another matter and not of necessity +reprehensible in the least. But _Merely Mary Ann_ is too true in its +homely fashion to fob us off with lies at the end; we believed it at +first and so are shocked at its mendacity. + +One of the best melodramas of recent years is Mr. McLellan's _Leah +Kleschna_. Its psychology, founded on the assumption that a woman whose +higher nature is appealed to, will respond to the appeal, is as sound as +it is fine and encouraging. She is a criminal who is caught opening a +safe by the French statesman whose house she has entered. His +conversation with her is so effective that she breaks with her fellow +thieves and starts in on another and better life in a foreign country, +where the statesman secures for her honest employment. + +It is in the last act that the playwright gets into trouble, and +illustrates the second possibility just mentioned; unnecessary +information which can readily be filled in by the spectator, without the +addition of a superfluous act to show it. The woman has broken with her +gang, she is saved; arrangement has been made for her to go to Austria +(if my memory locates the land), there to work out her change of heart. +Really, there is nothing else to tell. The essential interest of the +play lay in the reclaiming of Leah; she is reclaimed! Why not dismiss +the audience? But the author, perhaps led astray by the principle of +showing things on the stage, even if the things shown lie beyond the +limits of the story proper, exhibits the girl in her new quarters, aided +and abetted by the scene painter who places behind her a very expensive +background of Nature; and then caps his unnecessary work by bringing the +statesman on a visit to see how his protégée is getting along. +Meanwhile, the knowing spectator murmurs in his seat (let us hope) and +kicks against the pricks of convention. + +These examples indicate some of the problems centering in an act which +for the very reason that it is, or seems, comparatively unimportant, is +all the more likely to trip up a dramatist who, buoyed up by his victory +in a fine and effective scene of climactic force, comes to the final act +in a state of reaction, and forgetful of the fact that pride goeth +before a fall--the fall of the curtain! No wonder that, in order to +dodge all such difficulties, playwrights sometimes project their climax +forward into the last act and so shorten what is left to do thereafter; +or, going further, place it at the play's terminal point. But the +artistic objections to this have been explained. Some treatment of the +falling action after the climax, longer or shorter, is advisable; and +the dramatist must sharpen his wits upon this technical demand and make +it part of the satisfaction of his art to meet it. + +The fundamental business of the last act of a play, let it be repeated, +is to show the general results of a situation presented in the crucial +scene, in so far as those results are pertinent to a satisfactory grasp +of story and idea on the part of the auditor. These results must be in +harmony with the beginning, growth and crisis of the story and must +either be demanded in advance by the audience, or gladly received as +pleasant and helpful, when presented. The citation of such plays as +_Rosemary_ and _Years of Discretion_ raises the interesting question +whether a peculiar function of the final act may not lie in not only +rounding out the story as such, but in bringing home the underlying idea +of the piece to the audience. Surely a rich opportunity, as yet but +little utilized, is here. Yet again danger lurks in the opportunity. +The last act might take on the nature of a philosophic tag, a +preachment not organically related to the preceding parts. This, of +course, would be a sad misuse of the chance to give the drama a wider +application and finer bloom. But if the playwright have the skill and +inventive power to merge the two elements of story and idea in a final +act which adds stimulating material while it brings out clearly the +underlying theme, then he will have performed a kind of double function +of the drama. In the new technic of to-day and to-morrow this may come +to be, more and more, the accepted aim of the resourceful, thoughtful +maker of plays. + +The intelligent auditor in the playhouse with this aspect of technic +before him will be able to assist in his coöperation with worthy plays +by noticing particularly if the closing treatment of the material in +hand seem germane to the subject; if it avoid anti-climax and keep the +key; and if it demonstrates skill in overcoming such obstacles as have +been indicated. Such a play-goer will not slight the final act as of +only technical importance, but will be alertly on the watch to see if +his friend the playwright successfully grapples with the last of the +successive problems which arise during the complex and very difficult +business of telling a stage story with clearness, effectiveness and +charm. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PLAY + + +We have now surveyed the chief elements involved in the making of a play +and suggested an intelligent attitude on the part of the play-goer +toward them. Primarily the aim has been to broaden and sharpen the +appreciation of a delightful experience; for the sake of personal +culture. But, as was briefly suggested in the chapter on the play as a +cultural possibility, there is another reason why the student and +theater attendant should realize that the drama in its possibilities is +a work of art, and the theater, the place where it is exhibited, can be +a temple of art. This other reason looks to the social significance of +the playhouse as a great, democratic people's amusement where stories +can be heard and seen more effectively, as to influence, than anywhere +else or under any other imaginable conditions. It is a place where the +great lessons of life can be emotionally received and so sink deep into +the consciousness and conscience of folk at large. And so the question +of the theater becomes more than the question of private culture, +important as that is; being, indeed, a matter of social welfare. This +fact is now coming to be recognized in the United States, as it has long +been recognized abroad. We see more plainly than we did that when states +like France and Germany or the cities of such countries grant +subventions to their theaters and make theater directors high officials +of the government they do so not only from the conviction that the +theater stands for culture (a good thing for any country to possess) but +that they feel it to have a direct and vital influence upon the life of +the citizens in general, upon the civilization of the day. They assume +that the playhouse, along with the school, library, newspaper and +church, is one of the five mighty social forces in suggesting ideas to a +nation and creating ideals. + +The intelligent theater-goer to-day, as never before, will therefore +note with interest the change in the notions concerning this popular +amusement that is yet so much more, based upon much that has happened +within our time; the coming back of plays into literary significance and +acceptance, so that leaders in letters everywhere are likely to be +playwrights; the publication of contemporary drama, foreign and +domestic, enabling the theater-goer to study the play he is to see or +has seen; and the recognition of another aim in conducting this +institution than a commercial one looking to private profit: the aim of +maintaining a house of art, nourished by all concerned with the pride in +and love of art which that implies, for the good of the people. The +observer we have in mind and are trying to help a little will be +interested in all such experiments as that of the Little Theaters in +various cities, in the children's theaters in New York and Washington, +in the fast-growing use of the pageant to illuminate local history, in +the attempts to establish municipal stock companies, or competent +repertory companies by enlightened private munificence. And however +successful or unsuccessful the particular ventures may be, he will see +that their significance lies in their meaning a new, thoughtful regard +for an institution which properly conducted can conserve the general +social welfare. + +He will find in the growth within a very few years of an organization +like the Drama League of America a sign of the times in its testimony to +an interest, as wide as the country, and wider, in the development and +maintenance of a sound and worthy drama. And he will be willing as lover +of fellow-man as well as theater lover to do his share in the +movement--it is no hyperbole to call it such--toward socializing the +playhouse, so that it may gradually become an enterprise conducted by +the people and in the interests of the people, born of their life and +cherished by their love. Nor will he be indifferent to the thought that, +thus directed and enjoyed, it may in time come to be one of the proudest +of national assets, as it has been before in more than one land and +period. + +And with the general interests of the people in mind, our open-eyed +observer will be especially quick to approve any experiment toward +bringing the stimulating life of the theater to communities or sections +of the city which hitherto have been deprived of amusement that while +amusing ministers to the mind and emotions of the hearers in a way to +give profit with the pleasure. Catholic in his view, he will just as +warmly welcome a people's theater in South Boston or on the East Side in +New York, or at Hull House in Chicago, as he will a New Theater in upper +New York, or a Fine Arts Theater in Chicago, or a Toy Theater in Boston; +believing that since the playhouse is in essence and by the nature of +its appeal democratic, it must neglect no class of society in its +service. He will prick up his ears and become alert in hearing of the +Minnesota experiment, where a rural play, written by a member of the +agricultural school, was given under university auspices fifty times in +one season, throughout the state. He will rejoice at the action of +Dartmouth College in accepting a $100,000 bequest for the erection and +conductment of a theater in the college community and serving the +interests of both academic and town life. And he will also be glad to +note that the Carnegie Institute of Technology, in Pittsburgh, has +initiated a School of Drama as an organic part of the educational life. +He will see in such things a recognition among educators that the +theater should be related to educational life. And, musing happily upon +such matters, it will come to him again and again that it is rational to +strive for a people's price for a people's entertainment, instead of a +price for the best offerings prohibitive to four-fifths of all +Americans. And in this fact he will see the explanation for the enormous +growth of the moving picture type of amusement, realizing it to be +inevitable under present conditions, because a form of entertainment +popular in price as well as in nature, and hence populously frequented. +And so our theater-goer, who has now so long listened with at least +hypothetic patience to exposition and argument, will be willing, indeed, +will wish, as part of his watchful canniness with respect to the plays +he sees and reads, to judge the playwright, among other things, +according to his interpretation of life; and especially the modern +social life of his own day and country. + +I have already spoken of the need to have an idea in drama; a +centralizing opinion about life or a personal reaction to it--something +quite distinct from the thesis or propaganda which might change a work +of art into a dissertation. Let it now be added that, other things being +equal, a play to-day will represent its time and be vital in proportion +as it deals with life in terms of social interest. To put it another +way, a drama to reflect our age must be aware of the intense and +practically universal tendency to study society as an organism, with the +altruistic purpose of seeing justice prevail. The rich are attacked, the +poor defended; combinations of business are assailed, and criminals +treated as our sick brothers; labor and capital contest on a gigantic +scale, and woman looms up as a central and most agitating problem. All +this and more, arising from the same interest, offers a vast range of +subject-matter to drama and a new spirit in treating it on the stage. +Within the last half century the two great changes that have come in +human life are the growth in the democratic ideal, with all that it +suggests, and the revolutionary conception of what life is under the +domination of scientific knowledge. All art forms, including this of the +theater, have responded to these twin factors of influence. In art it +means sympathy in studying fellow-man and an attempt to tell the truth +about him in all artistic depictions. Therefore, in the drama to-day +likely to make the strongest claim on the attention of the intelligent +play-goers, we shall get the fullest recognition of this spirit and the +frankest use of it as typical of the twentieth century. This is what +gives substance, meaning and bite to the plays of Shaw, Galsworthy, and +Barker, of Houghton, and Francis and Sowerby, of Moody and Kennedy and +Zangwill, at their best. To acknowledge this is not to deny that +enjoyable farce, stirring melodrama and romantic extravaganza are not +welcome; the sort of play which simply furnishes amusement in terms of +good story telling, content to do this and no more. It is, however, to +remind the reader that to be most representative of the day the drama +must do something beyond this; must mirror the time and probe it too; +yes, must, like a wise physician, feel the pulse of man to-day and +diagnose his deepest needs and failings and desires; in a word, must be +a social drama, since that is the keynote of the present. It will be +found that even in the lighter forms of drama which we accept as typical +and satisfactory this social flavor may be detected, giving it body, but +not detracting from its pleasurableness. Miss Crother's _Young Wisdom_ +has the light touch and the framework of farce, yet it deals with a +definite aspect of feminism. Mr. Knoblauch's _The Faun_ is a romantic +fantasia, but is not without its keen social satire. Mr. Sheldon's _The +Havoc_ seems also farcical in its type; nevertheless it is a serious +satiric thrust at certain extreme conceptions of marital relations. And +numerous dramas, melodramatic in form and intention, dealing with the +darker economic and sociological aspects of our life--the overworked +crime play of the day--indefinitely swell the list. And so with many +more plays, pleasant or unpleasant, which, while clinging close to the +notion of good entertainment, do not refrain from social comment or +criticism. The idea that criticism of life in a stage story must of +necessity be heavy, dull and polemic is an irritating one, of which the +Anglo-Saxon is strangely fond. The French, to mention one other nation, +have constantly shown the world that to be intellectually keen and +suggestive it is not necessary to be solemn or opaque; in fact, that one +is sure to be all the more stimulating because of the light touch and +the sense for social adaptability. This view will in time, no doubt, +percolate through the somewhat obstinate layers of the Anglo-Saxon mind. + +From these considerations it may follow that our theater-goer, while +generally receptive and broad-minded in his seat to the particular type +of drama the playwright shall offer, will incline to prefer those plays +which on the whole seem in some one of various possible ways to express +the time; which drama that has survived has always done. He will care +most for the home-made play as against the foreign, if equally well +made, since its problem is more likely to be his own, or one he can +better understand. But he will not turn a cold shoulder to some European +drama by a D'Annunzio, a Sudermann, a Maeterlinck or a Tolstoy, if it be +a great work of art and deal with life in such universal applications +and relations as to make it quite independent of national borders. One +of the socializing and civilizing functions of the theater is thus to +draw the peoples together into a common bond of interest, a unit in that +vast community which signifies the all-embracing experience of being a +human creature. Yet the theater-goer will have but a Laodicean regard +for plays which present divergent national or technically local +conditions of life practically incomprehensible to Americans at large; +some of the Gallic discussions of the French ménage, for instance. +Terence taught us wisely that nothing human should be alien from our +interest; true enough. There is however no good reason why interest +should not grow as the matter in hand comes closer to us in time and +space. And still more vigorously will he protest against any and all of +the wretched attempts to change foreign material for domestic use to be +noted when the American producer (or traducer) feels he must remove from +such a play the atmospheric color which is of its very life, +transferring a rural setting of old England to a similar setting in New +England. Short of the drama of open evil teaching, nothing is worse than +these absurd and abortive makings over of drama from abroad. The result +is neither fish, flesh nor good red herring. They destroy every object +of theater enjoyment and culture, lying about life and losing whatever +grip upon credence they may have originally possessed. Happily, their +day is on the wane. Even theater-goers of the careless kind have little +or no use for them. + +That the stage of our day, a stage upon which it has been possible to +attain success with such dramas as _The Blue Bird_, _The Servant in the +House_, _The Poor Little Rich Girl_, _The Witching Hour_, _Cyrano de +Bergerac_, _Candida_, _What Every Woman Knows_, _The Great Divide_ and +_The Easiest Way_ (the enumeration is made to imply the greatest +diversity of type) is one of catholic receptivity and some +discriminating patronage, should appear to anyone who has taken the +trouble to follow the discussion up to this point, and whose theater +experience has been fairly large. There is no longer any reason why our +drama-going should not be one of the factors which minister to rational +pleasure, quicken the sense of art and invite us fruitfully to +participate in that free and desirable exchange of ideas which Matthew +Arnold declared to be the true aim of civilization. Let us grant readily +that the stage story which shows within theater restrictions the life of +a land and the outlying life of the world of men has its definite +demarcations; that it may not to advantage perform certain services more +natural, for example to the church, or the school. It must appeal upon +the basis of the bosom interests and passions of mankind and its common +denominator is that of the general emotions. Concede that it should not +debate a philosophical question with the aim of the thinker, nor a legal +question as if the main purpose were to settle a matter of law; nor a +religious question with the purposeful finality of the theologian, or +the didactic eloquence of the pulpit. But it can and should deal with +any question pertinent to men, vital to the broad interests of human +beings, in the spirit of the humanities and with the restraints of its +particular art. It should be suggestive, arousing, not demonstrative or +dogmatic. Its great outstanding advantage lies in its emotional +suggestibility. To perform this service, and it is a mighty one, is to +have an intelligent theater, a self-respecting theater, a theater that +shall purvey rational amusement to the few and the many. And whenever +theater-goers, by majority vote, elect it, it will arrive. + +It was suggested on an earlier page and may now be still more evident +that intelligent theater-going begins long before one goes to the +theater. It depends upon preparation of various kinds; upon a sense of +the theater as a social institution, and of the renewed literary quality +of the drama to-day; upon a knowledge of the specific problems of the +player and playwright, and of the aids to this knowledge furnished by +the best dramatic criticism; upon familiarity too with the printed +drama, past and present, in a fast multiplying library that deals with +the stage and dramatic writing. The last statement may be amplified +here. + +A few years ago, there was hardly a serious publication either in +England or America devoted to the legitimate interests of the stage from +the point of view of the patron of the theater, the critic-in-the-seat +whom we have so steadily had in mind. Such periodicals as existed were +produced rather in the interests of the stage people, actors, producers, +and the like. This has now changed very much for the better. Confining +the survey to this country, the monthly called _The Theater_ has some +value in making the reader aware of current activities. The two +monthlies, _The American Playwright_ and _The Dramatist_, edited +respectively by William T. Price and Luther B. Anthony, are given to the +technical consideration of contemporary drama in the light of permanent +principles, and are very useful. The quarterly, _The Drama_, edited and +published under the auspices of The Drama League of America, is a +dignified and earnest attempt to represent the cultural work of all that +has to do with the stage; and a feature of it is the regular appearance +of a complete play not hitherto in print. Another quarterly, _Poet +Lore_, although not given over exclusively to matters dramatic, has been +honorably conspicuous for many years for its able critical treatment of +the theater and play; and especially for its translations of foreign +dramas, much of the best material from abroad being first given English +form in its columns. At Madison, Wisconsin, _The Play Book_ is a monthly +also edited by theater specialists and often containing illuminating +articles and reviews. And, of course, in the better class periodicals, +monthly and weekly, papers in this field are appearing nowadays with +increasing frequency, a testimonial to the general growth of interest. +Critics of the drama like W. P. Eaton, Clayton Hamilton, Arthur Ruhl, +Norman Hapgood, William Winter, Montrose J. Moses, Channing Pollock, +James O'Donnell Bennett, James S. Metcalf, and James Huneker are to be +read in the daily press, in periodicals, or in collected book form. +Advanced movements abroad are chronicled in _The Mask_, the publication +founded by Gordon Craig; and in _Poetry and Drama_. It is reasonable to +believe that, with the renewed appreciation of the theater, the work of +the dramatic critic as such will be felt to be more and more important +and his function will assume its significance in the eyes of the +community. A vigorous dramatic period implies worthy criticism to +self-reveal it and to establish and maintain right standards. Signs are +not wanting that we shall gradually train and make necessary in the +United States a class of critic represented in England by William Archer +and A. B. Walkley. Among the publishers who have led in the movement to +place good drama in permanent form in the hands of readers the firms of +Macmillan, Scribner, Mitchell Kennerley, Henry Holt, John W. Luce, +Harper and Brothers, B. W. Huebsch and Doubleday, Page & Company have +been and are honorably to the fore. In the way of critical books which +study the many aspects of the subject, they are now being printed so +constantly as plainly to testify to the new attitude and interest. The +student of technic can with profit turn to the manuals of William +Archer, Brander Matthews, and William T. Price; the studies of Clayton +Hamilton, W. P. Eaton, Norman Hapgood, Barrett Clark, and others. For +the civic idea applied to the theater, and the development of the +pageant, he will read Percy Mackaye. And when it comes to plays +themselves, as we have seen, hardly a week goes by without the +appearance of some important foreign masterpiece in English, or some +important drama of English speech, often in advance of or coincident +with stage production. The best work of the day is now readily +accessible, where, only a little while ago, book publication of drama +(save the standard things of the past) was next to unknown. It is worth +knowing that The Drama League of America is publishing, with the +coöperation of Doubleday, Page & Company, an attractive series of Drama +League Plays, in which good drama of the day, native and foreign, is +offered the public at a cost which cuts in two the previous expense. And +the Drama League's selective List of essays and books about the theatre, +with which is incorporated a complete list of plays printed in English, +can be procured for a nominal sum and will give the seeker after light a +thorough survey of what is here touched upon in but a few salient +particulars. + +In short, there is no longer much excuse for pleading ignorance on the +ground of inadequate aid, if the desire be to inform oneself upon the +drama and matters pertaining to the theater. + +The fact that our contemporary body of drama is making the literary +appeal by appearing in book form is of special bearing upon the culture +of the theater-goer. Mr. H. A. Jones, the English playwright, has +recently declared that he deemed this the factor above all others which +should breed an enlightened attitude toward the playhouse. In truth, we +can hardly have a self-respecting theater without the publication of the +drama therein to be seen. Printed plays mean a claim to literary +pretensions. Plays become literature only when they are preserved in +print. And, equally important, when the spectator may read the play +before seeing it, or, better yet, having enjoyed the play in the +playhouse, can study it in a book with this advantage, a process of +revaluation and enforcement of effect, he will appreciate a drama in all +its possibilities as in no other way. Detached from mob influence, with +no confusion of play with players, he can attain that quieter, more +comprehensive judgment which, coupled with the instinctive decision in +the theater, combines to make a critic of him in the full sense. + +For these reasons, the well wisher of the theater welcomes as most +helpful and encouraging the now established habit of the prompt printing +of current plays. It is no longer a reproach from the view of literature +to have your play acted; it may even be that soon it will be a reproach +not to have the printed play presented on the boards. The young American +man of letters, like his fellow in France, may feel that a literary +_début_ is not truly made until his drama has been seen and heard, as +well as read. While scholars are raking over the past with a fine-tooth +comb, and publishing special editions of second and third-rate +dramatists of earlier times, it is a good thing that modern plays, whose +only demerit may be their contemporaneity, are receiving like honor, and +that the dramas of Pinero, Jones, Wilde, Shaw, Galsworthy, Synge, Yeats, +Lady Gregory, Zangwill, Dusany, Houghton, Hankin, Hamilton, Sowerby, +Gibson, acted British playwrights; and of Gillette, Thomas, Moody, +Mackaye, Peabody, Walter, Sheldon, Tarkington, Davis, Patterson, +Middleton, and Kennedy, acted American playwrights (two dozen to stand +for two score and more) can be had in print for the asking. It is good +testimony that we are really coming to have a living theater and not a +mere academic kow-towing to by-gone altars whose sacrificial smoke has +dimmed our eyes sometimes to the clear daylight of the Present. +Preparation for the use of the theater looks before and after. At home +and at school the training can be under way; much happy preliminary +reading and reflection introduce it. By making oneself aware of the best +that has been thought and said on the subject; by becoming conversant +with the history, theory and practice of the playhouse, consciously +including this as part of education; and, for good citizenship's sake, +by regarding sound theater entertainment as a need and therefore a right +of the people; in a word, by taking one's play-going with good sense, +trained taste and right feeling, a person finds himself becoming a +broader and better human being. He will be quicker in his sympathies, +more comprehensive in his outlook, and will react more satisfactorily to +life in general. All this may happen, although in turning to the +theater his primary purpose may be to seek amusement. + +Is it a counsel of perfection to ask for this? Hardly, when so much has +already occurred pointing out the better way. The civilized theater has +begun to come; the prepotent influence of the audience is recognized. +Surely the gain made, and the imperfections that still exist, are +stimulants to that further bettering of conditions whose familiar name +is Progress. + +In all considerations of the theater, it would be a good thing to allow +the unfortunate word "elevate" to drop from the vocabulary. It misleads +and antagonizes. It is better to say that the view presented in this +book is one that wishes to make the playhouse innocently pleasant, +rational, and sound as art. If by "elevate" we mean these things, well +and good. But there is no reason why to elevate the stage should be to +depress the box office--except a lack of understanding between the two. +Uniting in the correct view, the two should rise and fall together. In +fact, touching audience, actors, playwrights, producers, and the +society that is behind them all, intelligent coöperation is the open +sesame. With that for a banner cry, mountains may be moved. + + +NOTES: + +[A] A fact humorously yet keenly suggested in Bernard Shaw's clever +piece, _The Dark Lady of the Sonnets_. + +[B] When our theater has become thoroughly artistic, plays will not, as +at present, be stretched out beyond the natural size, but will be +confined to a shorter playing time and the evening filled out with a +curtain raiser or after piece, as is now so common abroad. + +[C] For a good discussion of this, see "The Genesis of Hamlet," by +Charlton M. Lewis (Houghton, Mifflin & Company). + +[D] Gordon Craig's book on _The Art of The Theatre_ may be consulted for +further light upon a movement that is very significant and likely to be +far-reaching in time, in its influence upon future stage and dramatic +conditions. + + * * * * * + +etext transcriber's note: + +The following typographical errors have been corrected ... + +departure from theme follow => departure from theme follows + +it is well if the intermediate act do not => it is well if the +intermediate act does not + +dedelivered his curtain speech => delivered his curtain speech + +leigitimate => legitimate + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to See a Play, by Richard Burton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO SEE A PLAY *** + +***** This file should be named 32433-8.txt or 32433-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/3/32433/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at the Digital & Multimedia +Center, Michigan State University Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: How to See a Play + +Author: Richard Burton + +Release Date: May 19, 2010 [EBook #32433] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO SEE A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at the Digital & Multimedia +Center, Michigan State University Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr /> + +<h1>HOW<br /> +TO SEE A PLAY</h1> + +<h3>BY<br /> +RICHARD BURTON</h3> + +<p class="c top10">New York<br /> +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />1914</p> +<p class="quote">Now here are twenty criticks ... and yet every one is a critick after +his own way; that is, such a play is best because I like it. A very +familiar argument, methinks, to prove the excellence of a play, and to +which an author would be very unwilling to appeal for his success.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">—<i>From Farquhar's A Discourse Upon Comedy.</i></span></p> +<p class="c top10"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1914 +by</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +Set up and Electrotyped. Published November, 1914</p> + +<p class="c top10">THE MACMILLAN +COMPANY<br />NEW YORK—BOSTON—CHICAGO<br />DALLAS—ATLANTA—SAN FRANCISCO<br /> +MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br />LONDON—BOMBAY—CALCUTTA<br /> MELBOURNE<br /> +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br />TORONTO</p> + +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#PREFACE"><b>Preface</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>Chapter: I, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>II, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>III, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>IV, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>V, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>VI, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>VII, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>VIII, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>IX, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>X, </b></a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>XI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#NOTES">Notes</a></p> + +<h3><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h3> +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span><b>HIS</b> book is aimed squarely at the theater-goer. It hopes to offer a +concise general treatment upon the use of the theater, so that the +person in the seat may get the most for his money; may choose his +entertainment wisely, avoid that which is not worth while, and +appreciate the values artistic and intellectual of what he is seeing and +hearing.</p> + +<p>This purpose should be borne in mind, in reading the book, for while I +trust the critic and the playwright may find the discussion not without +interest and sane in principle, the desire is primarily to put into the +hands of the many who attend the playhouse a manual that will prove +helpful and, so far as it goes, be an influence toward creating in this +country that body of alert theater auditors without which good drama +will not flourish. The obligation of the theater-goer to insist on sound +plays is one too long overlooked; and just in so far as he does insist +in ever-growing numbers upon drama that has technical skill, literary +quality and interpretive insight into life, will that better theater +come which must be the hope of all who realize the great social and +educative powers of the playhouse. The words of that veteran +actor-manager and playwright of the past, Colley Cibber, are apposite +here: "It is not to the actor therefore, but to the vitiated and low +taste of the spectator, that the corruptions of the stage (of what kind +soever) have been owing. If the publick, by whom they must live, had +spirit enough to discountenance and declare against all the trash and +fopperies they have been so frequently fond of, both the actors and the +authors, to the best of their power, must naturally have served their +daily table with sound and wholesome diet." And again he remarks: "For +as their hearers are, so will actors be; worse or better, as the false +or true taste applauds or discommends them. Hence only can our theaters +improve, or must degenerate." Not for a moment is it implied that this +book, or any book of the kind, can make playwrights. Playwrights as well +as actors are born, not made—at least, in the sense that seeing life +dramatically and having a feeling for situation and climax is a gift and +nothing else. The wise Cibber may be heard also upon this. "To excel in +either art," he declares, "is a self-born happiness, which something +more than good sense must be mother of." But this may be granted, while +it is maintained stoutly that there remains to the dramatist a technic +to be acquired, and that practice therein and reflection upon it makes +perfect. The would-be playwright can learn his trade, even as another, +and must, to succeed. And the spectator (our main point of attack, as +was said), the necessary coadjutor with player and playwright in theater +success, can also become an adept in his part of this coöperative +result. This book is written to assist him in such coöperation.<a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h1>HOW TO SEE A PLAY</h1> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h4>THE PLAY, A FORM OF STORY TELLING</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span><b>HE</b> play is a form of story telling, among several such forms: the short +story, or tale; the novel; and in verse, the epic and that abbreviated +version of it called the ballad. All of them, each in its own fashion, +is trying to do pretty much the same thing, to tell a story. And by +story, as the word is used in this book, it will be well to say that I +mean such a manipulation of human happenings as to give a sense of unity +and growth to a definite end. A story implies a connection of characters +and events so as to suggest a rounding out and completion, which, looked +back upon, shall satisfy man's desire to discover some meaning and +significance in what is called Life. A<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> child begging at the mother's +knee for "the end of the story," before bedtime, really represents the +race; the instinct behind the request is a sound one. A story, then, has +a beginning, middle and end, and in the right hands is seen to have +proportion, organic cohesion and development. Its parts dovetail, and +what at first appeared to lack direction and connective significance +finally is seen to possess that wholeness which makes it a work of art. +A story, therefore, is not a chance medley of incidents and characters; +but an artistic texture so woven as to quicken our feeling that a +universe which often seems disordered and chance-wise is in reality +ordered and pre-arranged. Art in its story-making does this service for +life, even if life does not do it for us. And herein lies one of the +differences between art and life; art, as it were, going life one better +in this rearrangement of material.</p> + +<p>Of the various ways referred to of telling a story, the play has its +distinctive method and characteristics, to separate it from the others. +The story is told on a stage, through<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> the impersonation of character by +human beings; in word and action, assisted by scenery, the story is +unfolded. The drama (a term used doubly to mean plays in general or some +particular play) is distinguished from the other forms mentioned in +substituting dialogue and direct visualized action for the indirect +narration of fiction.</p> + +<p>A play when printed differs also in certain ways; the persons of the +play are named apart from the text; the speakers are indicated by +writing their names before the speeches; the action is indicated in +parentheses, the name business being given to this supplementary +information, the same term that is used on the stage for all that lies +outside dialogue and scenery. And the whole play, as a rule, is +sub-divided into acts and often, especially in earlier drama, into +scenes, lesser divisions within the acts; these divisions being used for +purposes of better handling of the plot and exigencies of scene +shifting, as well as for agreeable breathing spaces for the audience. +The word scene, it may be added here, is used in English-<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a>speaking lands +to indicate a change of scene, whereas in foreign drama it merely refers +to the exit or entrance of a character, so that a different number of +persons is on the stage.</p> + +<p>But there are, of course, deeper, more organic qualities than these +external attributes of a play. The stern limits of time in the +representation of the stage story—little more than two hours, "the two +hours traffic of the stage" mentioned by Shakespeare—necessitates +telling the story with emphasis upon its salient points; only the high +lights of character and event can be advantageously shown within such +limits. Hence the dramatic story, as the adjective has come to show, +indicates a story presenting in a terse and telling fashion only the +most important and exciting things. To be dramatic is thus to be +striking, to produce effects by omission, compression, stress and +crescendo. To be sure, recent modern plays can be named in plenty which +seem to violate this principle; but they do so at their peril, and in +the history of drama nothing is plainer than that the essence of good +play-making lies in<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> the power to seize the significant moments of the +stage story and so present them as to grip the interest and hold it with +increasing tension up to a culminating moment called the climax.</p> + +<p>Certain advantages and certain limitations follow from these +characteristics of a play. For one thing, the drama is able to focus on +the really interesting, exciting, enthralling moments of human doings, +where a novel, for example, which has so much more leisure to accomplish +its purpose to give a picture of life, can afford to take its time and +becomes slower, and often, as a result, comparatively prolix and +indirect. This may not be advisable in a piece of fiction, but it is +often found, and masterpieces both of the past and present illustrate +the possibility; the work of a Richardson, a Henry James, a Bennett. But +for a play this would be simply suicide; for the drama must be more +direct, condensed and rapid. And just in proportion as a novel adopts +the method of the play do we call it dramatic and does it win a general +audience; the story of a Stevenson or a Kipling.<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a></p> + +<p>Again, having in mind the advantages of the play, the stage story is +both heard and seen, and important results issue from this fact. The +play-story is actually seen instead of seen by the eye of the +imagination through the appeal of the printed page; or indirectly again, +if one hears a narrative recited. And this actual seeing on the stage +brings conviction, since "seeing is believing," by the old saw. Scenery, +too, necessitates a certain truthfulness in the reproducing of life by +word and act and scene, because the spectator, who is able to judge it +all by the test of life, will more readily compare the mimic +representation with the actuality than if he were reading the words of a +character in a book, or being told, narrative fashion, of the +character's action. In this way the stage story seems nearer life.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the seeing is fortified by hearing; the spectator is also the +auditor. And here is another test of reality. If the intonation or +accent or tone of voice of the actor is not life-like and in consonance +with the character portrayed, the audience will instantly be<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> quicker to +detect it and to criticize than if the same character were shown in +fiction; seeing, the spectator insists that dress and carriage, and +scenery, which furnishes a congruous background, shall be plausible; and +hearing, the auditor insists upon the speech being true to type.</p> + +<p>The play has an immense superiority also over all printed literature in +that, making its appeal directly through eye and ear, it is not literary +at all; I mean, the story in this form can be understood and enjoyed by +countless who read but little or even cannot read. Literature, in the +conventional sense, may be a closed book to innumerable theater-goers +who nevertheless can witness a drama and react to its exhibition of +life. The word, which in printed letters is so all-important, on the +stage becomes secondary to action and scene, for the story can be, and +sometimes is, enacted in pantomime, without a single word being spoken. +In essence, therefore, a play may be called unliterary, and thus it +makes a wider, more democratic appeal than anything in print can. Yet,<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> +by an interesting paradox, when the words of the play are written by +masters like Calderón, Shakespeare, Molière or Ibsen, the drama becomes +the chief literary glory of Spain, England, France and Norway. For in +the final reckoning only the language that is fit and fine preserves the +drama of the world in books and classifies it with creative literature. +Thus the play can be all things to all men; at once unliterary in its +appeal, and yet, in the finest examples, an important contribution to +letters.</p> + +<p>A peculiar advantage of the play over the other story-telling forms is +found in the fact that while one reads the printed story, short or long, +the epic or ballad, by oneself in the quiet enjoyment of the library, +one witnesses the drama in company with many other human beings—unless +the play be a dire failure and the house empty. And this association, +though it may remove some of the more refined and aristocratic +experiences of the reader, has a definite effect upon individual +pleasure in the way of enrichment, and even reacts upon the play itself +to shape its nature. A curious sort<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> of sympathy is set up throughout an +audience as it receives the skillful story of the playwright; common or +crowd emotions are aroused, personal variations are submerged in a +general associative feeling and the individual does not so much laugh, +cry and wonder by himself as do these things sympathetically in +conjunction with others. He becomes a simpler, less complex person whose +emotions dominate the analytic processes of the individual brain. He is +a more plastic receptive creature than he would be alone. Any one can +test this for himself by asking if he would have laughed so uproariously +at a certain humorous speech had it been offered him detached from the +time and place. The chances are that, by and in itself, it might not +seem funny at all. And the readiness with which he fell into cordial +conversation with the stranger in the next seat is also a hint as to his +magnetized mood when thus subjected to the potent influence of mob +psychology. For this reason, then, among others, a drama heard and seen +under the usual conditions secures unique effects of response<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> in +contrast with the other sister forms of telling stories.</p> + +<p>A heightening of effect upon auditor and spectator is gained—to mention +one other advantage—by the fact that the story which in a work of +fiction may extend to a length precluding the possibility of its +reception at one sitting, may in the theater be brought within the +compass of an evening, in the time between dinner and bed. This secures +a unity of impression whereby the play is a gainer over the novel. A +great piece of fiction like <i>David Copperfield</i>, or <i>Tom Jones</i>, or <i>A +Modern Instance</i>, or <i>Alice for Short</i> cannot be read in a day, except +as a feat of endurance and under unusual privileges of time to spare. +But a great play—Shakespeare's <i>Hamlet</i> or Ibsen's <i>A Doll's +House</i>—can be absorbed in its entirety in less than three hours, and +while the hearer has perhaps not left his seat. Other things being +equal, and whatever the losses, this establishes a superiority for the +play. A coherent section of life, which is what the story should be, +conveyed in the whole by this brevity<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> of execution, so that the +recipient may get a full sense of its organic unity, cannot but be more +impressive than any medium of story telling where this is out of the +question. The merit of the novel, therefore, supreme in its way, is +another merit; "one star differeth from another in glory." It will be +recalled that Poe, with this matter of brevity of time and unity of +impression in mind, declared that there was no such thing as a long +poem; meaning that only the short poem which could be read through at +one sitting could attain to the highest effects.</p> + +<p>But along with these advantages go certain limitations, too, in this +form of story telling; limitations which warn the play not to encroach +upon the domain of fiction, and which have much to do with making the +form what it is.</p> + +<p>From its very nature the novel can be more thorough-going in the +delineation of character. The drama, as we have seen, must, under its +stern restrictions of time, seize upon outstanding traits and assume +that much of the development<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> has taken place before the rise of the +first curtain. The novel shows character in process of development; the +play shows what character, developed to the point of test, will do when +the test comes. Its method, especially in the hands of modern +playwrights like Ibsen and Shaw, is to exhibit a human being acted upon +suddenly by a situation which exposes the hidden springs of action and +is a culmination of a long evolution prior to the plot that falls within +the play proper. In the drama characters must for the most part be +displayed in external acts, since action is of the very essence of a +play; in a novel, slowly and through long stretches of time, not the +acts alone but the thoughts, motives and desires of the character may be +revealed. Obviously, in the drama this cannot be done, in any like +measure, in spite of the fact that some of the late psychologists of the +drama, like Galsworthy, Bennett and others, have tried to introduce a +more careful psychology into their play-making. At the best, only an +approximation to the subtlety and penetration of fiction can be thus +attained.<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> It were wiser to recognize the limitation and be satisfied +with the compensating gain of the more vivid, compelling effect secured +through the method of presenting human beings, natural to the playhouse.</p> + +<p>There are also arbitrary and artificial conventions of the stage +conditioning the story which may perhaps be regarded as drawbacks where +the story in fiction is freer in these respects. Both forms of story +telling strive—never so eagerly as to-day—for a truthful +representation of life. The stage, traditionally, in its depiction of +character through word and action, has not been so close to life as +fiction; the dialogue has been further removed from the actual idiom of +human speech. It is only of late that stage talk in naturalness has +begun to rival the verisimilitude of dialogue in the best fiction. This +may well be for the reason (already touched upon) that the presence of +the speakers on the stage has in itself a reality which corrects the +artificiality of the words spoken. "I did not know," the theater auditor +might be imagined as saying,<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> "that people talked like that; but there +they are, talking; it must be so."</p> + +<p>The drama in all lands is trying as never before to represent life in +speech as well as act; and the strain hitherto put upon the actor, who +in the past had as part of his function to make the artificial and +unreal plausible and artistic, has been so far removed as to enable him +to give his main strength to genuine interpretation.</p> + +<p>The time values on the stage are a limitation which makes for +artificiality; actual time must of necessity be shortened, for if true +chronology were preserved the play would be utterly balked in its +purpose of presenting a complete story that, however brief, must cover +more time than is involved in what is shown upon the boards of a +theater. As a result all time values undergo a proportionate shrinkage. +This can be estimated by the way meals are eaten on the stage. In actual +life twenty minutes are allotted for the scamped eating time of the +railway station, and we all feel it as a grievance. Half an hour is +scant decency for<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> the unpretentious private meal; and as it becomes +more formal an hour is better, and several hours more likely. Yet no +play could afford to allow twenty minutes for this function, even were +it a meal of state; it would consume half an act, or thereabouts. +Consequently, on the stage, the effect of longer time is produced by +letting the audience see the general details of the feast; food eaten, +wine drunk, servants waiting, and conversation interpolated. It is one +of the demands made upon the actor's skill to make all these condensed +and selected minutiæ of a meal stand for the real thing; once more art +is rearranging life, under severe pressure. If those interested will +test with watch in hand the actual time allowed for the banquet in <i>A +Parisian Romance</i>, so admirably envisaged by the late Richard Mansfield, +or the famous Thanksgiving dinner scene in <i>Shore Acres</i>, fragrantly +associated with the memory of the late James A. Herne, they will +possibly be surprised at the brevity of such representations.</p> + +<p>Because of this necessary compression, a scale of time has to be adopted +which shall secure<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> an effect of actualness by a cunning obeyance of +proportion; the reduction of scale is skillful, and so the result is +congruous. And it is plain that fiction may take more time if it so +desires in such scenes; although even in the novel the actual time +consumed by a formal dinner would be reproduced by the novelist at great +risk of boring his reader.</p> + +<p>Again, with disadvantages in mind, it might be asserted that the stage +story suffers in that some of the happenings involved in the plot must +perforce transpire off stage; and when this is so there is an inevitable +loss of effect, inasmuch as it is of the nature of drama, as has been +noted, to show events, and the indirect narrative method is to be +avoided as undramatic. Tyros in play-writing fail to make this +distinction; and as a generalization it may be stated that whenever +possible a play should show a thing, rather that state it. "Seeing is +believing," to repeat the axiom. Yet a qualifier may here be made, for +in certain kinds of drama or when a certain effect is striven for the +indirect method may be powerfully effective.<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> The murder in <i>Macbeth</i> +gains rather than loses because it takes place outside the scene; +Maeterlinck in his earlier Plays for Marionettes, so called, secured +remarkable effects of suspense and tension by systematically using the +principle of indirection; as where in <i>The Seven Princesses</i> the +princesses who are the particular exciting cause of the play are not +seen at all by the audience; the impression they make, a great one, +comes through their effect upon certain characters on the stage and this +heightens immensely the dramatic value of the unseen figures. We may +point to the Greeks, too, in illustration, who in their great folk +dramas of legend regularly made use of the principle of indirect +narration when the aim was to put before the vast audiences the terrible +occurrences of the fable, not <i>coram populo</i>, as Horace has it, not in +the presence of the audience, but rather off stage. Nevertheless, these +exceptions can be explained without violating the general principle that +in a stage story it is always dangerous not to exhibit any action that +is vital to the play. And this compulsion,<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> it will be evident, is a +restriction which may at times cripple the scope of the dramatist, while +yet it stimulates his skill to overcome the difficulty.</p> + +<p>Summarizing the differences which go to make drama distinctive as a +story-telling form and distinguish it from other story molds: a play in +contrast with fiction tells its tale by word, act and scene in a rising +scale of importance, and within briefer time limits, necessitating a far +more careful selection of material, and a greater emphasis upon salient +moments in the handling of plot; and because of the device of act +divisions, with certain moments of heightened interest culminating in a +central scene and thus gaining in tension and intensity by this enforced +method of compression and stress; while losing the opportunity to +amplify and more carefully to delineate character. It gains as well +because the story comes by the double receipt of the eye and ear to a +theater audience some of whom at least, through illiteracy, might be +unable to appreciate the story printed in a book. The play<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> thus is the +most democratic and popular form of story telling, and at the same time +is capable of embodying, indeed has embodied, the greatest creative +literature of various nations. And for a generation now, increasingly, +in the European countries and in English-speaking lands, the play has +begun to come into its own as an art form with unique advantages in the +way of wide appeal and cultural possibilities.<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h4>THE PLAY, A CULTURAL OPPORTUNITY</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">C</span><b>ERTAIN</b> remarks at the close of the preceding chapter hint at what is in +mind in giving a title to the present one. The play, this democratic +mode of story telling, attracting vast numbers of hearers and +universally popular because man is ever avid of amusement and turns +hungrily to such a medium as the theater to satisfy a deeply implanted +instinct for pleasure, can be made an experience to the auditor properly +to be included in what he would call his cultural opportunity. That is +to say, it can take its place among those civilizing agencies furnished +by the arts and letters, travel and the higher aspects of social life. A +drama, as this book seeks to show, is in its finest estate a work of art +comparable with such other works of art as pictures, statuary, musical +compositions and the achievements<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> of the book world. I shall endeavor +later to show a little more in detail wherein lie the artistic +requirements and successes of the play; and a suggestion of this has +been already made in chapter one.</p> + +<p>But this thought of the play as a work of art has hardly been in the +minds of folk of our race and speech until the recent awakening of an +enlightened interest in things dramatic; a movement so brief as to be +embraced by the present generation. The theater has been regarded +carelessly, thoughtlessly, merely as a place of idle amusement, or +worse; ignorant prejudice against it has been rife, with a natural +reaction for the worse upon the institution itself. The play has neither +been associated with a serious treatment of life nor with the refined +pleasure derivable from contact with art. Nor, although the personality +of actors has always been acclaimed, and an infinite amount of silly +chatter about their private lives been constant, have theater-goers as a +class realized the distinguished skill of the dramatist in the handling +of a very difficult<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> and delicate art, nor done justice to the art which +the actor represents, nor to his own artistry in it. But now a change +has come, happily. The English-speaking lands have begun at least to get +into line with other enlightened countries, to comprehend the +educational value of the playhouse, and the consequent importance of the +play. The rapid growth to-day in what may be called social consciousness +has quickened our sense of the social significance of an institution +that, whatever its esthetic and intellectual status, is an enormous +influence in the daily life of the multitude. Gradually those who think +have come to see that the theater, this people's pleasure, should offer +drama that is rational, wholesome amusement; that society in general has +a vital stake in the nature of an entertainment so widely diffused, so +imperatively demanded and so surely effective in shaping the ideals of +the people at large. The final chapter will enlarge upon this +suggestion.</p> + +<p>And this idea has grown along with the now very evident re-birth of a +drama which, while<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> practical stage material, has taken on the literary +graces and makes so strong an appeal as literature that much of our best +in letters is now in dramatic form: the play being the most notable +contribution, after the novel, of our time. Leading writers everywhere +are practical dramatists; men of letters, yet also men of the theater, +who write plays not only to be read but to be acted, and who have +conquered the difficult technic of the drama so as to kill two birds +with the one stone.</p> + +<p>The student of historical drama will perceive that this welcome change +is but a return to earlier and better conditions when the mighty +play-makers of the past—Calderón, Molière, Shakespeare and their +compeers—were also makers of literature which we still read with +delight. And, without referring to the past, a glance at foreign lands +will reveal the fact that other countries, if not our own, have always +recognized this cultural value of the stage and hence given the theater +importance in the civic or national life, often spending public moneys +for its maintenance and using it (often<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> in close association with +music) as a central factor in national culture. The traveler to-day in +Germany, France, Russia and the Scandinavian lands cannot but be +impressed with this fact, and will bring home to America some suggestive +lessons for patriotic native appreciation. In the modern educational +scheme, then, room should be made for some training in intelligent +play-going. So far from there being anything Quixotic in the notion, all +the signs are in its favor. The feeling is spreading fast that school +and college must include theater culture in the curriculum and people at +large are seeking to know something of the significance of the theater +in its long evolution from its birth to the present, of the history of +the drama itself, of the nature of a play regarded as a work of art; of +the specific values, too, of the related art of the actor who alone +makes the drama vital; and of the relative excellencies, in the actual +playhouses of our time, of plays, players and playwrights; together with +some idea of the rapidly changing present-day conditions. Such changes +include the<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> coming of the one-act play, the startling development of +the moving picture, the growth of the Little Theater, the rise of the +masque and pageant, and so on with other manifestations yet. Surely, +some knowledge in a field so broad and humanly appealing, both for +legitimate enjoyment of the individual and in view of his obligations to +fellow man, is of equal moment to a knowledge of the chemical effect of +hydrochloric acid upon marble, or of the working of a table of +logarithms. These last are less involved in the living of a normal human +being.</p> + +<p>Here are signs of the time, which mark a revolution in thought. In the +light of such facts, it is curious to reflect upon the neglect of the +theater hitherto for centuries as an institution and the refusal to +think of the play as worthy until it was offered upon the printed page. +The very fact that it was exhibited on the stage seemed to stamp it as +below serious consideration. And that, too, when the very word <i>play</i> +implies that it is something to be played. The taking over of the +theaters by<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> uneducated persons to whom such a place was, like a +department store, simply an emporium of desired commodities, together +with the Puritanic feeling that the playhouse, as such, was an evil +thing frowned upon by God and injurious to man, combined to set this +form of entertainment in ill repute. Bernard Shaw, in that brilliant +little play, <i>The Dark Lady of the Sonnets</i>, sets certain shrewd words +in the mouths of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth pertinent to this +thought:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>: "Of late, as you know, the Church taught the people by +means of plays; but the people flocked only to such as were full of +superstitious miracles and bloody martyrdoms; and so the Church, which +also was just then brought into straits by the policy of your royal +father, did abandon and discountenance playing; and thus it fell into +the hands of poor players and greedy merchants that had their pockets to +look to and not the greatness of your kingdom."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Elizabeth</span>: "Master Shakespeare, you speak sooth; I cannot in anywise +amend it. I<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> dare not offend my unruly Puritans by making so lewd a +place as the playhouse a public charge; and there be a thousand things +to be done in this London of mine before your poetry can have its penny +from the general purse. I tell thee, Master Will, it will be three +hundred years before my subjects learn that man cannot live by bread +alone, but by every word that cometh from the mouth of those whom God +inspires."</p> + +<p>The height of the incongruous absurdity was illustrated in the former +teaching of Shakespeare. Here was a writer incessantly hailed as the +master poet of the race; he bulked large in school and college, +perforce. Yet the teacher was confronted by the embarrassing fact that +Shakespeare was also an actor: a profession given over to the sons of +Belial; and a playwright who actually wrote his immortal poetry in the +shape of theater plays. This was sad, indeed! The result was that in +both the older teaching and academic criticism emphasis was always +placed upon Shakespeare the poet, the great mind; and Shakespeare the +playwright<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> was hardly explained at all; or if explained the +illumination was more like darkness visible, because those in the seats +of judgment were so ignorant of play technic and the requirements of the +theater as to make their attempts well-nigh useless. It remained for our +own time and scholars like George P. Baker and Brander Matthews, with +intelligent, sympathetic comprehension of the play as a form of art and +the playhouse as conditioning it, to study the Stratford bard primarily +as playwright and so give us a new and more accurate portrait of him as +man and creative worker.</p> + +<p>I hope it is beginning to be apparent that intelligent play-going starts +long before one goes to the theater. It means, for one thing, some +acquaintance with the history of drama, and the theater which is its +home, both in the development of English culture and that of other +important nations whose dramatic contribution has been large. This +aspect of culture will be enlarged upon in the following chapters.</p> + +<p>Much can be done—far more than has been<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> done—in this historical +survey in school and college to prepare American citizens for rational +theater enjoyment. There is nothing pedantic in such preparation. Nobody +objects to being sufficiently trained in art to distinguish a chromo +from an oil masterpiece or to know the difference in music between a +cheap organ-grinder jingle and the rhythmic marvels of a Chopin. It is +equally foolish to be unable to give a reason for the preference for a +play by Shaw or Barrie over the meaningless coarse farce by some stage +hack. It is all in the day's culture and when once the idea that the +theater is an art has been firmly seized and communicated to many all +that seems bizarre in such a thought will disappear—and good riddance!</p> + +<p>The first and fundamental duty to the theater is to attend the play +worthy of patronage. If one be a theater-goer, yet has never taken the +trouble to see a certain drama that adorns the playhouse, one is open to +criticism. The abstention, when the chance was offered, must in fact +either be a criticism of the play or of<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> the person himself because he +refrained from supporting it.</p> + +<p>But let it be assumed that our theater-goer is in his seat, ready to do +his part in the patronage of a good play. How, once there, shall he show +the approval, or at least interest, his presence implies?</p> + +<p>By making himself a part of the sympathetic psychology of the audience, +as a whole; not resisting the effect by a position of intellectual +aloofness natural to a human being burdened with the self-consciousness +that he is a critic; but gladly recognizing the human and artistic +qualities of the entertainment. Next, by giving external sign of this +sympathetic approval by applause. Applause in this country generally +means the clapping of the hands; only exceptionally, and in large +cities, do we hear the <i>bravos</i> customary in Europe.</p> + +<p>But suppose the play merit not approval but the reverse; what then? The +gallery gods, those disthroned deities, were wont more rudely to +supplement this manual testimony by the use of their other extremities, +the feet. The<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> effect, however, is not desirable. Yet, in respect of +this matter of disapproval, it would seem as if the British in their +frank booing of a piece which does not meet their wishes were exercising +a valuable check upon bad drama. In the United States we signify +positive approval, but not its negation. The result is that the cheaper +element of an audience may applaud and so help the fate of a poor play, +while the hostility of those better fitted to judge is unknown to all +concerned with the fortunes of the drama, because it is thus silent. A +freer use of the hiss, heard with us only under rare circumstances of +provocation, might be a salutary thing, for this reason. An audible +expression of reproof would be of value in the case of many unworthy +plays.</p> + +<p>But perhaps in the end the rebuke of non-attendance and the influence of +the minatory word passed on to others most assists the failure of the +play that ought to fail. If the foolish auditor approve where he should +condemn, and so keep the bad play alive by his backing, the better view +has a way of winning at the<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> last. Certainly, for conspicuous success +some qualities of excellence, if not all of them, must be present.</p> + +<p>But intelligent play-going means also a perception of the art of acting, +so that the technic of the player, not his personality, will command the +auditor's trained attention and he will approve skill and frown upon its +absence.</p> + +<p>And while it is undoubtedly more difficult to convey this information +educationally, the ideal way being to see the best acting early and late +and to reflect upon it in the light of acknowledged principles, +something can certainly be done to prepare prospective theater-goers for +appreciation of the profession of the player; substituting for the +blind, time-honored "I know what I like," the more civilized: "I approve +it for the following good and sufficient reasons." Even in school, and +still more in college, the teacher can coöperate with the taught by +suggesting the plays to be seen, amateur as well as professional; and by +classroom discussion afterward, not only of the<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> plays but concerning +their rendition. Students are quick to respond when this is done, for +the vital object lesson of current drama always appeals to them, and +they are glad to observe a connection between their amusement and their +culture. At present, or at least up to a very recent time, the +eccentricity of such a procedure would all but have endangered the +position of the teacher so foolhardy as to act upon the assumption that +the drama seen the night before could be in any way used to impart +permanent lessons concerning a great art to the minds of the pupils. +Luckily, a more liberal view is taking the place of this crass +Philistinism.</p> + +<p>In a proper appreciation of the actor the hearer will look beyond the +pulchritude of an actress or the fit of an actor's clothes; he will +judge Miss Ethel Barrymore by her power of envisaging the part she +assumes, and not be overly interested in an argument as to her increase +of avoirdupois of late years. He will not allow himself to consume time +over the question whether Mr. William Gillette in private<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> life is +addicted to chloral because Sherlock Holmes is a victim of that most +reprehensible habit.</p> + +<p>And above all he will constantly remind himself that acting is the art +of impersonation, exactly that; and, therefore, just as high praise goes +to the player who admirably portrays a disagreeable part as to one in +whose mouth the playwright has set lines which make him beloved from +curtain to curtain. Yet the majority of persons in a typical American +theater audience hopefully confuse the part with the player, and award +praise or blame according as they like or dislike the part itself.</p> + +<p>The intelligent auditor will also give approval to the stage artist who, +instead of drawing attention to himself by the use of exaggerated +methods, quietly does his work, keeps always within the stage picture, +and trusts to his truthful representation to secure conviction and +reward. How common is it to see some player overstressing his part, who, +instead of being boohed and hissed as he deserves and as he infallibly +would be in some countries, receives<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> but the more applause for his +inexcusable overstepping of the modesty of his art. It becomes part of +the duty of our intelligent play-goer to teach such pseudo-artists their +place, for as long as they win the meed of ill-timed and ignorant +approval, so long will they flourish.</p> + +<p>Nor will the critic of the acceptable actor fail to observe that the +latter prefers working for the ensemble—<i>team work</i>, in the sporting +phrase—to that personal display disproportionate to the general effect +which will always make the judicious grieve. In theatrical parlance, +"hogging the stage" has flourished simply for the reason that it +deceives a sufficient number in the seats to secure applause and so +throws dust in the eyes of the general public as to its true iniquity. +The actor is properly to be judged, not by his work detached from that +of his fellows, but ever in relation to the totality of impression which +means a play instead of a personal exhibition. It is his business to +coöperate with others in a single effect in which each is a factor in +the exact measure<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> of the importance of his part as conceived by the +dramatist. Where a minor part becomes a major one through the ability of +a player, as in the famous case of the elder Sothern's Lord Dundreary, +it is at the expense of the play; <i>Our American Cousin</i> was negligible +as drama, and hence it did not matter. But if the drama is worth while, +serious injury to dramatic art may follow.</p> + +<p>Again, the intelligent play-goer will carefully distinguish in his mind +between actor and playwright. Realizing that "the play's the thing," he +will demand that even the so-called star (too often an actor foisted +into prominence for a non-artistic reason) shall obey the laws of his +art and those of drama, and not unduly minimize for personal reasons the +work of his coadjutors in the play, nor that of the playwright who +intended him to go so far and no further. The actor who, whatever his +fame, and no matter how much an unthinking audience is complaisant when +he does it, makes a practice of giving himself a center-of-the-stage +prominence beyond what the drama calls<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> for, is no artist, but a show +man, neither more nor less, who deserves to be rated with the +mountebanks rather than with the artists of his profession. But it may +be feared that "stars" will continue to seek the stage center and crowd +others of the cast out of the right focus, to say nothing of distorting +the work of the dramatist, under the goad of megalomania, so long as a +goodly number of unintelligent spectators egg him on. His favorite line +of poetry will be that of Wordsworth:</p> + +<p>"Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky." It is to help the +personnel of such an audience that our theater-goer needs his training.</p> + +<p>A general realization of all this will definitely affect one's theater +habit and make for the good of all that concerns the art of the +playhouse. It will lead the properly prepared person to see a good play +competently done, but with no supreme or far-famed actor in the company, +in preference to a foolish play, or worse, carried by a "star"; or a +play negligible as art or hopelessly <i>passé</i> as art or interpretation<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> +of life for which an all-star cast has been provided, as if to take the +eye of the spectator off the weaknesses of the drama. Often a standard +play revived by one of these hastily gathered companies of noted players +resolves itself into an interest in individual performances which must +lack that organic unity which comes of longer association. The +opportunity afforded to get a true idea of the play is made quite +secondary, and sometimes entirely lost sight of.</p> + +<p>Nor will the trained observer in the theater be cheated by the dollar +mark in his theatrical entertainment. He will come to feel that an +adequate stock company, playing the best plays of the day, may afford +him more of drama culture for an expenditure of fifty cents for an +excellent seat than will some second-rate traveling company which +presents a drama that is a little more recent but far less worthy, to +see which the charge is three or four times that modest sum. All over +the land to-day nominally cultivated folk will turn scornfully away from +a fifty-cent show, as they call it, only because<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> it is cheap in the +literal sense, whereas the high-priced offering is cheap in every other +sense but the cost of the seat. Such people overlook the nature of the +play presented, the playwright's reputation, and the quality of the +performance; incapable of judging by the real tests, they stand +confessed as vulgarians and ignoramuses of art. We shall not have +intelligent audiences in American theaters, speaking by and large, until +theater-goers learn to judge dramatic wares by some other test than what +it costs to buy them. Such a test is a crude one, in art, however +infallible it may be in purely material commodities; indeed, is it not +the wise worldling in other fields who becomes aware in his general +bartering that it is unsafe to estimate his purchase exclusively by the +price tag?</p> + +<p>To one who in this way makes the effort to inform himself with regard to +the things of the theater—plays, players and playwrights—concerning +dramatic history both as it appertains to the drama and the theater; and +concerning the intellectual as well as esthetical and<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> human values of +the theater-going experience, it will soon become apparent that it +offers him cultural opportunity that is rich, wide and of ever deepening +enjoyment. And taking advantage of it, he will dignify one of the most +appealing pleasures of civilization by making it a part of his permanent +equipment for satisfactory living.</p> + +<p>Other aspects of this thought may now be expounded, beginning with a +review of the play in its history; some knowledge of which is obviously +an element in the complete appreciation of a theater evening. For the +proper viewing of a given play one should have reviewed plays in +general, as they constitute the body of a worthy dramatic literature.<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h4>UP TO SHAKESPEARE</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span><b>HE</b> recent vogue of plays like <i>The Servant in the House</i>, <i>The Passing +of the Third Floor Back</i>, <i>The Dawn of To-morrow</i>, and <i>Everywoman</i> +sends the mind back to the early history of English drama and is full of +instruction. Such drama is a reversion to type, it suggests the origin +of all drama in religion. It raises the interesting question whether the +blasé modern theater world will not respond, even as did the primitive +audiences of the middle ages, to plays of spiritual appeal, even of +distinct didactic purpose. And the suggestion is strengthened when the +popularity is recalled of the morality play of <i>Everyman</i> a few years +since, that being a revival of a typical mediæval drama of the kind. It +almost looks as if we had failed to take into account the ready response +of modern men and women to<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> the higher motives on the stage; have failed +to credit the substratum of seriousness in that chance collection of +human beings which constitutes a theater audience. After all, they are +very much like children, when under the influence of mob psychology; +sensitive, plastic to the lofty and noble as they are to the baser +suggestions that come to them across the footlights. In any case, these +late experiences, which came by way of surprise to the professional +purveyors of theatrical entertainment, give added emphasis to the +statement that the stage is the child of mother church, and that the +origin of drama in the countries whereof we have record is always +religious. The mediæval beginnings in Europe and England have been +described in their details by many scholars. Suffice it here to say that +the play's birthplace is at the altar end of the cathedral, an extension +of the regular service. The actors were priests, the audience the vast +hushed throngs moved upon by incense, lights, music, and the intoned +sacred words, and, for the touch of the dramatic which was to be the +seed<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> of a wonderful development, we may add some portion of the sacred +story acted out by the stoled players and envisaged in the scenic pomp +of the place. The lesson of the holy day was thus brought home to the +multitude as it never would have been by the mere recital of the Latin +words; scene and action lent their persuasive power to the natural +associations of the church. Such is the source of modern drama; what was +in the course of time to become "mere amusement," in the foolish phrase, +began as worship; and if we go far back into the Orient, or to the +south-lying lands on the Mediterranean, we find in India and Greece +alike this union of art and worship, whether the play began within +church or temple or before Dionysian altars reared upon the green sward. +The good and the beautiful, the esthetic and the spiritual, ever +intertwined in the story of primitive culture.</p> + +<p>And the gradual growth from this mediæval beginning is clear. First, a +scenic elaboration of part of the service, centering in some portion of +the life and death of Christ; then, as the<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> scenic side grew more +complex, a removal to the grounds outside the cathedral; an extension of +the subject-matter to include a reverent treatment of other portions of +the Bible narrative; next, the taking over of biblical drama by the +guilds, or crafts, under the auspices of the patron saints of the +various organizations, as when, on Corpus Christi day, one of the great +saints' days of the year, a cycle of plays was presented in a town with +the populace agog to witness it, and the movable vans followed each +other at the street corners, presenting scene after scene of the story. +Then a further extension of motives which admitted the use of the lives +of the saints who presided over the guilds; and finally the further +enlargement of theme due to the writing of drama of which the personages +were abstract moral qualities, giving the name of Morality to this kind +of play. Such, described with utter simplicity and brevity, was the +interesting evolution.</p> + +<p>Aside from all technicalities, and stripped of much of moment to the +specialist, we have in this origin and early development a blend of<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> +amusement and instruction; a religious purpose linked with a frank +recognition of the fact that if you make worship attractive you +strengthen its hold upon mankind—a truth sadly lost sight of by the +later Puritans. The church was wise, indeed, to unite these elements of +life, to seize upon the psychology of the show and to use it for the +purpose of saving souls. It was not until the sixteenth century and the +immediate predecessors of Shakespeare that the play, under the influence +of renaissance culture and the inevitable secularization of the theater +in antagonism to the Puritan view of amusement, waxed worldly, and +little by little lost the ear-marks of its holy birth and upbringing.</p> + +<p>The day when the priests, still the actors of the play, walked down the +nave and issued from the great western door of the cathedral, to +continue the dramatic representations under the open sky, was truly a +memorable one in dramatic history. The first instinct was not that of +secularization, but rather the desire for freer opportunity to enact the +sacred stories;<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> a larger stage, more scope for dramatic action. Yet, +although for generations the play remained religious in subject-matter +and intent, it was inevitable that in time it should come to realize +that its function was to body forth human life, unbounded by Bible +themes: all that can happen to human beings on earth and between heaven +and hell and beyond them, being fit material for treatment, since all +the world's a stage, and flesh and blood of more vital interest to +humanity at large than aught else. The rapid humanization of the +religious material can be easily traced in the coarse satire and broad +humor introduced into the Bible narratives: a free and easy handling of +sacred scene and character natural to a more naïve time and by no means +implying irreverence. Thus, in the Noah story, Mrs. Noah becomes a stout +shrew whose unwillingness to come in out of the wet and bestow herself +in dry quarters in the Ark must have been hugely enjoyed by the +fifteenth century populace. And the Vice of the morality play +degenerates into the clown of the performance, while<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> even the Devil +himself is made a cause for laughter.</p> + +<p>Another significant step in the advance of the drama was made when the +crafts took over the representations; for it democratized the show, +without cheapening it or losing sight of its instructional nature. When +the booths, or pageants as they were called, drew up at the crossing of +the ways and performed their part in some story of didactic purport and +broadly human, hearty, English atmosphere, with an outdoor flavor and +decorative features of masque and pageantry, the spectators saw the +prototype of the historic pageants which just now are coming again into +favor. The drama of the future was shaping in a matrix which was the +best possible to assure a long life, under popular, natural conditions. +These conditions were to be modified and distorted by other, later +additions from the cultural influence of the past and under the +domination of literary traditions; but here was the original mold.</p> + +<p>The method of presentation, too, had its sure<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> effect upon the theater +which was to follow this popular folk beginning. The movable van, set +upon wheels, with its space beneath where behind a curtain the actors +changed their costumes, suggests in form and upfitting the first +primitive stages of the playhouses erected in the second half of the +sixteenth century. Since but one episode or act of the play was to be +given, there was no need of a change of scene, and the stage could be +simple accordingly. Contemporary cuts show us the limited dimensions, +the shallow depth and the bareness of accessories typical of this +earliest of the housings of the drama, for such it might fairly be +called. Obviously, on such a stage, the manner and method of portrayal +are strictly defined: done out of doors, before a shifting multitude of +all classes, with no close cohesion or unity, since another part of the +story was told in another spot, the play, to get across—not the +footlights, for there were none—but the intervening space which +separated actors and audience, must be conveyed in broad simple outline +and in graphic episodes, the very<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> attributes which to-day, despite all +subtleties and finesse, can be relied upon to bring response from the +spectators in a theater. It must have been a great event when, in some +quiet English town upon a day significant in church annals, the players' +booths began their cycle, and the motley crowd gathered to hear the +Bible narratives familiar to each and all, even as the Greek myths which +are the stock material of the Greek drama were known to the vast +concourse in the hillside theater of that day. In effect the circus had +come to town, and we may be sure every urchin knew it and could be found +open-mouthed in the front row of spectators. No possibility here of +subtlety and less of psychologic morbidity. The beat of the announcing +drum, the eager murmur of the multitude, the gay costumes and colorful +booth, all ministered to the natural delight of the populace in show and +story. The fun relieved the serious matter, and the serious matter made +the fun acceptable. With no shift of scenery, the broadest liberty, not +to say license, in the particulars of time and place were<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> practiced; +the classic unities were for a later and more sophisticate drama. There +was no curtain and therefore no entr'act to interrupt the two hours' +traffic of the stage; the play was continuous in a sense other than the +modern.</p> + +<p>As a result of these early conditions, the English play was to show +through its history a fluidity, a plastic adaptation of material to end, +in sharp contrast with other nations, the French, for one, whose first +drama was enacted in a tennis court of fixed location, deep perspective +and static scenery.</p> + +<p>On the holy days which, as the etymology shows, were also holidays from +the point of view of the crowd, drama was vigorously purveyed which made +the primitive appeals of pathos, melodrama, farce and comedy. The actors +became secular, but for long they must have been inspired with a sense +of moral obligation in their work; a beautiful survival of which is to +be seen at Oberammergau to-day. And the play itself remained religious +in content and intention for generations after it had walked out of the +church door. The church<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> took alarm at last, aware that an instrument of +mighty potency had been taken out of its hands. It is not surprising to +find various popes passing edicts against this new and growingly +influential form of public entertainment. It seemed to be on the way to +become a rival. This may well have had its effect in the rapid taking +over of the drama by the guilds, as later it was adopted by still more +worldly organizations.</p> + +<p>It was not from the people that the change to complete secularization of +subject-matter and treatment came; but from higher cultural sources: +from the schools and universities, touched by renaissance influences; as +where Bishop Still produced <i>Gammer Gurton's Needle</i> for school use, the +first English comedy; or from court folk, as when Lord Buckhurst with +his associate, Sackville, wrote the frigid <i>Gorbudoc</i> based on the +Senecan model and honorable historically because it is the first English +tragedy. The play of Plautian derivation, <i>Ralph Roister Doister</i>, our +first comedy of intrigue, is another example of cultural<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> influences +which came in to modify the main stream of development from the folk +plays.</p> + +<p>This was in the sixteenth century, but for over two centuries the +genuine English play had been forming itself in the religious nursery, +as we saw. Now these other exotic and literary influences began to blend +with the native, and the story of the drama becomes therefore more +complex. The school and the court, classic literature and that of +mediæval Europe, which represented the humanism it begot, fast qualified +the product. But the straightest, most natural issue from the naïve +morality and miracle genre is the robustious melodrama illustrated by +such plays as Kyd's <i>Spanish Tragedy</i> and Marlowe's <i>Edward II</i>; which +in turn lead directly on to Shakespeare's <i>Titus Andronicus</i>, <i>Hamlet</i> +and chronicle history drama like <i>Richard III</i>; and on the side of +farce, <i>Gammer Gurton's Needle</i>, so broadly English in its fun, is in +the line of descent. And in proportion as the popular elements of +rhetoric, show and moralizing were retained,<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> was the appeal to the +general audience made, and the drama genuinely English.</p> + +<p>Up to 1576 we are concerned with the history of the drama and there is +no public theater in the sense of a building erected for theatrical +performances. After the strolling players with their booths, plays were +given in scholastic halls, in schools and in private residences; while +the more democratic and direct descendant of the pageants is to be seen +in the inn yards where the stable end of the courtyard, inclosed on +three sides by its parallelogram of galleries, is the rudimentary plan +for the Elizabethan playhouse, when it comes, toward the end of the +sixteenth century. But with the year 1576 and the erection in Shoreditch +of the first Theater on English soil—so called, because it had no +rivals and the name was therefore distinctive—the proper history of the +institution begins. It marks a most important forward step in dramatic +progress.</p> + +<p>There is significance in the phrase descriptive of this first building; +it was set up "in the fields," as the words run: which means, beyond<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> +city limits, for the city fathers, increasingly Puritan in feeling, +looked dubiously upon an amusement already so much a favorite with all +classes; it might prove a moral as well as physical plague spot by its +crowding together of a heterogeneous multitude within pent quarters. +Once started, the theater idea met with such hospitable reception that +these houses were rapidly increased, until by the century's end half a +dozen of the curious wooden hexagonal structures could be seen on the +southward bank of the Thames, near the water, central in interest as we +now look back upon them being The Globe, built in 1599 from the material +of the demolished Shoreditch playhouse, and famed forever as +Shakespeare's own house. Here at three o'clock of the afternoon upon a +stage open to the sky and with the common run of spectators standing in +the pit where now lounge the luxuriant occupants of orchestra seats, +while those of the better sort sat on the stage or in the boxes which +flanked the sides of the house and suggested the inn galleries of the +earlier arrangement, were first seen the robust<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> predecessors of +Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Kyd and Peele and Nash; and later, +Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson and the other immortals +whose names are names to conjure with, even to this day. Played in the +daylight, and most crudely lighted, the play was deprived of the +illusion produced by modern artificial light, and the stage, projecting +far down into the audience, made equally impossible the illusion of the +proscenium arch, a picture stage set apart from life and constituting a +world of its own for the representation of the mimic story. There was +small need for make-up on the part of the actors, since the garish light +of day is a sad revealer of grease paint and powder; and the flaring +cressets of oil that did service as footlights must, it would seem, have +made darkness visible, when set beside the modern devices. It is plain +enough that under these conditions a performance of a play in the +particulars of seeing and hearing must have been seriously limited in +effect. To reach the audience must have meant an appeal that was +broadly<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> human, and essentially dramatic. Fine language was +indispensable; and a language drama is exactly what the Elizabethan +theater gives us. Compelling interest of story, skillful mouthing of +splendid poetry, virile situations that contained the blood and thunder +elements always dear to the heart of the groundlings, these the play of +that period had to have to hold the audiences. Impudent breakings in +from the gentles who lounged on the stage and blew tobacco smoke from +their pipes into the faces perchance of Burbage and Shakespeare himself; +vulgar interpolations of some clown while the stage waited the entrance +of a player delayed in the tiring room must have been daily occurrences. +And yet, from such a stage, confined in extent and meager in fittings, +and under such physical limitations of comfort and convenience, were the +glories of the master poet given forth to the world. Our sense of the +wonder of his work is greatly increased when we get a visualized +comprehension of the conditions under which he accomplished it. It is +well to add that one of the most fruitful phases<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> of contemporary +scholarship is that which has thrown so much light upon the structure of +the first English theaters. We now realize as never before the limits of +the scenic representation and the necessary restriction consequent upon +the style of drama given.</p> + +<p>Another interesting and important consideration should also be noted +here; and one too generally overlooked. The groundlings in the pit, +albeit exposed to wind and weather and deprived of the seats which +minister to man's ease and presumably dispose him to a better reception +of the piece, were yet in a position to witness the play as a play +superior to that of the more aristocratic portions of the assemblage. +However charming it may have been for the sprigs of the nobility to +touch elbows with Shakespeare on the boards as he delivered the tender +lines of old Adam in <i>As You Like It</i>, or to exchange a word aside with +Burbage just before he began the immortal soliloquy, "To be or not to +be," it is certain that these gentry were not so advantageously placed +to enjoy the rendition as a whole as were master<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> Butcher or Baker at +the front. And it would seem reasonable to believe that the nature of +the Elizabethan play, so broadly humorous, so richly romantic, so large +and obvious in its values and languaged in a sort of surplusage of +exuberance, is explained by the fact that it was the common herd to whom +in particular the play was addressed in these early playhouses: not the +literature in which it was written so much as the unfolding story and +the tout ensemble which they were in a favorable position to take in. To +the upper-class attendant at the play the unity of the piece must have +been less dominant. And surely this must have tended to shape the play, +to make it a democratic people's product. For it is an axiom that the +dominant element in an audience settles the fate of a play.</p> + +<p>But this new plaything, the theater, was not only the physical +embodiment of the drama, it became a social institution as well. Nor was +it without its evils. The splendors of Elizabethan literature have often +blinded criticism to the more sleazy aspects of the problem. But +investigation<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> has made apparent enough that the Puritan attitude toward +the new institution was not without its excuse. As we have seen, from +the very first a respectable middle class element of society looked +askance at the playhouse, and while this view became exaggerated with +the growth of Puritanism in England, there is nothing to be gained in +idealizing the stage conditions of that time, nor, more broadly, to deny +that the manner of life involved and in some regards the nature of the +appeal at any period carry with them the likelihood of license and of +dissipation. The actor before Shakespeare's day had little social or +legal status; and despite all the leveling up of the profession due to +him and his associates, the "strolling player" had to wait long before +he became the self-respecting and courted individuality of our own day. +Women did not act during the Elizabethan period, nor until the +Restoration; so that one of the present possibilities of corruption was +not present. But on the other hand, the stage was without the +restraining, refining influence of their presence;<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> a coarser tone could +and did prevail as a result. The fact that ladies of breeding wore masks +at the theater and continued to do so into the eighteenth century speaks +volumes for the public opinion of its morals; and the scholar who knows +the wealth of idiomatic foulness in the best plays of Shakespeare, +luckily hidden from the layman in large measure, does not need to be +told of the license and lewdness prevalent at the time. The Puritans are +noted for their repressive attitude toward worldly pleasures and no +doubt part of their antagonism to the playhouse was due to the general +feeling that it is a sin to enjoy oneself, and that any institution +which was thronged by society for avowed purposes of entertainment must +derive from the devil. But documentary evidence exists to show that an +institution which in England made possible the drama of Shakespeare, +Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Ford, Jonson and Dekkar, writings which +we still point to with pride as our chief contribution to the creative +literature of the world, could include abuses so flagrant as to<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> call +forth the stern denunciations of a Cromwell, and later even shock the +decidedly easy standards of a Pepys. The religious element in society +was, at intervals, to break out against the stage from pulpit or through +the pen, in historical iteration of this early attitude; as with Collier +in his famed attack upon its immorality at the close of the seventeenth +century, and numerous more modern diatribes from such clergymen as +Spurgeon and Buckley.</p> + +<p>And in order to understand the peculiar relation of the respectable +classes in America to the theater, it is necessary to realize that those +cherishing this antipathy were our forefathers, the Puritan settlers. +The attitude was inimical, and of course the circumstances were all +against a proper development of the function of the playhouse. Art and +letters upon American soil, forsooth, had to await their day in the +seventeenth and following centuries, when our ancestors had to give +their full strength to more utilitarian matters, or to the grave demands +of the future life. The Anglo-Saxon<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> notion that the theater is evil is +to be traced directly to these historic causes; and transplanted to so +favorable a soil as America, it has produced most unfortunate results in +our dramatic history, the worst of all being the general unenlightened +view respecting the use and usufruct of an institution in its nature +capable of so much good alike to the masses and the classes.<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h4>GROWTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">P</span><b>REPAREDNESS</b> in the appreciation of a modern play presupposes a +knowledge of the origin and early development of English drama, as +briefly sketched in the preceding pages. It also, and more obviously, +involves some acquaintance with the master dramatists who led up to or +flourished in the Elizabethan period, with Shakespeare as the central +figure; it must, too, be cognizant of the gradual deterioration of the +product in the post-Elizabethan time; of the temporary close of the +public theaters under Puritan influence during the Commonwealth; and of +the substitution for the mighty poetry of Shakespeare and his mates of +the corrupt Restoration comedy which was introduced into England with +the return of the second Stuart to the throne in 1660. This brilliant +though brutally indecent<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> comedy of manners, with Congreve, Wycherley, +Etherage, Vanbrugh and Farquhar as chief playwrights, while it +represents in literature the moral nadir of the polite section of +English society, is of decided importance in our dramatic history, +because it reflected the manners and morals of the time, and quite as +much because it is conspicuous for skillful characterization, effective +dialogue and a feeling for scene and situation—all elements in good +dramaturgy.</p> + +<p>This intelligent attempt to know what lies historically behind present +drama will also make itself aware of the falling away early in the +eighteenth century, in favor of the new literary form, the Novel; and +the all too brief flashing forth of another comedy of manners with +Sheridan and Goldsmith, which retained the sparkle, wit and literary +flavor of the Restoration, with a later decency and a wholesomer social +view; to be followed again by a well-nigh complete divorce of literature +and the stage until well past the middle of the nineteenth century, when +began the gradual re<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a>-birth of a drama which once more took on the +quality of letters and made a serious appeal as an esthetic art and a +worthy interpretation of life: what may be called the modern school +initiated by Ibsen.</p> + +<p>All this interesting growth and wonderfully varied accomplishment may be +but lightly touched upon here, for admirable studies of the different +periods and schools by many scholars are at hand and the earnest theater +student may be directed thereto for further reading. The work of +Professor Schelling on Elizabethan drama is thorough and authoritative. +The modern view of Shakespeare and his contribution (referred to in +Chapter III) will be found in Professor Baker's <i>Development of +Shakespeare as a Dramatist</i> and Professor Matthews' <i>Shakespeare as a +Playwright</i>. The general reader will find in The Mermaid Series of plays +good critical treatment of the main Elizabethan and post-Elizabethan +plays, together with the texts, so that a practical acquaintance with +the product may be gained. The series also includes the Restoration<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> +dramas in their best examples. For the Sheridan-Goldsmith plays a +convenient edition is that in the Drama section of the Belles Lettres +series of English Literature, where the representative plays of an +author are printed with enlightening introductions and other critical +apparatus. In becoming familiar with these aids the reader will receive +the necessary hints to a further acquaintance with the more technical +books which study the earlier, more difficult part of dramatic +evolution, and give attention to the complex story of the development of +the theater as an institution.</p> + +<p>A few things stand out for special emphasis here in regard to this +developmental time. Let it be remembered that the story of English drama +in its unfolding should be viewed in twin aspects: the growth of the +play under changing conditions; and the growth of the playhouse which +makes it possible. What has been said already of the physical framework +of the early English theater throws light at once, as we saw, upon the +nature of the play. And in fact, throughout the development,<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> the play +has changed its form in direct relation to the change in the nature of +the stage upon which the play has been presented. The older type is a +stage suitable for the fine-languaged, boldly charactered, steadily +presented play of Shakespeare acted on a jutting platform where the +individual actor inevitably is of more prominence, and so poorly lighted +and scantily provided with scenery that words perforce and robustious +effects of acting were necessitated, instead of the scenic appeals, +subtler histrionism and plastic face and body work of the modern stage +which has shrunk back to become a framed-in picture behind the +proscenium arch. As the reader makes himself familiar with Marlowe, who +led on to Shakespeare, with the comedy and masque of Ben Jonson, with +the romantic and social plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, the lurid tragic +writing of Webster, the softer tragedy of Ford and the rollicking folk +comedy, pastoral poetry or serious social studies of Dekkar and Heywood, +he will come to realize that on the one hand what he supposed to be the +sole touch of<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> Shakespeare in poetic expression was largely a general +gift of the spacious days of Elizabeth, poetry, as it were, being in the +very air men breathed<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>; and yet will recognize that the Stratford man +walked commonly on the heights only now and again touched by the others. +And as he reads further the plays of dramatists like Massinger, +Tourneur, Shirley, and Otway he will find, along with gleams and +glimpses of the grand manner, a steady degeneration from high poetry and +tragic seriousness to rant, bombast, and the pseudo-poetry that is +rhetoric, with the declension of tragedy into melodrama. High poetry +gradually disintegrates, and the way is prepared for the Restoration +comedy.</p> + +<p>In reflecting upon the effect of a closing of the public theaters for +nearly twenty years (1642-1660) the student will appreciate what a body +blow this must have been to the true interests of the stage; and find in +it at least a partial explanation of the rebound to the vigorous<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> +indecencies of Congreve and his associates (Wycherley, Etherage, +Vanbrugh, Farquhar) when the ban was removed; human nature, pushed too +far, ever expressing itself by reactions.</p> + +<p>The ineradicable and undeniable literary virtues of the Restoration +writers and their technical advancement of the play as a form and a +faithful mirror of one phase of English society will reconcile the +investigator to a picture of life in which every man is a rake or +cuckold and every woman a light o' love; a sort of boudoir atmosphere +that has a tainted perfume removing it far from the morning freshness of +the Elizabethans. And consequently he will experience all the more +gratitude in reaching the eighteenth century plays: <i>The School for +Scandal</i>, <i>The Rivals</i>, and <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>, when they came a +generation later. While retaining the polish and the easy carriage of +good society, these dramas got rid of the smut and the smirch, and added +a flavor of hearty English fun and a saner conception of social life; a +drama rooted firmly<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> in the fidelities instead of the unfaithfulnesses +of human character. These eighteenth century plays, like those of the +Restoration—<i>The Plain Dealer</i>, <i>The Way of the World</i>, <i>The Man of +Mode</i>, <i>The Relapse</i>, and <i>The Beaux Stratagem</i>—were still played in +the old-fashioned playhouses, like Drury Lane, or Covent Garden, with +the stage protruding into the auditorium and the classic architecture +ill adapted to acoustics, and the boxes so arranged as to favor +aristocratic occupants rather than in the interests of the play itself. +The frequent change of scene, the five-act division of form, the +prologue and epilogue and the free use of such devices as the soliloquy +and aside remind us of the subsequent advance in technic. These marks of +a by-gone fashion we are glad to overlook or accept, in view of the +essential dramatic values and permanent contribution to letters which +Sheridan and Goldsmith made to English comedy. But at the same time it +is only common sense to felicitate ourselves that these methods of the +past have been outgrown, and better methods substituted. And we shall<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> +never appreciate eighteenth century play-making to the full until we +understand that the authors wrote in protest against a sickly sort of +unnatural sentimentality, mawkish and untrue to life, which had become +fashionable on the English stage in the hands of Foote, Colman and +others. Sheridan brought back common sense and Goldsmith dared to +introduce "low" characters and laughed out of acceptance the +conventional separation of the socially high and humble in English life. +His preface to <i>The Good Natured Man</i> will be found instructive reading +in relation to this service.</p> + +<p>From 1775 to 1860 the English stage, looked back upon from the vantage +point of our time, appears empty, indeed. It did not look so barren, we +may believe, to contemporaries. Shakespeare was doctored to suit a false +taste; so great an actor-manager as Garrick complacently playing in a +version of <i>Lear</i> in which the ruined king does not die and Cordelia +marries Edgar; an incredible prettification and falsification of the +mighty tragedy! Jonson writes for the stage, though the last man who<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> +should have done so. Sheridan Knowles, in the early nineteenth century, +gives us <i>Virginius</i>, which is still occasionally heard, persisting +because of a certain vigor and effectiveness of characterization, though +hopelessly old-fashioned in its rhetoric and its formal obeyance of +outworn conventions, both artistic and intellectual. The same author's +<i>The Honeymoon</i> is also preserved for us through possessing a good part +for the accomplished actress. Later Bulwer, whose feeling for the stage +cannot be denied, in <i>Money</i>, <i>Richelieu</i>, and <i>The Lady of Lyons</i>, +shows how a certain gift for the theatrical, coupled with less critical +standards, will combine to preserve dramas whose defects are now only +too apparent.</p> + +<p>As the nineteenth century advances the fiction of Reade and Dickens is +often fitted to the boards and the fact that the latter was a natural +theater man gave and still gives his product a frequent hearing on the +stage. To meet the beloved characters of this most widely read of all +English fictionists is in itself a pleasure sufficient to command +generous audiences.<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> Boucicault's <i>London Assurance</i> is good stage +material rather than literature. Tom Taylor produced among many stage +pieces a few of distinct merit; his <i>New Men and Old Acres</i> is still +heard, in the hands of experimental amateurs, and reveals sterling +qualities of characterization and structure.</p> + +<p>But the fact remains, hardly modified by the sporadic manifestations, +that the English stage was frankly separating itself from English +literature, and by 1860 the divorce was practically complete. There was +a woful lack of public consideration for its higher interests on the one +hand, and no definite artistic endeavor to produce worthy stage +literature on the other. Authors who wrote for the stage got no +encouragement to print their dramas and so make the literary appeal; +there was among them no esprit de corps, binding them together for a +self-conscious effort to make the theater a place where literature +throve and art maintained its sovereignty. No leading or representative +writers were dramatists first of all. If such wrote plays, they did it +half heartedly,<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> and as an exercise rather than a practical aim. It is +curious to ask ourselves if this falling away of the stage might not +have been checked had Dickens given himself more definitely to dramatic +writing. His bias in that direction is well known. He wrote plays in his +younger days and was throughout his life a fine amateur actor: the +dramatic and often theatric character of his fiction is familiar. It was +his intention as a youth to go on the stage. But he chose the novel and +perhaps in so doing depleted dramatic history.</p> + +<p>Literature and the stage, then, had at the best a mere bowing +acquaintance. Browning, who under right conditions of encouragement +might have trained himself to be a theater poet, was chagrined by his +experience with <i>The Blot on the 'Scutcheon</i> and thereafter wrote closet +plays rather than acting drama. Swinburne, master of music and mage of +imagination, was in no sense a practical dramatist. Shelley's dramas are +also for book reading rather than stage presentation, in spite of the +fact that his <i>Cenci</i> has theater possibilities to make one regret<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> all +the more his lack of stage knowledge and aim. Bailey's <i>Festus</i> is not +an acting play, though it was acted; the sporadic drama, in fact, +between 1850 and 1870, light or serious, was frankly literary in the +academic sense and not adapted to stage needs; or else consisted of book +dramatizations from Reade and Dickens; or simply represented the +journeymen work of prolific authors with little or no claim to literary +pretensions.</p> + +<p>The practical proof of all this can be found in the absence of drama of +the period in book form, except for the acting versions, badly printed +and cheaply bound, which did not make the literary appeal at all. Where +to-day our leading dramatists publish their work as a matter of course, +offering it as they would fiction or any other form of literature, the +reading public of the middle century neither expected nor received plays +as part of their mental pabulum, and an element in the contemporary +letters. The drama had not only ceased to be a recognized section of +current literature, but was also no longer an expression of national<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> +life. The first faint gleam of better things came when T. W. Robertson's +genteel light comedies began to be produced at the Court Theater in +1868. As we read or see <i>Caste</i> or <i>Society</i> to-day they seem somewhat +flimsy material, to speak the truth; and their technic, after the rapid +development of a generation, has a mechanical creak for trained ears. +But we must take them at the psychologic moment of their appearance, and +recognize that they were a very great advance on what had gone before. +They brought contemporary social life upon the stage as did Congreve in +1680, Sheridan in 1765; and they made that life interesting to large +numbers of theater-goers who hitherto had abstained from play acting. +And so <i>Caste</i> and its companion plays, of which it is the best, drew +crowded houses and the stage became once more an amusement to reckon +with in polite circles. The royal box was once more occupied, the +playhouse became fashionable, no longer quite negligible as a form of +art. To be sure, this was a town drama, and for the upper classes, as +was the Restoration<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> Comedy and that of the eighteenth century. It was +not a people's theater, the Theater Robertson, but it had the prime +merit of a more truthful representation of certain phases of the life of +its day. And hence Robertson will always be treated as a figure of some +historical importance in the British drama, though not a great +dramatist.</p> + +<p>In the eighteen eighties another influence began to be felt, that of +Ibsen. The great dramatist from the North was made known to English +readers by the criticism and translations of Gosse and Archer; and +versions of his plays were given, tentatively and occasionally, in +England, as in other lands. Thus readers and audiences alike gradually +came to get a sense of a new force in the theater: an uncompromisingly +truthful, stern portrayal of modern social conditions, the story told +with consummate craftsmanship, and the national note sounding beneath +the apparent pessimism. Here were, it was evident, new material, new +method and a new insistence upon intellectual values in the theater. It +can now be seen plainly enough<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> that Ibsen's influence upon the drama of +the nineteenth century is commensurate in revolutionary results with +that of Shakespeare in the sixteenth. He gave the play a new and +improved formula for play-writing; and he showed that the theater could +be used as an arena for the discussion of vital questions of the day. +Even in France, the one country where dramatic development has been +steadily important for nearly three centuries, his influence has been +considerable; in other European lands, as in England, his genius has +been a pervasive force. Whether he will or no, the typical modern +dramatist is a son of Ibsen, in that he has adopted the Norwegian's +technic and taken the function of playwright more seriously than before.</p> + +<p>Both with regard to intellectual values and technic, then, it is no +exaggeration to speak of the modern drama, although it be an expression +of the spirit of the time in reflecting social evolution, as bearing the +special hallmark of Ibsen's influence. A word follows on the varied and +vital accomplishment of the present period.<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h4>THE MODERN SCHOOL</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">W</span><b>E</b> have noted that Ibsen's plays began to get a hearing in England in +the eighteen nineties. In fact, it was in 1889 that Mr. J. T. Grein had +the temerity to produce at his Independent Theater in London <i>A Doll's +House</i>, and followed it shortly afterward by the more drastic <i>Ghosts</i>. +The influence in arousing an interest in and knowledge of a kind of +drama which entered the arena for the purpose of social challenge and +serious satiric attack was incalculable. Both Jones and Pinero, +honorable pioneers in the making of the new English drama, and still +actively engaged in their profession, had begun to write plays some +years before this date; but it may be believed that the example of +Ibsen, if not originating their impulse, was part of the encouragement +to let their own work reflect more<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> truthfully the social time spirit +and to study modern character types with closer observation, allowing +their stories to be shaped not so much by theatric convention as by +honest psychologic necessity.</p> + +<p>Jones began with melodrama, of which <i>The Silver King</i> (1882), <i>Saints +and Sinners</i> (1884) and <i>The Middle Man</i> (1889) are examples; Pinero +with ingenious farces happily associated with the fortunes of Sir Squire +Bancroft and his wife, <i>The Magistrate</i> (1885) being an excellent +illustration of the type. The dates are significant in showing the +turning of these skillful playwrights to play-making that was more +serious in the handling of life and more artistic in constructive +values; they are practically synchronous with the introduction of Ibsen +into England. Both authors have now long lists of plays to their credit, +with acknowledged masterpieces among them. Pinero's earlier romantic +style may be seen in the enormously successful <i>Sweet Lavender</i>, a style +repeated ten years later in <i>Trelawney of the Wells</i>; his more mature +manner<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> being represented in <i>The Second Mrs. Tanqueray</i>, the best of a +number of plays which center in the woman who is a social rebel, the +dramatist's tone being almost austerely grim in carrying the study to +its logical conclusion. For a time Sir Arthur seemed to be preoccupied +with the soiled dove as dramatic inspiration; but so fine a recent play +as <i>The Thunderbolt</i> shows he can get away from it. Jones' latest and +best work as well has a tendency to the serious satiric showing-up of +the failings of prosperous middle-class English society; this, however, +in the main, kept in abeyance to story interest and constructive skill +in its handling: <i>Mrs. Dane's Defense</i>, <i>The Case of Rebellious Susan</i>, +<i>The Liars</i>, <i>The Rogue's Comedy</i>, <i>The Hypocrites</i>, and <i>Michael and +His Lost Angel</i> stand for admirably able performances in different ways.</p> + +<p>At the time when these two dramatists were beginning to produce work +that was to change the English theater Bernard Shaw, after writing +several pieces of fiction, had begun to give his attention to plays so +advanced in technic<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> and teaching that he was forced to wait more than a +decade to get a wide hearing in the theater. His debt to the Norwegian +has been handsomely acknowledged by the Irish dramatist, wit and +philosopher who was to become the most striking phenomenon of the +English theater: with all the differences, an English Ibsen. A little +later, in the early eighteen nineties, another brilliant Irishman, Oscar +Wilde, wrote a number of social comedies whose playing value to-day +testifies to his gift in telling a stage story, while his epigrammatic +wit and literary polish gave them the literary excellence likely to +perpetuate his name. For the comedy of manners, light, easy, elegant, +keen, and with satiric point in its reflection of society, nothing of +the time surpasses such dramas as <i>Lady Windermere's Fan</i> and <i>A Woman +of No Importance</i>. The author's farce—farce, yet more than farce in +dialogue and characterization—<i>The Importance of Being Earnest</i>, is +also a genuine contribution in its kind. And the strange, somber, +intensely poetic <i>Salome</i> is a remarkable <i>tour de force</i> in an unusual +field.<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a></p> + +<p>The tendency to turn from fiction to the drama as another form of story +telling fast coming into vogue is strikingly set forth and embellished +in the case of Sir James Barrie, who, after many successes in novel and +short story, became a dramatist some twenty years ago and is now one of +the few men of genius writing for the stage. His <i>Peter Pan</i>, <i>The +Little Minister</i>, <i>The Admirable Crichton</i>, and <i>What Every Woman Knows</i> +are four of over a dozen dramas which have given him world fame. +Uniquely, among English writers whose work is of unquestionable literary +quality, he refrains from the publication of plays; a very regrettable +matter to countless who appreciate his rare quality. He is in his droll +way of whimsy a social critic beneath the irresponsible play of a poet's +fancy and an idealist's vision. His keen yet gentle interpretations of +character are solidly based on truth to the everlasting human traits, +and his poetry is all the better for its foundation of sanity and its +salt of wit. One has an impulse to call him the Puck of the English +theater; then feels compelled<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> to add a word which recognizes the loving +wisdom mingling with the pagan charm. Sir James is as unusual in his way +as Shaw in his. Of late he has shown an inclination to write brief, +one-act pieces, thereby adding to our interest in a form of drama +evidently just beginning to come into greater regard.</p> + +<p>For daring originality both of form and content Bernard Shaw is easily +the first living dramatist of England. He is a true son of Ibsen, in +that he insists on thinking in the theater, as well as in the +experimental nature of his technic, which has led him to shape for +himself the drama of character and thesis he has chosen to write. To the +thousands who know his name through newspaper publicity or the vogue of +some piece of his in the playhouse, Shaw is simply a witty Irishman, +dealer in paradox and wielder of a shillelah swung to break the heads of +Philistines for the sheer Celtic love of a row. To the few, however, an +honorable minority now rapidly increasing, he is a deeply earnest, +constructive social student<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> and philosopher, who uses a popular +amusement as a vehicle for the wider dissemination of perfectly serious +views: a socialist, a mystic who believes in the Life Force sweeping man +on (if man but will) to a high destiny, and a lover of fellow man who in +his own words regards his life as belonging to the community and wishes +to serve it, in order that he may be "thoroughly used up" when he comes +to die. He has conquered as a playwright because beneath the sparkling +sally, the startling juxtaposition of character and the apparent +irreverence there hides a genuinely religious nature. Shaw shows himself +an "immoralist" only in the sense that he attacks jejune, vicious +pseudo-morals now existent. For sheer acting values in the particulars +of dialogue, character, scenic effectiveness, feeling for climax and +unity of aim such plays as <i>Candida</i>, <i>Arms and the Man</i>, <i>Captain +Brassbound's Profession</i>, <i>The Devil's Disciple</i>, <i>John Bull's Other +Island</i>, <i>Man and Superman</i>, <i>The Showing Up of Blanco Posnett</i>, and +others yet, are additions to the serious comedy of England likely to be +of lasting luster,<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> so far as contemporary vision can penetrate.</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting developments of recent years has been the +Irish theater movement, in itself part of the general rehabilitation of +the higher imaginative life of that remarkable people. The drama of the +gentle idealist poet Yeats, of the shrewdly observant Lady Gregory and +of the grimly realistic yet richly romantic Synge has carried far beyond +their little country, so that plays like Yeats' <i>The Land of Heart's +Desire</i> and <i>The Hour Glass</i>, Lady Gregory's <i>Spreading the News</i> and +Synge's <i>Riders to the Sea</i> and <i>The Playboy of the Western World</i> are +heard wherever the English language is understood, this stage literature +being aided in its travels by the excellent company of Irish Players +founded to exploit it and giving the world a fine example of the success +that may come from a single-eyed devotion to an ideal: namely, the +presentation for its own sake of the simple typical native life of the +land.</p> + +<p>It should be remembered that while these<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> three leaders are best known, +half a dozen other able Irish dramatists are associated with them, and +doing much to interpret the farmer or city folk: writers like Mayne, +Boyle, McComas, Murray, and Robinson.</p> + +<p>Under the stimulus of Shaw in his reaction against the machine-made +piece and the tiresome reiteration of sex motives, there has sprung up a +younger school which has striven to introduce more varied subject-matter +and a broader view, also greater truth and subtler methods in +play-making. Here belong Granville Barker, with his <i>Voysey Inheritance</i> +(his best piece), noteworthy also as actor-manager and producer; the +novelists, Galsworthy and Bennett; and Masefield, whose <i>Tragedy of Nan</i> +contains imaginative poetry mingled with melodrama; and still later +figures, conspicuous among them the late Stanley Houghton, whose <i>Hindle +Wakes</i> won critical and popular praise; others being McDonald Hastings +with <i>The New Sin</i>; Githa Sowerby, author of the grim, effective play, +<i>Rutherford and Son</i>; Elizabeth Baker, with <i>Chains</i> to her credit;<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> +Wilfred Gibson, who writes brief poignant studies of east London in +verse that in form is daringly realistic; Cosmo Hamilton, who made us +think in his attractive <i>The Blindness of Virtue</i>; and J. O. Francis, +whose Welsh play, <i>Change</i>, was recognized as doing for that country the +same service as the group led by Yeats and Synge has performed for +Ireland.</p> + +<p>A later Synge seems to have arisen in Lord Dunsany, whose dramas in book +form have challenged admiration; and since his early death St. John +Hankin's dramatic work is coming into importance as a masterly +contribution to light comedy, the sort of drama that, after the Wilde +fashion, laughs at folly, satirizes weakness, refrains from taking +sides, and never forgets that the theater should offer amusement.</p> + +<p>Of all these playwrights, rising or risen, who have got a hearing after +the veterans first mentioned, Galsworthy seems most significant for the +profound social earnestness of his thought, the great dignity of his art +and the fact that he rarely fails to respect the stage demand for<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> +objective interest and story appeal. Some of these new dramatists go too +far in rejecting almost scornfully the legitimate theater mood of +amusement and the necessity of a method differing from the more analytic +way of fiction. Mr. Galsworthy, however, though severe to austerity in +his conceptions and nothing if not serious in treatment, certainly puts +upon us something of the compelling grip of the true dramatist in such +plays as <i>The Silver Box</i>, <i>Strife</i> and, strongest of them all and one +of the finest examples of modern tragedy, Justice, where the themes are +so handled as to increase their intrinsic value. This able and +high-aiming novelist, when he turns to another technic, takes the +trouble to acquire it and becomes a stage influence to reckon with. <i>The +Pigeon</i>, the most genial outcome of his dramatic art, is a delightful +play: and <i>The Eldest Son</i>, <i>The Fugitive</i> and <i>The Mob</i>, if none of +them have been stage successes, stand for work of praiseworthy strength.</p> + +<p>On the side of poetry, and coming a little before the Irish drama +attracted general attention,<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> Stephen Phillips proved that a poet could +learn the technic of the theater and satisfy the demands of reader and +play-goer. Saturated with literary traditions, frankly turning to +history, legend, and literature itself for his inspiration, Mr. Phillips +has written a number of acting dramas, all of them possessing stage +value, while remaining real poetry. His best things are <i>Paolo and +Francesca</i> and <i>Herod</i>, the former a play of lovely lyric quality and +genuinely dramatic moments of suspense and climax; the latter a powerful +handling of the Bible motive. Very fine too in its central character is +<i>Nero</i>; and <i>Ulysses</i>, while less suited to the stage, where it seems +spectacle rather than drama, is filled with noble poetry and has a last +act that is a little play in itself. Several of Mr. Phillips' best plays +have been elaborately staged and successfully produced by representative +actor-managers like Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Sir George Alexander.</p> + +<p>Still with poetry in mind, it may be added that Lawrence Binyon has +given evidence of distinct power in dramatic poetry in his <i>Attila</i>,<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> +and the delicate Pierrot play, <i>Prunella</i>, by Messrs. Housman and +Granville Barker is a success in quite another genre.</p> + +<p>Israel Zangwill has turned, like Barrie, Galsworthy and Bennett, from +fiction to the play, and <i>The Children of the Ghetto</i>, <i>Merely Mary +Ann</i>, <i>The Melting Pot</i>, <i>The War God</i> and <i>The Next Religion</i> show +progressively a firmer technic and the use of larger themes. Other +playwrights like Alfred Sutro, Sidney Grundy, W. S. Maugham, Hubert +Davies, and Captain Marshall have a skillful hand, and in the cases of +Maugham and Davies, especially the latter, clever social satire has come +from their pens. Louis R. Parker has shown his range and skill in +successful dramas so widely divergent as <i>Rosemary</i>, <i>Pomander Walk</i> and +<i>Disraeli</i>.</p> + +<p>It may be seen from this category, suggestive rather than complete, that +there is in England ample evidence for the statement that drama is now +being vigorously produced and must be reckoned with as an appreciable +and welcome part of contemporary letters. In the United States, so far, +the showing is<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> slighter and less impressive. Yet it is within the facts +to say that the native play-making has waxed more serious-minded and +skillful (this especially in the last few years) and so has become a +definite adjunct to the general movement toward the reinvestiture of +drama.</p> + +<p>In the prose drama which attempts honestly to reproduce American social +conditions, elder men like Howard and Herne, and later ones like Thomas, +Gillette and Clyde Fitch, have done worthy pioneer work. Among many +younger playwrights who are fast pressing to the front, Eugene Walter, +who in <i>The Easiest Way</i> wrote one of the best realistic plays of the +day, Edward Sheldon, with a dozen interesting dramas to his credit, +notably <i>The Nigger</i> and <i>Romance</i>; and William Vaughan Moody, whose +material in both <i>The Great Divide</i> and <i>The Faith Healer</i> is +healthfully American and truthful, although the handling is romantic and +that of the poet, deserve first mention.</p> + +<p>Women are increasingly prominent in this recent activity and in such +hands as those of Rachel Crothers, Ann Flexner, Marguerite<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> Merrington, +Margaret Mayo and Eleanor Gates our social life is likely to be +exploited in a way to hint at its problems, and truthfully and amusingly +set forth its types.</p> + +<p>Moody, though he wrote his stage plays in prose, was essentially the +poet in viewpoint and imagination. A poet too, despite the fact that +more than half his work is in prose, is Percy Mackaye, the son of a +distinguished earlier playwright and theater reformer, author of <i>Hazel +Kirke</i> and <i>Paul Kauvar</i>. Mr. Mackaye's prose comedy <i>Mater</i>, high +comedy in the best sense, and his satiric burlesque, <i>Anti-Matrimony</i>, +together with the thoughtful drama <i>Tomorrow</i>, which seeks to +incorporate the new conception of eugenics in a vital story of the day, +are good examples of one aspect of his work; and <i>Jeanne d'Arc</i>, <i>Sapho</i> +and <i>Phaon</i>, verse plays, and the romantic spectacle play, <i>A Thousand +Years Ago</i>, illustrate his poetic endeavor. Taking a hint from a short +story by Hawthorne, he has written in <i>The Scarecrow</i> one of the +strongest and noblest serious dramas yet wrought by an American. He has +also<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> done much for the pageant and outdoor masque, as his <i>The +Canterbury Pilgrims</i>, <i>Sanctuary</i> and <i>St. Louis, A Civic Masque</i>, +presented in May of 1914 on an heroic scale in that city, testify. A +poet, whether in lyric or dramatic expression, is Josephine Preston +Peabody. Her lovely reshaping of the familiar legend known best in the +hands of Browning, <i>The Piper</i>, took the prize at the Stratford on Avon +spring Shakespeare festival some years ago, and has been successful +since both in England and America. Her other dramatic writing has not as +yet met so well the stage demands, but is conspicuous for charm and +ideality.</p> + +<p>In the imaginative field of romance, poetry and allegory we may also +place the Americanized Englishman, Charles Rann Kennedy, who has put the +touch of the poet and prophet upon homely modern material. His beautiful +morality play, <i>The Servant in the House</i>, secured his reputation and +later plays from <i>The Winter Feast</i> to <i>The Idol Breaker</i>, inclusive of +several shorter pieces, the one act form being definitely<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> practiced by +this author, have been interesting work, skillful of technic and +surcharged with social sympathy and significance. Edward Knoblauch, the +author of <i>The Faun</i>, of <i>Milestones</i> in collaboration with Mr. Bennett, +and of the fantastic oriental divertissement, <i>Kismet</i>; and Austin +Strong, who wrote <i>The Toymaker of Nuremberg</i>, are among the younger +dramatists from whom much may yet be expected.</p> + +<p>In this enumeration, all too scant to do justice to newer drama in the +United States, especially in the field of realistic satire and humorous +perception of the large-scaled clashes of our social life, it must be +understood that I perforce omit to mention fully two score able and +earnest young workers who are showing a most creditable desire to depict +American conditions and have learned, or are rapidly learning, the use +of their stage tools. The purpose here is to name enough of personal +accomplishment to buttress the claim that a promising school has arisen +on the native soil with aims and methods similar to those abroad.<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a></p> + +<p>And all this work, English or American, shows certain ear-marks to bind +it together and declare it of our day in comparison with the past. What +are these distinctive features?</p> + +<p>On the side of technic, a greater and greater insistence on telling the +story dramatically, with more of truth, to the exclusion of all that is +non-dramatic, although preserved in the conventions of the theater for +perhaps centuries; the elimination of subplot and of subsidiary +characters which were of old deemed necessary for purposes of +exposition; the avoidance of the prologue and such ancient and useful +devices as the aside and the soliloquy; and such simplification of form +that the typical play shall reduce itself most likely to three acts, and +is almost always less than five; a play that often has but one scene +where the action is compressed within the time limits of a few hours, +or, at the most, a day or two. All this is the outcome of the influence +of Ibsen with its subtlety, expository methods and its intenser +psychology. In word, dress, action and scene, too,<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> this modern type of +drama approximates closer to life; and inclines to minimize scenery save +as congruous background, thus implying a distinct rebellion from the +stupidly literal scenic envisagement for which the influence of a +Belasco is responsible. The new technic also has, in its seeking for an +effect of verisimilitude, adopted the naturalistic key of life in its +acting values and has built small theaters better adapted to this +quieter, more penetrating presentation.</p> + +<p>In regard to subject matter, and the author's attitude to his work, a +marked tendency may be seen to emphasize personality in the character +drawing, to make it of central interest (contrasted with plot) and a +bold attempt to present it in the more minute variations of motive and +act rather than in those more obvious reactions to life which have +hitherto characterized stage treatment; and equally noticeable if not +the dominant note of this latter-day drama, has been the social sympathy +expressed in it and making it fairly resonant with kindly human values: +the author's desire to see justice done to<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> the under-dog in the social +struggle; to extend a fraternal hand to the derelicts of the earth, to +understand the poor and strive to help those who are weak or lost; all +the underlings and incompetents and ill-doers of earth find their +explainers and defenders in these writers. This is the note which sounds +in the fraternalism of Kennedy's <i>The Servant in the House</i>, the +arraignment of society in Walter's <i>The Easiest Way</i> and Paterson's +<i>Rebellion</i>, the contrast of the ideals of east and west in Moody's <i>The +Great Divide</i>, and the democratic fellowship of Sheldon's <i>Salvation +Nell</i>. It is the note abroad which gives meaning to Hauptmann's <i>The +Weavers</i>, Galsworthy's <i>Justice</i> and Wedekind's <i>The Awakening of +Spring</i>, different as they are from each other. It stands for a +tolerant, even loving comprehension of the other fellow's case. There is +in it a belief in the age, too, and in modern man; a faith in democracy +and an aspiration to see established on the earth a social condition +which will make democracy a fact, not merely a convenient political +catch-word.<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a></p> + +<p>Some authors, in their obsession with truth on the stage, have too much +neglected the fundamental demands of the theater and so sacrificed the +crisp crescendo treatment of crisis in climax as to indulge in a tame, +undramatic and bafflingly subtle manipulation of the story; a remark +applicable, for example, to a writer like Granville Barker.</p> + +<p>But the growth and gains in both countries, with America modestly +second, are encouraging. In these modern hands the play has been +simplified, deepened, made more truthful, more sympathetic; and is now +being given the expressional form that means literature. The bad, the +cheap, the flimsy are still being produced, of course, in plenty; so has +it always been, so ever will be. But the drama that is worthy, skillful, +refreshing in these different kinds—farce, comedy light, polite, or +satiric; broad comedy or high, melodrama, tragedy, romance and +morality—is now offered, steadily, generously, and it depends upon the +theater-goer who has trained himself to know, to reject and accept +rightly, to appreciate and so<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> make secure the life of all drama that is +worth preservation.</p> + +<p class="top5">This survey of the English theater and the drama which has been produced +in it from the beginning—a survey the brevity of which will not +detract, it may be hoped, from its clearness, may serve to place our +play-goer in a position the better to appreciate the present conditions; +and to give him more respect for a form of literature which he turns to +to-day for intelligent recreation, deeming it a helpfully stimulating +form of art. From this vantage-point, he may now approach a +consideration of the drama as an artistic problem. He will be readier +than before, perhaps, to realize that the playwright, with this history +behind him, is the creature of a long and important development, in a +double sense: in his treatment of life, and in the manner of that +treatment.</p> + +<p>Naturally, the theater-goer will not stop with the English product. The +necessity alone of understanding Ibsen, as the main figure in this +complex modern movement, will lead him to a<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> study of the author of <i>A +Doll's House</i>. And, working from center to circumference, he will with +ever increasing stimulation and delight become familiar with many other +foreign dramatists of national or international importance. He will give +attention to those other Scandinavians, Strindberg, Drachman and +Björnson; to the Russians, Tolstoy, Tchekoff and Gorky; to Frenchmen +like Rostand and Maeterlinck, Becque, Hervieu, Lavedan, Donnay and +Brieux; to the Germans and Austrians, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Wedekind, +Hofmansthal and Schnitzler; to the Italian, D'Annunzio, and the Spanish +Echgeragay,—to mention but a few. It may even be that, once aroused to +the value of the expression of the Present in these representative +writers for the stage, he will wish to trace the dramatic history behind +them in their respective countries, as he has (supposedly) already done +with the dramatists of his own tongue. If he do so, the play-goer will +surely add greatly not only to his general literary culture but to his +power of true appreciation of the play of the moment he may be<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> +witnessing. For all this reading and reflection and comparison will tend +to make him a critic-in-the-seat who settles the fate of plays to-day +because he knows the plays of yesterday and yesteryear.<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4>THE PLAY AS THEME AND PERSONAL VIEW</h4> +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">W</span><b>E</b> may now come directly to a consideration of the play regarded as a +work of art and a piece of life. After all, this is the central aim in +the attempt to become intelligent in our play-going. A play may properly +be thought of as a theme; it has a definite subject, which involves a +personal opinion about life on the author's part; a view of human beings +in their complex interrelations the sum of which make up man's existence +on this globe.</p> + +<p>The play has a story, of course, and that story is so handled as to +constitute a plot: meaning a tangle of circumstances in which the fates +of a handful of human beings are involved, a tangle to which it is the +business of the plot to give meaning and direction. But back of the +story, in any drama that rises to some worth, there is a theme, in a +sense. Thus, the theme<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> of <i>Macbeth</i> is the degenerating effect of sin +upon the natures of the king and his spouse; and the theme of Ibsen's <i>A +Doll's House</i> is the evil results of treating a grown-up woman as if she +were a mere puppet with little or no relation to life's serious +realities.</p> + +<p>The thing that gives dignity and value to any play is to be found just +here: a distinctive theme, which is over and above the interest of +story-plot, sinks into the consciousness of the spectator or reader, and +gives him stimulating thoughts about life and living long after he may +have quite forgotten the fable which made the framework for this +suggestive impulse of the dramatist. Give the statement a practical +test. Plenty of plays suffice well enough perhaps to fill an evening +pleasantly, yet have no theme at all, no idea which one can take with +him from the playhouse and ruminate at leisure. For, although the story +may be skillfully handled and the technic of the piece be satisfying, if +it is not <i>about</i> anything, the rational auditor is vaguely dissatisfied +and finds in the final estimate that all such plays fall below those +that<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> really have a theme. To illustrate: Mr. Augustus Thomas's fine +play, <i>The Witching Hour</i>, has a theme embedded in a good, old-fashioned +melodramatic story; and this is one of the reasons for its great +success. But the same author's <i>Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots</i>, though +executed with practiced skill, has no theme at all and therefore is at +the best an empty, if amusing, trifle, far below the dramatist's full +powers. Frankly, it is a pot boiler. And, similarly, Mr. Thomas's +capital western American drama, <i>Arizona</i>, while primarily and +apparently story for its own sake, takes on an added virtue because it +illustrates, in a story-setting, certain typical and worthy American +traits to be found at the time and under those conditions in the far +west. To have a theme is not to be didactic, neither to argue for a +thesis nor moot a problem. It is simply to have an opinion about life +involved in and rising naturally out of the story, and never, never +lugged in by the heels. The true dramatist does not tell a story because +he has a theme he wishes to impose upon the audience; on the contrary, +he tells his story<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> because he sees life that way, in terms of plot, of +drama, and in its course, and in spite of himself, a certain notion or +view about sublunary things enters into the structure of the whole +creation, and emanates from it like an atmosphere. One of the very best +comedies of modern times is the late Sidney Grundy's <i>A Pair of +Spectacles</i>. It has sound technic, delightful characterization, and a +simple, plausible, coherent and interesting fable. But, beyond this, it +has a theme, a heart-warming one: namely, that one who sees life through +the kindly lenses of the optimist is not only happier, but gets the best +results from his fellow beings; in short, is nearer the truth. And no +one should doubt that this theme goes far toward explaining the +remarkable vogue of this admirable comedy. Without a theme so clear, +agreeable and interpretive, a play equally skillful would never have had +like fortune.</p> + +<p>And this theme in a play, as was hinted, must, to be acceptable, express +the author's personal opinion, honestly, fearlessly put forth. If it be +merely what he ought to think in the<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> premises, what others +conventionally think, what it will, in his opinion, or that of the +producer of the play, pay to think, the drama will not ring true, and +will be likely to fail, even if the technic of a lifetime bolster it up. +It must embody a truth relative to the writer, a fact about life as he +sees it, and nothing else. A theme in a play cannot be abstract truth, +for to tell us of abstract truth is the <i>métier</i> of the philosopher, and +herein lies his difference from the stage story-teller. Relative truth +is the play-maker's aim and the paramount demand upon him is that he be +sincere. He must give a view of life in his story which is an honest +statement of what human beings and human happenings really are in his +experience. If his experience has been so peculiar or unique as to make +his themes absurd and impossible to people in general, then his play +will pretty surely fail. He pays the penalty of his warped, or too +limited or degenerate experience. No matter: show the thing as he sees +it and knows it, that he must; and then take his chances.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> + +<p>And so convincing, so winning is sincerity, that even when the view that +lies at the heart of the theme appears monstrous and out of all belief, +yet it will stand a better chance of acceptance than if the author had +trimmed his sails to every wind of favor that blows.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kennedy wrote an odd drama a few years ago called <i>The Servant in +the House</i>, in which he did a most unconventional thing in the way of +introducing a mystic stranger out of the East into the midst of an +ordinary mundane English household. Anybody examining such a play in +advance, and aware of what sort of drama was typical of our day, might +have been forgiven had he absolutely refused to have faith in such a +work. But the author was one person who did have faith in it; he had a +fine theme: the idea that the Christ ideal, when projected into daily +life—instead of cried up once a week in church—and there acted on, is +efficacious. He had an unshaken belief in this idea. And he conquered, +because he dared to substitute for the conventional and supposed +inevitable demand an apparently unpopular personal<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> conviction. He +found, as men who dare commonly do, that the assumed personal view was +the general view which no one had had the courage before to express.</p> + +<p>In the same way, M. Maeterlinck, another idealist of the day, wrote <i>The +Blue Bird</i>. It is safe to say that those in a position to be wise in +matters dramatic would never have predicted the enormous success of this +simple child play in various countries. But the writer dared to vent his +ideas and feelings with regard to childhood and concerning the spiritual +aspirations of all mankind; in other words, he chose a theme for some +other reason than because it was good, tried theater material; and the +world knows the result. It may be said without hesitation that more +plays fail in the attempt to modify view in favor of the supposed view +of others—the audience, the manager or somebody else—than fail because +the dramatist has sturdily stuck to his point of view and honestly set +down in his story his own private reaction to the wonderful thing called +life; a general possession and yet not one thing, but having as<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> many +sides as there are persons in the world to live it.</p> + +<p>Consider, for example, the number of dramas that, instead of carrying +through the theme consistently to the end, are deflected from their +proper course through the playwright's desire (more often it is an +unwilling concession to others' desire) to furnish that +tradition-condiment, a "pleasant ending." Now everybody normal would +rather have a play end well than not; he who courts misery for its own +sake is a fool. But, if not a fool, he does not wish the pleasantness at +the expense of truth, because then the pleasantness is no longer +pleasant to the educated taste, and so defeats its own end. And it is an +observed fact that some stories, whether fiction or drama, "begin to end +well," as Stevenson expressed it; while others, just as truly, begin to +end ill. Hence, when such themes are manhandled by the cheap, dishonest +wresting of events or characters or both, so as presumably to send the +audience home "happy," we get a wretched malversion of art,—and without +at all attaining<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> the object in view. For even the average, or +garden-variety, of audience is uneasy at the insult offered its +intelligence in such a nefarious transaction. It has been asked to +witness a piece of real life, for, testimony to the contrary +notwithstanding, that is what an audience takes every play to be. Up to +a certain point, this presentation of life is convincing; then, for the +sake of leaving an impression that all is well because two persons are +united who never should be, or because the hero didn't die when he +really did, or because coincidence is piled on coincidence to make a +fairy tale situation at which a fairly intelligent cow would rebel, +presto, a lie has to be told that would not deceive the very children in +the seats. It is pleasant to record truthfully that this miserable and +mistaken demand on the part of the short-sighted purveyors of +commercialized dramatic wares is yielding gradually to the more +enlightened notion that any audience wants a play to be consistent with +itself, and feels that too high a price can be paid even for the good<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> +ending whose false deification has played havoc with true dramatic +interests.</p> + +<p>Another mode of dishonesty, in which the writer of a play fails in +theme, is to be found whenever, instead of sticking to his subject +matter and giving it the unity of his main interest and the wholeness of +effect derived from paying it undivided attention, extraneous matter is +introduced for the sake of temporary alleviation. Not to stick to your +theme is almost as bad at times as to have none. No doubt the temptation +comes to all practical playwrights and is a considerable one. But it +must be resisted if they are to remain self-respecting artists. The late +Clyde Fitch, skilled man of the theater though he was, sinned not seldom +in this respect. He sometimes introduced scenes effective for novelty +and truth of local color, but so little related to the whole that the +trained auditor might well have met him with the famous question asked +by the Greek audiences of their dramatists who strayed from their theme: +"What has this to do with Apollo?" The remark applies to the<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> +drastically powerful scene in his posthumous play <i>The City</i>, where the +theme which was plainly announced in the first act is lost sight of in +the dramatist's desire to use material well adapted to secure a +sensational effect in his climax. It is only fair to say that, had this +drama received the final molding at the author's hands, it might have +been modified to some extent. But there is no question that this was a +tendency with Fitch.</p> + +<p>The late Oscar Wilde had an almost unparalleled gift for witty +epigrammatic dialogue. In his two clever comedies, <i>Lady Windermere's +Fan</i> and <i>A Woman of No Importance</i>, he allowed this gift to run away +with him to such an extent that the opening acts of both pieces contain +many speeches lifted from his notebooks, seemingly, and placed +arbitrarily in the mouths of sundry persons of the play: some of the +speeches could quite as well have been spoken by others. This +constituted a defect which might have seriously militated against the +success of those dramas had they not possessed in full measure brilliant +qualities<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> of genuine constructive play-making. The theme, after all, +was there, once it was started; and so was the deft handling. But +dialogue not motivated by character or necessitated by story is always +an injury, and much drama to-day suffers from this fault. The producer +of the play declares that its tone is too steadily serious and demands +the insertion of some humor to lighten it, and the playwright, poor, +helpless wight, yields, though he knows he is sinning against the Holy +Ghost of his art. Or perhaps the play is too short to fill the required +time and so padding is deemed necessary;<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> or it may be that the +ignorance or short-sightedness of those producing the play will lead +them to confuse the interests of the chief player with that of the piece +itself; and so a departure from theme follows, and unity be sacrificed. +That is what unity means: sticking to theme.<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a></p> + +<p>And unity of story, be sure, waits on unity of theme. This insistence +upon singleness of purpose in a play, clinging to it against all +allurements, does not imply that what is known as a subplot may not be +allowed in a drama. It was common in the past and can still be seen +to-day, though the tendency of modern technic is to abandon it for the +sake of greater emphasis upon the main plot and the resulting tightening +of the texture, avoiding any risk of a splitting of interest. However, a +secondary or subplot in the right hands—as we see it in Shakespeare's +<i>Merchant of Venice</i>, or, for a modern instance, in Pinero's <i>Sweet +Lavender</i>—is legitimate enough. Those who manipulate it with success +will be careful to see that the minor plot shall never appear for a +moment to be major; and that both strands shall be interwoven into an +essential unity of design, which is admirably illustrated in +Shakespeare's comedy just mentioned.</p> + +<p>Have a theme then, let it be quite your own, and stick to it, is a +succinct injunction which every dramatist will do well to heed and the<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> +critic in the seat will do well to demand. Neither one nor the other +should ever forget that the one and only fundamental unity in drama, +past, present and to come, is unity of idea, and the unity of action +which gathers about that idea as surely as iron filings around the +magnetized center. The unities of time and place are conditional upon +the kind of drama aimed at, and the temporal and physical characteristic +of the theater; the Greeks obeyed them for reasons peculiar to the +Greeks, and many lands, beginning with the Romans, have imitated these +so-called laws since. But Shakespeare destroyed them for England, and +to-day, if unity of time and place are to be seen in an Ibsen play, it +simply means that, in the psychological drama he writes, time and place +are naturally restricted. But in the unity of action which means unity +of theme we have a principle which looks to the constitution of the +human mind; for the sake of that ease of attention which helps to hold +interest and produce pleasure, such unity there must be; the mind of man +(when he has one) is made that way.<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a></p> + +<p>There is a special reason why the intelligent play-goer must insist upon +this fundamental unity: because much in our present imaginative +literature is, as to form, in direct conflict with that appeal to a +sustained effect of unity offered by a well-wrought drama. The short +story that is all too brief, the vaudeville turn, the magazine habit of +reading a host of unrelated scamped trifles, all militate against the +habit of concentrated attention; all the more reason why it should be +cultivated.</p> + +<p>Let me return to the thought that the dramatist, in making the theme his +own, may be tempted to present a view of life not only personal but +eccentric and vagarious to the point of insanity.</p> + +<p>His view, to put it bluntly, may represent a crack-brained distortion of +life rather than life as it is experienced by men in general. In such a +case, and obviously, his drama will be ineffective and objectionable, in +the exact degree that it departs from what may be called broadly the +normal and the possible. As I have already asserted, distortion for +distortion, even a crazy<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> handling of theme that is honest is to be +preferred to one consciously a deflection from belief. But the former is +not right because the latter is wrong. Both should be avoided, and will +be if the play-maker be at the same time sincere and healthily +representative in his reaction to life of humanity at large. The really +great plays, and the good plays that have shown a lasting quality, have +sinned in neither of these particulars.</p> + +<p>It is especially of import that our critic-in-the-seat should insist on +this matter of normal appeal, because ours happens to be a day when +personal vagaries, extravagant theories and lawless imaginings are +granted a freedom in literary and other art in general such as an +earlier day hardly conceived of. The abuses under the mighty name of Art +are many and flagrant. All the more need for the knowing spectator in +the theater, or he who reads the play at home, to be prepared for his +function, quick to reprimand alike tame subserviency or the +abnormalities of unrestrained "genius." It is fair to say that absolute +honesty on the dramatist<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>'s part in the conception and presentation of +theme will meet all legitimate criticisms of his work. Within his +limitations, we shall get the best that is in him, if he will only show +us life as he sees it, and have the courage of his convictions, allowing +no son of man to warp his work from that purpose.<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h4>METHOD AND STRUCTURE</h4> +<h4>I</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">S</span><b>O</b> far we have considered the material of the dramatist, his theme and +subject matter, and his attitude toward it. But his method in conceiving +this material and of handling it is of great importance and we may now +examine this a little in detail, to realize the peculiar problem that +confronts him.</p> + +<p>At the beginning let it be understood that the dramatist must see his +subject dramatically. Every stage story should be seen or conceived in a +central moment which is the explanation of the whole play, its reason +for being. Without that moment, the drama could not exist; if the story +were told, the plot unfolded without presenting that scene, the play +would fall flat, nay, there would, strictly speaking, be no play there. +That is why the French (leaders in<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> nomenclature, as in all else +dramatic) call it the <i>scène à faire</i>, the scene that one must do; or, +to adopt the English equivalent offered by Mr. Archer in his interesting +and able manual of stagecraft entitled <i>Playmaking</i>, the obligatory +scene: that is, the scene one is obliged to show. This moment in the +story is a climax, because it is the crowning result of all the +preceding growth of the drama up to a point where the steadily +increasing interest has reached its height and an electric effect of +suspense and excitement results. This suspensive excitement depends upon +the clash of human wills against each other or against circumstances; +events are so tangled that they can be no further involved and something +must happen in the way of cutting the knot; the fates of the persons are +so implicated that their lives must be either saved or destroyed, in +order to break the deadlock. Thus along with the clash goes a crisis +presented in a breathless climactic effect which is the central and +imperative scene of the piece, the backbone of every good play.</p> + +<p>If this obligatory scene be absent, you may<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> at once suspect the +dramatist; whatever his other virtues (fine dialogue, excellent +characterization, or still other merits), it is probable he is not one +genuinely called to tell a story in the manner of drama within stage +limitations.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes said that a play is written backward. The remark has in +mind this fundamental fact of the climax; all that goes before leads up +to it, is preparation for it, and might conceivably be written after the +obligatory scene has been conceived and shaped; all that comes after it +is an attempt to retire gracefully from the great moment, rounding it +out, showing its results, and conducting the spectator back to the +common light of day in such a way as not to be dull, or conventional or +anti-climactic. What follows this inevitable scene is (however +disguised) at bottom a sort of bridge conveying the auditor from the +supreme pleasure of the theater back to the rather humdrum experience of +actual life; it is an experiment in gradation. And the prepared +play-goer will deny the coveted award of <i>well done</i> to any play, albeit +from famous hands<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> and by no means wanting in good qualities, which +nevertheless fails in this prime requisite of good drama: the central, +dynamic scene illuminating all that goes before and follows after, +without which the play, after all, has no right to existence.</p> + +<p>With the coming of the modern psychologic school of which Galsworthy, +Barker and Bennett are exemplars, there is a distinct tendency to +minimize or even to eliminate this obligatory scene; an effort which +should be carefully watched and remonstrated against; since it is the +laying of an axe at the roots of dramatic writing. It may be confessed +that in some instances the results of this violation of a cardinal +principle are so charming as to blind the onlooker perhaps to the +danger; as in the case of <i>Milestones</i> by Messrs. Bennett and Knoblauch, +or <i>The Pigeon</i> by Galsworthy, or Louis Parker's Georgian picture, +<i>Pomander Walk</i>. But this only confuses the issue. Such drama may prove +delightful for other reasons; the thing to bear in mind is that they are +such in spite of the giving up of the peculiar, quintessential<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> merit of +drama in its full sense. Their virtues are non-dramatic virtues, and +they succeed, in so far as success awaits them, in spite of the +violation of a principle, not because of it. They can be, and should be, +heartily enjoyed, so long as this is plainly understood and the two +accomplishments are perceived as separate. For it may be readily granted +that a pleasant and profitable evening at the theater may be spent, +without the very particular appeal which is dramatic coming into the +experience at all. There are more things in the modern theater than +drama; which is well, if we but make the discrimination.</p> + +<p>But for the purposes of intelligent comprehension of what is drama, just +that and naught else, the theater-goer will find it not amiss to hold +fast to the idea that a play without its central scene hereinbefore +described is not a play in the exact definition of that form of art, +albeit ever so enjoyable entertainment. The history of drama in its +failures and successes bears out the statement. And of all nations, +France can be studied most profitably with<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> this in mind, since the +French have always been past masters in the feeling for the essentially +dramatic, and centuries ago developed the skill to produce it. The fact +that we get such a term as the <i>scène à faire</i> from them points to this +truth.</p> + +<p>Accepting the fact, then, that a play sound in conception and +construction has and must have a central scene which acts as a +centripetal force upon the whole drama, unifying and solidifying it, the +next matter to consider is the subdivision of the play into acts and +scenes. Since the whole story is shown before the footlights, scenes and +acts are such divisions as shall best mark off and properly accentuate +the stages of the story, as it is unfolded. Convention has had something +to do with this arrangement and number, as we learn from a glance at the +development of the stage story. The earlier English drama accepted the +five-act division under classic influence, though the greatest dramatist +of the past, Shakespeare, did so only half-heartedly, as may be realized +by looking at the first complete edition of his plays, the First<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> Folio +of 1621. <i>Hamlet</i>, for instance, as there printed, gives the first two +acts, and thereafter is innocent of any act division; and <i>Romeo and +Juliet</i> has no such division at all. But with later editors, the classic +tradition became more and more a convention and the student with the +modernized text in hand has no reason to suspect the original facts. An +old-fashioned work like Freitag's <i>Technique of the Drama</i> assumes this +form as final and endeavors to study dramatic construction on that +assumption.</p> + +<p>The scenes, too, were many in the Elizabethan period, for the reason +that there was no scene shifting in the modern sense; as many scenes +might therefore be imagined as were desirable during the continuous +performance. It has remained for modern technic to discover that there +was nothing irrevocable about this fivefold division of acts; and that, +in the attempt at a general simplification of play structure, we can do +better by a reduction of them to three or four. Hence, five acts have +shrunk to four or three; so that to-day the form preferred<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> by the best +dramatic artists, looking to Ibsen for leadership, is the three-act +play, though the nature of the story often makes four desirable. A +careful examination of the best plays within a decade will serve to show +that this is definitely the tendency.</p> + +<p>The three-act play, with its recognition that every art structure should +have a beginning, middle and end—Aristotle's simple but profound +observation on the tragedy of his day—might seem to be that which marks +the ultimate technic of drama; yet it would be pedantic and foolish to +deny that the simplification may proceed further still and two acts +succeed three, or, further still, one act embrace the complete drama, +thus returning to the "scene individable" of the Greeks and Shakespeare. +Certainly, the whole evolution of form points that way.</p> + +<p>But, whatever the final simplification, the play as a whole will present +certain constructive problems; problems which confront the aim ever to +secure, most economically and effectively, the desired dramatic result. +The first<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> of these is the problem of the opening act, which we may now +examine in particular.</p> +<h4>II</h4> + +<p>The first act has a definite aim and difficulties that belong to itself +alone. Broadly speaking, its business is so to open the story as to +leave the audience at the fall of the first curtain with a clear idea of +what it is about; not knowing too much, wishing to know more, and having +well in mind the antecedent conditions which made the story at its +beginning possible. If, at the act's end, too much has been revealed, +the interest projected forward sags; if too little, the audience fails +to get the idea around which the story revolves, and so is not +pleasurably anxious for its continuance. If the antecedent conditions +have not clearly been made manifest, some omitted link may throw +confusion upon all that follows. On the other hand, if too much time has +been expended in setting forth the events that lead up to the story's +start on the stage, with the rise of the curtain, not enough time may be +left, within<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> act limits, to hold the attention and fix interest so it +may sustain the entr'act break and fasten upon the next act.</p> + +<p>Thus it will be seen that a successful opening act is a considerable +test of the dramatist's skill.</p> + +<p>Another drawback complicates the matter. The playwright has at his +disposal in the first act from half to three-quarters of an hour in +which to effect his purpose. But he must lose from five to ten minutes +of this precious time allotment, at the best very short, because, +according to the detestable Anglo-Saxon convention, the audience is not +fairly seated when the play begins, and general attention therefore not +riveted upon the stage action. Under ideal conditions, and they have +never existed in all respects in any time or country, the audience will +be in place at the curtain's rise, alert to catch every word and +movement. As a matter of fact, this practically never occurs; +particularly in America, where the drama has never been taken so +seriously as an art as music; for some time now people have not been<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> +allowed, in a hall devoted to that gentle sister art, to straggle in +during the performance of a composition, or the self-exploitation of a +singer, thereby disturbing the more enlightened hearers who have come on +time, and regard it, very properly, as part of their breeding to do so. +But in the theater, as we all know, the barbarous custom obtains of +admitting late comers, so that for the first few minutes of the +performance a steady insult is thus offered to the play, the players, +and the portion of the audience already in their seats. It may be hoped, +parenthetically, that as our theater gradually becomes civilized this +survival of the manners of bushmen may become purely historic. At +present, however, the practical playwright accepts the existing +conditions, as perforce he must, and writes his play accordingly. And so +the first few minutes of a well-constructed drama, it may be noticed, +are generally devoted to some incident, interesting or amusing in +itself, preferably external so as to catch the eye, but not too vital, +and involving, as a rule, minor characters, without revealing<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> anything +really crucial in the action. The matter presented thus is not so much +important as action that leads up to what is important; and its lack of +importance must not be implied in too barefaced a way, lest attention be +drawn to it. This part of the play marks time, and yet is by way of +preparation for the entrance of the main character or characters.</p> + +<p>Much skill is needed, and has been developed, in regard to the +marshaling of the precedent conditions: to which the word <i>exposition</i> +has been by common consent given. Exposition to-day is by no means what +it was in Shakespeare's; indeed, it has been greatly refined and +improved upon. In the earlier technic this prefatory material was +introduced more frankly and openly in the shape of a prologue; or if the +prologue was not used, at least the information was conveyed directly +and at once to the audience by means of minor characters, stock figures +like the servant or confidante, often employed mainly, or even solely, +for that purpose. This made the device too obvious for modern taste, and +such as<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> to injure the illusion; the play lost its effect of presenting +truthfully a piece of life, just when it was particularly important to +seem such; that is, at the beginning. For with the coming of the subtler +methods culminating in the deft technic of an Ibsen, which aims to draw +ever closer to a real presentation of life on the stage, and so strove +to find methods of depiction which should not obtrude artifice except +when unavoidable, the stage artist has learned to interweave these +antecedent circumstances with the story shown on the stage before the +audience. And the result is that to-day the exposition of an Ibsen, a +Shaw, a Wilde, a Pinero or a Jones is so managed as hardly to be +detected save by the expert in stage mechanics. The intelligent +play-goer will derive pleasure and profit from a study of Ibsen's growth +in this respect; observing, for example, how much more deftly exposition +is hidden in a late work like <i>Hedda Gabler</i> than in a comparatively +early one like <i>Pillars of Society</i>; and, again, how bald and obvious +was this master's technic in this respect when he began in the middle +of<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> the nineteenth century to write his historical plays.</p> + +<p>In general, it is well worth while to watch the handling of the first +act on the part of acknowledged craftsmen with respect to the important +matter of introducing into the framework of a two hours' spectacle all +that has transpired before the picture is exhibited to the spectators.</p> + +<p>One of the definite dangers of the first act is that of giving an +audience a false lead as to character or turn of story. By some bit of +dialogue, or even by an interpolated gesture on the part of an actor who +transcends his rights (a misleading thing, as likely as not to be +charged to the playwright), the auditor is put on a wrong scent, or +there is aroused in him an expectation never to be realized. Thus the +real issue is obscured, and later trouble follows as the true meaning is +divulged. A French critic, commenting on the performance in Paris of a +play by Bernard Shaw, says that its meaning was greatly confused because +two of the characters took the unwarranted liberty of exchanging<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> a +kiss, for which, of course, there was no justification in the stage +business as indicated by the author. All who know Shaw know that he has +very little interest in stage kisses.</p> + +<p>Closely associated with this mistake, and far more disastrous, is such a +treatment of act one as to suggest a theme full of interest and +therefore welcome, which is then not carried through the remainder of +the drama. Fitch's <i>The City</i> has been already referred to with this in +mind. A more recent example may be found in Veiller's popular melodrama, +<i>Within the Law</i>. The extraordinary vogue of this melodrama is +sufficient proof that it possesses some of the main qualities of +skillful theater craft: a strong, interesting fable, vital +characterization, and considerable feeling for stage situation and +climax, with the forthright hand of execution. Nevertheless, it +distinctly fails to keep the promise of the first act, where, at the +fall of the curtain, the audience has become particularly interested in +a sociological problem, only to be asked in the succeeding acts to +forget it in favor of a conventional treatment of<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> stock melodramatic +material, with the usual thieves, detectives pitted against each other, +and gunplay for the central scene of surprise and capture. That such +current plays as <i>The City</i> and <i>Within the Law</i> can get an unusual +hearing, in spite of these defects, suggests the uncritical nature of +American audiences; but quite as truly implies that drama may be very +good, indeed, in most respects while falling short of the caliber we +demand of masterpieces.</p> + +<p>With the opening act, then, so handled as to avoid these pitfalls, the +dramatist is ready to go on with his task. He has sufficiently aroused +the interest of his audience to give it a pleasurable sense of +entertainment ahead, without imparting so much knowledge as to leave too +little for guesswork and lessen the curiosity necessary for one who must +still spend an hour and a half in a place of bad air and too heated +temperature. He has awakened attention and directed it upon a theme and +story, yet left it tantalizingly but not confusingly incomplete. Now he +has before him the problem of unfolding his play and making it center in +the climactic<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> scene which will make or mar the piece. We must observe, +then, how he develops his story in that part of the play intermediate +between the introduction and the crisis; the second act of a three-act +drama or the third if the four-act form be chosen.<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h4>DEVELOPMENT</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span><b>HE</b> story being properly started, it becomes the dramatist's business, +as we saw, so to advance it that it will develop naturally and with such +increase of interest as to tighten the hold upon the audience as the +plot reaches its crucial point, the obligatory scene. This can only be +done by the sternest selection of those elements of story which can be +fitly shown on the stage, or without a loss of interest be inferred +clearly from off-stage occurrences. Since action is of the essence of +drama, all narrative must be shunned that deals with matters which, +being vital to the play and naturally dramatic material, can be +presented directly to the eye and ear. And character must be +economically handled, so that as it is revealed the revelation at the +same time furthers the story, pushing it forward instead<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> of holding it +static while the character is being unfolded. Dialogue should always do +one of these two things and the best dialogue will do both: develop plot +in the very moment that it exhibits the unfolding psychology of the +<i>dramatis personæ</i>. The fact that in the best modern work plot is for +the sake of character rather than the reverse does not violate this +principle; it simply redistributes emphasis. Character without plot may +possibly be attractive in the hands of a Galsworthy or Barker; but the +result is extremely likely to be tame and inconclusive. And, +contrariwise, plot without character, that is, with character that lacks +individuality and meaning and merely offers a peg upon which to hang a +series of happenings, results in primitive drama that, being destitute +of psychology, falls short of the finest and most serious possibilities +of the stage.</p> + +<p>This portion of the play, then, intermediate between introduction and +climax, is very important and tries the dramatist's soul, in a way, +quite as truly as do beginning and end.</p> + +<p>In a three-act play—which we may assume as<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> normal, without forgetting +that four are often necessary to the best telling of the story, and that +five acts are still found convenient under certain circumstances, as in +Rostand's <i>Cyrano de Bergerac</i> and Shaw's <i>Pygmalion</i>—the work of +development falls on the second act, in the main. The climax of action +is likely to be at the end of the act, although plays can be mentioned, +and good ones, where the playwright has seen fit to place his crucial +scene well on into act three. In this matter he is between two dangers +and must steer his course wisely to avoid the rocks of his Scylla and +Charybdis. If his climax come too soon, an effect of anti-climax is +likely to be made, in an act too long when the main stress is over. If, +on the other hand, he put his strongest effect at the end of the piece +or close to it, while the result is admirable in sustaining interest and +saving the best for the last, the close is apt to be too abrupt and +unfinished for the purposes of art; sending the audience out into the +street, dazed after the shock of the obligatory scene.<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a></p> + +<p>Therefore, the skillful playwright inclines to leave sufficient of the +play after the climax to make an agreeable rounding out of the fable, +tie up loose ends and secure an artistic effect of completing the whole +structure without tedium or anti-climax. He thus preserves unity, yet +escapes an impression of loose texture in the concluding part of his +play. It may be seen that this makes the final act a very special +problem in itself, a fact we shall consider in the later treatment.</p> + +<p>And now, with the second-act portion of the play in mind, standing for +growth, increased tension, and an ever-greater interest, a peculiarity +of the play which differentiates it from the fiction-story can be +mentioned. It refers to the nature of the interest and the attitude of +the auditor toward the story.</p> + +<p>In fiction, interest depends largely upon suspense due to the +uncertainty of the happenings; the reader, unaware of the outcome of +events, has a pleasing sense of curiosity and a stimulating desire to +know the end. He reads on, under the prick of this desire. The novelist<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> +keeps him more or less in the dark, and in so doing fans the flame of +interest. What will be the fate of the hero? Will the heroine escape +from the impending doom? Will the two be mated before the Finis is +written? Such are the natural questions in a good novel, in spite of all +our modern overlaying of fiction with subtler psychologic suggestions.</p> + +<p>But the stage story is different. The audience from the start is taken +into the dramatist's confidence; it is allowed to know something that is +not known to the <i>dramatis personæ</i> themselves; or, at least, not known +to certain very important persons of the story, let us say, the hero and +heroine, to give them the simple old-fashioned description. And the +audience, taken in this flattering way into the playwright's secret, +finds its particular pleasure in seeing how the blind puppets up on the +stage act in an ignorance which if shared by the spectators would +qualify, if not destroy, the special kind of excitement they are +enjoying.</p> + +<p>Just why this difference between play and<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> novel exists is a nice +question not so easily answered; that it does exist, nobody who has +thought upon the subject can doubt. Occasionally, it is true, successful +plays are written in apparent violation of this principle. That +eminently skillful and effective piece of theater work, Bernstein's <i>The +Thief</i>, is an example; a large part of the whole first act, if not all +of it, takes place without the spectator suspecting that the young wife, +who is the real thief, is implicated in the crime. Nevertheless, such +dramas are the exception. Broadly speaking, sound dramaturgy makes use +of the principle of knowing coöperation of the audience in the plot, and +always will; if for no other reason, because the direct stage method of +showing a story makes it impracticable to hoodwink those in the +auditorium and also perhaps because the necessary compression of events +in a play would make the suddenness of the discovery on the part of the +audience that they had been fooled unpleasant: an unpleasantness, it may +be surmised, intensified by the additional fact that the fooling has +been done in the presence<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> of others—their fellow theater-goers. The +quickness of the effects possible to the stage and inability of the +playwright to use repetition no doubt also enter in the result. The +novelist can return, explain, dwell upon the causes of the reader's +readjustment to changed characters or surprising turns of circumstance; +the dramatist must go forthright on and make his strokes tell for once +and for all.</p> + +<p>Be this as it may, the theater story, as a rule, by a tradition which in +all probability roots in an instinct and a necessity, invites the +listener to be a sort of eavesdropper, to come into a secret and from +this vantage point watch the perturbations of a group of less-knowing +creatures shown behind the footlights: he not only sees, but oversees. +As an outcome of this trait, results follow which also set the play in +contrast with the other ways of story telling. The playwright should not +deceive his audience either in the manipulation of characters or +occurrences. Pleasurable as this may be in fiction, in the theater it is +disastrous. The audience, disturbed in its superior sense of knowledge,<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> +sitting as it were like the gods apart and asked suddenly, peremptorily, +to reconstruct its suppositions, is baffled and then irritated. This is +one of several reasons why, in the delineation of character on the +stage, it is of very dubious desirability to spring a surprise; making +the seeming hero turn out a villain or the presumptive villain blossom +into a paragon of all the virtues: as Dickens does in <i>Our Mutual +Friend</i>; in that case, to the added zest of the reader. The risk in +subtilizing stage character lies just here. Persons shown so fleetingly +in a few selected moments of their whole lives, after the stage fashion, +must be seen in high relief, if they are to be clearly grasped by the +onlookers. Conceding that in actual life folk in general are an +indeterminate gray rather than stark black and white, it is none the +less necessary to use primary colors, for the most part, in painting +them, in order that they may be realized. Here again we encounter the +limitations of art in depicting life, and its difference therefrom. In a +certain sense, therefore, stage characters must be more primitive, more<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> +elemental, as well as elementary, than the characters in novels, a +thought we shall have occasion to come back to, from another angle, +later on.</p> + +<p>Equally is it true that good technic forbids the false lead: any hint or +suggestion which has the appearance of conducting on to something to +come later in the play, which shall verify and fortify the previous +allusion or implication. Every word spoken is thus, besides its +immediate significance, a preparation for something ahead. It is a +continual temptation to a dramatist with a feeling for character (a gift +most admirable in itself) to do brushwork on some person of his play, +which, while it may illuminate the character as such, may involve +episodic treatment that will entirely mislead an audience into supposing +that the author has far more meaning in the action shown than he +intended. These false leads are of course always the enemies of unity +and to be all the more carefully guarded against in proportion to their +attraction. So attractive, indeed, is this lure into by-paths away from +the main<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> path of progress that it is fairly astonishing to see how +often even veteran playwrights fall in love with some character, +disproportionately handle it, and invent unnecessary tangential +incidents in order to exhibit it. And, rather discouragingly, an +audience forgives episodic treatment and over-emphasis in the enjoyment +of the character, as such; willing to let the drama suffer for the sake +of a welcome detail.</p> + +<p>In developing his story in this intermediate part of it, a more +insidious, all-pervasive lure is to be seen in the change in the very +type of drama intended at first, or clearly promised in act one. The +play may start out to be a comedy of character and then be deflected +into one where character is lost sight of in the interest of plot; or a +play farcical in the conditions given may turn serious on the +dramatist's hands. Or, worse yet, that which is a comedy in feeling and +drift, may in the course of the development become tragic in conclusion. +Or, once more, what begins for tragedy, with its implied seriousness of +interest in character and philosophy of life, may resolve itself, under +the<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> fascination of plot and of histrionic effectivism, into melodrama, +with its undue emphasis upon external sensation and its correlative loss +in depth and artistry.</p> + +<p>All these and still other permutations a play suffers in the sin +committed whenever the real type or genre of a drama, implied at the +start, is violated in the later handling. The history of the stage +offers many illustrations. In a play not far, everything considered, +from being the greatest in the tongue, Shakespeare's <i>Hamlet</i>, it may be +questioned if there be not a departure in the final act from the +emphasis placed upon psychology in the acts that lead up to it. The +character of the melancholy prince is the main thing, the pivot of +interest, up to that point; but in the fifth act the external method of +completing the story, which involves the elimination of so many of the +persons of the play, has somewhat the effect of a change of kind, an +abrupt and incongruous cutting of the Gordian knot. Doubtless, the facts +as to the composite nature of this play viewed in its total history may +have much to do with such an<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> effect, if it be set down here aright.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> +In any case, it is certain that every week during the dramatic season in +New York new plays are to be seen which, by this mingling of genres, +fall short of the symmetry of true art.</p> + +<p>One other requirement in the handling of the play in the section between +introduction and climax: the playwright must not linger too long over +it, nor yet shorten it in his eagerness to reach the scene which is the +crown and culmination of all his labors. Probably the experienced +craftsman is likely to make the second mistake rather than the first, +though both are often to be noted. He fails sometimes to realize the +increase in what I may call reverberatory power which is gained by a +slower approach to the great moment through a series of deft suggestions +of what is to come; appetizing hints and withdrawals, reconnaitres +before the actual engagement, all of it preparatory to the real struggle +that is pending. It is a law of<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> the theater, applying to dialogue, +character and scene, that twice-told is always an advantage. One +distinguished playwright rather cynically declared that you must tell an +audience you are going to do it, are doing it, and have done it. +Examples in every aspect of theater work abound. The catch phrase put in +the mouth of the comic character is only mildly amusing at first; it +gains steadily with repetition until, introduced at just the right +moment, the house rocks with laughter. Often the difference between a +detached witticism, like one of Oscar Wilde's <i>mots</i>, and a bit of +genuine dramatic humor rests in the fact that the fun lies in the +setting: it is a <i>mot de situation</i>, to borrow the French expression, +not a mere <i>mot d'esprit</i>. By appearing to be near a crisis, and then +introducing a barrier from which it is necessary to draw back and +approach once more over the same ground, tension is increased and +tenfold the effect secured when at last the match is laid to the fire.</p> + +<p>Plenty of plays fail of their full effect because the climax is come at +before every ounce<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> of value has been wrung out of preceding events. If +the screen scene in <i>The School for Scandal</i> be studied with this +principle in mind, the student will have as good an object lesson as +English drama can show of skilled leading up to a climax by so many +little steps of carefully calculated effect that the final fall of the +screen remains one of the great moments in the theater, despite the +mundane nature of the theme and the limited appeal to the deeper +qualities of human nature. Within its limitations (and theater art, as +any other, is to be judged by success under accepted conditions) +Sheridan's work in this place and play is a permanent master-stroke of +brilliant technic, as well as one explanation of the persistence of that +delightful eighteenth century comedy.</p> + +<p>But the dramatist, as I have said, may also err in delaying so long in +his preparation and growth, that the audience, being ready for the +climax before it arrives, will be cold when it comes, and so the effect +will hang fire. It is safe to say that in a three-act play, where the +first act has consumed thirty-five to forty minutes,<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> and the climax is +to occur at the fall of the second curtain, it is well if the +intermediate act does not last much above the same length of time. Of +course, the nature of the story and the demands it makes will modify the +statement; but it applies broadly to the observed phenomena. The first +act, for reasons already explained, is apt to be the longest of the +three, as the last act is the shortest, other things being equal. If the +first act, therefore, run fifty minutes, forty to forty-five, or even +thirty-five, would be shapely for act two; which, with twenty to +twenty-five minutes given to the final act, would allot to the entire +play about two hours and ten minutes, which is close to an ideal playing +time for a drama under modern conditions. This time allowance, with the +added fraction of minutes given to the entr'acts thrown in, would, for a +play which began at 8:15, drop the final curtain at about 10:30.</p> + +<p>In case the climax, as has been assumed of a three-act play, be placed +at the end of the second act, the third act will obviously be shorter. +Should, however, the growth be projected into<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> the third act, and the +climax be sprung at a point within this act—beyond the middle, let us +say—then the final act is lengthened and act two shortened in +proportion. The principle is that, with the main interest over, it is +hard to hold the auditor's attention; whereas if the best card is still +up the sleeve we may assume willingness to prolong the game.</p> + +<p>With the shift of climax from an earlier to a later place in the piece, +the technic of the handling is changed only according to these +commonsense demands. A knowledge of the psychology of human beings +brought together for the purpose of entertainment will go far toward +settling the question. And whether the playwright place his culminating +effect in act two or three, or whether for good and sufficient reasons +of story complication the three acts become four or even five, the +principles set forth in the above pages apply with only such +modifications as are made necessary by the change.</p> + +<p>The theater-goer, seeking to pass an intelligent opinion upon a drama as +a whole, will<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> during this period of growth ask of the playwright that +he keep the auditor's interest and increase it symmetrically; that he +show the plot unfolding in action, instead of talking about it; that he +do not reach the eagerly expected conflagration too soon, nor delay it +too long; and that he make more and more apparent the meaning of the +characters in their relations to each other and to the plot. If the +spectator be confused, baffled, irritated or bored, or any or all of +these, he has a legitimate complaint against the dramatist. And be it +noted that while the majority of a theater audience may not with +self-conscious analysis know why they are dissatisfied, under these +conditions, the dissatisfaction is there, just the same, and thus do +they become critics, though they know it not, even as M. Jourdain talked +prose all his days without being aware of it.<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h4>CLIMAX</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">W</span><b>ITH</b> the play properly introduced in act one, and the development +carried forward upon that firm foundation in the following act or acts, +the playwright approaches that part of his play which will, more than +anything else, settle the fate of his work. As we have noted, if he have +no such scene, he will not have a play at all. If on arrival it fail to +seem indispensable and to be of dynamic quality, the play will be +broken-winged, at best. The proof that he is a genuine playwright by +rightful calling and not a literary person, producing books for closet +reading, lies just here. The moment has come when, with his complication +brought to the point where it must be solved, and all that has gone +before waiting upon that solution, he must produce an effect with one +skillful right-arm stroke which shall<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> make the spectators a unit in the +feeling that the evening has been well spent and his drama is true to +the best tradition of the stage.</p> + +<p>The stress has steadily increased to a degree at which it must be +relieved. The strain is at the breaking point. The clash of characters +or of circumstances operating upon characters is such that a crisis is +at hand. By some ingenious interplay of word, action and scene, by an +emotional crescendo crystallizing in a stage picture, by some unexpected +reversion of incident or of human psychology (known in stage technic as +peripety) or by an unforeseen accident in the fall of events, an +electric change is exhibited, with the emotions of the <i>dramatis +personæ</i> at white heat and the consequent enthraldom of the audience. Of +all the varied pleasures of the playhouse, this moment, scene, turn of +story, is that which appeals to the largest number and has made the +theater most distinctive. This is not to say that a profound revelation +of character, or a pungent reflection on life, made concrete in a +situation, may not be a finer thing to do. It is merely to recognize<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> a +certain unique thing the stage can do in story telling, as against other +forms, and to confess its universal attraction. While there is much in +latter day play-making that seems to deaden the thrill of the obligatory +scene, a clear comprehension of its central importance is basal in +appreciation of the drama. A play may succeed without it, and a +temporary school of psychologues may even pretend to pooh-pooh it as an +outworn mode of cheap theatrics. The influence of Ibsen, and there is +none more potent, has been cited as against the <i>scène à faire</i>, in the +French sense; and it is true that his curtains are less obviously +stressed and appear to aim not so much at the palpably heightened +effects traditional of the development in French hands,—the most +skillful hands in the world. But it remains true that this central and +dominant scene is inherent in the very structure of dramatic writing. To +repeat what was said before, the play that abandons climax may be good +entertainment, but is by so much poorer drama. The best and most +successful dramaturgy of our day therefore will<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> seek to preserve the +obligatory scene, but hide under more subtle technic the ways and means +by which it is secured. The ways of the past became so open in the +attempt to reach the result as to produce in many cases a feeling of +bald artifice. This the later technic will do all in its power to avoid, +while clinging persistently to the principle of climax, a principle of +life just as truly as a principle of art. Physicians speak in a +physiological sense of the grand climacteric of a man's age.</p> + +<p>A test of any play may be found in the readiness with which it lends +itself to a simple threefold statement of its story; the proposition, as +it is called by technicians. This tabloid summary of the essence of the +play is valuable in that it reveals plainly two things: whether there is +a play in hand, and what and where is its obligatory scene. All who wish +to train themselves to be critical rather than captious or silly in +their estimate of drama, cannot be too strongly urged to practice this +exercise of reducing a play to its lowest terms, its essential elements. +It will serve to clarify much that<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> might remain otherwise a muddle. And +one of the sure tests of a good play may be found here; if it is not a +workable drama, either it will not readily reduce to a proposition or +else cannot be stated propositionally at all. Further, a play that is a +real play in substance, and not a hopelessly undramatic piece of writing +arbitrarily cut up into scenes or acts, and expressed in dialogue (like +some of the dramas of the Bengalese Taghore), can be stated clearly and +simply in a brief paragraph. This matter of reduction to a skeleton +which is structurally a <i>sine qua non</i> may be illustrated.</p> + +<p>A proposition, to define it a little more carefully, is a threefold +statement of the essence of a play, so organically related that each +successive part depends upon and issues from the other. It contains a +condition (or situation), an action, and a result. For instance, the +proposition of <i>Macbeth</i> may be expressed as follows:<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a></p> + +<table summary="" +cellspacing="2" +class="lefttable"> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">I.</td> <td>A man, ambitious to be king, abetted +by his wife, gains the throne through +murder.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">II.</td> <td>Remorse visits them both.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">III.</td> <td>What will be the effect upon the +pair?</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Reflection upon this schematic summary will show that the interest of +Shakespeare's great drama is not primarily a story interest; plot is not +the chief thing, but character. The essential crux lies in the painful +spectacle of the moral degeneration of husband and wife, sin working +upon each according to their contrasted natures. Both have too much of +the nobler elements in them not to experience regret and the prick of +conscience. This makes the drama called <i>Macbeth</i> a fine example of +psychologic tragedy in the true sense.</p> + +<p>Or take a well-known modern play, <i>Camille:</i></p> + +<table summary="" +cellspacing="2" +class="lefttable"> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">I.</td> <td>A young man loves and lives with a +member of the demi-monde.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">II.</td><td>His father pleades with +her to give him up, for his own sake.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">III.</td> <td>What will she do?</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>It will be observed that the way the lady of the camellias answers the +question is the revelation of her character; so that the play<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> again, +although its story interest is sufficient, is primarily a character +study, surrounded by Dumas fils with a rich atmosphere of understanding +sympathy and with sentiment that to a later taste becomes +sentimentality.</p> + +<p><i>The School for Scandal</i> might be stated in this way:</p> + +<table summary="" +cellspacing="2" +class="lefttable"> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">I.</td> <td>An old husband brings his gay but +well-meaning wife to town.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">II.</td><td> Her innocent love of fun involves her +in scandal.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">III.</td> <td> Will the two be reconciled, and how?</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Ibsen's <i>A Doll's House</i> may be thus expressed in a proposition:</p> + +<table summary="" +cellspacing="2" +class="lefttable"> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">I.</td> <td>A young wife has been babified by +her husband.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">II.</td><td>Experiences open her eyes to the fact +that she is not educated to be either +wife or mother.</td></tr> +<tr valign="top"><td align="right">III.</td> <td>She leaves her husband until he can +see what a woman should be in the +home: a human being, not a doll.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>These examples will serve to show what is meant by proposition and +indicate more definitely the central purpose of the dramatic author<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> and +the technical demand made upon him. Be assured that under whatever +varied garb of attraction in incident, scene and character, this +underlying stern architectural necessity abides, and a drama's inability +to reduce itself thus to a formula is a confession that in the +structural sense the building is lop-sided and insecure, or, worse, that +there is no structure there at all: nothing, so to put it, but a front +elevation, a mere architect's suggestion.</p> + +<p>As the spectator breathlessly enjoys the climax and watches to see that +unknotting of the knot which gives the French word <i>dénouement</i> +(unknotting) its meaning, he will notice that the intensity of the +climactic effect is not derived alone from action and word; but that +largely effective in the total result is the picture made upon the +stage, in front of the background of setting which in itself has +pictorial quality, by the grouped characters as the curtain falls.</p> + +<p>This effect, conventionally called a <i>situation</i>, is for the eye as well +as for the ear and the brain,—better, the heart. It would be an +unfortunate<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> limitation to our theater culture if we did not comprehend +to the full how large a part of the effect of a good play is due to the +ever-changing series of artistic stage pictures furnished by the +dramatist in collaboration with the actors and the stage manager. This +principle is important throughout a play, but gets its most vivid +illustration in the climax; hence, I enlarge upon it at this point.</p> + +<p>Among the most novel, fruitful and interesting experiments now being +made in the theater here and abroad may be mentioned the attempts to +introduce more subtle and imaginative treatment of the possibilities of +color and form in stage setting than have hitherto obtained. The +reaction influenced by familiarity with the unadorned simplicity of the +Elizabethans, the Gordon Craig symbolism, the frank attempt to +substitute artistic suggestion for the stupid and expensive reproduction +on the stage of what is called "real life," are phases of this movement, +in which Germany and Russia have been prominent. The stage manager and +scene deviser are daily becoming<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> more important factors in the +production of a play; and along with this goes a clearer perception of +the values of grouping and regrouping on the part of the plastic +elements behind the footlights.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> Many a scenic moment, many a climax, +may be materially damaged by a failure to place the characters in such +relative positions as shall visualize the dramatic feeling of the scene +and reveal in terms of picture the dramatist's meaning. After all, the +time-honored convention that the main character, or characters, should, +at the moment when they are dominant in the story, take the center of +the stage, is no empty convention; it is based on logic and geometry. +There is a direct correspondence between the unity of emotion +concentrated in a group of persons and the eye effect which reports that +fact. I have seen so fine a climax as that in Jones's <i>The +Hypocrites</i>—one of the very best<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> in the modern repertory—well nigh +ruined by a stock company, when, owing to the purely arbitrary demand +that the leading man should have the center at a crucial moment, +although in the logic of the action he did not belong there, the two +young lovers who were dramatically central in the scene were shunted off +to the side, and the leading man, whose true position was in the deep +background, delivered his curtain speech close up to the footlights on a +spot mathematically exact in its historic significance. True dramatic +relations were sacrificed to relative salaries, and, as a result, a +scene which naturally receives half a dozen curtain calls, went off with +comparative tameness. It was a striking demonstration of the importance +of picture on the stage as an externalization of dramatic facts.</p> + +<p>If the theater-goer will keep an eye upon this aspect of the drama, he +will add much of interest to the content of his pleasure and do justice +to a very important and easily overlooked phase of technic. It is common +in criticism, often professional, to sneer at the<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> tendency of modern +actors, under the stage manager's guidance, continually to shift +positions while the dialogue is under way; thus producing an +unnecessarily uneasy effect of meaningless action. As a generalization, +it may be said that this is done (though at times no doubt, overdone) on +a principle that is entirely sound: it expresses the desire for a new +picture, a recognition of the law that, in drama, composition to the eye +is as truly a principle as it is in painting. And with that +consideration goes the additional fact that motion implies emotion; than +which there is no surer law in psycho-physics. Abuse of the law, on the +stage, is beyond question possible, and frequently met. But a +redistribution of the positions of actors on the boards, when not +abused, means they have moved under the compulsion of some stress of +feeling and then the movement is an external symbol of an internal state +of mind. The drama must express the things within by things without, in +this way; that is its method. The audience is only properly irritated +when a stage moment which, from the<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> nature of its psychology, calls for +the static, is injured by an unrelated, fussy, bodily activity. Motion +in such a case becomes as foolish as the scene shifting in one of the +highest colored and most phantasmagoric of our dreams. The wise stage +director will not call for a change of picture unless it represents a +psychologic fact.</p> + +<p>Two men converse at a table; one communicates to the other, quietly and +in conversational tone, a fact of alarming nature. The other leaps to +his feet with an exclamation and paces the floor as he talks about it; +nothing is more fitting, because nothing is truer to life. The +repressive style of acting to-day, which might try to express this +situation purely by facial work, goes too far in abandoning the +legitimate tools of the craft. Let me repeat that, despite all the +refining upon older, more violent and crudely expressive methods of +technic, the stage must, from its very nature, indicate the emotions of +human beings by objective, concrete bodily reaction. The Greek word for +drama means <i>doing</i>. To exhibit feeling is to do something.<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a></p> + +<p>Or let us take a more composite group: that which is seen in a drawing +room, with various knots of people talking together just before dinner +is announced. A shift in the groups, besides effecting the double +purpose of pleasing the eye and allowing certain portions of the +dialogue to come forward and get the ear of the audience, also +incidentally tells the truth: these groups in reality would shift and +change more or less by the law of social convenience. The general +greetings of such an occasion would call for it. In a word, then, the +stage is, among other things, a plastic representation of life, forever +making an appeal to the eye. The application of this to the climax shows +how vastly important its pictorial side may be.</p> + +<p>The climax that is prolonged is always in danger. Lead up to it slowly +and surely, secure the effect, and then get away from it instantly by +lowering the curtain. Do not fumble with it, or succumb to the +insinuating temptation of clinging to what is so effective. The +dramatist here is like a fond father loath to say<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> <i>farewell</i> to his +favorite child. But say the parting word he must, if he would have his +offspring prosper and not, like many a father ere this, keep the child +with him to its detriment. A second too much, and the whole thing will +he imperiled. At the <i>dénouement</i>, every syllable must be weighed, nor +found wanting; every extraneous word ruthlessly cut out, the feats of +fine language so welcome in other forms of literary composition shunned +as an arch enemy. Colloquialism, instead of literary speech, even bad +grammar where more formal book-speech seems to dampen the fire, must be +instinctively sought. And whenever the action itself, backed by the +scenery, can convey what is aimed at, silence is best of all; for then, +if ever, silence is indeed golden. All this the spectator will quietly +note, sitting in his seat of judgment, ready to show his pleasure or +displeasure, according to what is done.</p> + +<p>A difficulty that blocks the path of every dramatist in proportion as +its removal improves his piece, is that of graduating his earlier +curtains so that the climax (third act or fourth,<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> as it may) is +obviously the outstanding, over-powering effect of the whole play. The +curtain of the first act will do well to possess at least some slight +heightening of the interest maintained progressively from the opening of +the drama; an added crispness perceptible to all who look and listen. +And the crisis of the second act must be differentiated from that of the +first in that it has a tenser emotional value, while yet it is +distinctly below that of the climax, if the obligatory scene is to come +later. Sad indeed the result if any curtain effect in appeal and power +usurp the royal place of the climactic scene! And this skillful +gradation of effects upon a rising scale of interest, while always aimed +at, is by no means always secured. This may happen because the +dramatist, with much good material in his hands, has believed he could +use it prodigally, and been led to overlook the principle of relative +values in his art. A third act climax may secure a tremendous sensation +by the device of keeping the earlier effects leading up to it +comparatively low-keyed and quiet. The tempest may<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> be, in the abstract, +only one in a teapot; but a tempest in effect it is, all the same.</p> + +<p>Ibsen's plays often illustrate and justify this statement, as do the +plays of the younger British school, Barker, Baker, McDonald, Houghton, +Hankin. And the reverse is equally true: a really fine climax may be +made pale and ineffective by too much of sensational material introduced +earlier in the play.</p> + +<p>The climax of the drama is also the best place to illustrate the fact +that the stage appeal is primarily emotional. If this central scene be +not of emotional value, it is safe to say that the play is doomed; or +will at the most have a languishing life in special performances and be +cherished by the élite. The stage story, we have seen, comes to the +auditor warm and vibrant in terms of feeling. The idea which should be +there, as we saw, must come by way of the heart, whence, as George +Meredith declares, all great thoughts come. Herein lies another +privilege and pitfall of the dramatist. Privilege, because teaching by +emotion will always be most popular; yet a pitfall, because it<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> sets up +a temptation to play upon the unthinking emotions which, once aroused, +sweep conviction along to a goal perhaps specious and undesirable. To +say that the theater is a place for the exercise of the emotions, is not +to say or mean that it is well for it to be a place for the display and +influence of the unregulated emotions. Legitimate drama takes an idea of +the brain, or an inspiration of the imaginative faculties, and conveys +it by the ruddy road of the feelings to the stirred heart of the +audience; it should be, and is in its finest examples, the happy union +of the head and heart, so blended as best to conserve the purpose of +entertainment and popular instruction; popular, for the reason that it +is emotional, concrete, vital; and instructive, because it sinks deeper +in and stays longer (being more keenly felt) than any mere exercise of +the intellect in the world.</p> + +<p>The student, whether at home with the book of the play in hand or in his +seat at the theater, will scrutinize the skilled effects of climax, +seeking principles and understanding more<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> clearly his pleasure therein. +In reading Shakespeare, for example, he will see that the obligatory +scene of <i>The Merchant of Venice</i> is the trial scene and the exact +moment when the height is reached and the fall away from it begins, that +where Portia tells the Jew to take his pound of flesh without the +letting of blood. In modern drama, he will think of the scene in +Sudemann's powerful drama, <i>Magda</i>, in which Magda's past is revealed to +her fine old father as the climax of the action; and in Pinero's +strongest piece, <i>The Second Mrs. Tanqueray</i>, will put his finger on the +scene of the return of Paula's lover as the crucial thing to show. And +so with the scene of the cross-examination of the woman in Jones's <i>Mrs. +Dane's Defense</i>, and the scene in Lord Darlington's rooms in Wilde's +<i>Lady Windermere's Fan</i>, and the final scene in Shaw's <i>Candida</i>, where +the playwright throws forward the <i>scène à faire</i> to the end, and makes +his heroine choose between husband and lover. These, and many like them, +will furnish ample food for reflection and prove helpful in clarifying +the<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> mind in the essentials of this most important of all the phenomena +of play-building.</p> + +<p>It is with the climax, as with everything else in art or in life: +honesty of purpose is at the bottom of the success that is admirable. +Mere effectivism is to be avoided, because it is insincere. In its place +must be effectiveness, which is at once sincere and dramatic.</p> + +<p>The climax, let it be now assumed, has been successfully brought off. +The curtain falls on the familiar and pleasant buzz of conversation +which is the sign infallible that the dramatist's dearest ambition has +been attained. Could we but listen to the many detached bits of talk +that fly about the house, or are heard in the lobby, we might hazard a +shrewd guess at the success of the piece. If the talk be favorable, and +the immediate reception of the obligatory scene has been hearty, it +would appear as if the playwright's troubles were over. But hardly so. +Even with his climax a success, he is not quite out of the woods. A +task, difficult and hedged in with the possibilities of mistake, awaits +him; for the last act is just<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> ahead, and it may diminish, even nullify +the favorable impression he has just won by his manipulation of the +<i>scène à faire</i>. And so, girding himself for the last battle, he enters +the arena, where many a good man before him has unexpectedly fallen +before the enemy.<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h4>ENDING THE PLAY</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span><b>O</b> one who is watchful in his theater seat, it must have become evident +that many plays, which in the main give pleasure and seem successful, +have something wrong with the last act. The play-goer may feel this, +although he never has analyzed the cause or more than dimly been aware +of the artistic problem involved. An effect of anti-climax is produced +by it, interest flags or utterly disappears; the final act seems to lag +superfluous on the stage, like Johnson's player.</p> + +<p>Several reasons combine to make this no uncommon experience. One may +have emerged from the discussion of the climax. It is the hard fortune +of the last act to follow the great scene and to suffer by contrast; +even if the last part of the play be all that such an act<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> should be, +there is in the nature of the case a likelihood that the auditor, +reacting from his excitement, may find this concluding section of the +drama stale, flat and unprofitable. To overcome this disadvantage, to +make the last act palatable without giving it so much attraction as to +detract from the <i>scène à faire</i> and throw the latter out of its due +position in the center of interest, offers the playwright a very +definite labor and taxes his ingenuity to the utmost. The proof of this +is that so many dramas, up to the final act complete successes and +excellent examples of sound technic, go to pieces here. I am of the +opinion that in no one particular of construction do plays with matter +in them and some right of existence come to grief more frequently than +in this successful handling of the act which closes the drama. It may +even be doubted if the inexperienced dramatist has so much trouble with +his climax as with this final problem. If he had no <i>scène à faire</i> he +would hardly have written a play at all. But this tricky ultimate +portion of the drama, seemingly so minor, may prove<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> that which will +trip him in the full flush of his victory with the obligatory scene.</p> + +<p>At first blush, it would seem as if, with the big scene over, little +remained to be done with the play, so far as story is concerned. In a +sense this is true. The important elements are resolved; the main +characters are defined for good or bad; the obstacles which have +combined to make the plot tangle have been removed or proved +insurmountable. The play has, with an increasing sense of struggle, +grown to its height; it must now fall from that height by a plausible +and more gentle descent. If it be a tragedy, the fall spells +catastrophe, and is more abrupt and eye-compelling. If comedy be the +form, then the unknotting means a happy solution of all difficulties. +But in either case, the chief business of this final part of the play +would appear to be the rounding out of the fable, the smoothing off of +corners, and the production of an artistic effect of finish and +finality. If any part of the story be incomplete in plot, it will be in +all probability that which has to do with the subplot, if there<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> be one, +or with the fates of subsidiary characters. If the playwright, wishing +to make his last act of interest, and in order to justify the retention +of the audience in the theater for twenty minutes to half an hour more, +should leave somewhat of the main story to be cleared up in the last +act, he has probably weakened his obligatory scene and made a strategic +mistake. And so his instinct is generally right when he prefers to get +all possible dramatic satisfaction into the <i>scène à faire</i>, even at the +expense of what is to follow.</p> + +<p>A number of things this act can, however, accomplish. It can, with the +chief stress and strain over, exhibit characters in whom the audience +has come to have a warm interest in some further pleasant manifestation +of their personality, thus offering incidental entertainment. The +interest in such stage persons must be very strong to make this a +sufficient reason for prolonging a play. Or, if the drama be tragic in +its nature, some lighter turn of events, or some brighter display of +psychology, may be presented to mitigate pain and soften the awe and<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> +terror inspired by the main theme; as, for instance, Shakespeare +alleviates the deaths of the lovers in Romeo and Juliet by the +reconciliation of the estranged families over their fair young bodies. A +better mood for leaving the playhouse is thus created, without any lying +about life. The Greeks did this by the use of lyric song at the end of +their tragedies; melodrama does it by an often violent wresting of +events to smooth out the trouble, as well as by lessening our interest +in character as such.</p> + +<p>Also, and here is, I believe, its prime function, the last act can show +the logical outflow of the situation already laid down and brought to +its issue in the preceding acts of the drama. Another danger lurks in +this for the technician, as may be shown. It would almost seem that, in +view of the largely supererogatory character of this final act, inasmuch +as the play seems practically over with the <i>scène à faire</i>, it might be +best honestly to end the piece with its most exciting, arresting scene +and cut out the final half hour altogether.</p> + +<p>But there is an artistic reason for keeping<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> it as a feature of good +play-making to the end of the years; I have just referred to it. I mean +the instinctive desire on the part of the dramatic artist and his +coöperative auditors so to handle the cross-section of life which has +been exhibited upon the stage as to make the transition from stage scene +to real life so gradual, so plausible, as to be pleasant to one's sense +of esthetic <i>vraisemblance</i>. To see how true this is, watch the effect +upon yourself made by a play which rings down the last curtain upon a +sensational moment, leaving you dazed and dumb as the lights go up and +the orchestra renders its final banality. Somehow, you feel that this +sudden, violent change from life fictive and imaginative to the life +actual of garish streets, clanging trolleys, tooting motor cars and +theater suppers is jarring and wrong. Art, you whisper to yourself, +should not be so completely at variance with life; the good artist +should find some other better way to dismiss you. The Greeks, as I said, +sensitive to this demand, mitigated the terrible happenings of their +colossal legendary tragedies by closing<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> with lofty lyric choruses. Turn +to the last pages of Sophocles's <i>Œdipus Tyrannus</i>, perhaps the most +drastic of them all, for an example. I should venture to go so far as to +suggest it as possible that in an apparent exception like <i>Othello</i>, +where the drama closes harshly upon the murder of the ewe lamb of a +wife, Shakespeare might have introduced the alleviation of a final +scene, had he ever prepared this play, or his plays in general, after +the modern method of revision and final form, for the Argus-eyed +scrutiny they were to receive in after-time. However, that his instinct +in this matter, in general, led him to seek the artistic consolation +which removes the spectator from too close and unrelieved proximity to +the horrible is beyond cavil. If he do furnish a tragic scene, there +goes with it a passage, a strain of music, an unforgettable phrase, +which, beauty being its own excuse for being, is as balm to the soul +harrowed up by the agony of a protagonist. Horatio, over the body of his +dear friend, speaks words so lovely that they seem the one rubric for +sorrow since. And, still further removing<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> us from the solemn sadness of +the moment, enters Fortinbras, to take over the cares of kingdom and, in +so doing, to remind us that beyond the individual fate of Hamlet lies +the great outer world of which, after all, he is but a small part; and +that the ordered cosmos must go on, though the Ophelias and Hamlets of +the world die. The mere horrible, with this alleviation of beauty, +becomes a very different thing, the terrible; the terrible is the +horrible, plus beauty, and the terrible lifts us to a lofty mood of +searching seriousness that has its pleasure, where the horrible repels +and dispirits. Thus, the sympathetic recipient gets a certain austere +satisfaction, yes, why not call it pleasure, from noble tragedy. But he +asks that the last act pour the oil of peace, of beauty and of +philosophic vision upon the troubled waters of life.</p> + +<p>There is then an artistic justification, if I am right, for the act +following the climax, quite aside from the conventional demand for it as +a time filler, and its convenience too in the way of binding up loose +ends.</p> + +<p>As the function of the great scene is to develop<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> and bring to a head +the principal things of the play, so that of this final act would seem +to be the taking care of the lesser things, to an effect of harmonious +artistry. And whenever a playwright, confronting these difficulties and +dangers, triumphs over them, whenever your comment is to the effect +that, since it all appears to be over, it is hard to see what a last act +can offer to justify it, and yet if that act prove interesting, freshly +invented, unexpectedly worth while, you will, if you care to do your +part in the Triple Alliance made up of actors, playwright and audience, +express a sentiment of gratitude, and admiration as well, for the +theater artist who has manipulated his material to such good result.</p> + +<p>The last act of Thomas's <i>The Witching Hour</i> can be studied with much +profit with this in mind. It is a masterly example of added interest +when the things vital to the story have been taken care of. Another, and +very different, example is Louis Parker's charming play, <i>Rosemary</i>, +where at the climax a middle-aged man parts from the young girl who +loves<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> him and whom he loves, because he does not realize she returns +the feeling, and, moreover, she is engaged to another, and, from the +conventions of age, the match is not desirable. The story is over, +surely, and it is a sad ending; nothing can ever change that, unless the +dramatist tells some awful lies about life. Had he violently twisted the +drama into a "pleasant ending" in the last act he would have given us an +example of an outrageous disturbance of key and ruined his piece. What +does he do, indeed, what can he do? By a bold stroke of the imagination, +he projects the final scene fifty years forward, and shows the man of +forty an old man of ninety. He learns, by the finding of the girl's +diary, that she loved him; and, as the curtain descends, he thanks God +for a beautiful memory. Time has plucked out the sting and left only the +flower-like fragrance. This is a fine illustration of an addendum that +is congruous. It lifts the play to a higher category. I believe it is +true to say that this unusual last act was the work of Mr. Murray +Carson, Mr. Parker's collaborator in the play.<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a></p> + +<p>One more example may be given, for these illustrations will bring out +more clearly a phase of dramatic writing which has not received overmuch +attention in criticism. The recent clever comedy, <i>Years of Discretion</i>, +by the Hattons, conducts the story to a conventional end, when the +middle-aged lovers, who have flirted, danced and motored themselves into +an engagement and marriage, are on the eve of their wedding tour. If the +story be a love story, and it is in essence, it ought to be over. The +staid Boston widow has been metamorphosed by gay New York, her maneuvers +have resulted in the traditional end; she has got her man. What else can +be offered to hold the interest?</p> + +<p>And just here is where the authors have been able, passing beyond the +conventional limits of story, to introduce, in a lightly touched, +pleasing fashion, a bit of philosophy that underlies the drama and gives +it an enjoyable fillip at the close. We see the newly wed pair, facing +that wedding tour at fifty, and secretly longing to give it up and +settle down comfortably<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> at home. They have been playing young during +the New York whirl, why not be natural now and enjoy life in the decade +to which they belong? So, in the charming garden scene they confess, and +agree to grow old gracefully together. It is excellent comedy and sound +psychology; to some, the last act is the best of all. Yet, regarded from +the act preceding, it seemed superfluous.</p> + +<p>Still another trouble confronts the playwright as he comes at grapples +with the final act. He falls under the temptation to make a +conventionally desirable conclusion, the "pleasant ending" already +animadverted against, which is supposed to be the constant petition of +the theater Philistine. Here, it will be observed, the pleasant ending +becomes part of the constructive problem. Shall the playwright carry out +the story in a way to make it harmonious with what has gone before, both +psychologically and in the logic of events? Shall he make the conclusion +congruous with the climax, a properly deduced result from the situation +therein shown? If he do, his play<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> will be a work of art, tonal in a +totality whose respective parts are keyed to this effect. Or shall he, +adopting the tag line familiar to us in fairy tales, "and so they lived +happily ever after," wrest and distort his material in order to give +this supposed-to-be-prayed-for condiment that the grown-up babes in +front are crying for? Every dramatist meets this question face to face +in his last act, unless his plan has been to throw his most dramatic +moment at the play's very end. A large percentage of all dramas weaken +or spoil the effect by this handling of the last part of the play. The +ending either is ineffective because unbelievable; or unnecessary, +because what it shows had better be left to the imagination.</p> + +<p>An attractive and deservedly successful drama by Mr. Zangwill, <i>Merely +Mary Ann</i>, may be cited to illustrate the first mistake. Up to the last +act its handling of the relation of the gentleman lodger and the quaint +little slavey is pitched in the key of truth and has a Dickens-like +sympathy in it which is the main element in its charm. But in the final +scene, where<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> Mary Ann has become a fashionable young woman, meets her +whilom man friend, and a match results, the improbability is such (to +say nothing about the impossibility) as to destroy the previous illusion +of reality; the auditor, if intelligent, feels that he has paid too high +a price for such a union. I am not arguing that the improbable may not +be legitimate on the stage; but only trying to point out that, in this +particular case, the key of the play, established in previous acts, is +the key of probability; and hence the change is a sin against artistic +probity. The key of improbability, as in some excellent farces, <i>Baby +Mine</i>, <i>Seven Days</i>, <i>Seven Keys to Baldpate</i>, and their kind—where it +is basal that we grant certain conditions or happenings not at all +likely in life—is quite another matter and not of necessity +reprehensible in the least. But <i>Merely Mary Ann</i> is too true in its +homely fashion to fob us off with lies at the end; we believed it at +first and so are shocked at its mendacity.</p> + +<p>One of the best melodramas of recent years is Mr. McLellan's <i>Leah +Kleschna</i>. Its psychology,<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a> founded on the assumption that a woman whose +higher nature is appealed to, will respond to the appeal, is as sound as +it is fine and encouraging. She is a criminal who is caught opening a +safe by the French statesman whose house she has entered. His +conversation with her is so effective that she breaks with her fellow +thieves and starts in on another and better life in a foreign country, +where the statesman secures for her honest employment.</p> + +<p>It is in the last act that the playwright gets into trouble, and +illustrates the second possibility just mentioned; unnecessary +information which can readily be filled in by the spectator, without the +addition of a superfluous act to show it. The woman has broken with her +gang, she is saved; arrangement has been made for her to go to Austria +(if my memory locates the land), there to work out her change of heart. +Really, there is nothing else to tell. The essential interest of the +play lay in the reclaiming of Leah; she is reclaimed! Why not dismiss +the audience? But the author, perhaps led astray by the principle of +showing things<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> on the stage, even if the things shown lie beyond the +limits of the story proper, exhibits the girl in her new quarters, aided +and abetted by the scene painter who places behind her a very expensive +background of Nature; and then caps his unnecessary work by bringing the +statesman on a visit to see how his protégée is getting along. +Meanwhile, the knowing spectator murmurs in his seat (let us hope) and +kicks against the pricks of convention.</p> + +<p>These examples indicate some of the problems centering in an act which +for the very reason that it is, or seems, comparatively unimportant, is +all the more likely to trip up a dramatist who, buoyed up by his victory +in a fine and effective scene of climactic force, comes to the final act +in a state of reaction, and forgetful of the fact that pride goeth +before a fall—the fall of the curtain! No wonder that, in order to +dodge all such difficulties, playwrights sometimes project their climax +forward into the last act and so shorten what is left to do thereafter; +or, going further, place it at the play's terminal point. But the +artistic<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> objections to this have been explained. Some treatment of the +falling action after the climax, longer or shorter, is advisable; and +the dramatist must sharpen his wits upon this technical demand and make +it part of the satisfaction of his art to meet it.</p> + +<p>The fundamental business of the last act of a play, let it be repeated, +is to show the general results of a situation presented in the crucial +scene, in so far as those results are pertinent to a satisfactory grasp +of story and idea on the part of the auditor. These results must be in +harmony with the beginning, growth and crisis of the story and must +either be demanded in advance by the audience, or gladly received as +pleasant and helpful, when presented. The citation of such plays as +<i>Rosemary</i> and <i>Years of Discretion</i> raises the interesting question +whether a peculiar function of the final act may not lie in not only +rounding out the story as such, but in bringing home the underlying idea +of the piece to the audience. Surely a rich opportunity, as yet but +little utilized, is here. Yet again danger lurks in the opportunity. +The<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> last act might take on the nature of a philosophic tag, a +preachment not organically related to the preceding parts. This, of +course, would be a sad misuse of the chance to give the drama a wider +application and finer bloom. But if the playwright have the skill and +inventive power to merge the two elements of story and idea in a final +act which adds stimulating material while it brings out clearly the +underlying theme, then he will have performed a kind of double function +of the drama. In the new technic of to-day and to-morrow this may come +to be, more and more, the accepted aim of the resourceful, thoughtful +maker of plays.</p> + +<p>The intelligent auditor in the playhouse with this aspect of technic +before him will be able to assist in his coöperation with worthy plays +by noticing particularly if the closing treatment of the material in +hand seem germane to the subject; if it avoid anti-climax and keep the +key; and if it demonstrates skill in overcoming such obstacles as have +been indicated. Such a play-goer will not slight the final act as of +only technical importance, but will be alertly<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> on the watch to see if +his friend the playwright successfully grapples with the last of the +successive problems which arise during the complex and very difficult +business of telling a stage story with clearness, effectiveness and +charm.<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> + +<h4>THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PLAY</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">W</span><b>E</b> have now surveyed the chief elements involved in the making of a play +and suggested an intelligent attitude on the part of the play-goer +toward them. Primarily the aim has been to broaden and sharpen the +appreciation of a delightful experience; for the sake of personal +culture. But, as was briefly suggested in the chapter on the play as a +cultural possibility, there is another reason why the student and +theater attendant should realize that the drama in its possibilities is +a work of art, and the theater, the place where it is exhibited, can be +a temple of art. This other reason looks to the social significance of +the playhouse as a great, democratic people's amusement where stories +can be heard and seen more effectively, as to influence, than anywhere +else or under any other imaginable conditions. It is<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> a place where the +great lessons of life can be emotionally received and so sink deep into +the consciousness and conscience of folk at large. And so the question +of the theater becomes more than the question of private culture, +important as that is; being, indeed, a matter of social welfare. This +fact is now coming to be recognized in the United States, as it has long +been recognized abroad. We see more plainly than we did that when states +like France and Germany or the cities of such countries grant +subventions to their theaters and make theater directors high officials +of the government they do so not only from the conviction that the +theater stands for culture (a good thing for any country to possess) but +that they feel it to have a direct and vital influence upon the life of +the citizens in general, upon the civilization of the day. They assume +that the playhouse, along with the school, library, newspaper and +church, is one of the five mighty social forces in suggesting ideas to a +nation and creating ideals.</p> + +<p>The intelligent theater-goer to-day, as never<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> before, will therefore +note with interest the change in the notions concerning this popular +amusement that is yet so much more, based upon much that has happened +within our time; the coming back of plays into literary significance and +acceptance, so that leaders in letters everywhere are likely to be +playwrights; the publication of contemporary drama, foreign and +domestic, enabling the theater-goer to study the play he is to see or +has seen; and the recognition of another aim in conducting this +institution than a commercial one looking to private profit: the aim of +maintaining a house of art, nourished by all concerned with the pride in +and love of art which that implies, for the good of the people. The +observer we have in mind and are trying to help a little will be +interested in all such experiments as that of the Little Theaters in +various cities, in the children's theaters in New York and Washington, +in the fast-growing use of the pageant to illuminate local history, in +the attempts to establish municipal stock companies, or competent +repertory companies by enlightened private<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> munificence. And however +successful or unsuccessful the particular ventures may be, he will see +that their significance lies in their meaning a new, thoughtful regard +for an institution which properly conducted can conserve the general +social welfare.</p> + +<p>He will find in the growth within a very few years of an organization +like the Drama League of America a sign of the times in its testimony to +an interest, as wide as the country, and wider, in the development and +maintenance of a sound and worthy drama. And he will be willing as lover +of fellow-man as well as theater lover to do his share in the +movement—it is no hyperbole to call it such—toward socializing the +playhouse, so that it may gradually become an enterprise conducted by +the people and in the interests of the people, born of their life and +cherished by their love. Nor will he be indifferent to the thought that, +thus directed and enjoyed, it may in time come to be one of the proudest +of national assets, as it has been before in more than one land and +period.<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a></p> + +<p>And with the general interests of the people in mind, our open-eyed +observer will be especially quick to approve any experiment toward +bringing the stimulating life of the theater to communities or sections +of the city which hitherto have been deprived of amusement that while +amusing ministers to the mind and emotions of the hearers in a way to +give profit with the pleasure. Catholic in his view, he will just as +warmly welcome a people's theater in South Boston or on the East Side in +New York, or at Hull House in Chicago, as he will a New Theater in upper +New York, or a Fine Arts Theater in Chicago, or a Toy Theater in Boston; +believing that since the playhouse is in essence and by the nature of +its appeal democratic, it must neglect no class of society in its +service. He will prick up his ears and become alert in hearing of the +Minnesota experiment, where a rural play, written by a member of the +agricultural school, was given under university auspices fifty times in +one season, throughout the state. He will rejoice at the action of +Dartmouth College in accepting a $100,000<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a> bequest for the erection and +conductment of a theater in the college community and serving the +interests of both academic and town life. And he will also be glad to +note that the Carnegie Institute of Technology, in Pittsburgh, has +initiated a School of Drama as an organic part of the educational life. +He will see in such things a recognition among educators that the +theater should be related to educational life. And, musing happily upon +such matters, it will come to him again and again that it is rational to +strive for a people's price for a people's entertainment, instead of a +price for the best offerings prohibitive to four-fifths of all +Americans. And in this fact he will see the explanation for the enormous +growth of the moving picture type of amusement, realizing it to be +inevitable under present conditions, because a form of entertainment +popular in price as well as in nature, and hence populously frequented. +And so our theater-goer, who has now so long listened with at least +hypothetic patience to exposition and argument, will be willing, indeed, +will wish, as part of his watchful<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> canniness with respect to the plays +he sees and reads, to judge the playwright, among other things, +according to his interpretation of life; and especially the modern +social life of his own day and country.</p> + +<p>I have already spoken of the need to have an idea in drama; a +centralizing opinion about life or a personal reaction to it—something +quite distinct from the thesis or propaganda which might change a work +of art into a dissertation. Let it now be added that, other things being +equal, a play to-day will represent its time and be vital in proportion +as it deals with life in terms of social interest. To put it another +way, a drama to reflect our age must be aware of the intense and +practically universal tendency to study society as an organism, with the +altruistic purpose of seeing justice prevail. The rich are attacked, the +poor defended; combinations of business are assailed, and criminals +treated as our sick brothers; labor and capital contest on a gigantic +scale, and woman looms up as a central and most agitating problem. All +this and more,<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> arising from the same interest, offers a vast range of +subject-matter to drama and a new spirit in treating it on the stage. +Within the last half century the two great changes that have come in +human life are the growth in the democratic ideal, with all that it +suggests, and the revolutionary conception of what life is under the +domination of scientific knowledge. All art forms, including this of the +theater, have responded to these twin factors of influence. In art it +means sympathy in studying fellow-man and an attempt to tell the truth +about him in all artistic depictions. Therefore, in the drama to-day +likely to make the strongest claim on the attention of the intelligent +play-goers, we shall get the fullest recognition of this spirit and the +frankest use of it as typical of the twentieth century. This is what +gives substance, meaning and bite to the plays of Shaw, Galsworthy, and +Barker, of Houghton, and Francis and Sowerby, of Moody and Kennedy and +Zangwill, at their best. To acknowledge this is not to deny that +enjoyable farce, stirring melodrama and romantic extravaganza<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> are not +welcome; the sort of play which simply furnishes amusement in terms of +good story telling, content to do this and no more. It is, however, to +remind the reader that to be most representative of the day the drama +must do something beyond this; must mirror the time and probe it too; +yes, must, like a wise physician, feel the pulse of man to-day and +diagnose his deepest needs and failings and desires; in a word, must be +a social drama, since that is the keynote of the present. It will be +found that even in the lighter forms of drama which we accept as typical +and satisfactory this social flavor may be detected, giving it body, but +not detracting from its pleasurableness. Miss Crother's <i>Young Wisdom</i> +has the light touch and the framework of farce, yet it deals with a +definite aspect of feminism. Mr. Knoblauch's <i>The Faun</i> is a romantic +fantasia, but is not without its keen social satire. Mr. Sheldon's <i>The +Havoc</i> seems also farcical in its type; nevertheless it is a serious +satiric thrust at certain extreme conceptions of marital relations. And +numerous dramas, melodramatic<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> in form and intention, dealing with the +darker economic and sociological aspects of our life—the overworked +crime play of the day—indefinitely swell the list. And so with many +more plays, pleasant or unpleasant, which, while clinging close to the +notion of good entertainment, do not refrain from social comment or +criticism. The idea that criticism of life in a stage story must of +necessity be heavy, dull and polemic is an irritating one, of which the +Anglo-Saxon is strangely fond. The French, to mention one other nation, +have constantly shown the world that to be intellectually keen and +suggestive it is not necessary to be solemn or opaque; in fact, that one +is sure to be all the more stimulating because of the light touch and +the sense for social adaptability. This view will in time, no doubt, +percolate through the somewhat obstinate layers of the Anglo-Saxon mind.</p> + +<p>From these considerations it may follow that our theater-goer, while +generally receptive and broad-minded in his seat to the particular type +of drama the playwright shall offer, will<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> incline to prefer those plays +which on the whole seem in some one of various possible ways to express +the time; which drama that has survived has always done. He will care +most for the home-made play as against the foreign, if equally well +made, since its problem is more likely to be his own, or one he can +better understand. But he will not turn a cold shoulder to some European +drama by a D'Annunzio, a Sudermann, a Maeterlinck or a Tolstoy, if it be +a great work of art and deal with life in such universal applications +and relations as to make it quite independent of national borders. One +of the socializing and civilizing functions of the theater is thus to +draw the peoples together into a common bond of interest, a unit in that +vast community which signifies the all-embracing experience of being a +human creature. Yet the theater-goer will have but a Laodicean regard +for plays which present divergent national or technically local +conditions of life practically incomprehensible to Americans at large; +some of the Gallic discussions of the French ménage, for instance. +Terence<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> taught us wisely that nothing human should be alien from our +interest; true enough. There is however no good reason why interest +should not grow as the matter in hand comes closer to us in time and +space. And still more vigorously will he protest against any and all of +the wretched attempts to change foreign material for domestic use to be +noted when the American producer (or traducer) feels he must remove from +such a play the atmospheric color which is of its very life, +transferring a rural setting of old England to a similar setting in New +England. Short of the drama of open evil teaching, nothing is worse than +these absurd and abortive makings over of drama from abroad. The result +is neither fish, flesh nor good red herring. They destroy every object +of theater enjoyment and culture, lying about life and losing whatever +grip upon credence they may have originally possessed. Happily, their +day is on the wane. Even theater-goers of the careless kind have little +or no use for them.</p> + +<p>That the stage of our day, a stage upon<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> which it has been possible to +attain success with such dramas as <i>The Blue Bird</i>, <i>The Servant in the +House</i>, <i>The Poor Little Rich Girl</i>, <i>The Witching Hour</i>, <i>Cyrano de +Bergerac</i>, <i>Candida</i>, <i>What Every Woman Knows</i>, <i>The Great Divide</i> and +<i>The Easiest Way</i> (the enumeration is made to imply the greatest +diversity of type) is one of catholic receptivity and some +discriminating patronage, should appear to anyone who has taken the +trouble to follow the discussion up to this point, and whose theater +experience has been fairly large. There is no longer any reason why our +drama-going should not be one of the factors which minister to rational +pleasure, quicken the sense of art and invite us fruitfully to +participate in that free and desirable exchange of ideas which Matthew +Arnold declared to be the true aim of civilization. Let us grant readily +that the stage story which shows within theater restrictions the life of +a land and the outlying life of the world of men has its definite +demarcations; that it may not to advantage perform certain services more +natural, for example to the<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> church, or the school. It must appeal upon +the basis of the bosom interests and passions of mankind and its common +denominator is that of the general emotions. Concede that it should not +debate a philosophical question with the aim of the thinker, nor a legal +question as if the main purpose were to settle a matter of law; nor a +religious question with the purposeful finality of the theologian, or +the didactic eloquence of the pulpit. But it can and should deal with +any question pertinent to men, vital to the broad interests of human +beings, in the spirit of the humanities and with the restraints of its +particular art. It should be suggestive, arousing, not demonstrative or +dogmatic. Its great outstanding advantage lies in its emotional +suggestibility. To perform this service, and it is a mighty one, is to +have an intelligent theater, a self-respecting theater, a theater that +shall purvey rational amusement to the few and the many. And whenever +theater-goers, by majority vote, elect it, it will arrive.</p> + +<p>It was suggested on an earlier page and may now be still more evident +that intelligent<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> theater-going begins long before one goes to the +theater. It depends upon preparation of various kinds; upon a sense of +the theater as a social institution, and of the renewed literary quality +of the drama to-day; upon a knowledge of the specific problems of the +player and playwright, and of the aids to this knowledge furnished by +the best dramatic criticism; upon familiarity too with the printed +drama, past and present, in a fast multiplying library that deals with +the stage and dramatic writing. The last statement may be amplified +here.</p> + +<p>A few years ago, there was hardly a serious publication either in +England or America devoted to the legitimate interests of the stage from +the point of view of the patron of the theater, the critic-in-the-seat +whom we have so steadily had in mind. Such periodicals as existed were +produced rather in the interests of the stage people, actors, producers, +and the like. This has now changed very much for the better. Confining +the survey to this country, the monthly called <i>The Theater</i> has some +value in making the reader aware of current activities.<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> The two +monthlies, <i>The American Playwright</i> and <i>The Dramatist</i>, edited +respectively by William T. Price and Luther B. Anthony, are given to the +technical consideration of contemporary drama in the light of permanent +principles, and are very useful. The quarterly, <i>The Drama</i>, edited and +published under the auspices of The Drama League of America, is a +dignified and earnest attempt to represent the cultural work of all that +has to do with the stage; and a feature of it is the regular appearance +of a complete play not hitherto in print. Another quarterly, <i>Poet +Lore</i>, although not given over exclusively to matters dramatic, has been +honorably conspicuous for many years for its able critical treatment of +the theater and play; and especially for its translations of foreign +dramas, much of the best material from abroad being first given English +form in its columns. At Madison, Wisconsin, <i>The Play Book</i> is a monthly +also edited by theater specialists and often containing illuminating +articles and reviews. And, of course, in the better class periodicals, +monthly<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> and weekly, papers in this field are appearing nowadays with +increasing frequency, a testimonial to the general growth of interest. +Critics of the drama like W. P. Eaton, Clayton Hamilton, Arthur Ruhl, +Norman Hapgood, William Winter, Montrose J. Moses, Channing Pollock, +James O'Donnell Bennett, James S. Metcalf, and James Huneker are to be +read in the daily press, in periodicals, or in collected book form. +Advanced movements abroad are chronicled in <i>The Mask</i>, the publication +founded by Gordon Craig; and in <i>Poetry and Drama</i>. It is reasonable to +believe that, with the renewed appreciation of the theater, the work of +the dramatic critic as such will be felt to be more and more important +and his function will assume its significance in the eyes of the +community. A vigorous dramatic period implies worthy criticism to +self-reveal it and to establish and maintain right standards. Signs are +not wanting that we shall gradually train and make necessary in the +United States a class of critic represented in England by William Archer +and A. B. Walkley. Among<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> the publishers who have led in the movement to +place good drama in permanent form in the hands of readers the firms of +Macmillan, Scribner, Mitchell Kennerley, Henry Holt, John W. Luce, +Harper and Brothers, B. W. Huebsch and Doubleday, Page & Company have +been and are honorably to the fore. In the way of critical books which +study the many aspects of the subject, they are now being printed so +constantly as plainly to testify to the new attitude and interest. The +student of technic can with profit turn to the manuals of William +Archer, Brander Matthews, and William T. Price; the studies of Clayton +Hamilton, W. P. Eaton, Norman Hapgood, Barrett Clark, and others. For +the civic idea applied to the theater, and the development of the +pageant, he will read Percy Mackaye. And when it comes to plays +themselves, as we have seen, hardly a week goes by without the +appearance of some important foreign masterpiece in English, or some +important drama of English speech, often in advance of or coincident +with stage production. The best work of the day is<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> now readily +accessible, where, only a little while ago, book publication of drama +(save the standard things of the past) was next to unknown. It is worth +knowing that The Drama League of America is publishing, with the +coöperation of Doubleday, Page & Company, an attractive series of Drama +League Plays, in which good drama of the day, native and foreign, is +offered the public at a cost which cuts in two the previous expense. And +the Drama League's selective List of essays and books about the theatre, +with which is incorporated a complete list of plays printed in English, +can be procured for a nominal sum and will give the seeker after light a +thorough survey of what is here touched upon in but a few salient +particulars.</p> + +<p>In short, there is no longer much excuse for pleading ignorance on the +ground of inadequate aid, if the desire be to inform oneself upon the +drama and matters pertaining to the theater.</p> + +<p>The fact that our contemporary body of drama is making the literary +appeal by appearing<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> in book form is of special bearing upon the culture +of the theater-goer. Mr. H. A. Jones, the English playwright, has +recently declared that he deemed this the factor above all others which +should breed an enlightened attitude toward the playhouse. In truth, we +can hardly have a self-respecting theater without the publication of the +drama therein to be seen. Printed plays mean a claim to literary +pretensions. Plays become literature only when they are preserved in +print. And, equally important, when the spectator may read the play +before seeing it, or, better yet, having enjoyed the play in the +playhouse, can study it in a book with this advantage, a process of +revaluation and enforcement of effect, he will appreciate a drama in all +its possibilities as in no other way. Detached from mob influence, with +no confusion of play with players, he can attain that quieter, more +comprehensive judgment which, coupled with the instinctive decision in +the theater, combines to make a critic of him in the full sense.</p> + +<p>For these reasons, the well wisher of the<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> theater welcomes as most +helpful and encouraging the now established habit of the prompt printing +of current plays. It is no longer a reproach from the view of literature +to have your play acted; it may even be that soon it will be a reproach +not to have the printed play presented on the boards. The young American +man of letters, like his fellow in France, may feel that a literary +<i>début</i> is not truly made until his drama has been seen and heard, as +well as read. While scholars are raking over the past with a fine-tooth +comb, and publishing special editions of second and third-rate +dramatists of earlier times, it is a good thing that modern plays, whose +only demerit may be their contemporaneity, are receiving like honor, and +that the dramas of Pinero, Jones, Wilde, Shaw, Galsworthy, Synge, Yeats, +Lady Gregory, Zangwill, Dusany, Houghton, Hankin, Hamilton, Sowerby, +Gibson, acted British playwrights; and of Gillette, Thomas, Moody, +Mackaye, Peabody, Walter, Sheldon, Tarkington, Davis, Patterson, +Middleton, and Kennedy, acted American playwrights (two<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> dozen to stand +for two score and more) can be had in print for the asking. It is good +testimony that we are really coming to have a living theater and not a +mere academic kow-towing to by-gone altars whose sacrificial smoke has +dimmed our eyes sometimes to the clear daylight of the Present. +Preparation for the use of the theater looks before and after. At home +and at school the training can be under way; much happy preliminary +reading and reflection introduce it. By making oneself aware of the best +that has been thought and said on the subject; by becoming conversant +with the history, theory and practice of the playhouse, consciously +including this as part of education; and, for good citizenship's sake, +by regarding sound theater entertainment as a need and therefore a right +of the people; in a word, by taking one's play-going with good sense, +trained taste and right feeling, a person finds himself becoming a +broader and better human being. He will be quicker in his sympathies, +more comprehensive in his outlook, and will react more satisfactorily to +life<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a> in general. All this may happen, although in turning to the +theater his primary purpose may be to seek amusement.</p> + +<p>Is it a counsel of perfection to ask for this? Hardly, when so much has +already occurred pointing out the better way. The civilized theater has +begun to come; the prepotent influence of the audience is recognized. +Surely the gain made, and the imperfections that still exist, are +stimulants to that further bettering of conditions whose familiar name +is Progress.</p> + +<p>In all considerations of the theater, it would be a good thing to allow +the unfortunate word "elevate" to drop from the vocabulary. It misleads +and antagonizes. It is better to say that the view presented in this +book is one that wishes to make the playhouse innocently pleasant, +rational, and sound as art. If by "elevate" we mean these things, well +and good. But there is no reason why to elevate the stage should be to +depress the box office—except a lack of understanding between the two. +Uniting in the correct view, the two should rise and fall together. In +fact, touching audience,<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> actors, playwrights, producers, and the +society that is behind them all, intelligent coöperation is the open +sesame. With that for a banner cry, mountains may be moved.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="NOTES" id="NOTES"></a>NOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> A fact humorously yet keenly suggested in Bernard Shaw's +clever piece, <i>The Dark Lady of the Sonnets</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> When our theater has become thoroughly artistic, plays will +not, as at present, be stretched out beyond the natural size, but will +be confined to a shorter playing time and the evening filled out with a +curtain raiser or after piece, as is now so common abroad.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> For a good discussion of this, see "The Genesis of Hamlet," +by Charlton M. Lewis (Houghton, Mifflin & Company).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Gordon Craig's book on <i>The Art of The Theatre</i> may be +consulted for further light upon a movement that is very significant and +likely to be far-reaching in time, in its influence upon future stage +and dramatic conditions.</p></div> + +<p class="c"> +etext transcriber's note:<br /> +<br /> +The following typographical errors have been corrected...<br /> +<br /> +departure from theme follow => departure from theme follows<br /> +it is well if the intermediate act do not => it is well if the intermediate act does not<br /> +dedelivered his curtain speech => delivered his curtain speech<br /> +leigitimate => legitimate<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +</div> + +<hr /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to See a Play, by Richard Burton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO SEE A PLAY *** + +***** This file should be named 32433-h.htm or 32433-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/3/32433/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at the Digital & Multimedia +Center, Michigan State University Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: How to See a Play + +Author: Richard Burton + +Release Date: May 19, 2010 [EBook #32433] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO SEE A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at the Digital & Multimedia +Center, Michigan State University Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +HOW +TO SEE A PLAY + +BY +RICHARD BURTON + +New York +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1914 + + +Now here are twenty criticks ... and yet every one is a critick after +his own way; that is, such a play is best because I like it. A very +familiar argument, methinks, to prove the excellence of a play, and to +which an author would be very unwilling to appeal for his success. + +--_From Farquhar's A Discourse Upon Comedy._ + + +COPYRIGHT, 1914 +BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Set up and Electrotyped. Published November, 1914 +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK--BOSTON--CHICAGO +DALLAS--ATLANTA--SAN FRANCISCO + +MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED +LONDON--BOMBAY--CALCUTTA +MELBOURNE +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. +TORONTO + +* * * + +PREFACE + +Chapter: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI + +NOTES + +* * * + + + + +PREFACE + + +This book is aimed squarely at the theater-goer. It hopes to offer a +concise general treatment upon the use of the theater, so that the +person in the seat may get the most for his money; may choose his +entertainment wisely, avoid that which is not worth while, and +appreciate the values artistic and intellectual of what he is seeing and +hearing. + +This purpose should be borne in mind, in reading the book, for while I +trust the critic and the playwright may find the discussion not without +interest and sane in principle, the desire is primarily to put into the +hands of the many who attend the playhouse a manual that will prove +helpful and, so far as it goes, be an influence toward creating in this +country that body of alert theater auditors without which good drama +will not flourish. The obligation of the theater-goer to insist on sound +plays is one too long overlooked; and just in so far as he does insist +in ever-growing numbers upon drama that has technical skill, literary +quality and interpretive insight into life, will that better theater +come which must be the hope of all who realize the great social and +educative powers of the playhouse. The words of that veteran +actor-manager and playwright of the past, Colley Cibber, are apposite +here: "It is not to the actor therefore, but to the vitiated and low +taste of the spectator, that the corruptions of the stage (of what kind +soever) have been owing. If the publick, by whom they must live, had +spirit enough to discountenance and declare against all the trash and +fopperies they have been so frequently fond of, both the actors and the +authors, to the best of their power, must naturally have served their +daily table with sound and wholesome diet." And again he remarks: "For +as their hearers are, so will actors be; worse or better, as the false +or true taste applauds or discommends them. Hence only can our theaters +improve, or must degenerate." Not for a moment is it implied that this +book, or any book of the kind, can make playwrights. Playwrights as well +as actors are born, not made--at least, in the sense that seeing life +dramatically and having a feeling for situation and climax is a gift and +nothing else. The wise Cibber may be heard also upon this. "To excel in +either art," he declares, "is a self-born happiness, which something +more than good sense must be mother of." But this may be granted, while +it is maintained stoutly that there remains to the dramatist a technic +to be acquired, and that practice therein and reflection upon it makes +perfect. The would-be playwright can learn his trade, even as another, +and must, to succeed. And the spectator (our main point of attack, as +was said), the necessary coadjutor with player and playwright in theater +success, can also become an adept in his part of this cooeperative +result. This book is written to assist him in such cooeperation. + + + + +HOW TO SEE A PLAY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE PLAY, A FORM OF STORY TELLING + + +The play is a form of story telling, among several such forms: the short +story, or tale; the novel; and in verse, the epic and that abbreviated +version of it called the ballad. All of them, each in its own fashion, +is trying to do pretty much the same thing, to tell a story. And by +story, as the word is used in this book, it will be well to say that I +mean such a manipulation of human happenings as to give a sense of unity +and growth to a definite end. A story implies a connection of characters +and events so as to suggest a rounding out and completion, which, looked +back upon, shall satisfy man's desire to discover some meaning and +significance in what is called Life. A child begging at the mother's +knee for "the end of the story," before bedtime, really represents the +race; the instinct behind the request is a sound one. A story, then, has +a beginning, middle and end, and in the right hands is seen to have +proportion, organic cohesion and development. Its parts dovetail, and +what at first appeared to lack direction and connective significance +finally is seen to possess that wholeness which makes it a work of art. +A story, therefore, is not a chance medley of incidents and characters; +but an artistic texture so woven as to quicken our feeling that a +universe which often seems disordered and chance-wise is in reality +ordered and pre-arranged. Art in its story-making does this service for +life, even if life does not do it for us. And herein lies one of the +differences between art and life; art, as it were, going life one better +in this rearrangement of material. + +Of the various ways referred to of telling a story, the play has its +distinctive method and characteristics, to separate it from the others. +The story is told on a stage, through the impersonation of character by +human beings; in word and action, assisted by scenery, the story is +unfolded. The drama (a term used doubly to mean plays in general or some +particular play) is distinguished from the other forms mentioned in +substituting dialogue and direct visualized action for the indirect +narration of fiction. + +A play when printed differs also in certain ways; the persons of the +play are named apart from the text; the speakers are indicated by +writing their names before the speeches; the action is indicated in +parentheses, the name business being given to this supplementary +information, the same term that is used on the stage for all that lies +outside dialogue and scenery. And the whole play, as a rule, is +sub-divided into acts and often, especially in earlier drama, into +scenes, lesser divisions within the acts; these divisions being used for +purposes of better handling of the plot and exigencies of scene +shifting, as well as for agreeable breathing spaces for the audience. +The word scene, it may be added here, is used in English-speaking lands +to indicate a change of scene, whereas in foreign drama it merely refers +to the exit or entrance of a character, so that a different number of +persons is on the stage. + +But there are, of course, deeper, more organic qualities than these +external attributes of a play. The stern limits of time in the +representation of the stage story--little more than two hours, "the two +hours traffic of the stage" mentioned by Shakespeare--necessitates +telling the story with emphasis upon its salient points; only the high +lights of character and event can be advantageously shown within such +limits. Hence the dramatic story, as the adjective has come to show, +indicates a story presenting in a terse and telling fashion only the +most important and exciting things. To be dramatic is thus to be +striking, to produce effects by omission, compression, stress and +crescendo. To be sure, recent modern plays can be named in plenty which +seem to violate this principle; but they do so at their peril, and in +the history of drama nothing is plainer than that the essence of good +play-making lies in the power to seize the significant moments of the +stage story and so present them as to grip the interest and hold it with +increasing tension up to a culminating moment called the climax. + +Certain advantages and certain limitations follow from these +characteristics of a play. For one thing, the drama is able to focus on +the really interesting, exciting, enthralling moments of human doings, +where a novel, for example, which has so much more leisure to accomplish +its purpose to give a picture of life, can afford to take its time and +becomes slower, and often, as a result, comparatively prolix and +indirect. This may not be advisable in a piece of fiction, but it is +often found, and masterpieces both of the past and present illustrate +the possibility; the work of a Richardson, a Henry James, a Bennett. But +for a play this would be simply suicide; for the drama must be more +direct, condensed and rapid. And just in proportion as a novel adopts +the method of the play do we call it dramatic and does it win a general +audience; the story of a Stevenson or a Kipling. + +Again, having in mind the advantages of the play, the stage story is +both heard and seen, and important results issue from this fact. The +play-story is actually seen instead of seen by the eye of the +imagination through the appeal of the printed page; or indirectly again, +if one hears a narrative recited. And this actual seeing on the stage +brings conviction, since "seeing is believing," by the old saw. Scenery, +too, necessitates a certain truthfulness in the reproducing of life by +word and act and scene, because the spectator, who is able to judge it +all by the test of life, will more readily compare the mimic +representation with the actuality than if he were reading the words of a +character in a book, or being told, narrative fashion, of the +character's action. In this way the stage story seems nearer life. + +Moreover, the seeing is fortified by hearing; the spectator is also the +auditor. And here is another test of reality. If the intonation or +accent or tone of voice of the actor is not life-like and in consonance +with the character portrayed, the audience will instantly be quicker to +detect it and to criticize than if the same character were shown in +fiction; seeing, the spectator insists that dress and carriage, and +scenery, which furnishes a congruous background, shall be plausible; and +hearing, the auditor insists upon the speech being true to type. + +The play has an immense superiority also over all printed literature in +that, making its appeal directly through eye and ear, it is not literary +at all; I mean, the story in this form can be understood and enjoyed by +countless who read but little or even cannot read. Literature, in the +conventional sense, may be a closed book to innumerable theater-goers +who nevertheless can witness a drama and react to its exhibition of +life. The word, which in printed letters is so all-important, on the +stage becomes secondary to action and scene, for the story can be, and +sometimes is, enacted in pantomime, without a single word being spoken. +In essence, therefore, a play may be called unliterary, and thus it +makes a wider, more democratic appeal than anything in print can. Yet, +by an interesting paradox, when the words of the play are written by +masters like Calderon, Shakespeare, Moliere or Ibsen, the drama becomes +the chief literary glory of Spain, England, France and Norway. For in +the final reckoning only the language that is fit and fine preserves the +drama of the world in books and classifies it with creative literature. +Thus the play can be all things to all men; at once unliterary in its +appeal, and yet, in the finest examples, an important contribution to +letters. + +A peculiar advantage of the play over the other story-telling forms is +found in the fact that while one reads the printed story, short or long, +the epic or ballad, by oneself in the quiet enjoyment of the library, +one witnesses the drama in company with many other human beings--unless +the play be a dire failure and the house empty. And this association, +though it may remove some of the more refined and aristocratic +experiences of the reader, has a definite effect upon individual +pleasure in the way of enrichment, and even reacts upon the play itself +to shape its nature. A curious sort of sympathy is set up throughout an +audience as it receives the skillful story of the playwright; common or +crowd emotions are aroused, personal variations are submerged in a +general associative feeling and the individual does not so much laugh, +cry and wonder by himself as do these things sympathetically in +conjunction with others. He becomes a simpler, less complex person whose +emotions dominate the analytic processes of the individual brain. He is +a more plastic receptive creature than he would be alone. Any one can +test this for himself by asking if he would have laughed so uproariously +at a certain humorous speech had it been offered him detached from the +time and place. The chances are that, by and in itself, it might not +seem funny at all. And the readiness with which he fell into cordial +conversation with the stranger in the next seat is also a hint as to his +magnetized mood when thus subjected to the potent influence of mob +psychology. For this reason, then, among others, a drama heard and seen +under the usual conditions secures unique effects of response in +contrast with the other sister forms of telling stories. + +A heightening of effect upon auditor and spectator is gained--to mention +one other advantage--by the fact that the story which in a work of +fiction may extend to a length precluding the possibility of its +reception at one sitting, may in the theater be brought within the +compass of an evening, in the time between dinner and bed. This secures +a unity of impression whereby the play is a gainer over the novel. A +great piece of fiction like _David Copperfield_, or _Tom Jones_, or _A +Modern Instance_, or _Alice for Short_ cannot be read in a day, except +as a feat of endurance and under unusual privileges of time to spare. +But a great play--Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ or Ibsen's _A Doll's +House_--can be absorbed in its entirety in less than three hours, and +while the hearer has perhaps not left his seat. Other things being +equal, and whatever the losses, this establishes a superiority for the +play. A coherent section of life, which is what the story should be, +conveyed in the whole by this brevity of execution, so that the +recipient may get a full sense of its organic unity, cannot but be more +impressive than any medium of story telling where this is out of the +question. The merit of the novel, therefore, supreme in its way, is +another merit; "one star differeth from another in glory." It will be +recalled that Poe, with this matter of brevity of time and unity of +impression in mind, declared that there was no such thing as a long +poem; meaning that only the short poem which could be read through at +one sitting could attain to the highest effects. + +But along with these advantages go certain limitations, too, in this +form of story telling; limitations which warn the play not to encroach +upon the domain of fiction, and which have much to do with making the +form what it is. + +From its very nature the novel can be more thorough-going in the +delineation of character. The drama, as we have seen, must, under its +stern restrictions of time, seize upon outstanding traits and assume +that much of the development has taken place before the rise of the +first curtain. The novel shows character in process of development; the +play shows what character, developed to the point of test, will do when +the test comes. Its method, especially in the hands of modern +playwrights like Ibsen and Shaw, is to exhibit a human being acted upon +suddenly by a situation which exposes the hidden springs of action and +is a culmination of a long evolution prior to the plot that falls within +the play proper. In the drama characters must for the most part be +displayed in external acts, since action is of the very essence of a +play; in a novel, slowly and through long stretches of time, not the +acts alone but the thoughts, motives and desires of the character may be +revealed. Obviously, in the drama this cannot be done, in any like +measure, in spite of the fact that some of the late psychologists of the +drama, like Galsworthy, Bennett and others, have tried to introduce a +more careful psychology into their play-making. At the best, only an +approximation to the subtlety and penetration of fiction can be thus +attained. It were wiser to recognize the limitation and be satisfied +with the compensating gain of the more vivid, compelling effect secured +through the method of presenting human beings, natural to the playhouse. + +There are also arbitrary and artificial conventions of the stage +conditioning the story which may perhaps be regarded as drawbacks where +the story in fiction is freer in these respects. Both forms of story +telling strive--never so eagerly as to-day--for a truthful +representation of life. The stage, traditionally, in its depiction of +character through word and action, has not been so close to life as +fiction; the dialogue has been further removed from the actual idiom of +human speech. It is only of late that stage talk in naturalness has +begun to rival the verisimilitude of dialogue in the best fiction. This +may well be for the reason (already touched upon) that the presence of +the speakers on the stage has in itself a reality which corrects the +artificiality of the words spoken. "I did not know," the theater auditor +might be imagined as saying, "that people talked like that; but there +they are, talking; it must be so." + +The drama in all lands is trying as never before to represent life in +speech as well as act; and the strain hitherto put upon the actor, who +in the past had as part of his function to make the artificial and +unreal plausible and artistic, has been so far removed as to enable him +to give his main strength to genuine interpretation. + +The time values on the stage are a limitation which makes for +artificiality; actual time must of necessity be shortened, for if true +chronology were preserved the play would be utterly balked in its +purpose of presenting a complete story that, however brief, must cover +more time than is involved in what is shown upon the boards of a +theater. As a result all time values undergo a proportionate shrinkage. +This can be estimated by the way meals are eaten on the stage. In actual +life twenty minutes are allotted for the scamped eating time of the +railway station, and we all feel it as a grievance. Half an hour is +scant decency for the unpretentious private meal; and as it becomes +more formal an hour is better, and several hours more likely. Yet no +play could afford to allow twenty minutes for this function, even were +it a meal of state; it would consume half an act, or thereabouts. +Consequently, on the stage, the effect of longer time is produced by +letting the audience see the general details of the feast; food eaten, +wine drunk, servants waiting, and conversation interpolated. It is one +of the demands made upon the actor's skill to make all these condensed +and selected minutiae of a meal stand for the real thing; once more art +is rearranging life, under severe pressure. If those interested will +test with watch in hand the actual time allowed for the banquet in _A +Parisian Romance_, so admirably envisaged by the late Richard Mansfield, +or the famous Thanksgiving dinner scene in _Shore Acres_, fragrantly +associated with the memory of the late James A. Herne, they will +possibly be surprised at the brevity of such representations. + +Because of this necessary compression, a scale of time has to be adopted +which shall secure an effect of actualness by a cunning obeyance of +proportion; the reduction of scale is skillful, and so the result is +congruous. And it is plain that fiction may take more time if it so +desires in such scenes; although even in the novel the actual time +consumed by a formal dinner would be reproduced by the novelist at great +risk of boring his reader. + +Again, with disadvantages in mind, it might be asserted that the stage +story suffers in that some of the happenings involved in the plot must +perforce transpire off stage; and when this is so there is an inevitable +loss of effect, inasmuch as it is of the nature of drama, as has been +noted, to show events, and the indirect narrative method is to be +avoided as undramatic. Tyros in play-writing fail to make this +distinction; and as a generalization it may be stated that whenever +possible a play should show a thing, rather that state it. "Seeing is +believing," to repeat the axiom. Yet a qualifier may here be made, for +in certain kinds of drama or when a certain effect is striven for the +indirect method may be powerfully effective. The murder in _Macbeth_ +gains rather than loses because it takes place outside the scene; +Maeterlinck in his earlier Plays for Marionettes, so called, secured +remarkable effects of suspense and tension by systematically using the +principle of indirection; as where in _The Seven Princesses_ the +princesses who are the particular exciting cause of the play are not +seen at all by the audience; the impression they make, a great one, +comes through their effect upon certain characters on the stage and this +heightens immensely the dramatic value of the unseen figures. We may +point to the Greeks, too, in illustration, who in their great folk +dramas of legend regularly made use of the principle of indirect +narration when the aim was to put before the vast audiences the terrible +occurrences of the fable, not _coram populo_, as Horace has it, not in +the presence of the audience, but rather off stage. Nevertheless, these +exceptions can be explained without violating the general principle that +in a stage story it is always dangerous not to exhibit any action that +is vital to the play. And this compulsion, it will be evident, is a +restriction which may at times cripple the scope of the dramatist, while +yet it stimulates his skill to overcome the difficulty. + +Summarizing the differences which go to make drama distinctive as a +story-telling form and distinguish it from other story molds: a play in +contrast with fiction tells its tale by word, act and scene in a rising +scale of importance, and within briefer time limits, necessitating a far +more careful selection of material, and a greater emphasis upon salient +moments in the handling of plot; and because of the device of act +divisions, with certain moments of heightened interest culminating in a +central scene and thus gaining in tension and intensity by this enforced +method of compression and stress; while losing the opportunity to +amplify and more carefully to delineate character. It gains as well +because the story comes by the double receipt of the eye and ear to a +theater audience some of whom at least, through illiteracy, might be +unable to appreciate the story printed in a book. The play thus is the +most democratic and popular form of story telling, and at the same time +is capable of embodying, indeed has embodied, the greatest creative +literature of various nations. And for a generation now, increasingly, +in the European countries and in English-speaking lands, the play has +begun to come into its own as an art form with unique advantages in the +way of wide appeal and cultural possibilities. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PLAY, A CULTURAL OPPORTUNITY + + +Certain remarks at the close of the preceding chapter hint at what is in +mind in giving a title to the present one. The play, this democratic +mode of story telling, attracting vast numbers of hearers and +universally popular because man is ever avid of amusement and turns +hungrily to such a medium as the theater to satisfy a deeply implanted +instinct for pleasure, can be made an experience to the auditor properly +to be included in what he would call his cultural opportunity. That is +to say, it can take its place among those civilizing agencies furnished +by the arts and letters, travel and the higher aspects of social life. A +drama, as this book seeks to show, is in its finest estate a work of art +comparable with such other works of art as pictures, statuary, musical +compositions and the achievements of the book world. I shall endeavor +later to show a little more in detail wherein lie the artistic +requirements and successes of the play; and a suggestion of this has +been already made in chapter one. + +But this thought of the play as a work of art has hardly been in the +minds of folk of our race and speech until the recent awakening of an +enlightened interest in things dramatic; a movement so brief as to be +embraced by the present generation. The theater has been regarded +carelessly, thoughtlessly, merely as a place of idle amusement, or +worse; ignorant prejudice against it has been rife, with a natural +reaction for the worse upon the institution itself. The play has neither +been associated with a serious treatment of life nor with the refined +pleasure derivable from contact with art. Nor, although the personality +of actors has always been acclaimed, and an infinite amount of silly +chatter about their private lives been constant, have theater-goers as a +class realized the distinguished skill of the dramatist in the handling +of a very difficult and delicate art, nor done justice to the art which +the actor represents, nor to his own artistry in it. But now a change +has come, happily. The English-speaking lands have begun at least to get +into line with other enlightened countries, to comprehend the +educational value of the playhouse, and the consequent importance of the +play. The rapid growth to-day in what may be called social consciousness +has quickened our sense of the social significance of an institution +that, whatever its esthetic and intellectual status, is an enormous +influence in the daily life of the multitude. Gradually those who think +have come to see that the theater, this people's pleasure, should offer +drama that is rational, wholesome amusement; that society in general has +a vital stake in the nature of an entertainment so widely diffused, so +imperatively demanded and so surely effective in shaping the ideals of +the people at large. The final chapter will enlarge upon this +suggestion. + +And this idea has grown along with the now very evident re-birth of a +drama which, while practical stage material, has taken on the literary +graces and makes so strong an appeal as literature that much of our best +in letters is now in dramatic form: the play being the most notable +contribution, after the novel, of our time. Leading writers everywhere +are practical dramatists; men of letters, yet also men of the theater, +who write plays not only to be read but to be acted, and who have +conquered the difficult technic of the drama so as to kill two birds +with the one stone. + +The student of historical drama will perceive that this welcome change +is but a return to earlier and better conditions when the mighty +play-makers of the past--Calderon, Moliere, Shakespeare and their +compeers--were also makers of literature which we still read with +delight. And, without referring to the past, a glance at foreign lands +will reveal the fact that other countries, if not our own, have always +recognized this cultural value of the stage and hence given the theater +importance in the civic or national life, often spending public moneys +for its maintenance and using it (often in close association with +music) as a central factor in national culture. The traveler to-day in +Germany, France, Russia and the Scandinavian lands cannot but be +impressed with this fact, and will bring home to America some suggestive +lessons for patriotic native appreciation. In the modern educational +scheme, then, room should be made for some training in intelligent +play-going. So far from there being anything Quixotic in the notion, all +the signs are in its favor. The feeling is spreading fast that school +and college must include theater culture in the curriculum and people at +large are seeking to know something of the significance of the theater +in its long evolution from its birth to the present, of the history of +the drama itself, of the nature of a play regarded as a work of art; of +the specific values, too, of the related art of the actor who alone +makes the drama vital; and of the relative excellencies, in the actual +playhouses of our time, of plays, players and playwrights; together with +some idea of the rapidly changing present-day conditions. Such changes +include the coming of the one-act play, the startling development of +the moving picture, the growth of the Little Theater, the rise of the +masque and pageant, and so on with other manifestations yet. Surely, +some knowledge in a field so broad and humanly appealing, both for +legitimate enjoyment of the individual and in view of his obligations to +fellow man, is of equal moment to a knowledge of the chemical effect of +hydrochloric acid upon marble, or of the working of a table of +logarithms. These last are less involved in the living of a normal human +being. + +Here are signs of the time, which mark a revolution in thought. In the +light of such facts, it is curious to reflect upon the neglect of the +theater hitherto for centuries as an institution and the refusal to +think of the play as worthy until it was offered upon the printed page. +The very fact that it was exhibited on the stage seemed to stamp it as +below serious consideration. And that, too, when the very word _play_ +implies that it is something to be played. The taking over of the +theaters by uneducated persons to whom such a place was, like a +department store, simply an emporium of desired commodities, together +with the Puritanic feeling that the playhouse, as such, was an evil +thing frowned upon by God and injurious to man, combined to set this +form of entertainment in ill repute. Bernard Shaw, in that brilliant +little play, _The Dark Lady of the Sonnets_, sets certain shrewd words +in the mouths of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth pertinent to this +thought: + +SHAKESPEARE: "Of late, as you know, the Church taught the people by +means of plays; but the people flocked only to such as were full of +superstitious miracles and bloody martyrdoms; and so the Church, which +also was just then brought into straits by the policy of your royal +father, did abandon and discountenance playing; and thus it fell into +the hands of poor players and greedy merchants that had their pockets to +look to and not the greatness of your kingdom." + +ELIZABETH: "Master Shakespeare, you speak sooth; I cannot in anywise +amend it. I dare not offend my unruly Puritans by making so lewd a +place as the playhouse a public charge; and there be a thousand things +to be done in this London of mine before your poetry can have its penny +from the general purse. I tell thee, Master Will, it will be three +hundred years before my subjects learn that man cannot live by bread +alone, but by every word that cometh from the mouth of those whom God +inspires." + +The height of the incongruous absurdity was illustrated in the former +teaching of Shakespeare. Here was a writer incessantly hailed as the +master poet of the race; he bulked large in school and college, +perforce. Yet the teacher was confronted by the embarrassing fact that +Shakespeare was also an actor: a profession given over to the sons of +Belial; and a playwright who actually wrote his immortal poetry in the +shape of theater plays. This was sad, indeed! The result was that in +both the older teaching and academic criticism emphasis was always +placed upon Shakespeare the poet, the great mind; and Shakespeare the +playwright was hardly explained at all; or if explained the +illumination was more like darkness visible, because those in the seats +of judgment were so ignorant of play technic and the requirements of the +theater as to make their attempts well-nigh useless. It remained for our +own time and scholars like George P. Baker and Brander Matthews, with +intelligent, sympathetic comprehension of the play as a form of art and +the playhouse as conditioning it, to study the Stratford bard primarily +as playwright and so give us a new and more accurate portrait of him as +man and creative worker. + +I hope it is beginning to be apparent that intelligent play-going starts +long before one goes to the theater. It means, for one thing, some +acquaintance with the history of drama, and the theater which is its +home, both in the development of English culture and that of other +important nations whose dramatic contribution has been large. This +aspect of culture will be enlarged upon in the following chapters. + +Much can be done--far more than has been done--in this historical +survey in school and college to prepare American citizens for rational +theater enjoyment. There is nothing pedantic in such preparation. Nobody +objects to being sufficiently trained in art to distinguish a chromo +from an oil masterpiece or to know the difference in music between a +cheap organ-grinder jingle and the rhythmic marvels of a Chopin. It is +equally foolish to be unable to give a reason for the preference for a +play by Shaw or Barrie over the meaningless coarse farce by some stage +hack. It is all in the day's culture and when once the idea that the +theater is an art has been firmly seized and communicated to many all +that seems bizarre in such a thought will disappear--and good riddance! + +The first and fundamental duty to the theater is to attend the play +worthy of patronage. If one be a theater-goer, yet has never taken the +trouble to see a certain drama that adorns the playhouse, one is open to +criticism. The abstention, when the chance was offered, must in fact +either be a criticism of the play or of the person himself because he +refrained from supporting it. + +But let it be assumed that our theater-goer is in his seat, ready to do +his part in the patronage of a good play. How, once there, shall he show +the approval, or at least interest, his presence implies? + +By making himself a part of the sympathetic psychology of the audience, +as a whole; not resisting the effect by a position of intellectual +aloofness natural to a human being burdened with the self-consciousness +that he is a critic; but gladly recognizing the human and artistic +qualities of the entertainment. Next, by giving external sign of this +sympathetic approval by applause. Applause in this country generally +means the clapping of the hands; only exceptionally, and in large +cities, do we hear the _bravos_ customary in Europe. + +But suppose the play merit not approval but the reverse; what then? The +gallery gods, those disthroned deities, were wont more rudely to +supplement this manual testimony by the use of their other extremities, +the feet. The effect, however, is not desirable. Yet, in respect of +this matter of disapproval, it would seem as if the British in their +frank booing of a piece which does not meet their wishes were exercising +a valuable check upon bad drama. In the United States we signify +positive approval, but not its negation. The result is that the cheaper +element of an audience may applaud and so help the fate of a poor play, +while the hostility of those better fitted to judge is unknown to all +concerned with the fortunes of the drama, because it is thus silent. A +freer use of the hiss, heard with us only under rare circumstances of +provocation, might be a salutary thing, for this reason. An audible +expression of reproof would be of value in the case of many unworthy +plays. + +But perhaps in the end the rebuke of non-attendance and the influence of +the minatory word passed on to others most assists the failure of the +play that ought to fail. If the foolish auditor approve where he should +condemn, and so keep the bad play alive by his backing, the better view +has a way of winning at the last. Certainly, for conspicuous success +some qualities of excellence, if not all of them, must be present. + +But intelligent play-going means also a perception of the art of acting, +so that the technic of the player, not his personality, will command the +auditor's trained attention and he will approve skill and frown upon its +absence. + +And while it is undoubtedly more difficult to convey this information +educationally, the ideal way being to see the best acting early and late +and to reflect upon it in the light of acknowledged principles, +something can certainly be done to prepare prospective theater-goers for +appreciation of the profession of the player; substituting for the +blind, time-honored "I know what I like," the more civilized: "I approve +it for the following good and sufficient reasons." Even in school, and +still more in college, the teacher can cooeperate with the taught by +suggesting the plays to be seen, amateur as well as professional; and by +classroom discussion afterward, not only of the plays but concerning +their rendition. Students are quick to respond when this is done, for +the vital object lesson of current drama always appeals to them, and +they are glad to observe a connection between their amusement and their +culture. At present, or at least up to a very recent time, the +eccentricity of such a procedure would all but have endangered the +position of the teacher so foolhardy as to act upon the assumption that +the drama seen the night before could be in any way used to impart +permanent lessons concerning a great art to the minds of the pupils. +Luckily, a more liberal view is taking the place of this crass +Philistinism. + +In a proper appreciation of the actor the hearer will look beyond the +pulchritude of an actress or the fit of an actor's clothes; he will +judge Miss Ethel Barrymore by her power of envisaging the part she +assumes, and not be overly interested in an argument as to her increase +of avoirdupois of late years. He will not allow himself to consume time +over the question whether Mr. William Gillette in private life is +addicted to chloral because Sherlock Holmes is a victim of that most +reprehensible habit. + +And above all he will constantly remind himself that acting is the art +of impersonation, exactly that; and, therefore, just as high praise goes +to the player who admirably portrays a disagreeable part as to one in +whose mouth the playwright has set lines which make him beloved from +curtain to curtain. Yet the majority of persons in a typical American +theater audience hopefully confuse the part with the player, and award +praise or blame according as they like or dislike the part itself. + +The intelligent auditor will also give approval to the stage artist who, +instead of drawing attention to himself by the use of exaggerated +methods, quietly does his work, keeps always within the stage picture, +and trusts to his truthful representation to secure conviction and +reward. How common is it to see some player overstressing his part, who, +instead of being boohed and hissed as he deserves and as he infallibly +would be in some countries, receives but the more applause for his +inexcusable overstepping of the modesty of his art. It becomes part of +the duty of our intelligent play-goer to teach such pseudo-artists their +place, for as long as they win the meed of ill-timed and ignorant +approval, so long will they flourish. + +Nor will the critic of the acceptable actor fail to observe that the +latter prefers working for the ensemble--_team work_, in the sporting +phrase--to that personal display disproportionate to the general effect +which will always make the judicious grieve. In theatrical parlance, +"hogging the stage" has flourished simply for the reason that it +deceives a sufficient number in the seats to secure applause and so +throws dust in the eyes of the general public as to its true iniquity. +The actor is properly to be judged, not by his work detached from that +of his fellows, but ever in relation to the totality of impression which +means a play instead of a personal exhibition. It is his business to +cooeperate with others in a single effect in which each is a factor in +the exact measure of the importance of his part as conceived by the +dramatist. Where a minor part becomes a major one through the ability of +a player, as in the famous case of the elder Sothern's Lord Dundreary, +it is at the expense of the play; _Our American Cousin_ was negligible +as drama, and hence it did not matter. But if the drama is worth while, +serious injury to dramatic art may follow. + +Again, the intelligent play-goer will carefully distinguish in his mind +between actor and playwright. Realizing that "the play's the thing," he +will demand that even the so-called star (too often an actor foisted +into prominence for a non-artistic reason) shall obey the laws of his +art and those of drama, and not unduly minimize for personal reasons the +work of his coadjutors in the play, nor that of the playwright who +intended him to go so far and no further. The actor who, whatever his +fame, and no matter how much an unthinking audience is complaisant when +he does it, makes a practice of giving himself a center-of-the-stage +prominence beyond what the drama calls for, is no artist, but a show +man, neither more nor less, who deserves to be rated with the +mountebanks rather than with the artists of his profession. But it may +be feared that "stars" will continue to seek the stage center and crowd +others of the cast out of the right focus, to say nothing of distorting +the work of the dramatist, under the goad of megalomania, so long as a +goodly number of unintelligent spectators egg him on. His favorite line +of poetry will be that of Wordsworth: + +"Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky." It is to help the +personnel of such an audience that our theater-goer needs his training. + +A general realization of all this will definitely affect one's theater +habit and make for the good of all that concerns the art of the +playhouse. It will lead the properly prepared person to see a good play +competently done, but with no supreme or far-famed actor in the company, +in preference to a foolish play, or worse, carried by a "star"; or a +play negligible as art or hopelessly _passe_ as art or interpretation +of life for which an all-star cast has been provided, as if to take the +eye of the spectator off the weaknesses of the drama. Often a standard +play revived by one of these hastily gathered companies of noted players +resolves itself into an interest in individual performances which must +lack that organic unity which comes of longer association. The +opportunity afforded to get a true idea of the play is made quite +secondary, and sometimes entirely lost sight of. + +Nor will the trained observer in the theater be cheated by the dollar +mark in his theatrical entertainment. He will come to feel that an +adequate stock company, playing the best plays of the day, may afford +him more of drama culture for an expenditure of fifty cents for an +excellent seat than will some second-rate traveling company which +presents a drama that is a little more recent but far less worthy, to +see which the charge is three or four times that modest sum. All over +the land to-day nominally cultivated folk will turn scornfully away from +a fifty-cent show, as they call it, only because it is cheap in the +literal sense, whereas the high-priced offering is cheap in every other +sense but the cost of the seat. Such people overlook the nature of the +play presented, the playwright's reputation, and the quality of the +performance; incapable of judging by the real tests, they stand +confessed as vulgarians and ignoramuses of art. We shall not have +intelligent audiences in American theaters, speaking by and large, until +theater-goers learn to judge dramatic wares by some other test than what +it costs to buy them. Such a test is a crude one, in art, however +infallible it may be in purely material commodities; indeed, is it not +the wise worldling in other fields who becomes aware in his general +bartering that it is unsafe to estimate his purchase exclusively by the +price tag? + +To one who in this way makes the effort to inform himself with regard to +the things of the theater--plays, players and playwrights--concerning +dramatic history both as it appertains to the drama and the theater; and +concerning the intellectual as well as esthetical and human values of +the theater-going experience, it will soon become apparent that it +offers him cultural opportunity that is rich, wide and of ever deepening +enjoyment. And taking advantage of it, he will dignify one of the most +appealing pleasures of civilization by making it a part of his permanent +equipment for satisfactory living. + +Other aspects of this thought may now be expounded, beginning with a +review of the play in its history; some knowledge of which is obviously +an element in the complete appreciation of a theater evening. For the +proper viewing of a given play one should have reviewed plays in +general, as they constitute the body of a worthy dramatic literature. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +UP TO SHAKESPEARE + + +The recent vogue of plays like _The Servant in the House_, _The Passing +of the Third Floor Back_, _The Dawn of To-morrow_, and _Everywoman_ +sends the mind back to the early history of English drama and is full of +instruction. Such drama is a reversion to type, it suggests the origin +of all drama in religion. It raises the interesting question whether the +blase modern theater world will not respond, even as did the primitive +audiences of the middle ages, to plays of spiritual appeal, even of +distinct didactic purpose. And the suggestion is strengthened when the +popularity is recalled of the morality play of _Everyman_ a few years +since, that being a revival of a typical mediaeval drama of the kind. It +almost looks as if we had failed to take into account the ready response +of modern men and women to the higher motives on the stage; have failed +to credit the substratum of seriousness in that chance collection of +human beings which constitutes a theater audience. After all, they are +very much like children, when under the influence of mob psychology; +sensitive, plastic to the lofty and noble as they are to the baser +suggestions that come to them across the footlights. In any case, these +late experiences, which came by way of surprise to the professional +purveyors of theatrical entertainment, give added emphasis to the +statement that the stage is the child of mother church, and that the +origin of drama in the countries whereof we have record is always +religious. The mediaeval beginnings in Europe and England have been +described in their details by many scholars. Suffice it here to say that +the play's birthplace is at the altar end of the cathedral, an extension +of the regular service. The actors were priests, the audience the vast +hushed throngs moved upon by incense, lights, music, and the intoned +sacred words, and, for the touch of the dramatic which was to be the +seed of a wonderful development, we may add some portion of the sacred +story acted out by the stoled players and envisaged in the scenic pomp +of the place. The lesson of the holy day was thus brought home to the +multitude as it never would have been by the mere recital of the Latin +words; scene and action lent their persuasive power to the natural +associations of the church. Such is the source of modern drama; what was +in the course of time to become "mere amusement," in the foolish phrase, +began as worship; and if we go far back into the Orient, or to the +south-lying lands on the Mediterranean, we find in India and Greece +alike this union of art and worship, whether the play began within +church or temple or before Dionysian altars reared upon the green sward. +The good and the beautiful, the esthetic and the spiritual, ever +intertwined in the story of primitive culture. + +And the gradual growth from this mediaeval beginning is clear. First, a +scenic elaboration of part of the service, centering in some portion of +the life and death of Christ; then, as the scenic side grew more +complex, a removal to the grounds outside the cathedral; an extension of +the subject-matter to include a reverent treatment of other portions of +the Bible narrative; next, the taking over of biblical drama by the +guilds, or crafts, under the auspices of the patron saints of the +various organizations, as when, on Corpus Christi day, one of the great +saints' days of the year, a cycle of plays was presented in a town with +the populace agog to witness it, and the movable vans followed each +other at the street corners, presenting scene after scene of the story. +Then a further extension of motives which admitted the use of the lives +of the saints who presided over the guilds; and finally the further +enlargement of theme due to the writing of drama of which the personages +were abstract moral qualities, giving the name of Morality to this kind +of play. Such, described with utter simplicity and brevity, was the +interesting evolution. + +Aside from all technicalities, and stripped of much of moment to the +specialist, we have in this origin and early development a blend of +amusement and instruction; a religious purpose linked with a frank +recognition of the fact that if you make worship attractive you +strengthen its hold upon mankind--a truth sadly lost sight of by the +later Puritans. The church was wise, indeed, to unite these elements of +life, to seize upon the psychology of the show and to use it for the +purpose of saving souls. It was not until the sixteenth century and the +immediate predecessors of Shakespeare that the play, under the influence +of renaissance culture and the inevitable secularization of the theater +in antagonism to the Puritan view of amusement, waxed worldly, and +little by little lost the ear-marks of its holy birth and upbringing. + +The day when the priests, still the actors of the play, walked down the +nave and issued from the great western door of the cathedral, to +continue the dramatic representations under the open sky, was truly a +memorable one in dramatic history. The first instinct was not that of +secularization, but rather the desire for freer opportunity to enact the +sacred stories; a larger stage, more scope for dramatic action. Yet, +although for generations the play remained religious in subject-matter +and intent, it was inevitable that in time it should come to realize +that its function was to body forth human life, unbounded by Bible +themes: all that can happen to human beings on earth and between heaven +and hell and beyond them, being fit material for treatment, since all +the world's a stage, and flesh and blood of more vital interest to +humanity at large than aught else. The rapid humanization of the +religious material can be easily traced in the coarse satire and broad +humor introduced into the Bible narratives: a free and easy handling of +sacred scene and character natural to a more naive time and by no means +implying irreverence. Thus, in the Noah story, Mrs. Noah becomes a stout +shrew whose unwillingness to come in out of the wet and bestow herself +in dry quarters in the Ark must have been hugely enjoyed by the +fifteenth century populace. And the Vice of the morality play +degenerates into the clown of the performance, while even the Devil +himself is made a cause for laughter. + +Another significant step in the advance of the drama was made when the +crafts took over the representations; for it democratized the show, +without cheapening it or losing sight of its instructional nature. When +the booths, or pageants as they were called, drew up at the crossing of +the ways and performed their part in some story of didactic purport and +broadly human, hearty, English atmosphere, with an outdoor flavor and +decorative features of masque and pageantry, the spectators saw the +prototype of the historic pageants which just now are coming again into +favor. The drama of the future was shaping in a matrix which was the +best possible to assure a long life, under popular, natural conditions. +These conditions were to be modified and distorted by other, later +additions from the cultural influence of the past and under the +domination of literary traditions; but here was the original mold. + +The method of presentation, too, had its sure effect upon the theater +which was to follow this popular folk beginning. The movable van, set +upon wheels, with its space beneath where behind a curtain the actors +changed their costumes, suggests in form and upfitting the first +primitive stages of the playhouses erected in the second half of the +sixteenth century. Since but one episode or act of the play was to be +given, there was no need of a change of scene, and the stage could be +simple accordingly. Contemporary cuts show us the limited dimensions, +the shallow depth and the bareness of accessories typical of this +earliest of the housings of the drama, for such it might fairly be +called. Obviously, on such a stage, the manner and method of portrayal +are strictly defined: done out of doors, before a shifting multitude of +all classes, with no close cohesion or unity, since another part of the +story was told in another spot, the play, to get across--not the +footlights, for there were none--but the intervening space which +separated actors and audience, must be conveyed in broad simple outline +and in graphic episodes, the very attributes which to-day, despite all +subtleties and finesse, can be relied upon to bring response from the +spectators in a theater. It must have been a great event when, in some +quiet English town upon a day significant in church annals, the players' +booths began their cycle, and the motley crowd gathered to hear the +Bible narratives familiar to each and all, even as the Greek myths which +are the stock material of the Greek drama were known to the vast +concourse in the hillside theater of that day. In effect the circus had +come to town, and we may be sure every urchin knew it and could be found +open-mouthed in the front row of spectators. No possibility here of +subtlety and less of psychologic morbidity. The beat of the announcing +drum, the eager murmur of the multitude, the gay costumes and colorful +booth, all ministered to the natural delight of the populace in show and +story. The fun relieved the serious matter, and the serious matter made +the fun acceptable. With no shift of scenery, the broadest liberty, not +to say license, in the particulars of time and place were practiced; +the classic unities were for a later and more sophisticate drama. There +was no curtain and therefore no entr'act to interrupt the two hours' +traffic of the stage; the play was continuous in a sense other than the +modern. + +As a result of these early conditions, the English play was to show +through its history a fluidity, a plastic adaptation of material to end, +in sharp contrast with other nations, the French, for one, whose first +drama was enacted in a tennis court of fixed location, deep perspective +and static scenery. + +On the holy days which, as the etymology shows, were also holidays from +the point of view of the crowd, drama was vigorously purveyed which made +the primitive appeals of pathos, melodrama, farce and comedy. The actors +became secular, but for long they must have been inspired with a sense +of moral obligation in their work; a beautiful survival of which is to +be seen at Oberammergau to-day. And the play itself remained religious +in content and intention for generations after it had walked out of the +church door. The church took alarm at last, aware that an instrument of +mighty potency had been taken out of its hands. It is not surprising to +find various popes passing edicts against this new and growingly +influential form of public entertainment. It seemed to be on the way to +become a rival. This may well have had its effect in the rapid taking +over of the drama by the guilds, as later it was adopted by still more +worldly organizations. + +It was not from the people that the change to complete secularization of +subject-matter and treatment came; but from higher cultural sources: +from the schools and universities, touched by renaissance influences; as +where Bishop Still produced _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ for school use, the +first English comedy; or from court folk, as when Lord Buckhurst with +his associate, Sackville, wrote the frigid _Gorbudoc_ based on the +Senecan model and honorable historically because it is the first English +tragedy. The play of Plautian derivation, _Ralph Roister Doister_, our +first comedy of intrigue, is another example of cultural influences +which came in to modify the main stream of development from the folk +plays. + +This was in the sixteenth century, but for over two centuries the +genuine English play had been forming itself in the religious nursery, +as we saw. Now these other exotic and literary influences began to blend +with the native, and the story of the drama becomes therefore more +complex. The school and the court, classic literature and that of +mediaeval Europe, which represented the humanism it begot, fast qualified +the product. But the straightest, most natural issue from the naive +morality and miracle genre is the robustious melodrama illustrated by +such plays as Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_ and Marlowe's _Edward II_; which +in turn lead directly on to Shakespeare's _Titus Andronicus_, _Hamlet_ +and chronicle history drama like _Richard III_; and on the side of +farce, _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, so broadly English in its fun, is in +the line of descent. And in proportion as the popular elements of +rhetoric, show and moralizing were retained, was the appeal to the +general audience made, and the drama genuinely English. + +Up to 1576 we are concerned with the history of the drama and there is +no public theater in the sense of a building erected for theatrical +performances. After the strolling players with their booths, plays were +given in scholastic halls, in schools and in private residences; while +the more democratic and direct descendant of the pageants is to be seen +in the inn yards where the stable end of the courtyard, inclosed on +three sides by its parallelogram of galleries, is the rudimentary plan +for the Elizabethan playhouse, when it comes, toward the end of the +sixteenth century. But with the year 1576 and the erection in Shoreditch +of the first Theater on English soil--so called, because it had no +rivals and the name was therefore distinctive--the proper history of the +institution begins. It marks a most important forward step in dramatic +progress. + +There is significance in the phrase descriptive of this first building; +it was set up "in the fields," as the words run: which means, beyond +city limits, for the city fathers, increasingly Puritan in feeling, +looked dubiously upon an amusement already so much a favorite with all +classes; it might prove a moral as well as physical plague spot by its +crowding together of a heterogeneous multitude within pent quarters. +Once started, the theater idea met with such hospitable reception that +these houses were rapidly increased, until by the century's end half a +dozen of the curious wooden hexagonal structures could be seen on the +southward bank of the Thames, near the water, central in interest as we +now look back upon them being The Globe, built in 1599 from the material +of the demolished Shoreditch playhouse, and famed forever as +Shakespeare's own house. Here at three o'clock of the afternoon upon a +stage open to the sky and with the common run of spectators standing in +the pit where now lounge the luxuriant occupants of orchestra seats, +while those of the better sort sat on the stage or in the boxes which +flanked the sides of the house and suggested the inn galleries of the +earlier arrangement, were first seen the robust predecessors of +Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Kyd and Peele and Nash; and later, +Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson and the other immortals +whose names are names to conjure with, even to this day. Played in the +daylight, and most crudely lighted, the play was deprived of the +illusion produced by modern artificial light, and the stage, projecting +far down into the audience, made equally impossible the illusion of the +proscenium arch, a picture stage set apart from life and constituting a +world of its own for the representation of the mimic story. There was +small need for make-up on the part of the actors, since the garish light +of day is a sad revealer of grease paint and powder; and the flaring +cressets of oil that did service as footlights must, it would seem, have +made darkness visible, when set beside the modern devices. It is plain +enough that under these conditions a performance of a play in the +particulars of seeing and hearing must have been seriously limited in +effect. To reach the audience must have meant an appeal that was +broadly human, and essentially dramatic. Fine language was +indispensable; and a language drama is exactly what the Elizabethan +theater gives us. Compelling interest of story, skillful mouthing of +splendid poetry, virile situations that contained the blood and thunder +elements always dear to the heart of the groundlings, these the play of +that period had to have to hold the audiences. Impudent breakings in +from the gentles who lounged on the stage and blew tobacco smoke from +their pipes into the faces perchance of Burbage and Shakespeare himself; +vulgar interpolations of some clown while the stage waited the entrance +of a player delayed in the tiring room must have been daily occurrences. +And yet, from such a stage, confined in extent and meager in fittings, +and under such physical limitations of comfort and convenience, were the +glories of the master poet given forth to the world. Our sense of the +wonder of his work is greatly increased when we get a visualized +comprehension of the conditions under which he accomplished it. It is +well to add that one of the most fruitful phases of contemporary +scholarship is that which has thrown so much light upon the structure of +the first English theaters. We now realize as never before the limits of +the scenic representation and the necessary restriction consequent upon +the style of drama given. + +Another interesting and important consideration should also be noted +here; and one too generally overlooked. The groundlings in the pit, +albeit exposed to wind and weather and deprived of the seats which +minister to man's ease and presumably dispose him to a better reception +of the piece, were yet in a position to witness the play as a play +superior to that of the more aristocratic portions of the assemblage. +However charming it may have been for the sprigs of the nobility to +touch elbows with Shakespeare on the boards as he delivered the tender +lines of old Adam in _As You Like It_, or to exchange a word aside with +Burbage just before he began the immortal soliloquy, "To be or not to +be," it is certain that these gentry were not so advantageously placed +to enjoy the rendition as a whole as were master Butcher or Baker at +the front. And it would seem reasonable to believe that the nature of +the Elizabethan play, so broadly humorous, so richly romantic, so large +and obvious in its values and languaged in a sort of surplusage of +exuberance, is explained by the fact that it was the common herd to whom +in particular the play was addressed in these early playhouses: not the +literature in which it was written so much as the unfolding story and +the tout ensemble which they were in a favorable position to take in. To +the upper-class attendant at the play the unity of the piece must have +been less dominant. And surely this must have tended to shape the play, +to make it a democratic people's product. For it is an axiom that the +dominant element in an audience settles the fate of a play. + +But this new plaything, the theater, was not only the physical +embodiment of the drama, it became a social institution as well. Nor was +it without its evils. The splendors of Elizabethan literature have often +blinded criticism to the more sleazy aspects of the problem. But +investigation has made apparent enough that the Puritan attitude toward +the new institution was not without its excuse. As we have seen, from +the very first a respectable middle class element of society looked +askance at the playhouse, and while this view became exaggerated with +the growth of Puritanism in England, there is nothing to be gained in +idealizing the stage conditions of that time, nor, more broadly, to deny +that the manner of life involved and in some regards the nature of the +appeal at any period carry with them the likelihood of license and of +dissipation. The actor before Shakespeare's day had little social or +legal status; and despite all the leveling up of the profession due to +him and his associates, the "strolling player" had to wait long before +he became the self-respecting and courted individuality of our own day. +Women did not act during the Elizabethan period, nor until the +Restoration; so that one of the present possibilities of corruption was +not present. But on the other hand, the stage was without the +restraining, refining influence of their presence; a coarser tone could +and did prevail as a result. The fact that ladies of breeding wore masks +at the theater and continued to do so into the eighteenth century speaks +volumes for the public opinion of its morals; and the scholar who knows +the wealth of idiomatic foulness in the best plays of Shakespeare, +luckily hidden from the layman in large measure, does not need to be +told of the license and lewdness prevalent at the time. The Puritans are +noted for their repressive attitude toward worldly pleasures and no +doubt part of their antagonism to the playhouse was due to the general +feeling that it is a sin to enjoy oneself, and that any institution +which was thronged by society for avowed purposes of entertainment must +derive from the devil. But documentary evidence exists to show that an +institution which in England made possible the drama of Shakespeare, +Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Ford, Jonson and Dekkar, writings which +we still point to with pride as our chief contribution to the creative +literature of the world, could include abuses so flagrant as to call +forth the stern denunciations of a Cromwell, and later even shock the +decidedly easy standards of a Pepys. The religious element in society +was, at intervals, to break out against the stage from pulpit or through +the pen, in historical iteration of this early attitude; as with Collier +in his famed attack upon its immorality at the close of the seventeenth +century, and numerous more modern diatribes from such clergymen as +Spurgeon and Buckley. + +And in order to understand the peculiar relation of the respectable +classes in America to the theater, it is necessary to realize that those +cherishing this antipathy were our forefathers, the Puritan settlers. +The attitude was inimical, and of course the circumstances were all +against a proper development of the function of the playhouse. Art and +letters upon American soil, forsooth, had to await their day in the +seventeenth and following centuries, when our ancestors had to give +their full strength to more utilitarian matters, or to the grave demands +of the future life. The Anglo-Saxon notion that the theater is evil is +to be traced directly to these historic causes; and transplanted to so +favorable a soil as America, it has produced most unfortunate results in +our dramatic history, the worst of all being the general unenlightened +view respecting the use and usufruct of an institution in its nature +capable of so much good alike to the masses and the classes. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +GROWTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY + + +Preparedness in the appreciation of a modern play presupposes a +knowledge of the origin and early development of English drama, as +briefly sketched in the preceding pages. It also, and more obviously, +involves some acquaintance with the master dramatists who led up to or +flourished in the Elizabethan period, with Shakespeare as the central +figure; it must, too, be cognizant of the gradual deterioration of the +product in the post-Elizabethan time; of the temporary close of the +public theaters under Puritan influence during the Commonwealth; and of +the substitution for the mighty poetry of Shakespeare and his mates of +the corrupt Restoration comedy which was introduced into England with +the return of the second Stuart to the throne in 1660. This brilliant +though brutally indecent comedy of manners, with Congreve, Wycherley, +Etherage, Vanbrugh and Farquhar as chief playwrights, while it +represents in literature the moral nadir of the polite section of +English society, is of decided importance in our dramatic history, +because it reflected the manners and morals of the time, and quite as +much because it is conspicuous for skillful characterization, effective +dialogue and a feeling for scene and situation--all elements in good +dramaturgy. + +This intelligent attempt to know what lies historically behind present +drama will also make itself aware of the falling away early in the +eighteenth century, in favor of the new literary form, the Novel; and +the all too brief flashing forth of another comedy of manners with +Sheridan and Goldsmith, which retained the sparkle, wit and literary +flavor of the Restoration, with a later decency and a wholesomer social +view; to be followed again by a well-nigh complete divorce of literature +and the stage until well past the middle of the nineteenth century, when +began the gradual re-birth of a drama which once more took on the +quality of letters and made a serious appeal as an esthetic art and a +worthy interpretation of life: what may be called the modern school +initiated by Ibsen. + +All this interesting growth and wonderfully varied accomplishment may be +but lightly touched upon here, for admirable studies of the different +periods and schools by many scholars are at hand and the earnest theater +student may be directed thereto for further reading. The work of +Professor Schelling on Elizabethan drama is thorough and authoritative. +The modern view of Shakespeare and his contribution (referred to in +Chapter III) will be found in Professor Baker's _Development of +Shakespeare as a Dramatist_ and Professor Matthews' _Shakespeare as a +Playwright_. The general reader will find in The Mermaid Series of plays +good critical treatment of the main Elizabethan and post-Elizabethan +plays, together with the texts, so that a practical acquaintance with +the product may be gained. The series also includes the Restoration +dramas in their best examples. For the Sheridan-Goldsmith plays a +convenient edition is that in the Drama section of the Belles Lettres +series of English Literature, where the representative plays of an +author are printed with enlightening introductions and other critical +apparatus. In becoming familiar with these aids the reader will receive +the necessary hints to a further acquaintance with the more technical +books which study the earlier, more difficult part of dramatic +evolution, and give attention to the complex story of the development of +the theater as an institution. + +A few things stand out for special emphasis here in regard to this +developmental time. Let it be remembered that the story of English drama +in its unfolding should be viewed in twin aspects: the growth of the +play under changing conditions; and the growth of the playhouse which +makes it possible. What has been said already of the physical framework +of the early English theater throws light at once, as we saw, upon the +nature of the play. And in fact, throughout the development, the play +has changed its form in direct relation to the change in the nature of +the stage upon which the play has been presented. The older type is a +stage suitable for the fine-languaged, boldly charactered, steadily +presented play of Shakespeare acted on a jutting platform where the +individual actor inevitably is of more prominence, and so poorly lighted +and scantily provided with scenery that words perforce and robustious +effects of acting were necessitated, instead of the scenic appeals, +subtler histrionism and plastic face and body work of the modern stage +which has shrunk back to become a framed-in picture behind the +proscenium arch. As the reader makes himself familiar with Marlowe, who +led on to Shakespeare, with the comedy and masque of Ben Jonson, with +the romantic and social plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, the lurid tragic +writing of Webster, the softer tragedy of Ford and the rollicking folk +comedy, pastoral poetry or serious social studies of Dekkar and Heywood, +he will come to realize that on the one hand what he supposed to be the +sole touch of Shakespeare in poetic expression was largely a general +gift of the spacious days of Elizabeth, poetry, as it were, being in the +very air men breathed[A]; and yet will recognize that the Stratford man +walked commonly on the heights only now and again touched by the others. +And as he reads further the plays of dramatists like Massinger, +Tourneur, Shirley, and Otway he will find, along with gleams and +glimpses of the grand manner, a steady degeneration from high poetry and +tragic seriousness to rant, bombast, and the pseudo-poetry that is +rhetoric, with the declension of tragedy into melodrama. High poetry +gradually disintegrates, and the way is prepared for the Restoration +comedy. + +In reflecting upon the effect of a closing of the public theaters for +nearly twenty years (1642-1660) the student will appreciate what a body +blow this must have been to the true interests of the stage; and find in +it at least a partial explanation of the rebound to the vigorous +indecencies of Congreve and his associates (Wycherley, Etherage, +Vanbrugh, Farquhar) when the ban was removed; human nature, pushed too +far, ever expressing itself by reactions. + +The ineradicable and undeniable literary virtues of the Restoration +writers and their technical advancement of the play as a form and a +faithful mirror of one phase of English society will reconcile the +investigator to a picture of life in which every man is a rake or +cuckold and every woman a light o' love; a sort of boudoir atmosphere +that has a tainted perfume removing it far from the morning freshness of +the Elizabethans. And consequently he will experience all the more +gratitude in reaching the eighteenth century plays: _The School for +Scandal_, _The Rivals_, and _She Stoops to Conquer_, when they came a +generation later. While retaining the polish and the easy carriage of +good society, these dramas got rid of the smut and the smirch, and added +a flavor of hearty English fun and a saner conception of social life; a +drama rooted firmly in the fidelities instead of the unfaithfulnesses +of human character. These eighteenth century plays, like those of the +Restoration--_The Plain Dealer_, _The Way of the World_, _The Man of +Mode_, _The Relapse_, and _The Beaux Stratagem_--were still played in +the old-fashioned playhouses, like Drury Lane, or Covent Garden, with +the stage protruding into the auditorium and the classic architecture +ill adapted to acoustics, and the boxes so arranged as to favor +aristocratic occupants rather than in the interests of the play itself. +The frequent change of scene, the five-act division of form, the +prologue and epilogue and the free use of such devices as the soliloquy +and aside remind us of the subsequent advance in technic. These marks of +a by-gone fashion we are glad to overlook or accept, in view of the +essential dramatic values and permanent contribution to letters which +Sheridan and Goldsmith made to English comedy. But at the same time it +is only common sense to felicitate ourselves that these methods of the +past have been outgrown, and better methods substituted. And we shall +never appreciate eighteenth century play-making to the full until we +understand that the authors wrote in protest against a sickly sort of +unnatural sentimentality, mawkish and untrue to life, which had become +fashionable on the English stage in the hands of Foote, Colman and +others. Sheridan brought back common sense and Goldsmith dared to +introduce "low" characters and laughed out of acceptance the +conventional separation of the socially high and humble in English life. +His preface to _The Good Natured Man_ will be found instructive reading +in relation to this service. + +From 1775 to 1860 the English stage, looked back upon from the vantage +point of our time, appears empty, indeed. It did not look so barren, we +may believe, to contemporaries. Shakespeare was doctored to suit a false +taste; so great an actor-manager as Garrick complacently playing in a +version of _Lear_ in which the ruined king does not die and Cordelia +marries Edgar; an incredible prettification and falsification of the +mighty tragedy! Jonson writes for the stage, though the last man who +should have done so. Sheridan Knowles, in the early nineteenth century, +gives us _Virginius_, which is still occasionally heard, persisting +because of a certain vigor and effectiveness of characterization, though +hopelessly old-fashioned in its rhetoric and its formal obeyance of +outworn conventions, both artistic and intellectual. The same author's +_The Honeymoon_ is also preserved for us through possessing a good part +for the accomplished actress. Later Bulwer, whose feeling for the stage +cannot be denied, in _Money_, _Richelieu_, and _The Lady of Lyons_, +shows how a certain gift for the theatrical, coupled with less critical +standards, will combine to preserve dramas whose defects are now only +too apparent. + +As the nineteenth century advances the fiction of Reade and Dickens is +often fitted to the boards and the fact that the latter was a natural +theater man gave and still gives his product a frequent hearing on the +stage. To meet the beloved characters of this most widely read of all +English fictionists is in itself a pleasure sufficient to command +generous audiences. Boucicault's _London Assurance_ is good stage +material rather than literature. Tom Taylor produced among many stage +pieces a few of distinct merit; his _New Men and Old Acres_ is still +heard, in the hands of experimental amateurs, and reveals sterling +qualities of characterization and structure. + +But the fact remains, hardly modified by the sporadic manifestations, +that the English stage was frankly separating itself from English +literature, and by 1860 the divorce was practically complete. There was +a woful lack of public consideration for its higher interests on the one +hand, and no definite artistic endeavor to produce worthy stage +literature on the other. Authors who wrote for the stage got no +encouragement to print their dramas and so make the literary appeal; +there was among them no esprit de corps, binding them together for a +self-conscious effort to make the theater a place where literature +throve and art maintained its sovereignty. No leading or representative +writers were dramatists first of all. If such wrote plays, they did it +half heartedly, and as an exercise rather than a practical aim. It is +curious to ask ourselves if this falling away of the stage might not +have been checked had Dickens given himself more definitely to dramatic +writing. His bias in that direction is well known. He wrote plays in his +younger days and was throughout his life a fine amateur actor: the +dramatic and often theatric character of his fiction is familiar. It was +his intention as a youth to go on the stage. But he chose the novel and +perhaps in so doing depleted dramatic history. + +Literature and the stage, then, had at the best a mere bowing +acquaintance. Browning, who under right conditions of encouragement +might have trained himself to be a theater poet, was chagrined by his +experience with _The Blot on the 'Scutcheon_ and thereafter wrote closet +plays rather than acting drama. Swinburne, master of music and mage of +imagination, was in no sense a practical dramatist. Shelley's dramas are +also for book reading rather than stage presentation, in spite of the +fact that his _Cenci_ has theater possibilities to make one regret all +the more his lack of stage knowledge and aim. Bailey's _Festus_ is not +an acting play, though it was acted; the sporadic drama, in fact, +between 1850 and 1870, light or serious, was frankly literary in the +academic sense and not adapted to stage needs; or else consisted of book +dramatizations from Reade and Dickens; or simply represented the +journeymen work of prolific authors with little or no claim to literary +pretensions. + +The practical proof of all this can be found in the absence of drama of +the period in book form, except for the acting versions, badly printed +and cheaply bound, which did not make the literary appeal at all. Where +to-day our leading dramatists publish their work as a matter of course, +offering it as they would fiction or any other form of literature, the +reading public of the middle century neither expected nor received plays +as part of their mental pabulum, and an element in the contemporary +letters. The drama had not only ceased to be a recognized section of +current literature, but was also no longer an expression of national +life. The first faint gleam of better things came when T. W. Robertson's +genteel light comedies began to be produced at the Court Theater in +1868. As we read or see _Caste_ or _Society_ to-day they seem somewhat +flimsy material, to speak the truth; and their technic, after the rapid +development of a generation, has a mechanical creak for trained ears. +But we must take them at the psychologic moment of their appearance, and +recognize that they were a very great advance on what had gone before. +They brought contemporary social life upon the stage as did Congreve in +1680, Sheridan in 1765; and they made that life interesting to large +numbers of theater-goers who hitherto had abstained from play acting. +And so _Caste_ and its companion plays, of which it is the best, drew +crowded houses and the stage became once more an amusement to reckon +with in polite circles. The royal box was once more occupied, the +playhouse became fashionable, no longer quite negligible as a form of +art. To be sure, this was a town drama, and for the upper classes, as +was the Restoration Comedy and that of the eighteenth century. It was +not a people's theater, the Theater Robertson, but it had the prime +merit of a more truthful representation of certain phases of the life of +its day. And hence Robertson will always be treated as a figure of some +historical importance in the British drama, though not a great +dramatist. + +In the eighteen eighties another influence began to be felt, that of +Ibsen. The great dramatist from the North was made known to English +readers by the criticism and translations of Gosse and Archer; and +versions of his plays were given, tentatively and occasionally, in +England, as in other lands. Thus readers and audiences alike gradually +came to get a sense of a new force in the theater: an uncompromisingly +truthful, stern portrayal of modern social conditions, the story told +with consummate craftsmanship, and the national note sounding beneath +the apparent pessimism. Here were, it was evident, new material, new +method and a new insistence upon intellectual values in the theater. It +can now be seen plainly enough that Ibsen's influence upon the drama of +the nineteenth century is commensurate in revolutionary results with +that of Shakespeare in the sixteenth. He gave the play a new and +improved formula for play-writing; and he showed that the theater could +be used as an arena for the discussion of vital questions of the day. +Even in France, the one country where dramatic development has been +steadily important for nearly three centuries, his influence has been +considerable; in other European lands, as in England, his genius has +been a pervasive force. Whether he will or no, the typical modern +dramatist is a son of Ibsen, in that he has adopted the Norwegian's +technic and taken the function of playwright more seriously than before. + +Both with regard to intellectual values and technic, then, it is no +exaggeration to speak of the modern drama, although it be an expression +of the spirit of the time in reflecting social evolution, as bearing the +special hallmark of Ibsen's influence. A word follows on the varied and +vital accomplishment of the present period. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MODERN SCHOOL + + +We have noted that Ibsen's plays began to get a hearing in England in +the eighteen nineties. In fact, it was in 1889 that Mr. J. T. Grein had +the temerity to produce at his Independent Theater in London _A Doll's +House_, and followed it shortly afterward by the more drastic _Ghosts_. +The influence in arousing an interest in and knowledge of a kind of +drama which entered the arena for the purpose of social challenge and +serious satiric attack was incalculable. Both Jones and Pinero, +honorable pioneers in the making of the new English drama, and still +actively engaged in their profession, had begun to write plays some +years before this date; but it may be believed that the example of +Ibsen, if not originating their impulse, was part of the encouragement +to let their own work reflect more truthfully the social time spirit +and to study modern character types with closer observation, allowing +their stories to be shaped not so much by theatric convention as by +honest psychologic necessity. + +Jones began with melodrama, of which _The Silver King_ (1882), _Saints +and Sinners_ (1884) and _The Middle Man_ (1889) are examples; Pinero +with ingenious farces happily associated with the fortunes of Sir Squire +Bancroft and his wife, _The Magistrate_ (1885) being an excellent +illustration of the type. The dates are significant in showing the +turning of these skillful playwrights to play-making that was more +serious in the handling of life and more artistic in constructive +values; they are practically synchronous with the introduction of Ibsen +into England. Both authors have now long lists of plays to their credit, +with acknowledged masterpieces among them. Pinero's earlier romantic +style may be seen in the enormously successful _Sweet Lavender_, a style +repeated ten years later in _Trelawney of the Wells_; his more mature +manner being represented in _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, the best of a +number of plays which center in the woman who is a social rebel, the +dramatist's tone being almost austerely grim in carrying the study to +its logical conclusion. For a time Sir Arthur seemed to be preoccupied +with the soiled dove as dramatic inspiration; but so fine a recent play +as _The Thunderbolt_ shows he can get away from it. Jones' latest and +best work as well has a tendency to the serious satiric showing-up of +the failings of prosperous middle-class English society; this, however, +in the main, kept in abeyance to story interest and constructive skill +in its handling: _Mrs. Dane's Defense_, _The Case of Rebellious Susan_, +_The Liars_, _The Rogue's Comedy_, _The Hypocrites_, and _Michael and +His Lost Angel_ stand for admirably able performances in different ways. + +At the time when these two dramatists were beginning to produce work +that was to change the English theater Bernard Shaw, after writing +several pieces of fiction, had begun to give his attention to plays so +advanced in technic and teaching that he was forced to wait more than a +decade to get a wide hearing in the theater. His debt to the Norwegian +has been handsomely acknowledged by the Irish dramatist, wit and +philosopher who was to become the most striking phenomenon of the +English theater: with all the differences, an English Ibsen. A little +later, in the early eighteen nineties, another brilliant Irishman, Oscar +Wilde, wrote a number of social comedies whose playing value to-day +testifies to his gift in telling a stage story, while his epigrammatic +wit and literary polish gave them the literary excellence likely to +perpetuate his name. For the comedy of manners, light, easy, elegant, +keen, and with satiric point in its reflection of society, nothing of +the time surpasses such dramas as _Lady Windermere's Fan_ and _A Woman +of No Importance_. The author's farce--farce, yet more than farce in +dialogue and characterization--_The Importance of Being Earnest_, is +also a genuine contribution in its kind. And the strange, somber, +intensely poetic _Salome_ is a remarkable _tour de force_ in an unusual +field. + +The tendency to turn from fiction to the drama as another form of story +telling fast coming into vogue is strikingly set forth and embellished +in the case of Sir James Barrie, who, after many successes in novel and +short story, became a dramatist some twenty years ago and is now one of +the few men of genius writing for the stage. His _Peter Pan_, _The +Little Minister_, _The Admirable Crichton_, and _What Every Woman Knows_ +are four of over a dozen dramas which have given him world fame. +Uniquely, among English writers whose work is of unquestionable literary +quality, he refrains from the publication of plays; a very regrettable +matter to countless who appreciate his rare quality. He is in his droll +way of whimsy a social critic beneath the irresponsible play of a poet's +fancy and an idealist's vision. His keen yet gentle interpretations of +character are solidly based on truth to the everlasting human traits, +and his poetry is all the better for its foundation of sanity and its +salt of wit. One has an impulse to call him the Puck of the English +theater; then feels compelled to add a word which recognizes the loving +wisdom mingling with the pagan charm. Sir James is as unusual in his way +as Shaw in his. Of late he has shown an inclination to write brief, +one-act pieces, thereby adding to our interest in a form of drama +evidently just beginning to come into greater regard. + +For daring originality both of form and content Bernard Shaw is easily +the first living dramatist of England. He is a true son of Ibsen, in +that he insists on thinking in the theater, as well as in the +experimental nature of his technic, which has led him to shape for +himself the drama of character and thesis he has chosen to write. To the +thousands who know his name through newspaper publicity or the vogue of +some piece of his in the playhouse, Shaw is simply a witty Irishman, +dealer in paradox and wielder of a shillelah swung to break the heads of +Philistines for the sheer Celtic love of a row. To the few, however, an +honorable minority now rapidly increasing, he is a deeply earnest, +constructive social student and philosopher, who uses a popular +amusement as a vehicle for the wider dissemination of perfectly serious +views: a socialist, a mystic who believes in the Life Force sweeping man +on (if man but will) to a high destiny, and a lover of fellow man who in +his own words regards his life as belonging to the community and wishes +to serve it, in order that he may be "thoroughly used up" when he comes +to die. He has conquered as a playwright because beneath the sparkling +sally, the startling juxtaposition of character and the apparent +irreverence there hides a genuinely religious nature. Shaw shows himself +an "immoralist" only in the sense that he attacks jejune, vicious +pseudo-morals now existent. For sheer acting values in the particulars +of dialogue, character, scenic effectiveness, feeling for climax and +unity of aim such plays as _Candida_, _Arms and the Man_, _Captain +Brassbound's Profession_, _The Devil's Disciple_, _John Bull's Other +Island_, _Man and Superman_, _The Showing Up of Blanco Posnett_, and +others yet, are additions to the serious comedy of England likely to be +of lasting luster, so far as contemporary vision can penetrate. + +One of the most interesting developments of recent years has been the +Irish theater movement, in itself part of the general rehabilitation of +the higher imaginative life of that remarkable people. The drama of the +gentle idealist poet Yeats, of the shrewdly observant Lady Gregory and +of the grimly realistic yet richly romantic Synge has carried far beyond +their little country, so that plays like Yeats' _The Land of Heart's +Desire_ and _The Hour Glass_, Lady Gregory's _Spreading the News_ and +Synge's _Riders to the Sea_ and _The Playboy of the Western World_ are +heard wherever the English language is understood, this stage literature +being aided in its travels by the excellent company of Irish Players +founded to exploit it and giving the world a fine example of the success +that may come from a single-eyed devotion to an ideal: namely, the +presentation for its own sake of the simple typical native life of the +land. + +It should be remembered that while these three leaders are best known, +half a dozen other able Irish dramatists are associated with them, and +doing much to interpret the farmer or city folk: writers like Mayne, +Boyle, McComas, Murray, and Robinson. + +Under the stimulus of Shaw in his reaction against the machine-made +piece and the tiresome reiteration of sex motives, there has sprung up a +younger school which has striven to introduce more varied subject-matter +and a broader view, also greater truth and subtler methods in +play-making. Here belong Granville Barker, with his _Voysey Inheritance_ +(his best piece), noteworthy also as actor-manager and producer; the +novelists, Galsworthy and Bennett; and Masefield, whose _Tragedy of Nan_ +contains imaginative poetry mingled with melodrama; and still later +figures, conspicuous among them the late Stanley Houghton, whose _Hindle +Wakes_ won critical and popular praise; others being McDonald Hastings +with _The New Sin_; Githa Sowerby, author of the grim, effective play, +_Rutherford and Son_; Elizabeth Baker, with _Chains_ to her credit; +Wilfred Gibson, who writes brief poignant studies of east London in +verse that in form is daringly realistic; Cosmo Hamilton, who made us +think in his attractive _The Blindness of Virtue_; and J. O. Francis, +whose Welsh play, _Change_, was recognized as doing for that country the +same service as the group led by Yeats and Synge has performed for +Ireland. + +A later Synge seems to have arisen in Lord Dunsany, whose dramas in book +form have challenged admiration; and since his early death St. John +Hankin's dramatic work is coming into importance as a masterly +contribution to light comedy, the sort of drama that, after the Wilde +fashion, laughs at folly, satirizes weakness, refrains from taking +sides, and never forgets that the theater should offer amusement. + +Of all these playwrights, rising or risen, who have got a hearing after +the veterans first mentioned, Galsworthy seems most significant for the +profound social earnestness of his thought, the great dignity of his art +and the fact that he rarely fails to respect the stage demand for +objective interest and story appeal. Some of these new dramatists go too +far in rejecting almost scornfully the legitimate theater mood of +amusement and the necessity of a method differing from the more analytic +way of fiction. Mr. Galsworthy, however, though severe to austerity in +his conceptions and nothing if not serious in treatment, certainly puts +upon us something of the compelling grip of the true dramatist in such +plays as _The Silver Box_, _Strife_ and, strongest of them all and one +of the finest examples of modern tragedy, Justice, where the themes are +so handled as to increase their intrinsic value. This able and +high-aiming novelist, when he turns to another technic, takes the +trouble to acquire it and becomes a stage influence to reckon with. _The +Pigeon_, the most genial outcome of his dramatic art, is a delightful +play: and _The Eldest Son_, _The Fugitive_ and _The Mob_, if none of +them have been stage successes, stand for work of praiseworthy strength. + +On the side of poetry, and coming a little before the Irish drama +attracted general attention, Stephen Phillips proved that a poet could +learn the technic of the theater and satisfy the demands of reader and +play-goer. Saturated with literary traditions, frankly turning to +history, legend, and literature itself for his inspiration, Mr. Phillips +has written a number of acting dramas, all of them possessing stage +value, while remaining real poetry. His best things are _Paolo and +Francesca_ and _Herod_, the former a play of lovely lyric quality and +genuinely dramatic moments of suspense and climax; the latter a powerful +handling of the Bible motive. Very fine too in its central character is +_Nero_; and _Ulysses_, while less suited to the stage, where it seems +spectacle rather than drama, is filled with noble poetry and has a last +act that is a little play in itself. Several of Mr. Phillips' best plays +have been elaborately staged and successfully produced by representative +actor-managers like Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Sir George Alexander. + +Still with poetry in mind, it may be added that Lawrence Binyon has +given evidence of distinct power in dramatic poetry in his _Attila_, +and the delicate Pierrot play, _Prunella_, by Messrs. Housman and +Granville Barker is a success in quite another genre. + +Israel Zangwill has turned, like Barrie, Galsworthy and Bennett, from +fiction to the play, and _The Children of the Ghetto_, _Merely Mary +Ann_, _The Melting Pot_, _The War God_ and _The Next Religion_ show +progressively a firmer technic and the use of larger themes. Other +playwrights like Alfred Sutro, Sidney Grundy, W. S. Maugham, Hubert +Davies, and Captain Marshall have a skillful hand, and in the cases of +Maugham and Davies, especially the latter, clever social satire has come +from their pens. Louis R. Parker has shown his range and skill in +successful dramas so widely divergent as _Rosemary_, _Pomander Walk_ and +_Disraeli_. + +It may be seen from this category, suggestive rather than complete, that +there is in England ample evidence for the statement that drama is now +being vigorously produced and must be reckoned with as an appreciable +and welcome part of contemporary letters. In the United States, so far, +the showing is slighter and less impressive. Yet it is within the facts +to say that the native play-making has waxed more serious-minded and +skillful (this especially in the last few years) and so has become a +definite adjunct to the general movement toward the reinvestiture of +drama. + +In the prose drama which attempts honestly to reproduce American social +conditions, elder men like Howard and Herne, and later ones like Thomas, +Gillette and Clyde Fitch, have done worthy pioneer work. Among many +younger playwrights who are fast pressing to the front, Eugene Walter, +who in _The Easiest Way_ wrote one of the best realistic plays of the +day, Edward Sheldon, with a dozen interesting dramas to his credit, +notably _The Nigger_ and _Romance_; and William Vaughan Moody, whose +material in both _The Great Divide_ and _The Faith Healer_ is +healthfully American and truthful, although the handling is romantic and +that of the poet, deserve first mention. + +Women are increasingly prominent in this recent activity and in such +hands as those of Rachel Crothers, Ann Flexner, Marguerite Merrington, +Margaret Mayo and Eleanor Gates our social life is likely to be +exploited in a way to hint at its problems, and truthfully and amusingly +set forth its types. + +Moody, though he wrote his stage plays in prose, was essentially the +poet in viewpoint and imagination. A poet too, despite the fact that +more than half his work is in prose, is Percy Mackaye, the son of a +distinguished earlier playwright and theater reformer, author of _Hazel +Kirke_ and _Paul Kauvar_. Mr. Mackaye's prose comedy _Mater_, high +comedy in the best sense, and his satiric burlesque, _Anti-Matrimony_, +together with the thoughtful drama _Tomorrow_, which seeks to +incorporate the new conception of eugenics in a vital story of the day, +are good examples of one aspect of his work; and _Jeanne d'Arc_, _Sapho_ +and _Phaon_, verse plays, and the romantic spectacle play, _A Thousand +Years Ago_, illustrate his poetic endeavor. Taking a hint from a short +story by Hawthorne, he has written in _The Scarecrow_ one of the +strongest and noblest serious dramas yet wrought by an American. He has +also done much for the pageant and outdoor masque, as his _The +Canterbury Pilgrims_, _Sanctuary_ and _St. Louis, A Civic Masque_, +presented in May of 1914 on an heroic scale in that city, testify. A +poet, whether in lyric or dramatic expression, is Josephine Preston +Peabody. Her lovely reshaping of the familiar legend known best in the +hands of Browning, _The Piper_, took the prize at the Stratford on Avon +spring Shakespeare festival some years ago, and has been successful +since both in England and America. Her other dramatic writing has not as +yet met so well the stage demands, but is conspicuous for charm and +ideality. + +In the imaginative field of romance, poetry and allegory we may also +place the Americanized Englishman, Charles Rann Kennedy, who has put the +touch of the poet and prophet upon homely modern material. His beautiful +morality play, _The Servant in the House_, secured his reputation and +later plays from _The Winter Feast_ to _The Idol Breaker_, inclusive of +several shorter pieces, the one act form being definitely practiced by +this author, have been interesting work, skillful of technic and +surcharged with social sympathy and significance. Edward Knoblauch, the +author of _The Faun_, of _Milestones_ in collaboration with Mr. Bennett, +and of the fantastic oriental divertissement, _Kismet_; and Austin +Strong, who wrote _The Toymaker of Nuremberg_, are among the younger +dramatists from whom much may yet be expected. + +In this enumeration, all too scant to do justice to newer drama in the +United States, especially in the field of realistic satire and humorous +perception of the large-scaled clashes of our social life, it must be +understood that I perforce omit to mention fully two score able and +earnest young workers who are showing a most creditable desire to depict +American conditions and have learned, or are rapidly learning, the use +of their stage tools. The purpose here is to name enough of personal +accomplishment to buttress the claim that a promising school has arisen +on the native soil with aims and methods similar to those abroad. + +And all this work, English or American, shows certain ear-marks to bind +it together and declare it of our day in comparison with the past. What +are these distinctive features? + +On the side of technic, a greater and greater insistence on telling the +story dramatically, with more of truth, to the exclusion of all that is +non-dramatic, although preserved in the conventions of the theater for +perhaps centuries; the elimination of subplot and of subsidiary +characters which were of old deemed necessary for purposes of +exposition; the avoidance of the prologue and such ancient and useful +devices as the aside and the soliloquy; and such simplification of form +that the typical play shall reduce itself most likely to three acts, and +is almost always less than five; a play that often has but one scene +where the action is compressed within the time limits of a few hours, +or, at the most, a day or two. All this is the outcome of the influence +of Ibsen with its subtlety, expository methods and its intenser +psychology. In word, dress, action and scene, too, this modern type of +drama approximates closer to life; and inclines to minimize scenery save +as congruous background, thus implying a distinct rebellion from the +stupidly literal scenic envisagement for which the influence of a +Belasco is responsible. The new technic also has, in its seeking for an +effect of verisimilitude, adopted the naturalistic key of life in its +acting values and has built small theaters better adapted to this +quieter, more penetrating presentation. + +In regard to subject matter, and the author's attitude to his work, a +marked tendency may be seen to emphasize personality in the character +drawing, to make it of central interest (contrasted with plot) and a +bold attempt to present it in the more minute variations of motive and +act rather than in those more obvious reactions to life which have +hitherto characterized stage treatment; and equally noticeable if not +the dominant note of this latter-day drama, has been the social sympathy +expressed in it and making it fairly resonant with kindly human values: +the author's desire to see justice done to the under-dog in the social +struggle; to extend a fraternal hand to the derelicts of the earth, to +understand the poor and strive to help those who are weak or lost; all +the underlings and incompetents and ill-doers of earth find their +explainers and defenders in these writers. This is the note which sounds +in the fraternalism of Kennedy's _The Servant in the House_, the +arraignment of society in Walter's _The Easiest Way_ and Paterson's +_Rebellion_, the contrast of the ideals of east and west in Moody's _The +Great Divide_, and the democratic fellowship of Sheldon's _Salvation +Nell_. It is the note abroad which gives meaning to Hauptmann's _The +Weavers_, Galsworthy's _Justice_ and Wedekind's _The Awakening of +Spring_, different as they are from each other. It stands for a +tolerant, even loving comprehension of the other fellow's case. There is +in it a belief in the age, too, and in modern man; a faith in democracy +and an aspiration to see established on the earth a social condition +which will make democracy a fact, not merely a convenient political +catch-word. + +Some authors, in their obsession with truth on the stage, have too much +neglected the fundamental demands of the theater and so sacrificed the +crisp crescendo treatment of crisis in climax as to indulge in a tame, +undramatic and bafflingly subtle manipulation of the story; a remark +applicable, for example, to a writer like Granville Barker. + +But the growth and gains in both countries, with America modestly +second, are encouraging. In these modern hands the play has been +simplified, deepened, made more truthful, more sympathetic; and is now +being given the expressional form that means literature. The bad, the +cheap, the flimsy are still being produced, of course, in plenty; so has +it always been, so ever will be. But the drama that is worthy, skillful, +refreshing in these different kinds--farce, comedy light, polite, or +satiric; broad comedy or high, melodrama, tragedy, romance and +morality--is now offered, steadily, generously, and it depends upon the +theater-goer who has trained himself to know, to reject and accept +rightly, to appreciate and so make secure the life of all drama that is +worth preservation. + + * * * * * + +This survey of the English theater and the drama which has been produced +in it from the beginning--a survey the brevity of which will not +detract, it may be hoped, from its clearness, may serve to place our +play-goer in a position the better to appreciate the present conditions; +and to give him more respect for a form of literature which he turns to +to-day for intelligent recreation, deeming it a helpfully stimulating +form of art. From this vantage-point, he may now approach a +consideration of the drama as an artistic problem. He will be readier +than before, perhaps, to realize that the playwright, with this history +behind him, is the creature of a long and important development, in a +double sense: in his treatment of life, and in the manner of that +treatment. + +Naturally, the theater-goer will not stop with the English product. The +necessity alone of understanding Ibsen, as the main figure in this +complex modern movement, will lead him to a study of the author of _A +Doll's House_. And, working from center to circumference, he will with +ever increasing stimulation and delight become familiar with many other +foreign dramatists of national or international importance. He will give +attention to those other Scandinavians, Strindberg, Drachman and +Bjoernson; to the Russians, Tolstoy, Tchekoff and Gorky; to Frenchmen +like Rostand and Maeterlinck, Becque, Hervieu, Lavedan, Donnay and +Brieux; to the Germans and Austrians, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Wedekind, +Hofmansthal and Schnitzler; to the Italian, D'Annunzio, and the Spanish +Echgeragay,--to mention but a few. It may even be that, once aroused to +the value of the expression of the Present in these representative +writers for the stage, he will wish to trace the dramatic history behind +them in their respective countries, as he has (supposedly) already done +with the dramatists of his own tongue. If he do so, the play-goer will +surely add greatly not only to his general literary culture but to his +power of true appreciation of the play of the moment he may be +witnessing. For all this reading and reflection and comparison will tend +to make him a critic-in-the-seat who settles the fate of plays to-day +because he knows the plays of yesterday and yesteryear. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PLAY AS THEME AND PERSONAL VIEW + + +We may now come directly to a consideration of the play regarded as a +work of art and a piece of life. After all, this is the central aim in +the attempt to become intelligent in our play-going. A play may properly +be thought of as a theme; it has a definite subject, which involves a +personal opinion about life on the author's part; a view of human beings +in their complex interrelations the sum of which make up man's existence +on this globe. + +The play has a story, of course, and that story is so handled as to +constitute a plot: meaning a tangle of circumstances in which the fates +of a handful of human beings are involved, a tangle to which it is the +business of the plot to give meaning and direction. But back of the +story, in any drama that rises to some worth, there is a theme, in a +sense. Thus, the theme of _Macbeth_ is the degenerating effect of sin +upon the natures of the king and his spouse; and the theme of Ibsen's _A +Doll's House_ is the evil results of treating a grown-up woman as if she +were a mere puppet with little or no relation to life's serious +realities. + +The thing that gives dignity and value to any play is to be found just +here: a distinctive theme, which is over and above the interest of +story-plot, sinks into the consciousness of the spectator or reader, and +gives him stimulating thoughts about life and living long after he may +have quite forgotten the fable which made the framework for this +suggestive impulse of the dramatist. Give the statement a practical +test. Plenty of plays suffice well enough perhaps to fill an evening +pleasantly, yet have no theme at all, no idea which one can take with +him from the playhouse and ruminate at leisure. For, although the story +may be skillfully handled and the technic of the piece be satisfying, if +it is not _about_ anything, the rational auditor is vaguely dissatisfied +and finds in the final estimate that all such plays fall below those +that really have a theme. To illustrate: Mr. Augustus Thomas's fine +play, _The Witching Hour_, has a theme embedded in a good, old-fashioned +melodramatic story; and this is one of the reasons for its great +success. But the same author's _Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots_, though +executed with practiced skill, has no theme at all and therefore is at +the best an empty, if amusing, trifle, far below the dramatist's full +powers. Frankly, it is a pot boiler. And, similarly, Mr. Thomas's +capital western American drama, _Arizona_, while primarily and +apparently story for its own sake, takes on an added virtue because it +illustrates, in a story-setting, certain typical and worthy American +traits to be found at the time and under those conditions in the far +west. To have a theme is not to be didactic, neither to argue for a +thesis nor moot a problem. It is simply to have an opinion about life +involved in and rising naturally out of the story, and never, never +lugged in by the heels. The true dramatist does not tell a story because +he has a theme he wishes to impose upon the audience; on the contrary, +he tells his story because he sees life that way, in terms of plot, of +drama, and in its course, and in spite of himself, a certain notion or +view about sublunary things enters into the structure of the whole +creation, and emanates from it like an atmosphere. One of the very best +comedies of modern times is the late Sidney Grundy's _A Pair of +Spectacles_. It has sound technic, delightful characterization, and a +simple, plausible, coherent and interesting fable. But, beyond this, it +has a theme, a heart-warming one: namely, that one who sees life through +the kindly lenses of the optimist is not only happier, but gets the best +results from his fellow beings; in short, is nearer the truth. And no +one should doubt that this theme goes far toward explaining the +remarkable vogue of this admirable comedy. Without a theme so clear, +agreeable and interpretive, a play equally skillful would never have had +like fortune. + +And this theme in a play, as was hinted, must, to be acceptable, express +the author's personal opinion, honestly, fearlessly put forth. If it be +merely what he ought to think in the premises, what others +conventionally think, what it will, in his opinion, or that of the +producer of the play, pay to think, the drama will not ring true, and +will be likely to fail, even if the technic of a lifetime bolster it up. +It must embody a truth relative to the writer, a fact about life as he +sees it, and nothing else. A theme in a play cannot be abstract truth, +for to tell us of abstract truth is the _metier_ of the philosopher, and +herein lies his difference from the stage story-teller. Relative truth +is the play-maker's aim and the paramount demand upon him is that he be +sincere. He must give a view of life in his story which is an honest +statement of what human beings and human happenings really are in his +experience. If his experience has been so peculiar or unique as to make +his themes absurd and impossible to people in general, then his play +will pretty surely fail. He pays the penalty of his warped, or too +limited or degenerate experience. No matter: show the thing as he sees +it and knows it, that he must; and then take his chances. + +And so convincing, so winning is sincerity, that even when the view that +lies at the heart of the theme appears monstrous and out of all belief, +yet it will stand a better chance of acceptance than if the author had +trimmed his sails to every wind of favor that blows. + +Mr. Kennedy wrote an odd drama a few years ago called _The Servant in +the House_, in which he did a most unconventional thing in the way of +introducing a mystic stranger out of the East into the midst of an +ordinary mundane English household. Anybody examining such a play in +advance, and aware of what sort of drama was typical of our day, might +have been forgiven had he absolutely refused to have faith in such a +work. But the author was one person who did have faith in it; he had a +fine theme: the idea that the Christ ideal, when projected into daily +life--instead of cried up once a week in church--and there acted on, is +efficacious. He had an unshaken belief in this idea. And he conquered, +because he dared to substitute for the conventional and supposed +inevitable demand an apparently unpopular personal conviction. He +found, as men who dare commonly do, that the assumed personal view was +the general view which no one had had the courage before to express. + +In the same way, M. Maeterlinck, another idealist of the day, wrote _The +Blue Bird_. It is safe to say that those in a position to be wise in +matters dramatic would never have predicted the enormous success of this +simple child play in various countries. But the writer dared to vent his +ideas and feelings with regard to childhood and concerning the spiritual +aspirations of all mankind; in other words, he chose a theme for some +other reason than because it was good, tried theater material; and the +world knows the result. It may be said without hesitation that more +plays fail in the attempt to modify view in favor of the supposed view +of others--the audience, the manager or somebody else--than fail because +the dramatist has sturdily stuck to his point of view and honestly set +down in his story his own private reaction to the wonderful thing called +life; a general possession and yet not one thing, but having as many +sides as there are persons in the world to live it. + +Consider, for example, the number of dramas that, instead of carrying +through the theme consistently to the end, are deflected from their +proper course through the playwright's desire (more often it is an +unwilling concession to others' desire) to furnish that +tradition-condiment, a "pleasant ending." Now everybody normal would +rather have a play end well than not; he who courts misery for its own +sake is a fool. But, if not a fool, he does not wish the pleasantness at +the expense of truth, because then the pleasantness is no longer +pleasant to the educated taste, and so defeats its own end. And it is an +observed fact that some stories, whether fiction or drama, "begin to end +well," as Stevenson expressed it; while others, just as truly, begin to +end ill. Hence, when such themes are manhandled by the cheap, dishonest +wresting of events or characters or both, so as presumably to send the +audience home "happy," we get a wretched malversion of art,--and without +at all attaining the object in view. For even the average, or +garden-variety, of audience is uneasy at the insult offered its +intelligence in such a nefarious transaction. It has been asked to +witness a piece of real life, for, testimony to the contrary +notwithstanding, that is what an audience takes every play to be. Up to +a certain point, this presentation of life is convincing; then, for the +sake of leaving an impression that all is well because two persons are +united who never should be, or because the hero didn't die when he +really did, or because coincidence is piled on coincidence to make a +fairy tale situation at which a fairly intelligent cow would rebel, +presto, a lie has to be told that would not deceive the very children in +the seats. It is pleasant to record truthfully that this miserable and +mistaken demand on the part of the short-sighted purveyors of +commercialized dramatic wares is yielding gradually to the more +enlightened notion that any audience wants a play to be consistent with +itself, and feels that too high a price can be paid even for the good +ending whose false deification has played havoc with true dramatic +interests. + +Another mode of dishonesty, in which the writer of a play fails in +theme, is to be found whenever, instead of sticking to his subject +matter and giving it the unity of his main interest and the wholeness of +effect derived from paying it undivided attention, extraneous matter is +introduced for the sake of temporary alleviation. Not to stick to your +theme is almost as bad at times as to have none. No doubt the temptation +comes to all practical playwrights and is a considerable one. But it +must be resisted if they are to remain self-respecting artists. The late +Clyde Fitch, skilled man of the theater though he was, sinned not seldom +in this respect. He sometimes introduced scenes effective for novelty +and truth of local color, but so little related to the whole that the +trained auditor might well have met him with the famous question asked +by the Greek audiences of their dramatists who strayed from their theme: +"What has this to do with Apollo?" The remark applies to the +drastically powerful scene in his posthumous play _The City_, where the +theme which was plainly announced in the first act is lost sight of in +the dramatist's desire to use material well adapted to secure a +sensational effect in his climax. It is only fair to say that, had this +drama received the final molding at the author's hands, it might have +been modified to some extent. But there is no question that this was a +tendency with Fitch. + +The late Oscar Wilde had an almost unparalleled gift for witty +epigrammatic dialogue. In his two clever comedies, _Lady Windermere's +Fan_ and _A Woman of No Importance_, he allowed this gift to run away +with him to such an extent that the opening acts of both pieces contain +many speeches lifted from his notebooks, seemingly, and placed +arbitrarily in the mouths of sundry persons of the play: some of the +speeches could quite as well have been spoken by others. This +constituted a defect which might have seriously militated against the +success of those dramas had they not possessed in full measure brilliant +qualities of genuine constructive play-making. The theme, after all, +was there, once it was started; and so was the deft handling. But +dialogue not motivated by character or necessitated by story is always +an injury, and much drama to-day suffers from this fault. The producer +of the play declares that its tone is too steadily serious and demands +the insertion of some humor to lighten it, and the playwright, poor, +helpless wight, yields, though he knows he is sinning against the Holy +Ghost of his art. Or perhaps the play is too short to fill the required +time and so padding is deemed necessary;[B] or it may be that the +ignorance or short-sightedness of those producing the play will lead +them to confuse the interests of the chief player with that of the piece +itself; and so a departure from theme follows, and unity be sacrificed. +That is what unity means: sticking to theme. + +And unity of story, be sure, waits on unity of theme. This insistence +upon singleness of purpose in a play, clinging to it against all +allurements, does not imply that what is known as a subplot may not be +allowed in a drama. It was common in the past and can still be seen +to-day, though the tendency of modern technic is to abandon it for the +sake of greater emphasis upon the main plot and the resulting tightening +of the texture, avoiding any risk of a splitting of interest. However, a +secondary or subplot in the right hands--as we see it in Shakespeare's +_Merchant of Venice_, or, for a modern instance, in Pinero's _Sweet +Lavender_--is legitimate enough. Those who manipulate it with success +will be careful to see that the minor plot shall never appear for a +moment to be major; and that both strands shall be interwoven into an +essential unity of design, which is admirably illustrated in +Shakespeare's comedy just mentioned. + +Have a theme then, let it be quite your own, and stick to it, is a +succinct injunction which every dramatist will do well to heed and the +critic in the seat will do well to demand. Neither one nor the other +should ever forget that the one and only fundamental unity in drama, +past, present and to come, is unity of idea, and the unity of action +which gathers about that idea as surely as iron filings around the +magnetized center. The unities of time and place are conditional upon +the kind of drama aimed at, and the temporal and physical characteristic +of the theater; the Greeks obeyed them for reasons peculiar to the +Greeks, and many lands, beginning with the Romans, have imitated these +so-called laws since. But Shakespeare destroyed them for England, and +to-day, if unity of time and place are to be seen in an Ibsen play, it +simply means that, in the psychological drama he writes, time and place +are naturally restricted. But in the unity of action which means unity +of theme we have a principle which looks to the constitution of the +human mind; for the sake of that ease of attention which helps to hold +interest and produce pleasure, such unity there must be; the mind of man +(when he has one) is made that way. + +There is a special reason why the intelligent play-goer must insist upon +this fundamental unity: because much in our present imaginative +literature is, as to form, in direct conflict with that appeal to a +sustained effect of unity offered by a well-wrought drama. The short +story that is all too brief, the vaudeville turn, the magazine habit of +reading a host of unrelated scamped trifles, all militate against the +habit of concentrated attention; all the more reason why it should be +cultivated. + +Let me return to the thought that the dramatist, in making the theme his +own, may be tempted to present a view of life not only personal but +eccentric and vagarious to the point of insanity. + +His view, to put it bluntly, may represent a crack-brained distortion of +life rather than life as it is experienced by men in general. In such a +case, and obviously, his drama will be ineffective and objectionable, in +the exact degree that it departs from what may be called broadly the +normal and the possible. As I have already asserted, distortion for +distortion, even a crazy handling of theme that is honest is to be +preferred to one consciously a deflection from belief. But the former is +not right because the latter is wrong. Both should be avoided, and will +be if the play-maker be at the same time sincere and healthily +representative in his reaction to life of humanity at large. The really +great plays, and the good plays that have shown a lasting quality, have +sinned in neither of these particulars. + +It is especially of import that our critic-in-the-seat should insist on +this matter of normal appeal, because ours happens to be a day when +personal vagaries, extravagant theories and lawless imaginings are +granted a freedom in literary and other art in general such as an +earlier day hardly conceived of. The abuses under the mighty name of Art +are many and flagrant. All the more need for the knowing spectator in +the theater, or he who reads the play at home, to be prepared for his +function, quick to reprimand alike tame subserviency or the +abnormalities of unrestrained "genius." It is fair to say that absolute +honesty on the dramatist's part in the conception and presentation of +theme will meet all legitimate criticisms of his work. Within his +limitations, we shall get the best that is in him, if he will only show +us life as he sees it, and have the courage of his convictions, allowing +no son of man to warp his work from that purpose. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +METHOD AND STRUCTURE + + +I + +So far we have considered the material of the dramatist, his theme and +subject matter, and his attitude toward it. But his method in conceiving +this material and of handling it is of great importance and we may now +examine this a little in detail, to realize the peculiar problem that +confronts him. + +At the beginning let it be understood that the dramatist must see his +subject dramatically. Every stage story should be seen or conceived in a +central moment which is the explanation of the whole play, its reason +for being. Without that moment, the drama could not exist; if the story +were told, the plot unfolded without presenting that scene, the play +would fall flat, nay, there would, strictly speaking, be no play there. +That is why the French (leaders in nomenclature, as in all else +dramatic) call it the _scene a faire_, the scene that one must do; or, +to adopt the English equivalent offered by Mr. Archer in his interesting +and able manual of stagecraft entitled _Playmaking_, the obligatory +scene: that is, the scene one is obliged to show. This moment in the +story is a climax, because it is the crowning result of all the +preceding growth of the drama up to a point where the steadily +increasing interest has reached its height and an electric effect of +suspense and excitement results. This suspensive excitement depends upon +the clash of human wills against each other or against circumstances; +events are so tangled that they can be no further involved and something +must happen in the way of cutting the knot; the fates of the persons are +so implicated that their lives must be either saved or destroyed, in +order to break the deadlock. Thus along with the clash goes a crisis +presented in a breathless climactic effect which is the central and +imperative scene of the piece, the backbone of every good play. + +If this obligatory scene be absent, you may at once suspect the +dramatist; whatever his other virtues (fine dialogue, excellent +characterization, or still other merits), it is probable he is not one +genuinely called to tell a story in the manner of drama within stage +limitations. + +It is sometimes said that a play is written backward. The remark has in +mind this fundamental fact of the climax; all that goes before leads up +to it, is preparation for it, and might conceivably be written after the +obligatory scene has been conceived and shaped; all that comes after it +is an attempt to retire gracefully from the great moment, rounding it +out, showing its results, and conducting the spectator back to the +common light of day in such a way as not to be dull, or conventional or +anti-climactic. What follows this inevitable scene is (however +disguised) at bottom a sort of bridge conveying the auditor from the +supreme pleasure of the theater back to the rather humdrum experience of +actual life; it is an experiment in gradation. And the prepared +play-goer will deny the coveted award of _well done_ to any play, albeit +from famous hands and by no means wanting in good qualities, which +nevertheless fails in this prime requisite of good drama: the central, +dynamic scene illuminating all that goes before and follows after, +without which the play, after all, has no right to existence. + +With the coming of the modern psychologic school of which Galsworthy, +Barker and Bennett are exemplars, there is a distinct tendency to +minimize or even to eliminate this obligatory scene; an effort which +should be carefully watched and remonstrated against; since it is the +laying of an axe at the roots of dramatic writing. It may be confessed +that in some instances the results of this violation of a cardinal +principle are so charming as to blind the onlooker perhaps to the +danger; as in the case of _Milestones_ by Messrs. Bennett and Knoblauch, +or _The Pigeon_ by Galsworthy, or Louis Parker's Georgian picture, +_Pomander Walk_. But this only confuses the issue. Such drama may prove +delightful for other reasons; the thing to bear in mind is that they are +such in spite of the giving up of the peculiar, quintessential merit of +drama in its full sense. Their virtues are non-dramatic virtues, and +they succeed, in so far as success awaits them, in spite of the +violation of a principle, not because of it. They can be, and should be, +heartily enjoyed, so long as this is plainly understood and the two +accomplishments are perceived as separate. For it may be readily granted +that a pleasant and profitable evening at the theater may be spent, +without the very particular appeal which is dramatic coming into the +experience at all. There are more things in the modern theater than +drama; which is well, if we but make the discrimination. + +But for the purposes of intelligent comprehension of what is drama, just +that and naught else, the theater-goer will find it not amiss to hold +fast to the idea that a play without its central scene hereinbefore +described is not a play in the exact definition of that form of art, +albeit ever so enjoyable entertainment. The history of drama in its +failures and successes bears out the statement. And of all nations, +France can be studied most profitably with this in mind, since the +French have always been past masters in the feeling for the essentially +dramatic, and centuries ago developed the skill to produce it. The fact +that we get such a term as the _scene a faire_ from them points to this +truth. + +Accepting the fact, then, that a play sound in conception and +construction has and must have a central scene which acts as a +centripetal force upon the whole drama, unifying and solidifying it, the +next matter to consider is the subdivision of the play into acts and +scenes. Since the whole story is shown before the footlights, scenes and +acts are such divisions as shall best mark off and properly accentuate +the stages of the story, as it is unfolded. Convention has had something +to do with this arrangement and number, as we learn from a glance at the +development of the stage story. The earlier English drama accepted the +five-act division under classic influence, though the greatest dramatist +of the past, Shakespeare, did so only half-heartedly, as may be realized +by looking at the first complete edition of his plays, the First Folio +of 1621. _Hamlet_, for instance, as there printed, gives the first two +acts, and thereafter is innocent of any act division; and _Romeo and +Juliet_ has no such division at all. But with later editors, the classic +tradition became more and more a convention and the student with the +modernized text in hand has no reason to suspect the original facts. An +old-fashioned work like Freitag's _Technique of the Drama_ assumes this +form as final and endeavors to study dramatic construction on that +assumption. + +The scenes, too, were many in the Elizabethan period, for the reason +that there was no scene shifting in the modern sense; as many scenes +might therefore be imagined as were desirable during the continuous +performance. It has remained for modern technic to discover that there +was nothing irrevocable about this fivefold division of acts; and that, +in the attempt at a general simplification of play structure, we can do +better by a reduction of them to three or four. Hence, five acts have +shrunk to four or three; so that to-day the form preferred by the best +dramatic artists, looking to Ibsen for leadership, is the three-act +play, though the nature of the story often makes four desirable. A +careful examination of the best plays within a decade will serve to show +that this is definitely the tendency. + +The three-act play, with its recognition that every art structure should +have a beginning, middle and end--Aristotle's simple but profound +observation on the tragedy of his day--might seem to be that which marks +the ultimate technic of drama; yet it would be pedantic and foolish to +deny that the simplification may proceed further still and two acts +succeed three, or, further still, one act embrace the complete drama, +thus returning to the "scene individable" of the Greeks and Shakespeare. +Certainly, the whole evolution of form points that way. + +But, whatever the final simplification, the play as a whole will present +certain constructive problems; problems which confront the aim ever to +secure, most economically and effectively, the desired dramatic result. +The first of these is the problem of the opening act, which we may now +examine in particular. + + +II + +The first act has a definite aim and difficulties that belong to itself +alone. Broadly speaking, its business is so to open the story as to +leave the audience at the fall of the first curtain with a clear idea of +what it is about; not knowing too much, wishing to know more, and having +well in mind the antecedent conditions which made the story at its +beginning possible. If, at the act's end, too much has been revealed, +the interest projected forward sags; if too little, the audience fails +to get the idea around which the story revolves, and so is not +pleasurably anxious for its continuance. If the antecedent conditions +have not clearly been made manifest, some omitted link may throw +confusion upon all that follows. On the other hand, if too much time has +been expended in setting forth the events that lead up to the story's +start on the stage, with the rise of the curtain, not enough time may be +left, within act limits, to hold the attention and fix interest so it +may sustain the entr'act break and fasten upon the next act. + +Thus it will be seen that a successful opening act is a considerable +test of the dramatist's skill. + +Another drawback complicates the matter. The playwright has at his +disposal in the first act from half to three-quarters of an hour in +which to effect his purpose. But he must lose from five to ten minutes +of this precious time allotment, at the best very short, because, +according to the detestable Anglo-Saxon convention, the audience is not +fairly seated when the play begins, and general attention therefore not +riveted upon the stage action. Under ideal conditions, and they have +never existed in all respects in any time or country, the audience will +be in place at the curtain's rise, alert to catch every word and +movement. As a matter of fact, this practically never occurs; +particularly in America, where the drama has never been taken so +seriously as an art as music; for some time now people have not been +allowed, in a hall devoted to that gentle sister art, to straggle in +during the performance of a composition, or the self-exploitation of a +singer, thereby disturbing the more enlightened hearers who have come on +time, and regard it, very properly, as part of their breeding to do so. +But in the theater, as we all know, the barbarous custom obtains of +admitting late comers, so that for the first few minutes of the +performance a steady insult is thus offered to the play, the players, +and the portion of the audience already in their seats. It may be hoped, +parenthetically, that as our theater gradually becomes civilized this +survival of the manners of bushmen may become purely historic. At +present, however, the practical playwright accepts the existing +conditions, as perforce he must, and writes his play accordingly. And so +the first few minutes of a well-constructed drama, it may be noticed, +are generally devoted to some incident, interesting or amusing in +itself, preferably external so as to catch the eye, but not too vital, +and involving, as a rule, minor characters, without revealing anything +really crucial in the action. The matter presented thus is not so much +important as action that leads up to what is important; and its lack of +importance must not be implied in too barefaced a way, lest attention be +drawn to it. This part of the play marks time, and yet is by way of +preparation for the entrance of the main character or characters. + +Much skill is needed, and has been developed, in regard to the +marshaling of the precedent conditions: to which the word _exposition_ +has been by common consent given. Exposition to-day is by no means what +it was in Shakespeare's; indeed, it has been greatly refined and +improved upon. In the earlier technic this prefatory material was +introduced more frankly and openly in the shape of a prologue; or if the +prologue was not used, at least the information was conveyed directly +and at once to the audience by means of minor characters, stock figures +like the servant or confidante, often employed mainly, or even solely, +for that purpose. This made the device too obvious for modern taste, and +such as to injure the illusion; the play lost its effect of presenting +truthfully a piece of life, just when it was particularly important to +seem such; that is, at the beginning. For with the coming of the subtler +methods culminating in the deft technic of an Ibsen, which aims to draw +ever closer to a real presentation of life on the stage, and so strove +to find methods of depiction which should not obtrude artifice except +when unavoidable, the stage artist has learned to interweave these +antecedent circumstances with the story shown on the stage before the +audience. And the result is that to-day the exposition of an Ibsen, a +Shaw, a Wilde, a Pinero or a Jones is so managed as hardly to be +detected save by the expert in stage mechanics. The intelligent +play-goer will derive pleasure and profit from a study of Ibsen's growth +in this respect; observing, for example, how much more deftly exposition +is hidden in a late work like _Hedda Gabler_ than in a comparatively +early one like _Pillars of Society_; and, again, how bald and obvious +was this master's technic in this respect when he began in the middle +of the nineteenth century to write his historical plays. + +In general, it is well worth while to watch the handling of the first +act on the part of acknowledged craftsmen with respect to the important +matter of introducing into the framework of a two hours' spectacle all +that has transpired before the picture is exhibited to the spectators. + +One of the definite dangers of the first act is that of giving an +audience a false lead as to character or turn of story. By some bit of +dialogue, or even by an interpolated gesture on the part of an actor who +transcends his rights (a misleading thing, as likely as not to be +charged to the playwright), the auditor is put on a wrong scent, or +there is aroused in him an expectation never to be realized. Thus the +real issue is obscured, and later trouble follows as the true meaning is +divulged. A French critic, commenting on the performance in Paris of a +play by Bernard Shaw, says that its meaning was greatly confused because +two of the characters took the unwarranted liberty of exchanging a +kiss, for which, of course, there was no justification in the stage +business as indicated by the author. All who know Shaw know that he has +very little interest in stage kisses. + +Closely associated with this mistake, and far more disastrous, is such a +treatment of act one as to suggest a theme full of interest and +therefore welcome, which is then not carried through the remainder of +the drama. Fitch's _The City_ has been already referred to with this in +mind. A more recent example may be found in Veiller's popular melodrama, +_Within the Law_. The extraordinary vogue of this melodrama is +sufficient proof that it possesses some of the main qualities of +skillful theater craft: a strong, interesting fable, vital +characterization, and considerable feeling for stage situation and +climax, with the forthright hand of execution. Nevertheless, it +distinctly fails to keep the promise of the first act, where, at the +fall of the curtain, the audience has become particularly interested in +a sociological problem, only to be asked in the succeeding acts to +forget it in favor of a conventional treatment of stock melodramatic +material, with the usual thieves, detectives pitted against each other, +and gunplay for the central scene of surprise and capture. That such +current plays as _The City_ and _Within the Law_ can get an unusual +hearing, in spite of these defects, suggests the uncritical nature of +American audiences; but quite as truly implies that drama may be very +good, indeed, in most respects while falling short of the caliber we +demand of masterpieces. + +With the opening act, then, so handled as to avoid these pitfalls, the +dramatist is ready to go on with his task. He has sufficiently aroused +the interest of his audience to give it a pleasurable sense of +entertainment ahead, without imparting so much knowledge as to leave too +little for guesswork and lessen the curiosity necessary for one who must +still spend an hour and a half in a place of bad air and too heated +temperature. He has awakened attention and directed it upon a theme and +story, yet left it tantalizingly but not confusingly incomplete. Now he +has before him the problem of unfolding his play and making it center in +the climactic scene which will make or mar the piece. We must observe, +then, how he develops his story in that part of the play intermediate +between the introduction and the crisis; the second act of a three-act +drama or the third if the four-act form be chosen. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +DEVELOPMENT + + +The story being properly started, it becomes the dramatist's business, +as we saw, so to advance it that it will develop naturally and with such +increase of interest as to tighten the hold upon the audience as the +plot reaches its crucial point, the obligatory scene. This can only be +done by the sternest selection of those elements of story which can be +fitly shown on the stage, or without a loss of interest be inferred +clearly from off-stage occurrences. Since action is of the essence of +drama, all narrative must be shunned that deals with matters which, +being vital to the play and naturally dramatic material, can be +presented directly to the eye and ear. And character must be +economically handled, so that as it is revealed the revelation at the +same time furthers the story, pushing it forward instead of holding it +static while the character is being unfolded. Dialogue should always do +one of these two things and the best dialogue will do both: develop plot +in the very moment that it exhibits the unfolding psychology of the +_dramatis personae_. The fact that in the best modern work plot is for +the sake of character rather than the reverse does not violate this +principle; it simply redistributes emphasis. Character without plot may +possibly be attractive in the hands of a Galsworthy or Barker; but the +result is extremely likely to be tame and inconclusive. And, +contrariwise, plot without character, that is, with character that lacks +individuality and meaning and merely offers a peg upon which to hang a +series of happenings, results in primitive drama that, being destitute +of psychology, falls short of the finest and most serious possibilities +of the stage. + +This portion of the play, then, intermediate between introduction and +climax, is very important and tries the dramatist's soul, in a way, +quite as truly as do beginning and end. + +In a three-act play--which we may assume as normal, without forgetting +that four are often necessary to the best telling of the story, and that +five acts are still found convenient under certain circumstances, as in +Rostand's _Cyrano de Bergerac_ and Shaw's _Pygmalion_--the work of +development falls on the second act, in the main. The climax of action +is likely to be at the end of the act, although plays can be mentioned, +and good ones, where the playwright has seen fit to place his crucial +scene well on into act three. In this matter he is between two dangers +and must steer his course wisely to avoid the rocks of his Scylla and +Charybdis. If his climax come too soon, an effect of anti-climax is +likely to be made, in an act too long when the main stress is over. If, +on the other hand, he put his strongest effect at the end of the piece +or close to it, while the result is admirable in sustaining interest and +saving the best for the last, the close is apt to be too abrupt and +unfinished for the purposes of art; sending the audience out into the +street, dazed after the shock of the obligatory scene. + +Therefore, the skillful playwright inclines to leave sufficient of the +play after the climax to make an agreeable rounding out of the fable, +tie up loose ends and secure an artistic effect of completing the whole +structure without tedium or anti-climax. He thus preserves unity, yet +escapes an impression of loose texture in the concluding part of his +play. It may be seen that this makes the final act a very special +problem in itself, a fact we shall consider in the later treatment. + +And now, with the second-act portion of the play in mind, standing for +growth, increased tension, and an ever-greater interest, a peculiarity +of the play which differentiates it from the fiction-story can be +mentioned. It refers to the nature of the interest and the attitude of +the auditor toward the story. + +In fiction, interest depends largely upon suspense due to the +uncertainty of the happenings; the reader, unaware of the outcome of +events, has a pleasing sense of curiosity and a stimulating desire to +know the end. He reads on, under the prick of this desire. The novelist +keeps him more or less in the dark, and in so doing fans the flame of +interest. What will be the fate of the hero? Will the heroine escape +from the impending doom? Will the two be mated before the Finis is +written? Such are the natural questions in a good novel, in spite of all +our modern overlaying of fiction with subtler psychologic suggestions. + +But the stage story is different. The audience from the start is taken +into the dramatist's confidence; it is allowed to know something that is +not known to the _dramatis personae_ themselves; or, at least, not known +to certain very important persons of the story, let us say, the hero and +heroine, to give them the simple old-fashioned description. And the +audience, taken in this flattering way into the playwright's secret, +finds its particular pleasure in seeing how the blind puppets up on the +stage act in an ignorance which if shared by the spectators would +qualify, if not destroy, the special kind of excitement they are +enjoying. + +Just why this difference between play and novel exists is a nice +question not so easily answered; that it does exist, nobody who has +thought upon the subject can doubt. Occasionally, it is true, successful +plays are written in apparent violation of this principle. That +eminently skillful and effective piece of theater work, Bernstein's _The +Thief_, is an example; a large part of the whole first act, if not all +of it, takes place without the spectator suspecting that the young wife, +who is the real thief, is implicated in the crime. Nevertheless, such +dramas are the exception. Broadly speaking, sound dramaturgy makes use +of the principle of knowing cooeperation of the audience in the plot, and +always will; if for no other reason, because the direct stage method of +showing a story makes it impracticable to hoodwink those in the +auditorium and also perhaps because the necessary compression of events +in a play would make the suddenness of the discovery on the part of the +audience that they had been fooled unpleasant: an unpleasantness, it may +be surmised, intensified by the additional fact that the fooling has +been done in the presence of others--their fellow theater-goers. The +quickness of the effects possible to the stage and inability of the +playwright to use repetition no doubt also enter in the result. The +novelist can return, explain, dwell upon the causes of the reader's +readjustment to changed characters or surprising turns of circumstance; +the dramatist must go forthright on and make his strokes tell for once +and for all. + +Be this as it may, the theater story, as a rule, by a tradition which in +all probability roots in an instinct and a necessity, invites the +listener to be a sort of eavesdropper, to come into a secret and from +this vantage point watch the perturbations of a group of less-knowing +creatures shown behind the footlights: he not only sees, but oversees. +As an outcome of this trait, results follow which also set the play in +contrast with the other ways of story telling. The playwright should not +deceive his audience either in the manipulation of characters or +occurrences. Pleasurable as this may be in fiction, in the theater it is +disastrous. The audience, disturbed in its superior sense of knowledge, +sitting as it were like the gods apart and asked suddenly, peremptorily, +to reconstruct its suppositions, is baffled and then irritated. This is +one of several reasons why, in the delineation of character on the +stage, it is of very dubious desirability to spring a surprise; making +the seeming hero turn out a villain or the presumptive villain blossom +into a paragon of all the virtues: as Dickens does in _Our Mutual +Friend_; in that case, to the added zest of the reader. The risk in +subtilizing stage character lies just here. Persons shown so fleetingly +in a few selected moments of their whole lives, after the stage fashion, +must be seen in high relief, if they are to be clearly grasped by the +onlookers. Conceding that in actual life folk in general are an +indeterminate gray rather than stark black and white, it is none the +less necessary to use primary colors, for the most part, in painting +them, in order that they may be realized. Here again we encounter the +limitations of art in depicting life, and its difference therefrom. In a +certain sense, therefore, stage characters must be more primitive, more +elemental, as well as elementary, than the characters in novels, a +thought we shall have occasion to come back to, from another angle, +later on. + +Equally is it true that good technic forbids the false lead: any hint or +suggestion which has the appearance of conducting on to something to +come later in the play, which shall verify and fortify the previous +allusion or implication. Every word spoken is thus, besides its +immediate significance, a preparation for something ahead. It is a +continual temptation to a dramatist with a feeling for character (a gift +most admirable in itself) to do brushwork on some person of his play, +which, while it may illuminate the character as such, may involve +episodic treatment that will entirely mislead an audience into supposing +that the author has far more meaning in the action shown than he +intended. These false leads are of course always the enemies of unity +and to be all the more carefully guarded against in proportion to their +attraction. So attractive, indeed, is this lure into by-paths away from +the main path of progress that it is fairly astonishing to see how +often even veteran playwrights fall in love with some character, +disproportionately handle it, and invent unnecessary tangential +incidents in order to exhibit it. And, rather discouragingly, an +audience forgives episodic treatment and over-emphasis in the enjoyment +of the character, as such; willing to let the drama suffer for the sake +of a welcome detail. + +In developing his story in this intermediate part of it, a more +insidious, all-pervasive lure is to be seen in the change in the very +type of drama intended at first, or clearly promised in act one. The +play may start out to be a comedy of character and then be deflected +into one where character is lost sight of in the interest of plot; or a +play farcical in the conditions given may turn serious on the +dramatist's hands. Or, worse yet, that which is a comedy in feeling and +drift, may in the course of the development become tragic in conclusion. +Or, once more, what begins for tragedy, with its implied seriousness of +interest in character and philosophy of life, may resolve itself, under +the fascination of plot and of histrionic effectivism, into melodrama, +with its undue emphasis upon external sensation and its correlative loss +in depth and artistry. + +All these and still other permutations a play suffers in the sin +committed whenever the real type or genre of a drama, implied at the +start, is violated in the later handling. The history of the stage +offers many illustrations. In a play not far, everything considered, +from being the greatest in the tongue, Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, it may be +questioned if there be not a departure in the final act from the +emphasis placed upon psychology in the acts that lead up to it. The +character of the melancholy prince is the main thing, the pivot of +interest, up to that point; but in the fifth act the external method of +completing the story, which involves the elimination of so many of the +persons of the play, has somewhat the effect of a change of kind, an +abrupt and incongruous cutting of the Gordian knot. Doubtless, the facts +as to the composite nature of this play viewed in its total history may +have much to do with such an effect, if it be set down here aright.[C] +In any case, it is certain that every week during the dramatic season in +New York new plays are to be seen which, by this mingling of genres, +fall short of the symmetry of true art. + +One other requirement in the handling of the play in the section between +introduction and climax: the playwright must not linger too long over +it, nor yet shorten it in his eagerness to reach the scene which is the +crown and culmination of all his labors. Probably the experienced +craftsman is likely to make the second mistake rather than the first, +though both are often to be noted. He fails sometimes to realize the +increase in what I may call reverberatory power which is gained by a +slower approach to the great moment through a series of deft suggestions +of what is to come; appetizing hints and withdrawals, reconnaitres +before the actual engagement, all of it preparatory to the real struggle +that is pending. It is a law of the theater, applying to dialogue, +character and scene, that twice-told is always an advantage. One +distinguished playwright rather cynically declared that you must tell an +audience you are going to do it, are doing it, and have done it. +Examples in every aspect of theater work abound. The catch phrase put in +the mouth of the comic character is only mildly amusing at first; it +gains steadily with repetition until, introduced at just the right +moment, the house rocks with laughter. Often the difference between a +detached witticism, like one of Oscar Wilde's _mots_, and a bit of +genuine dramatic humor rests in the fact that the fun lies in the +setting: it is a _mot de situation_, to borrow the French expression, +not a mere _mot d'esprit_. By appearing to be near a crisis, and then +introducing a barrier from which it is necessary to draw back and +approach once more over the same ground, tension is increased and +tenfold the effect secured when at last the match is laid to the fire. + +Plenty of plays fail of their full effect because the climax is come at +before every ounce of value has been wrung out of preceding events. If +the screen scene in _The School for Scandal_ be studied with this +principle in mind, the student will have as good an object lesson as +English drama can show of skilled leading up to a climax by so many +little steps of carefully calculated effect that the final fall of the +screen remains one of the great moments in the theater, despite the +mundane nature of the theme and the limited appeal to the deeper +qualities of human nature. Within its limitations (and theater art, as +any other, is to be judged by success under accepted conditions) +Sheridan's work in this place and play is a permanent master-stroke of +brilliant technic, as well as one explanation of the persistence of that +delightful eighteenth century comedy. + +But the dramatist, as I have said, may also err in delaying so long in +his preparation and growth, that the audience, being ready for the +climax before it arrives, will be cold when it comes, and so the effect +will hang fire. It is safe to say that in a three-act play, where the +first act has consumed thirty-five to forty minutes, and the climax is +to occur at the fall of the second curtain, it is well if the +intermediate act does not last much above the same length of time. Of +course, the nature of the story and the demands it makes will modify the +statement; but it applies broadly to the observed phenomena. The first +act, for reasons already explained, is apt to be the longest of the +three, as the last act is the shortest, other things being equal. If the +first act, therefore, run fifty minutes, forty to forty-five, or even +thirty-five, would be shapely for act two; which, with twenty to +twenty-five minutes given to the final act, would allot to the entire +play about two hours and ten minutes, which is close to an ideal playing +time for a drama under modern conditions. This time allowance, with the +added fraction of minutes given to the entr'acts thrown in, would, for a +play which began at 8:15, drop the final curtain at about 10:30. + +In case the climax, as has been assumed of a three-act play, be placed +at the end of the second act, the third act will obviously be shorter. +Should, however, the growth be projected into the third act, and the +climax be sprung at a point within this act--beyond the middle, let us +say--then the final act is lengthened and act two shortened in +proportion. The principle is that, with the main interest over, it is +hard to hold the auditor's attention; whereas if the best card is still +up the sleeve we may assume willingness to prolong the game. + +With the shift of climax from an earlier to a later place in the piece, +the technic of the handling is changed only according to these +commonsense demands. A knowledge of the psychology of human beings +brought together for the purpose of entertainment will go far toward +settling the question. And whether the playwright place his culminating +effect in act two or three, or whether for good and sufficient reasons +of story complication the three acts become four or even five, the +principles set forth in the above pages apply with only such +modifications as are made necessary by the change. + +The theater-goer, seeking to pass an intelligent opinion upon a drama as +a whole, will during this period of growth ask of the playwright that +he keep the auditor's interest and increase it symmetrically; that he +show the plot unfolding in action, instead of talking about it; that he +do not reach the eagerly expected conflagration too soon, nor delay it +too long; and that he make more and more apparent the meaning of the +characters in their relations to each other and to the plot. If the +spectator be confused, baffled, irritated or bored, or any or all of +these, he has a legitimate complaint against the dramatist. And be it +noted that while the majority of a theater audience may not with +self-conscious analysis know why they are dissatisfied, under these +conditions, the dissatisfaction is there, just the same, and thus do +they become critics, though they know it not, even as M. Jourdain talked +prose all his days without being aware of it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CLIMAX + + +With the play properly introduced in act one, and the development +carried forward upon that firm foundation in the following act or acts, +the playwright approaches that part of his play which will, more than +anything else, settle the fate of his work. As we have noted, if he have +no such scene, he will not have a play at all. If on arrival it fail to +seem indispensable and to be of dynamic quality, the play will be +broken-winged, at best. The proof that he is a genuine playwright by +rightful calling and not a literary person, producing books for closet +reading, lies just here. The moment has come when, with his complication +brought to the point where it must be solved, and all that has gone +before waiting upon that solution, he must produce an effect with one +skillful right-arm stroke which shall make the spectators a unit in the +feeling that the evening has been well spent and his drama is true to +the best tradition of the stage. + +The stress has steadily increased to a degree at which it must be +relieved. The strain is at the breaking point. The clash of characters +or of circumstances operating upon characters is such that a crisis is +at hand. By some ingenious interplay of word, action and scene, by an +emotional crescendo crystallizing in a stage picture, by some unexpected +reversion of incident or of human psychology (known in stage technic as +peripety) or by an unforeseen accident in the fall of events, an +electric change is exhibited, with the emotions of the _dramatis +personae_ at white heat and the consequent enthraldom of the audience. Of +all the varied pleasures of the playhouse, this moment, scene, turn of +story, is that which appeals to the largest number and has made the +theater most distinctive. This is not to say that a profound revelation +of character, or a pungent reflection on life, made concrete in a +situation, may not be a finer thing to do. It is merely to recognize a +certain unique thing the stage can do in story telling, as against other +forms, and to confess its universal attraction. While there is much in +latter day play-making that seems to deaden the thrill of the obligatory +scene, a clear comprehension of its central importance is basal in +appreciation of the drama. A play may succeed without it, and a +temporary school of psychologues may even pretend to pooh-pooh it as an +outworn mode of cheap theatrics. The influence of Ibsen, and there is +none more potent, has been cited as against the _scene a faire_, in the +French sense; and it is true that his curtains are less obviously +stressed and appear to aim not so much at the palpably heightened +effects traditional of the development in French hands,--the most +skillful hands in the world. But it remains true that this central and +dominant scene is inherent in the very structure of dramatic writing. To +repeat what was said before, the play that abandons climax may be good +entertainment, but is by so much poorer drama. The best and most +successful dramaturgy of our day therefore will seek to preserve the +obligatory scene, but hide under more subtle technic the ways and means +by which it is secured. The ways of the past became so open in the +attempt to reach the result as to produce in many cases a feeling of +bald artifice. This the later technic will do all in its power to avoid, +while clinging persistently to the principle of climax, a principle of +life just as truly as a principle of art. Physicians speak in a +physiological sense of the grand climacteric of a man's age. + +A test of any play may be found in the readiness with which it lends +itself to a simple threefold statement of its story; the proposition, as +it is called by technicians. This tabloid summary of the essence of the +play is valuable in that it reveals plainly two things: whether there is +a play in hand, and what and where is its obligatory scene. All who wish +to train themselves to be critical rather than captious or silly in +their estimate of drama, cannot be too strongly urged to practice this +exercise of reducing a play to its lowest terms, its essential elements. +It will serve to clarify much that might remain otherwise a muddle. And +one of the sure tests of a good play may be found here; if it is not a +workable drama, either it will not readily reduce to a proposition or +else cannot be stated propositionally at all. Further, a play that is a +real play in substance, and not a hopelessly undramatic piece of writing +arbitrarily cut up into scenes or acts, and expressed in dialogue (like +some of the dramas of the Bengalese Taghore), can be stated clearly and +simply in a brief paragraph. This matter of reduction to a skeleton +which is structurally a _sine qua non_ may be illustrated. + +A proposition, to define it a little more carefully, is a threefold +statement of the essence of a play, so organically related that each +successive part depends upon and issues from the other. It contains a +condition (or situation), an action, and a result. For instance, the +proposition of _Macbeth_ may be expressed as follows: + +I. A man, ambitious to be king, abetted by his wife, gains the throne +through murder. + +II. Remorse visits them both. + +III. What will be the effect upon the pair? + +Reflection upon this schematic summary will show that the interest of +Shakespeare's great drama is not primarily a story interest; plot is not +the chief thing, but character. The essential crux lies in the painful +spectacle of the moral degeneration of husband and wife, sin working +upon each according to their contrasted natures. Both have too much of +the nobler elements in them not to experience regret and the prick of +conscience. This makes the drama called _Macbeth_ a fine example of +psychologic tragedy in the true sense. + +Or take a well-known modern play, _Camille:_ + +I. A young man loves and lives with a member of the demi-monde. + +II. His father pleads with her to give him up, for his own sake. + +III. What will she do? + +It will be observed that the way the lady of the camellias answers the +question is the revelation of her character; so that the play again, +although its story interest is sufficient, is primarily a character +study, surrounded by Dumas fils with a rich atmosphere of understanding +sympathy and with sentiment that to a later taste becomes +sentimentality. + +_The School for Scandal_ might be stated in this way: + +I. An old husband brings his gay but well-meaning wife to town. + +II. Her innocent love of fun involves her in scandal. + +III. Will the two be reconciled, and how? + +Ibsen's _A Doll's House_ may be thus expressed in a proposition: + +I. A young wife has been babified by her husband. + +II. Experiences open her eyes to the fact that she is not educated to be +either wife or mother. + +III. She leaves her husband until he can see what a woman should be in +the home: a human being, not a doll. + +These examples will serve to show what is meant by proposition and +indicate more definitely the central purpose of the dramatic author and +the technical demand made upon him. Be assured that under whatever +varied garb of attraction in incident, scene and character, this +underlying stern architectural necessity abides, and a drama's inability +to reduce itself thus to a formula is a confession that in the +structural sense the building is lop-sided and insecure, or, worse, that +there is no structure there at all: nothing, so to put it, but a front +elevation, a mere architect's suggestion. + +As the spectator breathlessly enjoys the climax and watches to see that +unknotting of the knot which gives the French word _denouement_ +(unknotting) its meaning, he will notice that the intensity of the +climactic effect is not derived alone from action and word; but that +largely effective in the total result is the picture made upon the +stage, in front of the background of setting which in itself has +pictorial quality, by the grouped characters as the curtain falls. + +This effect, conventionally called a _situation_, is for the eye as well +as for the ear and the brain,--better, the heart. It would be an +unfortunate limitation to our theater culture if we did not comprehend +to the full how large a part of the effect of a good play is due to the +ever-changing series of artistic stage pictures furnished by the +dramatist in collaboration with the actors and the stage manager. This +principle is important throughout a play, but gets its most vivid +illustration in the climax; hence, I enlarge upon it at this point. + +Among the most novel, fruitful and interesting experiments now being +made in the theater here and abroad may be mentioned the attempts to +introduce more subtle and imaginative treatment of the possibilities of +color and form in stage setting than have hitherto obtained. The +reaction influenced by familiarity with the unadorned simplicity of the +Elizabethans, the Gordon Craig symbolism, the frank attempt to +substitute artistic suggestion for the stupid and expensive reproduction +on the stage of what is called "real life," are phases of this movement, +in which Germany and Russia have been prominent. The stage manager and +scene deviser are daily becoming more important factors in the +production of a play; and along with this goes a clearer perception of +the values of grouping and regrouping on the part of the plastic +elements behind the footlights.[D] Many a scenic moment, many a climax, +may be materially damaged by a failure to place the characters in such +relative positions as shall visualize the dramatic feeling of the scene +and reveal in terms of picture the dramatist's meaning. After all, the +time-honored convention that the main character, or characters, should, +at the moment when they are dominant in the story, take the center of +the stage, is no empty convention; it is based on logic and geometry. +There is a direct correspondence between the unity of emotion +concentrated in a group of persons and the eye effect which reports that +fact. I have seen so fine a climax as that in Jones's _The +Hypocrites_--one of the very best in the modern repertory--well nigh +ruined by a stock company, when, owing to the purely arbitrary demand +that the leading man should have the center at a crucial moment, +although in the logic of the action he did not belong there, the two +young lovers who were dramatically central in the scene were shunted off +to the side, and the leading man, whose true position was in the deep +background, delivered his curtain speech close up to the footlights on a +spot mathematically exact in its historic significance. True dramatic +relations were sacrificed to relative salaries, and, as a result, a +scene which naturally receives half a dozen curtain calls, went off with +comparative tameness. It was a striking demonstration of the importance +of picture on the stage as an externalization of dramatic facts. + +If the theater-goer will keep an eye upon this aspect of the drama, he +will add much of interest to the content of his pleasure and do justice +to a very important and easily overlooked phase of technic. It is common +in criticism, often professional, to sneer at the tendency of modern +actors, under the stage manager's guidance, continually to shift +positions while the dialogue is under way; thus producing an +unnecessarily uneasy effect of meaningless action. As a generalization, +it may be said that this is done (though at times no doubt, overdone) on +a principle that is entirely sound: it expresses the desire for a new +picture, a recognition of the law that, in drama, composition to the eye +is as truly a principle as it is in painting. And with that +consideration goes the additional fact that motion implies emotion; than +which there is no surer law in psycho-physics. Abuse of the law, on the +stage, is beyond question possible, and frequently met. But a +redistribution of the positions of actors on the boards, when not +abused, means they have moved under the compulsion of some stress of +feeling and then the movement is an external symbol of an internal state +of mind. The drama must express the things within by things without, in +this way; that is its method. The audience is only properly irritated +when a stage moment which, from the nature of its psychology, calls for +the static, is injured by an unrelated, fussy, bodily activity. Motion +in such a case becomes as foolish as the scene shifting in one of the +highest colored and most phantasmagoric of our dreams. The wise stage +director will not call for a change of picture unless it represents a +psychologic fact. + +Two men converse at a table; one communicates to the other, quietly and +in conversational tone, a fact of alarming nature. The other leaps to +his feet with an exclamation and paces the floor as he talks about it; +nothing is more fitting, because nothing is truer to life. The +repressive style of acting to-day, which might try to express this +situation purely by facial work, goes too far in abandoning the +legitimate tools of the craft. Let me repeat that, despite all the +refining upon older, more violent and crudely expressive methods of +technic, the stage must, from its very nature, indicate the emotions of +human beings by objective, concrete bodily reaction. The Greek word for +drama means _doing_. To exhibit feeling is to do something. + +Or let us take a more composite group: that which is seen in a drawing +room, with various knots of people talking together just before dinner +is announced. A shift in the groups, besides effecting the double +purpose of pleasing the eye and allowing certain portions of the +dialogue to come forward and get the ear of the audience, also +incidentally tells the truth: these groups in reality would shift and +change more or less by the law of social convenience. The general +greetings of such an occasion would call for it. In a word, then, the +stage is, among other things, a plastic representation of life, forever +making an appeal to the eye. The application of this to the climax shows +how vastly important its pictorial side may be. + +The climax that is prolonged is always in danger. Lead up to it slowly +and surely, secure the effect, and then get away from it instantly by +lowering the curtain. Do not fumble with it, or succumb to the +insinuating temptation of clinging to what is so effective. The +dramatist here is like a fond father loath to say _farewell_ to his +favorite child. But say the parting word he must, if he would have his +offspring prosper and not, like many a father ere this, keep the child +with him to its detriment. A second too much, and the whole thing will +he imperiled. At the _denouement_, every syllable must be weighed, nor +found wanting; every extraneous word ruthlessly cut out, the feats of +fine language so welcome in other forms of literary composition shunned +as an arch enemy. Colloquialism, instead of literary speech, even bad +grammar where more formal book-speech seems to dampen the fire, must be +instinctively sought. And whenever the action itself, backed by the +scenery, can convey what is aimed at, silence is best of all; for then, +if ever, silence is indeed golden. All this the spectator will quietly +note, sitting in his seat of judgment, ready to show his pleasure or +displeasure, according to what is done. + +A difficulty that blocks the path of every dramatist in proportion as +its removal improves his piece, is that of graduating his earlier +curtains so that the climax (third act or fourth, as it may) is +obviously the outstanding, over-powering effect of the whole play. The +curtain of the first act will do well to possess at least some slight +heightening of the interest maintained progressively from the opening of +the drama; an added crispness perceptible to all who look and listen. +And the crisis of the second act must be differentiated from that of the +first in that it has a tenser emotional value, while yet it is +distinctly below that of the climax, if the obligatory scene is to come +later. Sad indeed the result if any curtain effect in appeal and power +usurp the royal place of the climactic scene! And this skillful +gradation of effects upon a rising scale of interest, while always aimed +at, is by no means always secured. This may happen because the +dramatist, with much good material in his hands, has believed he could +use it prodigally, and been led to overlook the principle of relative +values in his art. A third act climax may secure a tremendous sensation +by the device of keeping the earlier effects leading up to it +comparatively low-keyed and quiet. The tempest may be, in the abstract, +only one in a teapot; but a tempest in effect it is, all the same. + +Ibsen's plays often illustrate and justify this statement, as do the +plays of the younger British school, Barker, Baker, McDonald, Houghton, +Hankin. And the reverse is equally true: a really fine climax may be +made pale and ineffective by too much of sensational material introduced +earlier in the play. + +The climax of the drama is also the best place to illustrate the fact +that the stage appeal is primarily emotional. If this central scene be +not of emotional value, it is safe to say that the play is doomed; or +will at the most have a languishing life in special performances and be +cherished by the elite. The stage story, we have seen, comes to the +auditor warm and vibrant in terms of feeling. The idea which should be +there, as we saw, must come by way of the heart, whence, as George +Meredith declares, all great thoughts come. Herein lies another +privilege and pitfall of the dramatist. Privilege, because teaching by +emotion will always be most popular; yet a pitfall, because it sets up +a temptation to play upon the unthinking emotions which, once aroused, +sweep conviction along to a goal perhaps specious and undesirable. To +say that the theater is a place for the exercise of the emotions, is not +to say or mean that it is well for it to be a place for the display and +influence of the unregulated emotions. Legitimate drama takes an idea of +the brain, or an inspiration of the imaginative faculties, and conveys +it by the ruddy road of the feelings to the stirred heart of the +audience; it should be, and is in its finest examples, the happy union +of the head and heart, so blended as best to conserve the purpose of +entertainment and popular instruction; popular, for the reason that it +is emotional, concrete, vital; and instructive, because it sinks deeper +in and stays longer (being more keenly felt) than any mere exercise of +the intellect in the world. + +The student, whether at home with the book of the play in hand or in his +seat at the theater, will scrutinize the skilled effects of climax, +seeking principles and understanding more clearly his pleasure therein. +In reading Shakespeare, for example, he will see that the obligatory +scene of _The Merchant of Venice_ is the trial scene and the exact +moment when the height is reached and the fall away from it begins, that +where Portia tells the Jew to take his pound of flesh without the +letting of blood. In modern drama, he will think of the scene in +Sudemann's powerful drama, _Magda_, in which Magda's past is revealed to +her fine old father as the climax of the action; and in Pinero's +strongest piece, _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, will put his finger on the +scene of the return of Paula's lover as the crucial thing to show. And +so with the scene of the cross-examination of the woman in Jones's _Mrs. +Dane's Defense_, and the scene in Lord Darlington's rooms in Wilde's +_Lady Windermere's Fan_, and the final scene in Shaw's _Candida_, where +the playwright throws forward the _scene a faire_ to the end, and makes +his heroine choose between husband and lover. These, and many like them, +will furnish ample food for reflection and prove helpful in clarifying +the mind in the essentials of this most important of all the phenomena +of play-building. + +It is with the climax, as with everything else in art or in life: +honesty of purpose is at the bottom of the success that is admirable. +Mere effectivism is to be avoided, because it is insincere. In its place +must be effectiveness, which is at once sincere and dramatic. + +The climax, let it be now assumed, has been successfully brought off. +The curtain falls on the familiar and pleasant buzz of conversation +which is the sign infallible that the dramatist's dearest ambition has +been attained. Could we but listen to the many detached bits of talk +that fly about the house, or are heard in the lobby, we might hazard a +shrewd guess at the success of the piece. If the talk be favorable, and +the immediate reception of the obligatory scene has been hearty, it +would appear as if the playwright's troubles were over. But hardly so. +Even with his climax a success, he is not quite out of the woods. A +task, difficult and hedged in with the possibilities of mistake, awaits +him; for the last act is just ahead, and it may diminish, even nullify +the favorable impression he has just won by his manipulation of the +_scene a faire_. And so, girding himself for the last battle, he enters +the arena, where many a good man before him has unexpectedly fallen +before the enemy. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +ENDING THE PLAY + + +To one who is watchful in his theater seat, it must have become evident +that many plays, which in the main give pleasure and seem successful, +have something wrong with the last act. The play-goer may feel this, +although he never has analyzed the cause or more than dimly been aware +of the artistic problem involved. An effect of anti-climax is produced +by it, interest flags or utterly disappears; the final act seems to lag +superfluous on the stage, like Johnson's player. + +Several reasons combine to make this no uncommon experience. One may +have emerged from the discussion of the climax. It is the hard fortune +of the last act to follow the great scene and to suffer by contrast; +even if the last part of the play be all that such an act should be, +there is in the nature of the case a likelihood that the auditor, +reacting from his excitement, may find this concluding section of the +drama stale, flat and unprofitable. To overcome this disadvantage, to +make the last act palatable without giving it so much attraction as to +detract from the _scene a faire_ and throw the latter out of its due +position in the center of interest, offers the playwright a very +definite labor and taxes his ingenuity to the utmost. The proof of this +is that so many dramas, up to the final act complete successes and +excellent examples of sound technic, go to pieces here. I am of the +opinion that in no one particular of construction do plays with matter +in them and some right of existence come to grief more frequently than +in this successful handling of the act which closes the drama. It may +even be doubted if the inexperienced dramatist has so much trouble with +his climax as with this final problem. If he had no _scene a faire_ he +would hardly have written a play at all. But this tricky ultimate +portion of the drama, seemingly so minor, may prove that which will +trip him in the full flush of his victory with the obligatory scene. + +At first blush, it would seem as if, with the big scene over, little +remained to be done with the play, so far as story is concerned. In a +sense this is true. The important elements are resolved; the main +characters are defined for good or bad; the obstacles which have +combined to make the plot tangle have been removed or proved +insurmountable. The play has, with an increasing sense of struggle, +grown to its height; it must now fall from that height by a plausible +and more gentle descent. If it be a tragedy, the fall spells +catastrophe, and is more abrupt and eye-compelling. If comedy be the +form, then the unknotting means a happy solution of all difficulties. +But in either case, the chief business of this final part of the play +would appear to be the rounding out of the fable, the smoothing off of +corners, and the production of an artistic effect of finish and +finality. If any part of the story be incomplete in plot, it will be in +all probability that which has to do with the subplot, if there be one, +or with the fates of subsidiary characters. If the playwright, wishing +to make his last act of interest, and in order to justify the retention +of the audience in the theater for twenty minutes to half an hour more, +should leave somewhat of the main story to be cleared up in the last +act, he has probably weakened his obligatory scene and made a strategic +mistake. And so his instinct is generally right when he prefers to get +all possible dramatic satisfaction into the _scene a faire_, even at the +expense of what is to follow. + +A number of things this act can, however, accomplish. It can, with the +chief stress and strain over, exhibit characters in whom the audience +has come to have a warm interest in some further pleasant manifestation +of their personality, thus offering incidental entertainment. The +interest in such stage persons must be very strong to make this a +sufficient reason for prolonging a play. Or, if the drama be tragic in +its nature, some lighter turn of events, or some brighter display of +psychology, may be presented to mitigate pain and soften the awe and +terror inspired by the main theme; as, for instance, Shakespeare +alleviates the deaths of the lovers in Romeo and Juliet by the +reconciliation of the estranged families over their fair young bodies. A +better mood for leaving the playhouse is thus created, without any lying +about life. The Greeks did this by the use of lyric song at the end of +their tragedies; melodrama does it by an often violent wresting of +events to smooth out the trouble, as well as by lessening our interest +in character as such. + +Also, and here is, I believe, its prime function, the last act can show +the logical outflow of the situation already laid down and brought to +its issue in the preceding acts of the drama. Another danger lurks in +this for the technician, as may be shown. It would almost seem that, in +view of the largely supererogatory character of this final act, inasmuch +as the play seems practically over with the _scene a faire_, it might be +best honestly to end the piece with its most exciting, arresting scene +and cut out the final half hour altogether. + +But there is an artistic reason for keeping it as a feature of good +play-making to the end of the years; I have just referred to it. I mean +the instinctive desire on the part of the dramatic artist and his +cooeperative auditors so to handle the cross-section of life which has +been exhibited upon the stage as to make the transition from stage scene +to real life so gradual, so plausible, as to be pleasant to one's sense +of esthetic _vraisemblance_. To see how true this is, watch the effect +upon yourself made by a play which rings down the last curtain upon a +sensational moment, leaving you dazed and dumb as the lights go up and +the orchestra renders its final banality. Somehow, you feel that this +sudden, violent change from life fictive and imaginative to the life +actual of garish streets, clanging trolleys, tooting motor cars and +theater suppers is jarring and wrong. Art, you whisper to yourself, +should not be so completely at variance with life; the good artist +should find some other better way to dismiss you. The Greeks, as I said, +sensitive to this demand, mitigated the terrible happenings of their +colossal legendary tragedies by closing with lofty lyric choruses. Turn +to the last pages of Sophocles's _OEdipus Tyrannus_, perhaps the most +drastic of them all, for an example. I should venture to go so far as to +suggest it as possible that in an apparent exception like _Othello_, +where the drama closes harshly upon the murder of the ewe lamb of a +wife, Shakespeare might have introduced the alleviation of a final +scene, had he ever prepared this play, or his plays in general, after +the modern method of revision and final form, for the Argus-eyed +scrutiny they were to receive in after-time. However, that his instinct +in this matter, in general, led him to seek the artistic consolation +which removes the spectator from too close and unrelieved proximity to +the horrible is beyond cavil. If he do furnish a tragic scene, there +goes with it a passage, a strain of music, an unforgettable phrase, +which, beauty being its own excuse for being, is as balm to the soul +harrowed up by the agony of a protagonist. Horatio, over the body of his +dear friend, speaks words so lovely that they seem the one rubric for +sorrow since. And, still further removing us from the solemn sadness of +the moment, enters Fortinbras, to take over the cares of kingdom and, in +so doing, to remind us that beyond the individual fate of Hamlet lies +the great outer world of which, after all, he is but a small part; and +that the ordered cosmos must go on, though the Ophelias and Hamlets of +the world die. The mere horrible, with this alleviation of beauty, +becomes a very different thing, the terrible; the terrible is the +horrible, plus beauty, and the terrible lifts us to a lofty mood of +searching seriousness that has its pleasure, where the horrible repels +and dispirits. Thus, the sympathetic recipient gets a certain austere +satisfaction, yes, why not call it pleasure, from noble tragedy. But he +asks that the last act pour the oil of peace, of beauty and of +philosophic vision upon the troubled waters of life. + +There is then an artistic justification, if I am right, for the act +following the climax, quite aside from the conventional demand for it as +a time filler, and its convenience too in the way of binding up loose +ends. + +As the function of the great scene is to develop and bring to a head +the principal things of the play, so that of this final act would seem +to be the taking care of the lesser things, to an effect of harmonious +artistry. And whenever a playwright, confronting these difficulties and +dangers, triumphs over them, whenever your comment is to the effect +that, since it all appears to be over, it is hard to see what a last act +can offer to justify it, and yet if that act prove interesting, freshly +invented, unexpectedly worth while, you will, if you care to do your +part in the Triple Alliance made up of actors, playwright and audience, +express a sentiment of gratitude, and admiration as well, for the +theater artist who has manipulated his material to such good result. + +The last act of Thomas's _The Witching Hour_ can be studied with much +profit with this in mind. It is a masterly example of added interest +when the things vital to the story have been taken care of. Another, and +very different, example is Louis Parker's charming play, _Rosemary_, +where at the climax a middle-aged man parts from the young girl who +loves him and whom he loves, because he does not realize she returns +the feeling, and, moreover, she is engaged to another, and, from the +conventions of age, the match is not desirable. The story is over, +surely, and it is a sad ending; nothing can ever change that, unless the +dramatist tells some awful lies about life. Had he violently twisted the +drama into a "pleasant ending" in the last act he would have given us an +example of an outrageous disturbance of key and ruined his piece. What +does he do, indeed, what can he do? By a bold stroke of the imagination, +he projects the final scene fifty years forward, and shows the man of +forty an old man of ninety. He learns, by the finding of the girl's +diary, that she loved him; and, as the curtain descends, he thanks God +for a beautiful memory. Time has plucked out the sting and left only the +flower-like fragrance. This is a fine illustration of an addendum that +is congruous. It lifts the play to a higher category. I believe it is +true to say that this unusual last act was the work of Mr. Murray +Carson, Mr. Parker's collaborator in the play. + +One more example may be given, for these illustrations will bring out +more clearly a phase of dramatic writing which has not received overmuch +attention in criticism. The recent clever comedy, _Years of Discretion_, +by the Hattons, conducts the story to a conventional end, when the +middle-aged lovers, who have flirted, danced and motored themselves into +an engagement and marriage, are on the eve of their wedding tour. If the +story be a love story, and it is in essence, it ought to be over. The +staid Boston widow has been metamorphosed by gay New York, her maneuvers +have resulted in the traditional end; she has got her man. What else can +be offered to hold the interest? + +And just here is where the authors have been able, passing beyond the +conventional limits of story, to introduce, in a lightly touched, +pleasing fashion, a bit of philosophy that underlies the drama and gives +it an enjoyable fillip at the close. We see the newly wed pair, facing +that wedding tour at fifty, and secretly longing to give it up and +settle down comfortably at home. They have been playing young during +the New York whirl, why not be natural now and enjoy life in the decade +to which they belong? So, in the charming garden scene they confess, and +agree to grow old gracefully together. It is excellent comedy and sound +psychology; to some, the last act is the best of all. Yet, regarded from +the act preceding, it seemed superfluous. + +Still another trouble confronts the playwright as he comes at grapples +with the final act. He falls under the temptation to make a +conventionally desirable conclusion, the "pleasant ending" already +animadverted against, which is supposed to be the constant petition of +the theater Philistine. Here, it will be observed, the pleasant ending +becomes part of the constructive problem. Shall the playwright carry out +the story in a way to make it harmonious with what has gone before, both +psychologically and in the logic of events? Shall he make the conclusion +congruous with the climax, a properly deduced result from the situation +therein shown? If he do, his play will be a work of art, tonal in a +totality whose respective parts are keyed to this effect. Or shall he, +adopting the tag line familiar to us in fairy tales, "and so they lived +happily ever after," wrest and distort his material in order to give +this supposed-to-be-prayed-for condiment that the grown-up babes in +front are crying for? Every dramatist meets this question face to face +in his last act, unless his plan has been to throw his most dramatic +moment at the play's very end. A large percentage of all dramas weaken +or spoil the effect by this handling of the last part of the play. The +ending either is ineffective because unbelievable; or unnecessary, +because what it shows had better be left to the imagination. + +An attractive and deservedly successful drama by Mr. Zangwill, _Merely +Mary Ann_, may be cited to illustrate the first mistake. Up to the last +act its handling of the relation of the gentleman lodger and the quaint +little slavey is pitched in the key of truth and has a Dickens-like +sympathy in it which is the main element in its charm. But in the final +scene, where Mary Ann has become a fashionable young woman, meets her +whilom man friend, and a match results, the improbability is such (to +say nothing about the impossibility) as to destroy the previous illusion +of reality; the auditor, if intelligent, feels that he has paid too high +a price for such a union. I am not arguing that the improbable may not +be legitimate on the stage; but only trying to point out that, in this +particular case, the key of the play, established in previous acts, is +the key of probability; and hence the change is a sin against artistic +probity. The key of improbability, as in some excellent farces, _Baby +Mine_, _Seven Days_, _Seven Keys to Baldpate_, and their kind--where it +is basal that we grant certain conditions or happenings not at all +likely in life--is quite another matter and not of necessity +reprehensible in the least. But _Merely Mary Ann_ is too true in its +homely fashion to fob us off with lies at the end; we believed it at +first and so are shocked at its mendacity. + +One of the best melodramas of recent years is Mr. McLellan's _Leah +Kleschna_. Its psychology, founded on the assumption that a woman whose +higher nature is appealed to, will respond to the appeal, is as sound as +it is fine and encouraging. She is a criminal who is caught opening a +safe by the French statesman whose house she has entered. His +conversation with her is so effective that she breaks with her fellow +thieves and starts in on another and better life in a foreign country, +where the statesman secures for her honest employment. + +It is in the last act that the playwright gets into trouble, and +illustrates the second possibility just mentioned; unnecessary +information which can readily be filled in by the spectator, without the +addition of a superfluous act to show it. The woman has broken with her +gang, she is saved; arrangement has been made for her to go to Austria +(if my memory locates the land), there to work out her change of heart. +Really, there is nothing else to tell. The essential interest of the +play lay in the reclaiming of Leah; she is reclaimed! Why not dismiss +the audience? But the author, perhaps led astray by the principle of +showing things on the stage, even if the things shown lie beyond the +limits of the story proper, exhibits the girl in her new quarters, aided +and abetted by the scene painter who places behind her a very expensive +background of Nature; and then caps his unnecessary work by bringing the +statesman on a visit to see how his protegee is getting along. +Meanwhile, the knowing spectator murmurs in his seat (let us hope) and +kicks against the pricks of convention. + +These examples indicate some of the problems centering in an act which +for the very reason that it is, or seems, comparatively unimportant, is +all the more likely to trip up a dramatist who, buoyed up by his victory +in a fine and effective scene of climactic force, comes to the final act +in a state of reaction, and forgetful of the fact that pride goeth +before a fall--the fall of the curtain! No wonder that, in order to +dodge all such difficulties, playwrights sometimes project their climax +forward into the last act and so shorten what is left to do thereafter; +or, going further, place it at the play's terminal point. But the +artistic objections to this have been explained. Some treatment of the +falling action after the climax, longer or shorter, is advisable; and +the dramatist must sharpen his wits upon this technical demand and make +it part of the satisfaction of his art to meet it. + +The fundamental business of the last act of a play, let it be repeated, +is to show the general results of a situation presented in the crucial +scene, in so far as those results are pertinent to a satisfactory grasp +of story and idea on the part of the auditor. These results must be in +harmony with the beginning, growth and crisis of the story and must +either be demanded in advance by the audience, or gladly received as +pleasant and helpful, when presented. The citation of such plays as +_Rosemary_ and _Years of Discretion_ raises the interesting question +whether a peculiar function of the final act may not lie in not only +rounding out the story as such, but in bringing home the underlying idea +of the piece to the audience. Surely a rich opportunity, as yet but +little utilized, is here. Yet again danger lurks in the opportunity. +The last act might take on the nature of a philosophic tag, a +preachment not organically related to the preceding parts. This, of +course, would be a sad misuse of the chance to give the drama a wider +application and finer bloom. But if the playwright have the skill and +inventive power to merge the two elements of story and idea in a final +act which adds stimulating material while it brings out clearly the +underlying theme, then he will have performed a kind of double function +of the drama. In the new technic of to-day and to-morrow this may come +to be, more and more, the accepted aim of the resourceful, thoughtful +maker of plays. + +The intelligent auditor in the playhouse with this aspect of technic +before him will be able to assist in his cooeperation with worthy plays +by noticing particularly if the closing treatment of the material in +hand seem germane to the subject; if it avoid anti-climax and keep the +key; and if it demonstrates skill in overcoming such obstacles as have +been indicated. Such a play-goer will not slight the final act as of +only technical importance, but will be alertly on the watch to see if +his friend the playwright successfully grapples with the last of the +successive problems which arise during the complex and very difficult +business of telling a stage story with clearness, effectiveness and +charm. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PLAY + + +We have now surveyed the chief elements involved in the making of a play +and suggested an intelligent attitude on the part of the play-goer +toward them. Primarily the aim has been to broaden and sharpen the +appreciation of a delightful experience; for the sake of personal +culture. But, as was briefly suggested in the chapter on the play as a +cultural possibility, there is another reason why the student and +theater attendant should realize that the drama in its possibilities is +a work of art, and the theater, the place where it is exhibited, can be +a temple of art. This other reason looks to the social significance of +the playhouse as a great, democratic people's amusement where stories +can be heard and seen more effectively, as to influence, than anywhere +else or under any other imaginable conditions. It is a place where the +great lessons of life can be emotionally received and so sink deep into +the consciousness and conscience of folk at large. And so the question +of the theater becomes more than the question of private culture, +important as that is; being, indeed, a matter of social welfare. This +fact is now coming to be recognized in the United States, as it has long +been recognized abroad. We see more plainly than we did that when states +like France and Germany or the cities of such countries grant +subventions to their theaters and make theater directors high officials +of the government they do so not only from the conviction that the +theater stands for culture (a good thing for any country to possess) but +that they feel it to have a direct and vital influence upon the life of +the citizens in general, upon the civilization of the day. They assume +that the playhouse, along with the school, library, newspaper and +church, is one of the five mighty social forces in suggesting ideas to a +nation and creating ideals. + +The intelligent theater-goer to-day, as never before, will therefore +note with interest the change in the notions concerning this popular +amusement that is yet so much more, based upon much that has happened +within our time; the coming back of plays into literary significance and +acceptance, so that leaders in letters everywhere are likely to be +playwrights; the publication of contemporary drama, foreign and +domestic, enabling the theater-goer to study the play he is to see or +has seen; and the recognition of another aim in conducting this +institution than a commercial one looking to private profit: the aim of +maintaining a house of art, nourished by all concerned with the pride in +and love of art which that implies, for the good of the people. The +observer we have in mind and are trying to help a little will be +interested in all such experiments as that of the Little Theaters in +various cities, in the children's theaters in New York and Washington, +in the fast-growing use of the pageant to illuminate local history, in +the attempts to establish municipal stock companies, or competent +repertory companies by enlightened private munificence. And however +successful or unsuccessful the particular ventures may be, he will see +that their significance lies in their meaning a new, thoughtful regard +for an institution which properly conducted can conserve the general +social welfare. + +He will find in the growth within a very few years of an organization +like the Drama League of America a sign of the times in its testimony to +an interest, as wide as the country, and wider, in the development and +maintenance of a sound and worthy drama. And he will be willing as lover +of fellow-man as well as theater lover to do his share in the +movement--it is no hyperbole to call it such--toward socializing the +playhouse, so that it may gradually become an enterprise conducted by +the people and in the interests of the people, born of their life and +cherished by their love. Nor will he be indifferent to the thought that, +thus directed and enjoyed, it may in time come to be one of the proudest +of national assets, as it has been before in more than one land and +period. + +And with the general interests of the people in mind, our open-eyed +observer will be especially quick to approve any experiment toward +bringing the stimulating life of the theater to communities or sections +of the city which hitherto have been deprived of amusement that while +amusing ministers to the mind and emotions of the hearers in a way to +give profit with the pleasure. Catholic in his view, he will just as +warmly welcome a people's theater in South Boston or on the East Side in +New York, or at Hull House in Chicago, as he will a New Theater in upper +New York, or a Fine Arts Theater in Chicago, or a Toy Theater in Boston; +believing that since the playhouse is in essence and by the nature of +its appeal democratic, it must neglect no class of society in its +service. He will prick up his ears and become alert in hearing of the +Minnesota experiment, where a rural play, written by a member of the +agricultural school, was given under university auspices fifty times in +one season, throughout the state. He will rejoice at the action of +Dartmouth College in accepting a $100,000 bequest for the erection and +conductment of a theater in the college community and serving the +interests of both academic and town life. And he will also be glad to +note that the Carnegie Institute of Technology, in Pittsburgh, has +initiated a School of Drama as an organic part of the educational life. +He will see in such things a recognition among educators that the +theater should be related to educational life. And, musing happily upon +such matters, it will come to him again and again that it is rational to +strive for a people's price for a people's entertainment, instead of a +price for the best offerings prohibitive to four-fifths of all +Americans. And in this fact he will see the explanation for the enormous +growth of the moving picture type of amusement, realizing it to be +inevitable under present conditions, because a form of entertainment +popular in price as well as in nature, and hence populously frequented. +And so our theater-goer, who has now so long listened with at least +hypothetic patience to exposition and argument, will be willing, indeed, +will wish, as part of his watchful canniness with respect to the plays +he sees and reads, to judge the playwright, among other things, +according to his interpretation of life; and especially the modern +social life of his own day and country. + +I have already spoken of the need to have an idea in drama; a +centralizing opinion about life or a personal reaction to it--something +quite distinct from the thesis or propaganda which might change a work +of art into a dissertation. Let it now be added that, other things being +equal, a play to-day will represent its time and be vital in proportion +as it deals with life in terms of social interest. To put it another +way, a drama to reflect our age must be aware of the intense and +practically universal tendency to study society as an organism, with the +altruistic purpose of seeing justice prevail. The rich are attacked, the +poor defended; combinations of business are assailed, and criminals +treated as our sick brothers; labor and capital contest on a gigantic +scale, and woman looms up as a central and most agitating problem. All +this and more, arising from the same interest, offers a vast range of +subject-matter to drama and a new spirit in treating it on the stage. +Within the last half century the two great changes that have come in +human life are the growth in the democratic ideal, with all that it +suggests, and the revolutionary conception of what life is under the +domination of scientific knowledge. All art forms, including this of the +theater, have responded to these twin factors of influence. In art it +means sympathy in studying fellow-man and an attempt to tell the truth +about him in all artistic depictions. Therefore, in the drama to-day +likely to make the strongest claim on the attention of the intelligent +play-goers, we shall get the fullest recognition of this spirit and the +frankest use of it as typical of the twentieth century. This is what +gives substance, meaning and bite to the plays of Shaw, Galsworthy, and +Barker, of Houghton, and Francis and Sowerby, of Moody and Kennedy and +Zangwill, at their best. To acknowledge this is not to deny that +enjoyable farce, stirring melodrama and romantic extravaganza are not +welcome; the sort of play which simply furnishes amusement in terms of +good story telling, content to do this and no more. It is, however, to +remind the reader that to be most representative of the day the drama +must do something beyond this; must mirror the time and probe it too; +yes, must, like a wise physician, feel the pulse of man to-day and +diagnose his deepest needs and failings and desires; in a word, must be +a social drama, since that is the keynote of the present. It will be +found that even in the lighter forms of drama which we accept as typical +and satisfactory this social flavor may be detected, giving it body, but +not detracting from its pleasurableness. Miss Crother's _Young Wisdom_ +has the light touch and the framework of farce, yet it deals with a +definite aspect of feminism. Mr. Knoblauch's _The Faun_ is a romantic +fantasia, but is not without its keen social satire. Mr. Sheldon's _The +Havoc_ seems also farcical in its type; nevertheless it is a serious +satiric thrust at certain extreme conceptions of marital relations. And +numerous dramas, melodramatic in form and intention, dealing with the +darker economic and sociological aspects of our life--the overworked +crime play of the day--indefinitely swell the list. And so with many +more plays, pleasant or unpleasant, which, while clinging close to the +notion of good entertainment, do not refrain from social comment or +criticism. The idea that criticism of life in a stage story must of +necessity be heavy, dull and polemic is an irritating one, of which the +Anglo-Saxon is strangely fond. The French, to mention one other nation, +have constantly shown the world that to be intellectually keen and +suggestive it is not necessary to be solemn or opaque; in fact, that one +is sure to be all the more stimulating because of the light touch and +the sense for social adaptability. This view will in time, no doubt, +percolate through the somewhat obstinate layers of the Anglo-Saxon mind. + +From these considerations it may follow that our theater-goer, while +generally receptive and broad-minded in his seat to the particular type +of drama the playwright shall offer, will incline to prefer those plays +which on the whole seem in some one of various possible ways to express +the time; which drama that has survived has always done. He will care +most for the home-made play as against the foreign, if equally well +made, since its problem is more likely to be his own, or one he can +better understand. But he will not turn a cold shoulder to some European +drama by a D'Annunzio, a Sudermann, a Maeterlinck or a Tolstoy, if it be +a great work of art and deal with life in such universal applications +and relations as to make it quite independent of national borders. One +of the socializing and civilizing functions of the theater is thus to +draw the peoples together into a common bond of interest, a unit in that +vast community which signifies the all-embracing experience of being a +human creature. Yet the theater-goer will have but a Laodicean regard +for plays which present divergent national or technically local +conditions of life practically incomprehensible to Americans at large; +some of the Gallic discussions of the French menage, for instance. +Terence taught us wisely that nothing human should be alien from our +interest; true enough. There is however no good reason why interest +should not grow as the matter in hand comes closer to us in time and +space. And still more vigorously will he protest against any and all of +the wretched attempts to change foreign material for domestic use to be +noted when the American producer (or traducer) feels he must remove from +such a play the atmospheric color which is of its very life, +transferring a rural setting of old England to a similar setting in New +England. Short of the drama of open evil teaching, nothing is worse than +these absurd and abortive makings over of drama from abroad. The result +is neither fish, flesh nor good red herring. They destroy every object +of theater enjoyment and culture, lying about life and losing whatever +grip upon credence they may have originally possessed. Happily, their +day is on the wane. Even theater-goers of the careless kind have little +or no use for them. + +That the stage of our day, a stage upon which it has been possible to +attain success with such dramas as _The Blue Bird_, _The Servant in the +House_, _The Poor Little Rich Girl_, _The Witching Hour_, _Cyrano de +Bergerac_, _Candida_, _What Every Woman Knows_, _The Great Divide_ and +_The Easiest Way_ (the enumeration is made to imply the greatest +diversity of type) is one of catholic receptivity and some +discriminating patronage, should appear to anyone who has taken the +trouble to follow the discussion up to this point, and whose theater +experience has been fairly large. There is no longer any reason why our +drama-going should not be one of the factors which minister to rational +pleasure, quicken the sense of art and invite us fruitfully to +participate in that free and desirable exchange of ideas which Matthew +Arnold declared to be the true aim of civilization. Let us grant readily +that the stage story which shows within theater restrictions the life of +a land and the outlying life of the world of men has its definite +demarcations; that it may not to advantage perform certain services more +natural, for example to the church, or the school. It must appeal upon +the basis of the bosom interests and passions of mankind and its common +denominator is that of the general emotions. Concede that it should not +debate a philosophical question with the aim of the thinker, nor a legal +question as if the main purpose were to settle a matter of law; nor a +religious question with the purposeful finality of the theologian, or +the didactic eloquence of the pulpit. But it can and should deal with +any question pertinent to men, vital to the broad interests of human +beings, in the spirit of the humanities and with the restraints of its +particular art. It should be suggestive, arousing, not demonstrative or +dogmatic. Its great outstanding advantage lies in its emotional +suggestibility. To perform this service, and it is a mighty one, is to +have an intelligent theater, a self-respecting theater, a theater that +shall purvey rational amusement to the few and the many. And whenever +theater-goers, by majority vote, elect it, it will arrive. + +It was suggested on an earlier page and may now be still more evident +that intelligent theater-going begins long before one goes to the +theater. It depends upon preparation of various kinds; upon a sense of +the theater as a social institution, and of the renewed literary quality +of the drama to-day; upon a knowledge of the specific problems of the +player and playwright, and of the aids to this knowledge furnished by +the best dramatic criticism; upon familiarity too with the printed +drama, past and present, in a fast multiplying library that deals with +the stage and dramatic writing. The last statement may be amplified +here. + +A few years ago, there was hardly a serious publication either in +England or America devoted to the legitimate interests of the stage from +the point of view of the patron of the theater, the critic-in-the-seat +whom we have so steadily had in mind. Such periodicals as existed were +produced rather in the interests of the stage people, actors, producers, +and the like. This has now changed very much for the better. Confining +the survey to this country, the monthly called _The Theater_ has some +value in making the reader aware of current activities. The two +monthlies, _The American Playwright_ and _The Dramatist_, edited +respectively by William T. Price and Luther B. Anthony, are given to the +technical consideration of contemporary drama in the light of permanent +principles, and are very useful. The quarterly, _The Drama_, edited and +published under the auspices of The Drama League of America, is a +dignified and earnest attempt to represent the cultural work of all that +has to do with the stage; and a feature of it is the regular appearance +of a complete play not hitherto in print. Another quarterly, _Poet +Lore_, although not given over exclusively to matters dramatic, has been +honorably conspicuous for many years for its able critical treatment of +the theater and play; and especially for its translations of foreign +dramas, much of the best material from abroad being first given English +form in its columns. At Madison, Wisconsin, _The Play Book_ is a monthly +also edited by theater specialists and often containing illuminating +articles and reviews. And, of course, in the better class periodicals, +monthly and weekly, papers in this field are appearing nowadays with +increasing frequency, a testimonial to the general growth of interest. +Critics of the drama like W. P. Eaton, Clayton Hamilton, Arthur Ruhl, +Norman Hapgood, William Winter, Montrose J. Moses, Channing Pollock, +James O'Donnell Bennett, James S. Metcalf, and James Huneker are to be +read in the daily press, in periodicals, or in collected book form. +Advanced movements abroad are chronicled in _The Mask_, the publication +founded by Gordon Craig; and in _Poetry and Drama_. It is reasonable to +believe that, with the renewed appreciation of the theater, the work of +the dramatic critic as such will be felt to be more and more important +and his function will assume its significance in the eyes of the +community. A vigorous dramatic period implies worthy criticism to +self-reveal it and to establish and maintain right standards. Signs are +not wanting that we shall gradually train and make necessary in the +United States a class of critic represented in England by William Archer +and A. B. Walkley. Among the publishers who have led in the movement to +place good drama in permanent form in the hands of readers the firms of +Macmillan, Scribner, Mitchell Kennerley, Henry Holt, John W. Luce, +Harper and Brothers, B. W. Huebsch and Doubleday, Page & Company have +been and are honorably to the fore. In the way of critical books which +study the many aspects of the subject, they are now being printed so +constantly as plainly to testify to the new attitude and interest. The +student of technic can with profit turn to the manuals of William +Archer, Brander Matthews, and William T. Price; the studies of Clayton +Hamilton, W. P. Eaton, Norman Hapgood, Barrett Clark, and others. For +the civic idea applied to the theater, and the development of the +pageant, he will read Percy Mackaye. And when it comes to plays +themselves, as we have seen, hardly a week goes by without the +appearance of some important foreign masterpiece in English, or some +important drama of English speech, often in advance of or coincident +with stage production. The best work of the day is now readily +accessible, where, only a little while ago, book publication of drama +(save the standard things of the past) was next to unknown. It is worth +knowing that The Drama League of America is publishing, with the +cooeperation of Doubleday, Page & Company, an attractive series of Drama +League Plays, in which good drama of the day, native and foreign, is +offered the public at a cost which cuts in two the previous expense. And +the Drama League's selective List of essays and books about the theatre, +with which is incorporated a complete list of plays printed in English, +can be procured for a nominal sum and will give the seeker after light a +thorough survey of what is here touched upon in but a few salient +particulars. + +In short, there is no longer much excuse for pleading ignorance on the +ground of inadequate aid, if the desire be to inform oneself upon the +drama and matters pertaining to the theater. + +The fact that our contemporary body of drama is making the literary +appeal by appearing in book form is of special bearing upon the culture +of the theater-goer. Mr. H. A. Jones, the English playwright, has +recently declared that he deemed this the factor above all others which +should breed an enlightened attitude toward the playhouse. In truth, we +can hardly have a self-respecting theater without the publication of the +drama therein to be seen. Printed plays mean a claim to literary +pretensions. Plays become literature only when they are preserved in +print. And, equally important, when the spectator may read the play +before seeing it, or, better yet, having enjoyed the play in the +playhouse, can study it in a book with this advantage, a process of +revaluation and enforcement of effect, he will appreciate a drama in all +its possibilities as in no other way. Detached from mob influence, with +no confusion of play with players, he can attain that quieter, more +comprehensive judgment which, coupled with the instinctive decision in +the theater, combines to make a critic of him in the full sense. + +For these reasons, the well wisher of the theater welcomes as most +helpful and encouraging the now established habit of the prompt printing +of current plays. It is no longer a reproach from the view of literature +to have your play acted; it may even be that soon it will be a reproach +not to have the printed play presented on the boards. The young American +man of letters, like his fellow in France, may feel that a literary +_debut_ is not truly made until his drama has been seen and heard, as +well as read. While scholars are raking over the past with a fine-tooth +comb, and publishing special editions of second and third-rate +dramatists of earlier times, it is a good thing that modern plays, whose +only demerit may be their contemporaneity, are receiving like honor, and +that the dramas of Pinero, Jones, Wilde, Shaw, Galsworthy, Synge, Yeats, +Lady Gregory, Zangwill, Dusany, Houghton, Hankin, Hamilton, Sowerby, +Gibson, acted British playwrights; and of Gillette, Thomas, Moody, +Mackaye, Peabody, Walter, Sheldon, Tarkington, Davis, Patterson, +Middleton, and Kennedy, acted American playwrights (two dozen to stand +for two score and more) can be had in print for the asking. It is good +testimony that we are really coming to have a living theater and not a +mere academic kow-towing to by-gone altars whose sacrificial smoke has +dimmed our eyes sometimes to the clear daylight of the Present. +Preparation for the use of the theater looks before and after. At home +and at school the training can be under way; much happy preliminary +reading and reflection introduce it. By making oneself aware of the best +that has been thought and said on the subject; by becoming conversant +with the history, theory and practice of the playhouse, consciously +including this as part of education; and, for good citizenship's sake, +by regarding sound theater entertainment as a need and therefore a right +of the people; in a word, by taking one's play-going with good sense, +trained taste and right feeling, a person finds himself becoming a +broader and better human being. He will be quicker in his sympathies, +more comprehensive in his outlook, and will react more satisfactorily to +life in general. All this may happen, although in turning to the +theater his primary purpose may be to seek amusement. + +Is it a counsel of perfection to ask for this? Hardly, when so much has +already occurred pointing out the better way. The civilized theater has +begun to come; the prepotent influence of the audience is recognized. +Surely the gain made, and the imperfections that still exist, are +stimulants to that further bettering of conditions whose familiar name +is Progress. + +In all considerations of the theater, it would be a good thing to allow +the unfortunate word "elevate" to drop from the vocabulary. It misleads +and antagonizes. It is better to say that the view presented in this +book is one that wishes to make the playhouse innocently pleasant, +rational, and sound as art. If by "elevate" we mean these things, well +and good. But there is no reason why to elevate the stage should be to +depress the box office--except a lack of understanding between the two. +Uniting in the correct view, the two should rise and fall together. In +fact, touching audience, actors, playwrights, producers, and the +society that is behind them all, intelligent cooeperation is the open +sesame. With that for a banner cry, mountains may be moved. + + +NOTES: + +[A] A fact humorously yet keenly suggested in Bernard Shaw's clever +piece, _The Dark Lady of the Sonnets_. + +[B] When our theater has become thoroughly artistic, plays will not, as +at present, be stretched out beyond the natural size, but will be +confined to a shorter playing time and the evening filled out with a +curtain raiser or after piece, as is now so common abroad. + +[C] For a good discussion of this, see "The Genesis of Hamlet," by +Charlton M. Lewis (Houghton, Mifflin & Company). + +[D] Gordon Craig's book on _The Art of The Theatre_ may be consulted for +further light upon a movement that is very significant and likely to be +far-reaching in time, in its influence upon future stage and dramatic +conditions. + + * * * * * + +etext transcriber's note: + +The following typographical errors have been corrected ... + +departure from theme follow => departure from theme follows + +it is well if the intermediate act do not => it is well if the +intermediate act does not + +dedelivered his curtain speech => delivered his curtain speech + +leigitimate => legitimate + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to See a Play, by Richard Burton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO SEE A PLAY *** + +***** This file should be named 32433.txt or 32433.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/3/32433/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at the Digital & Multimedia +Center, Michigan State University Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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