Dramatic Technique Part 54

_Chris._ Nay, _he's_ not got one.

_Mrs. H._ What? Why I saw him with my own eyes setting out in it last Sat.u.r.day week after the mill shut.

_Chris._ Ay! He's gone off these Wakes with his pal George Ramsbottom.

A couple of thick beggars, those two!

_Mrs. H._ Then what do you mean telling me he's not got a motor car?

_Chris._ I said he hadn't got one of his own. It's his father's. You don't catch Nat Jeffcote parting with owt before his time. That's how he holds his lad in check, as you might say.

_Mrs. H._ Alan Jeffcote's seldom short of cash. He spends plenty.

_Chris._ Ay! Nat gives him what he asks for, and doesn't want to know how he spends it either. But he's _got_ to ask for it first. Nat can stop supplies any time if he's a mind.

_Mrs. H._ That's likely, isn't it?

_Chris._ Queerer things have happened. You don't know Nat like I do.

He's a bad one to get across with.

(_Another flash and gentle peal. Mrs. H. gets up._)

_Mrs. H._ I'll light the gas.

(_She pulls down the blind and lights the gas._)

_Chris._ When I met Nat this morning he told me that Alan had telegraphed from Llandudno on Sat.u.r.day asking for twenty pounds.

_Mrs. H._ From Llandudno?

_Chris._ Ay! Reckon he's been stopping there. Run short of bra.s.s.

_Mrs. H._ And did he send it?

_Chris._ Of course he sent it. Nat doesn't stint the lad. (_He laughs quietly._) Eh, but he _can_ get through it, though!

_Mrs. H._ Look here. What are you going to say to f.a.n.n.y when she comes?

_Chris._ Ask her where she's been?

_Mrs. H._ Ask her where she's been. Of course we'll do that. But suppose she won't tell us?

_Chris._ She's always been a good girl.

_Mrs. H._ She's always gone her own road. Suppose she tells us to mind our own business?

_Chris._ I reckon it _is_ my business to know what she's been up to.

_Mrs. H._ Don't you forget it. And don't let her forget it either. If you do, I promise you I won't.

_Chris._ All right. Where's that post-card?

_Mrs. H._ Little good taking heed of that.

(_Christopher rises and gets a picture post-card from the dresser._)

_Chris._ (_Reading._) She'll be home before late on Monday. Lovely weather. (_Looking at the picture._) North Pier, Blackpool. Very like, too.

_Mrs. H._ (_Suddenly._) Let's have a look. When was it posted?

_Chris._ It's dated Sunday.

_Mrs. H._ That's nowt to go by. Any one can put the wrong date. What's the postmark? (_She scrutinizes it._) "August 5th, summat P.M." I can't make out the time.

_Chris._ August 5th. That was yesterday all right. There'd only be one post on Sunday.

_Mrs. H._ Then she was in Blackpool till yesterday, that's certain.

_Chris._ Ay!

_Mrs. H._ Well, it's a mystery.

_Chris._ (_Shaking his head._) Or summat worse.

_Mrs. H._ Eh? You don't think _that_, eh?

_Chris._ I don't know what to think.

_Mrs. H._ Nor me neither.

(_They sit silent for a time. There is a rumble of thunder, far away. After it has died away, a knock is heard at the front door.

They turn and look at each other. Mrs. Hawthorn rises and goes out in silence. In a few moments, f.a.n.n.y Hawthorn comes in, followed by Mrs. Hawthorn._)[5]

What usually keeps a writer from pa.s.sing to well characterized dialogue from dialogue merely clear as to essential facts is that he is so bound to his facts that he sees rather than feels the scene. The chief trouble with the dialogue of the John Brown play was an attempt to keep so close to historical accounts of the particular incident that sympathetic imagination was benumbed. One constantly meets this fault in the earlier Miracle Plays before writers had come to understand that audiences care more for the human being in the situation than for the situation itself, and that only by representing a situation not for itself but as felt by the people involved can it be made fully interesting. At the left is a speech of Mary in _The Crucifixion_ of the York Cycle; at the right is her speech in the Hegge or so-called Coventry Plays.

_Mary_. Alas! for my sweet _Mary_, O my son, my son! my darling son, I say, dear!

That dolefully to deed thus is What have I defended [offended] thee?

dight, Thou hast spoke to all of those that Alas! for full lovely thou lay be here, In my womb, this worthely wight And not a word thou speakest to me.

Alas! that I should see this To the Jews thou art full kind, sight Thou hast forgiven all here Of my son so seemly to see, misdeed; Alas! that this blossom so And the thief thou hast in mind, bright For once asking mercy heaven is his Untruly is tugged to this tree, meed.

Alas! Ah! my sovereign lord, why wilt thou My lord, my life, not speak With full great grief, To me that am thy mother in pain for Hanges as a thief, thy wrong?

Alas! he did never trespa.s.s.[6] Ah, heart, heart why wilt thou not break?

That I were out of this sorrow so strong![7]

The writer of the Hegge speech had discovered long before Ralph Waldo Emerson that the secret of good dialogue is "truth carried alive into the heart by pa.s.sion." The second requisite, then, of good dialogue is that it must be kindled by feeling, made alive by the emotion of the speaker. For the would-be dramatist the secret is so to know his characters that facts are not mere facts, but conditions moving him because they move the characters he perfectly understands. As he interprets between character and audience, he must be like Planchette or the clairvoyant, the creature of another's will, whose ideas and emotions rather than his own he tries with all the power that is in him to convey. In brief, then, though it is absolutely necessary that dialogue give the facts as to what happens, who the people are, their relations to one another, etc., it is better dialogue if, while doing all this, it seems to be busied only with characterization.

Una.s.signed dialogue usually makes a reader or hearer promptly recognize his preference for characterized rather than uncharacterized speech.

When a group, as in many stage mobs, speaks in chorus, or at best in sections, the result is unreality for many hearers and absurdity for the more critical. Every hearer knows that people do not really, when part of a mob, say absolutely the same thing, and rarely speak in perfect unison. Common sense cries out for individualization among the possible speakers. When we read the following extract from Andreiev's _Life of Man_, we may agree with what is apparently the author's idea, that it makes no difference which one of the speakers delivers a particular line or sentence; but the moment the scene is staged everything changes.

_A profound darkness within which nothing moves. Then there can be dimly perceived the outlines of a large, high room and the grey silhouettes of Old Women in strange garments who resemble a troop of_ _grey, hiding mice. In low voices and with laughter to and fro the Old Women converse_.