How to See a Play Part 3

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 ill.u.s.trate: Mr. Augustus Thomas's fine play, _The Witching Hour_, has a theme embedded in a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned 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 ill.u.s.trates, 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 subst.i.tute for the conventional and supposed inevitable demand an apparently unpopular personal conviction. He found, as men who dare commonly do, that the a.s.sumed 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 st.u.r.dily 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 const.i.tuted 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.serted, 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 att.i.tude 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 ent.i.tled _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 circ.u.mstances; 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 k.n.o.blauch, 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 cla.s.sic 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 cla.s.sic 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-fas.h.i.+oned work like Freitag's _Technique of the Drama_ a.s.sumes this form as final and endeavors to study dramatic construction on that a.s.sumption.

The scenes, too, were many in the Elizabethan period, for the reason that there was no scene s.h.i.+fting 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 leaders.h.i.+p, 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, wis.h.i.+ng 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sociated 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, pus.h.i.+ng 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 dest.i.tute 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 a.s.sume 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 att.i.tude of the auditor toward the story.