"This is not every-day life," we say, "but typical life—life as it would be if it were compactly ordered—life purposeful, and leading surely to an evident somewhere."

And, as man's heart beats high with hope and ever throbs with justice, those occurrences that fall out as he would wish them are the ones he loves the best; in this we find the reason for "poetic justice"—the "happy ending." For, as "man is of such stuff as dreams are made of," so are his plays made of his dreams. Here is the foundation of what is dramatic.

Yet, the dramatic ending may be unhappy, if it rounds the play out with big and logical design. Death is not necessarily poignantly sad upon the stage, because death is life's logical end. And who can die better than he who dies greatly? [1] Defeat, sorrow and suffering have a place as exquisitely fitting as success, laughter and gladness, because they are inalienable elements of life. Into every life a little sadness must come, we know, and so the lives of our stage-loves may be "draped with woe," and we but love them better.

[1] "The necessity that tragedy and the serious drama shall possess an element of greatness or largeness—call it nobility, elevation, what you will—has always been recognized. The divergence has come when men have begun to say what they meant by that quality, and—which is much the same thing—how it is to be attained. Even Aristotle, when he begins to analyze methods, sounds, at first hearing, a little superficial." Elizabeth Woodbridge, The Drama, pp. 23-24.

Great souls who suffer, either by the hand of Fate, or unjustly through the machinations of their enemies, win our sympathy for their sorrows and our admiration by their noble struggles. If Fate dooms them, there may be no escape, and still we are content; but if they suffer by man's design, there must be escape from sorrow and defeat through happiness to triumph—for, if it were not so, they would not be great. The heart of man demands that those he loves upon the stage succeed, or fail greatly, because the hero's dreams are our dreams—the hero's life is ours, the hero's sorrows are our own, and because they are ours, the hero must triumph over his enemies.

4. The Law of the Drama

Thus, for the very reason that life is a conflict and because man's heart beats quickest when he faces another man, and leaps highest when he conquers him, the essence of the dramatic is—conflict. Voltaire in one of his letters said that every scene in a play should represent a combat. In "Memories and Portraits," Stevenson says: "A good serious play must be founded on one of the passionate cruces of life, where duty and inclination come nobly to the grapple." Goethe, in his "William Meister" says: "All events oppose him [the hero] and he either clears and removes every obstacle out of his path, or else becomes their victim." But it was the French critic, Ferdinand Brunetiere, who defined dramatic law most sharply and clearly, and reduced it to such simple terms that we may state it in this one free sentence: "Drama is a struggle of wills and its outcome."

In translating and expounding Brunetiere's theory, Brander Matthews in his "A Study of the Drama" condenses the French critic's reasoning into these illuminating paragraphs:

"It [the drama] must have some essential principle of its own. If this essential principle can be discovered, then we shall be in possession of the sole law of the drama, the one obligation which all writers for the stage must accept. Now, if we examine a collection of typical plays of every kind, tragedies and melodramas, comedies and farces, we shall find that the starting point of everyone of them is the same. Some one central character wants something; and this exercise of volition is the mainspring of the action. . . . In every successful play, modern or ancient, we shall find this clash of contending desires, this assertion of the human will against strenuous opposition of one kind or another.

"Brunetiere made it plain that the drama must reveal the human will in action; and that the central figure in a play must know what he wants and must strive for it with incessant determination. . . .Action in the drama is thus seen to be not mere movement or external agitation; it is the expression of a will which knows itself.

"The French critic maintained also that, when this law of the drama was once firmly grasped, it helped to differentiate more precisely the several dramatic species. If the obstacles against which the will of the hero has to contend are insurmountable, Fate or Providence or the laws of nature—then there is tragedy, and the end of the struggle is likely to be death, since the hero is defeated in advance. But if these obstacles are not absolutely insurmountable, being only social conventions and human prejudices, then the hero has a chance to attain his desire,—and in this case, we have the serious drama without an inevitably fatal ending. Change this obstacle a little, equalize the conditions of the struggle, set two wills in opposition—and we have comedy. And if the obstacle is of still a lower order, merely an absurdity of custom, for instance, we find ourselves in farce."

Here we have, sharply and brilliantly stated, the sole law of drama—whether it be a play in five acts requiring two hours and a half to present, or a playlet taking but twenty minutes. This one law is all that the writer need keep in mind as the great general guide for plot construction.

Today, of course, as in every age when the drama is a bit more virile than in the years that have immediately preceded it, there is a tendency to break away from conventions and to cavil at definitions. This is a sign of health, and has in the past often been the first faint stirring which betokened the awakening of the drama to greater uses. In the past few years, the stage, both here and abroad, has been throbbing with dramatic unrest. The result has been the presentation of oddities—a mere list of whose names would fill a short chapter—which have aimed to "be different." And in criticising these oddities—whose differences are more apparent than real—critics of the soundness and eminence of Mr. William Archer in England, and Mr. Clayton Hamilton in America, have taken the differences as valid ground for opposing Brunetiere's statement of the law of the drama.

Mr. Hamilton, in his thought-provoking "Studies in Stage-craft," takes occasion to draw attention to the fact that Brunetiere's statement is not as old as Aristotle's comments on the drama. Mr. Hamilton seemingly objects to the eagerness with which Brunetiere's statement was accepted when first it was made, less than a quarter century ago, and the tenacity with which it has been held ever since; while acknowledging its general soundness he denies its truth, more on account of its youth, it would seem, than on account of the few exceptions that "prove it," putting to one side, or forgetting, that its youth is not a fault but a virtue, for had it been stated in Aristotle's day, Brunetiere would not have had the countless plays from which to draw its truth, after the fruitful manner of a scientist working in a laboratory on innumerable specimens of a species. Yet Mr. Hamilton presents his criticism with such critical skill that he sums it all up in these judicial sentences:

". . .But if this effort were ever perfectly successful, the drama would cease to have a reason for existence, and the logical consequence would be an abolition of the theatre. . . . But on the other hand, if we judge the apostles of the new realism less by their ultimate aims than by their present achievements, we must admit that they are rendering a very useful service by holding the mirror up to many interesting contrasts between human characters which have hitherto been ignored in the theatre merely because they would not fit into the pattern of the well-made play."

As to the foremost critical apostle of the "new realism"—which seeks to construct plays which begin anywhere and have no dramatic ending and would oppose the force of wills by a doubtfully different "negation of wills"—let us now turn to Mr. William Archer and his very valuable definition of the dramatic in his "Play-Making":

"The only really valid definition of the dramatic is: any representation of imaginary personages which is capable of interesting an average audience assembled in a theatre. . . . Any further attempt to limit the term 'dramatic' is simply the expression of an opinion that such-and-such forms of representation will not be found to interest an audience; and this opinion may always be rebutted by experiment."

Perhaps a truer and certainly as inclusive an observation would be that the word "dramatic," like the words "picturesque" and "artistic," has one meaning that is historical and another that is creative or prophetic. To say of anything that it is dramatic is to say that it partakes of the nature of all drama that has gone before, for "ic" means "like." But dramatic does not mean only this, it means besides, as Alexander Black expresses it, that "the new writer finds all the world's dramatic properties gathered as in a storehouse for his instruction. Under the inspiration of the life of the hour, the big man will gather from them what is dramatic today, and the bigger man will see, not only what was dramatic yesterday and what is dramatic today, but what will be dramatic tomorrow and the day after tomorrow."

Now these admirably broad views of the drama and the dramatic are presented because they are suggestive of the unrestricted paths that you may tread in selecting your themes and deciding on your treatment of them in your playlets. True, they dangerously represent the trend of "individualism," and a master of stagecraft may be individual in his plot forms and still be great, but the novice is very likely to be only silly. So read and weigh these several theories with care. Be as individual as you like in the choice of a theme—the more you express your individuality the better your work is likely to be—but in your treatment tread warily in the footprints of the masters, whose art the ages have proved to be true. Then you stand less chance of straying into the underbrush and losing yourself where there are no trails and where no one is likely to hear from you again.

5. The Essence of the Dramatic lies in Meaning, not in Movement or in Speech

But clear and illuminating as these statements of the law of the drama are, one point needs slight expansion, and another vital point, not yet touched upon, should be stated, in a volume designed not for theory but for practice.

The first is, "Action in the drama is thus seen to be not mere movement or external agitation; it is the expression of a will which knows itself." Paradoxical as it may seem, action that is dramatic is not "action," as the word is commonly understood. Physical activity is not considered at all; the action of a play is not acting, but plot—story. Does the story move—not the bodies of the actors, but the merely mental recounting of the narrative? As the French state the principle in the form of a command, "Get on with the story! Get on!" This is one-half of the playwright's action-problem.

The other half—the other question—deals, not with the story itself, but with how it is made to "get on." How it is told in action—still mental and always mental, please note—is what differentiates the stage story from other literary forms like the novel and the short-story. It must be told dramatically or it is not a stage story; and the dramatic element must permeate its every fibre. Not only must the language be dramatic—slang may in a given situation be the most dramatic language that could be used—and not only must the quality of the story itself be dramatic, but the scene-steps by which the story is unfolded must scintillate with the soul of the dramatic—revealing flashes.

To sum up, the dramatic, in the final analysis, has nothing whatever to do with characters moving agitatedly about the stage, or with moving at all, because the dramatic lies not in what happens but in what the happening means. Even a murder may be undramatic, while the mere utterance of the word "Yes," by a paralyzed woman to a paralyzed man may be the most dramatic thing in the world. Let us take another instance: Here is a stage—in the centre are three men bound or nailed to crosses. The man at the left turns to the one in the middle and sneers:

"If you're a god, save yourself and us."

The one at the left interrupts,

"Keep quiet! We're guilty, we deserve this, but this Man doesn't."

And the Man in the centre says,

"This day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

Could there be anything more dramatic than that? [1]

[1] Do not attempt to stage this sacred scene. However, Ran Kennedy, who wrote The Servant in the House, did so at Winthrop Ames' Little Theatre, New York, in an evening of one-act plays, with surprising results.

To carry this truth still further, let me offer two examples out of scores that might be quoted to prove that the dramatic may not even depend upon speech.

In one of Bronson Howard's plays, a man the police are after conspires with his comrades to get him safely through the cordon of guards by pretending that he is dead. They carry him out, his face covered with a cloth. A policeman halts them—not a word is spoken—and the policeman turns down the cover from the face. Dramatic as this all is, charged as it is with meaning to the man there on the stretcher and to his comrades, there is even more portentous meaning in the facial expression of the policeman as he reverently removes his helmet and motions the bearers to go on—the man has really died.

The movements are as simple and unagitated as one could imagine, and not one word is spoken, yet could you conceive of anything more dramatic? Again, one of the master-strokes in Bulwer-Lytton's "Richelieu" is where the Cardinal escapes from the swords of his enemies who rush into his sleeping apartments to slay him, by lying down on his bed with his hands crossed upon his breast, and by his ward's lover (but that instant won to loyalty to Richelieu) announcing to his fellow conspirators that they have come too late—old age has forestalled them, "Richelieu is dead."

6. Comedy is Achieved in the Same Dramatic Way

The only difference between the sublime and the ridiculous is the proverbial step. The sad and the funny are merely a difference of opinion, of viewpoint. Tragedy and comedy are only ways of looking at things. Often it is but a difference of to whom the circumstance happens, whether it is excruciatingly funny or unutterably sad. If you are the person to whom it happens, there is no argument about it—it is sad; but the very same thing happening to another person would be—funny.

Take for example, the everyday occurrence of a high wind and a flying hat: If the hat is yours, you chase it with unutterable thoughts—not the least being the consciousness that hundreds may be laughing at you—and if, just as you are about to seize the hat, a horse steps on it, you feel the tragedy of going all the way home without a hat amid the stares of the curious, and the sorrow of having to spend your good money to buy another.

But let that hat be not yours but another's and not you but somebody else be chasing it, and the grins will play about your mouth until you smile. Then let the horse step on the hat and squash it into a parody of a headgear, just as that somebody else is about to retrieve it—and you will laugh outright. As Elizabeth Woodbridge in summing up says, "the whole matter is seen to be dependent on perception of relations and the assumption of a standard of reference."

Incidentally the foregoing example is a very clear instance of the comic effect that, like the serious or tragic effect, is achieved without words. Any number of examples of comedy which secure their effect without action will occur to anyone, from the instance of the lackadaisical Englishman who sat disconsolately on the race track fence, and welcomed the jockey who had ridden the losing horse that had swept away all his patrimony, with these words: "Aw, I say, what detained you?" [1] to the comedy that was achieved without movement or words in the expressive glance that the owner of the crushed headgear gave the guileless horse.

[1] It would seem needless to state categorically that the sources of humor, and the technical means by which comedy is made comic, have no place in the present discussion. We are only concerned with the flashes by which comedy, like tragedy, is revealed.

Precisely as the tragic and the serious depend for their best effects upon character-revealing flashes and the whole train of incidents which led up to the instant and lead away from it, does the comic depend upon the revealing flash that is the essence of the dramatic, the veritable soul of the stage.

7. Tragedy, the Serious, Comedy, and Farce, all Depend on their Dramatic Meaning in the Minds of the Audience

No matter by what technical means dramatic effect is secured, whether by the use of words and agitated movement, or without movement, or without words, or sans both, matters not; the illuminating flash which reveals the thought behind it all, the meaning to the characters and their destiny—in which the audience is breathlessly interested because they have all unconsciously taken sides—is what makes the dramatic. Let me repeat: It is not the incident, whatever it may be, that is dramatic, but the illuminating flash that reveals to the minds of the audience the meaning of it.

Did you ever stand in front of a newspaper office and watch the board on which a baseball game, contested perhaps a thousand miles away, is being played with markers and a tiny ball on a string? There is no playing field stretching its cool green diamond before that crowd, there are no famous players present, there is no crowd of adoring fans jamming grand stand and bleachers; there is only a small board, with a tiny ball swaying uncertainly on its string, an invisible man to operate it, markers to show the runs, and a little crowd of hot, tired men and office boys mopping their faces in the shadeless, dirty street. There's nothing pretty or pleasant or thrillingly dramatic about this.

But wait until the man behind the board gets the flashes that tell him that a Cravath has knocked the ball over the fence and brought in the deciding run in the pennant race! Out on the board the little swaying ball flashes over the mimic fence, the tiny piece of wood slips to first and chases the bits of wood that represent the men on second and third—home! "Hurray! Hurray!! Hurray!!!" yell those weary men and office boys, almost bursting with delight. Over what? Not over the tiny ball that has gone back to swaying uncertainly on its string, not over the tiny bits of board that are now shoved into their resting place, not even over those runs—but over what those runs mean!

And so the playlet writer makes his audience go wild with delight— not by scenery, not by costumes, not by having famous players, not by beautifully written speeches, not even by wonderful scenes that flash the dramatic, but by what those scenes in the appealing story mean to the characters and their destiny, whereby each person in the audience is made to be as interested as though it were to him these things were happening with all their dramatic meaning of sadness or gladness.

However, it is to the dramatic artist only that ability is given to breathe nobility into the whole and to charge the singleness of effect with a vitality which marks a milestone in countless lives.

In this chapter we have found that the essence of drama is conflict— a clash of wills and its outcome; that the dramatic consists in those flashes which reveal life at its significant, crucial moments; and that the dramatic method is the way of telling the story with such economy of attention that it is comprehended by means of those illuminating flashes which both reveal character and show in an instant all that led up to the crisis as well as what will follow.

Now let us combine these three doctrines in the following definition, which is peculiarly applicable to the playlet:

Drama—whether it be serious or comic in tone—is a representation of reality arranged for action, and having a plot which is developed to a logical conclusion by the words and actions of its characters and showing a single situation of big human interest; the whole is told in a series of revealing flashes of which the final illuminating revelation rounds out the entire plot and leaves the audience with a single vivid impression.

Finally, we found that the physical movements of the characters often have nothing to do with securing dramatic effect, and that even words need not of necessity be employed. Hence dramatic effect in its final analysis depends upon what meaning the various minor scenes and the final big situation have for the characters and their destinies, and that this dramatic effect depends, furthermore, upon the big broad meaning which it bears to the minds of the audience, who have taken sides and feel that the chief character's life and destiny represent their own, or what they would like them to be, or fear they might be. In the next chapter we shall see how the dramatic spirit is given form by plot structure.



CHAPTER XIV

THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF PLOT

In the chapter on the germ idea we saw that the theme or subject of a playlet is a problem that must be solved with complete satisfaction. In this chapter we shall see how the problem—which is the first creeping form of a plot—is developed and expanded by the application of formal elements and made to grow into a plot. At the same time we shall see how the dramatic element of plot—discussed in the preceding chapter—is given form and direction in logical expression.

I. WHAT IS A PLAYLET PLOT?

You will recall that our consideration of the germ idea led us farther afield than a mere consideration of a theme or subject, or even of the problem—as we agreed to call the spark that makes the playlet go. In showing how a playlet writer gets an idea and how his mind works in developing it, we took the problem of "The System" and developed it into a near-plot form. It may have seemed to you at the time that the problem we assumed for the purpose of exposition was worked out very carefully into a plot, but if you will turn back to it now, you will realize how incomplete the elaboration was—it was no more complete than any germ idea should be before you even consider spending time to build it into a playlet.

Let us now determine definitely what a playlet plot is, consider its structural elements and then take one of the fine examples of a playlet in the Appendix and see how its plot is constructed.

The plot of a playlet is its story. It is the general outline, the plan, the skeleton which is covered by the flesh of the characters and clothed by their words. If the theme or problem is the heart that beats with life, then the scenery amid which the animated body moves is its habitation, and the dramatic spirit is the soul that reveals meaning in the whole.

To hazard a definition:

A playlet plot is a sequence of events logically developed out of a theme or problem, into a crisis or entanglement due to a conflict of the characters' wills, and then logically untangled again, leaving the characters in a different relation to each other—changed in themselves by the crisis.

Note that a mere series of incidents does not make a plot—the presence of crisis is absolutely necessary to plot. If the series of events does not develop a complication that changes the characters in themselves and in their relations to each other, there can be no plot. If this is so, let us now take the sequence of events that compose the story of "The Lollard" [1] and see what constitutes them a plot. I shall not restate its story, only repeat it in the examination of its various points [2].

[1] Edgar Allan Woolf's fine satirical comedy to be found in the Appendix.

[2] As a side light, you see how a playlet theme differs from a playlet plot. You will recall that in the chapter on "The Germ Idea," the theme of The Lollard was thus stated in terms of a playlet problem: "A foolish young woman may leave her husband because she has 'found him out,' yet return to him when she discovers that another man is no better than he is." Compare this brief statement with the full statement of the plot given hereafter.

The coming of Angela Maxwell to Miss Carey's door at 2 A.M.—unusual as is the hour—is just an event; the fact that Angela has left her husband, Harry, basic as it is, is but little more than an event; the entrance of the lodger, Fred Saltus, is but another event, and even Harry Maxwell's coming in search of his wife is merely an event—for if Harry had sat down and argued Angela out of her pique, even though Fred were present, there would have been no complication, save for the cornerstone motive of her having left him. If this sequence of events forms merely a mildly interesting narrative, what, then, is the complication that weaves them into a plot?

The answer is, in Angela's falling in love with Fred's broad shoulders, wealth of hair and general good looks—this complication develops the crisis out of Harry's wanting Angela. If Harry hadn't cared, there would have been no drama—the drama comes from Harry's wanting Angela when Angela wants Fred; Angela wants something that runs counter to Harry's will—there is the clash of wills out of which flashes the dramatic.

But still there would be no plot—and consequently no playlet—if Harry had acknowledged himself beaten after his first futile interview with Angela. The entanglement is there—Harry has to untangle it. He has to win Angela again—and how he does it, on Miss Carey's tip, you may know from reading the playlet. But, if you have read it, did you realize the dramatic force of the unmasking of Fred—accomplished without (explanatory) words, merely by making Fred run out on the stage and dash back into his room again? There is a fine example of the revealing flash! This incident—made big by the dramatic—is the ironical solvent that loosens the warp of Angela's will and prepares her for complete surrender. Harry's entrance in full regimentals—what woman does not love a uniform?— is merely the full rounding out of the plot that ends with Harry's carrying his little wife home to happiness again.

But, let us pursue this examination further, in the light of the preceding chapter. There would have been no drama if the meaning of these incidents had not—because Angela is a "character" and Harry one, too—been inherent in them. There would have been no plot, nothing of dramatic spirit, if Harry had not been made by those events to realize his mistake and Angela had not been made to see that Harry was "no worse" than another man. It is the change in Harry and the change in Angela that changes their relations to each other—therein lies the essence of the plot. [1]

[1] Unfortunately, the bigger, broader meaning we all read into this satire of life, cannot enter into our consideration of the structure of plot. It lies too deep in the texture of the playwright's mind and genius to admit of its being plucked out by the roots for critical examination. The bigger meaning is there—we all see it, and recognize that it stamps The Lollard as good drama. Each playwright must work out his own meanings of life for himself and weave them magically into his own playlets; this is something that cannot be added to a man, that cannot be satisfactorily explained when seen, and cannot be taken away from him.

Now, having determined what a plot is, let us take up its structural parts and see how these clearly understood principles make the construction of a playlet plot in a measure a matter of clear thinking.

II. THE VITAL PARTS OF THE PLOT

We must swerve for a moment and cut across lots, that we may touch every one of the big structural elements of plot and relate them with logical closeness to the playlet, summing them all up in the end and tying them closely into—what I hope may be—a helpful definition, on the last page of this chapter.

The first of the structural parts that we must consider before we take up the broader dramatic unities, is the seemingly obvious one that a plot has a beginning, a middle and an ending.

There has been no clearer statement of this element inherent in all plots, than that made by Aristotle in his famous twenty-century old dissection of tragedy; he says:

"Tragedy is an imitation of an action, that is complete and whole, and of a certain magnitude (not trivial). . . . A whole is that which has a beginning, middle and end. A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity or in the regular course of events, but has nothing to follow it. A middle is that which naturally follows something as some other thing follows it. A well-constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to the type here described." [1]

[1] Aristotle, Poetics VII.

Let us state the first part of the doctrine in this way:

1. The Beginning Must State the Premises of the Problem Clearly and Simply

Although life knows neither a beginning nor an end—not your life nor mine, but the stream of unseparate events that make up existence—a work of art, like the playlet, must have both. The beginning of any event in real life may lie far back in history; its immediate beginnings, however, start out closely together and distinctly in related causes and become more indistinctly related the farther back they go. Just where you should consider the event that is the crisis of your playlet has its beginning, depends upon how you want to tell it—in other words, it depends upon you. No one can think for you, but there are one or two observations upon the nature of plot-beginnings that may be suggestive.

In the first place, no matter how carefully the dramatic material has been severed from connection with other events, it cannot be considered entirely independent. By the very nature of things, it must have its roots in the past from which it springs, and these roots—the foundations upon which the playlet rises—must be presented to the audience at the very beginning.

If you were introducing a friend of yours and his sister and brother to your family, who had never met them before, you would tell which one was your particular friend, what his sister's name was, and his brother's name, too, and their relationship to your friend. And, if the visit were unexpected, you would—naturally and unconsciously—determine how they happened to come and how long you might have the pleasure of entertaining them; in fact, you would fix every fact that would give your family a clear understanding of the event of their presence. In other words, you would very informally and delicately establish their status, by outlining their relations to you and to each other, so that your family might have a clear understanding of the situation they were asked to face.

This is precisely what must be done at the very beginning of a playlet—the friends, who are the author's characters, must be introduced to his interested family, the audience, with every bit of information that is necessary to a clear understanding of the playlet's situation. These are the roots from which the playlet springs—the premise of its problem. Precisely as "The Lollard" declares in its opening speeches who Miss Carey is and who Angela Maxwell is, and that Angela is knocking at Miss Carey's door at two o'clock in the morning because she has left Harry, her husband, after a quarrel the roots of which lie in the past, so every playlet must state in its very first speeches, the "whos" and "whys"—the premises—out of which the playlet logically develops.

The prologue of "The Villain Still Pursued Her" is an excellent illustration of this point. When this very funny travesty was first produced, it did not have a prologue. It began almost precisely as the full-stage scene begins now, and the audience did not know whether to take it seriously or not. The instant he watched the audience at the first performance, the author sensed the problem he had to face. He knew, then, that he would have to tell the next audience and every other that the playlet is a farce, a roaring travesty, to get the full value of laughter that lies in the situations. He pondered the matter and saw that if the announcement in plain type on the billboards and in the program that his playlet was a travesty was not enough, he would have to tell the audience by a plain statement from the stage before his playlet began. So he hit upon the prologue that stamps the act as a travesty in its very first lines, introduces the characters and exposes the roots out of which the action develops so clearly that there cannot possibly be any mistake. And his reward was the making over of an indifferent success into one of the most successful travesties in vaudeville.

This conveying to the audience of the knowledge necessary to enable them to follow the plot is technically known as "exposition." It is one of the most important parts of the art of construction—indeed, it is a sure test of a playwright's dexterity. While there are various ways of offering preliminary information in the long drama—that is, it may be presented all at once in the opening scene of the first act, or homeopathically throughout the first act, or some minor bits of necessary information may be postponed even until the opening of the second act—there is only one way of presenting the information necessary to the understanding of the playlet: It must all be compressed into the very first speeches of the opening scene.

The clever playlet writer is advertised by the ease—the simplicity—with which he condenses every bit of the exposition into the opening speeches. You are right in the middle of things before you realize it and it is all done so skillfully that its straightforwardness leaves never a suspicion that the simplicity is not innate but manufactured; it seems artless, yet its artlessness is the height of art. The beginning of a playlet, then, must convey to the audience every bit of information about the characters and their relations to each other that is necessary for clear understanding. Furthermore, it must tell it all compactly and swiftly in the very first speeches, and by the seeming artlessness of its opening events it must state the problem so simply that what follows is foreshadowed and seems not only natural but inevitable.

2. The Middle Must Develop the Problem Logically and Solve the Entanglement in a "Big" Scene

For the purpose of perfect understanding, I would define the "middle" of a playlet as that part which carries the story on from the indispensable introduction to and into the scene of final suspense—the climax—in which the chief character's will breaks or triumphs and the end is decided. In "The Lollard" this would be from the entrance of Fred Saltus and his talk with Angela, to Miss Carey's exposure of Fred's "lollardness," which breaks down Angela's determination by showing her that her husband is no worse than Fred and makes it certain that Harry has only to return to his delightful deceptions of dress to carry her off with him home.

(a) The "Exciting Force." The beginning of the action that we have agreed to call the middle of a playlet, is technically termed "the exciting force." The substance of the whole matter is this: Remember what your story is and tell it with all the dramatic force with which you are endowed.

Perhaps the most common, and certainly the very best, place to "start the trouble"—to put the exciting force which arouses the characters to conflict—is the very first possible instant after the clear, forceful and foreshadowing introduction. The introduction has started the action of the story, the chief characters have shown what they are and the interest of the audience has been awakened. Now you must clinch that interest by having something happen that is novel, and promises in the division of personal interests which grow out of it to hold a punch that will stir the sympathies legitimately and deeply.

(b) The "Rising Movement." This exciting force is the beginning of what pundits call "the rising movement"—in simple words, the action which from now on increases in meaning vital to the characters and their destinies. What happens, of course, depends upon the material and the treatment, but there is one point that requires a moment's discussion here, although closely linked with the ability to seize upon the dramatic—if it is not, itself, the heart of the dramatic. This important point is, that in every story set for the stage, there are certain

(c) Scenes that Must be Shown. From the first dawn of drama until today, when the motion pictures are facing the very same necessity, the problem that has vexed playwrights most is the selection of what scenes must be shown. These all-important scenes are the incidents of the story or the interviews between characters that cannot be recounted by other characters. Call them dramatic scenes, essential scenes, what you will, if they are not shown actually happening, but are described by dialogue—the interest of the audience will lag and each person from the first seat in the orchestra to the last bench in the gallery will be disappointed and dissatisfied. For instance:

If, instead of Fred Saltus' appearing before the audience and having his humorously thoughtless but nevertheless momentous talk with Angela in which Angela falls in love with him, the interview had been told the audience by Miss Carey, there would have been no playlet. Nearly as important is the prologue of "The Villian Still Pursued Her"; Mr. Denvir found it absolutely necessary to show those characters to the audience, so that they might see them with their own eyes in their farcical relations to each other, before he secured the effect that made his playlet. Turn to "The System" and try to find even one scene there shown that could be replaced by narrative dialogue and you will see once more how important are the "scenes that must be shown."

One of the all-rules-in-one for writing drama that I have heard, though I cannot now recall what playwright told me, deals with precisely this point. He expressed it this way: "First tell your audience what you are going to do, then show it to them happening, and then tell 'em it has happened!" You will not make a mistake, of course, if you show the audience those events in which the dramatic conflict enters. The soul of a playlet is the clash of the wills of the characters, from which fly the revealing flashes; a playlet, therefore, loses interest for the audience when the scenes in which those wills clash and flash revealingly are not shown.

It is out of such revealing scenes that the rising movement grows, as Freytag says, "with a progressive intensity of interest." But, not only must the events progress and the climax be brought nearer, but the scenes themselves must broaden with force and revealing power. They must grow until there comes one big scene—"big" in every way—somewhere on the toes of the ending, a scene next to the last or the last itself.

(d) The Climax. Here is where the decisive blow is struck in a moment when the action becomes throbbing and revealing in every word and movement. In "The Lollard" it is when Fred makes his revealing dash through the room—this is the dramatic blow which breaks Angela's infatuation. It is the crowning point of the crowning scene in which the forces of the playlet culminate, and the "heart wallop"—as Tom Barry calls it [1]—is delivered and the decision is won and made.

[1] Vaudeville Appeal and the "Heart Wallop," by Tom Barry, author of The Upstart and Brother Fans, an interesting article in The Dramatic Mirror of December 16, 1914. For this and other valuable information I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and to express my thanks to The Dramatic Mirror and its courteous Vaudeville Editor, Frederick James Smith.

Whatever this decision may be and however it is won and made, the climax must be first of all a real climax—it must be "big," whether it be a comedy scream or the seldom-seen tragic tear. Big in movement and expression it must be, depending for effect not on words but on the revealing flash; it must be the summit of the action; it must be the event toward which the entire movement has been rising; it must be the fulfillment of what was foreshadowed; it must be keen, quick, perfectly logical and flash the illuminating revelation, as if one would say, "Here, this is what I've kept you waiting for—my whole reason for being." Need I say that such a climax will be worth while?

And now, as the climax is the scene toward which every moment of the playlet—from the first word of the introduction and the first scene-statement of the playlet's problem—has been motivated, and toward which it has risen and culminated, so also the climax holds within itself the elements from which develops the ending.

3. The Ending Must Round the Whole Out Satisfyingly.

For the purpose of clearness, let me define the ending of a playlet as a scene that lies between the climax or culminating scene—in which the audience has been made to feel the coming-to-an-end effect—and the very last word on which the curtain descends. If you have ever watched a sailor splicing a rope, you will know what I mean when I say that the worker, reaching for the loose ends to finish the job off neatly, is like the playlet writer who reaches here and there for the playlet's loose ends and gathers them all up into a neat, workmanlike finish. The ending of a playlet must not leave unfulfilled any promises of the premise, but must fulfill them all satisfyingly.

The characteristics of a good playlet ending—besides the completeness with which the problem has been "proved" and the satisfyingness with which it all rounds out—are terseness, speed and "punch." If the climax is a part of the playlet wherein words may not be squandered, the ending is the place where words—you will know what I mean—may not be used at all. Everything that must be explained must be told by means which reach into the spectator's memory of what has gone before and make it the positive pole of the battery from which flash the wireless messages from the scene of action. As Emerson defined character as that which acts by mere presence without words, let me define the ending of a playlet as that which acts without words by the simple bringing together of the characters in their new relations.

The climax has said to the audience, "Here, this is what I've kept you waiting for—my whole reason for being," therefore the ending cannot dally—it must run swiftly to the final word. There is no excuse for the ending to linger over anything at all—the shot has been fired and the audience waits only for the smoke to clear away, that it may see how the bull's-eye looks. The swifter you can blow the smoke away, show them that you've hit the bull's-eye dead in the centre, and bow yourself off amid their pleased applause, the better your impression will be.

Take these three examples:

When Fred Saltus dashes revealingly across the stage and back into his room again, "The Lollard's" climax is reached; and as soon as Angela exclaims "What 'a lollard' that is!" there's a ring at the door bell and in comes Harry to win Angela completely with his regimentals and to carry her off and bring the curtain down— in eight very short speeches.

In "The System," the climax arrives when the honest Inspector orders Dugan arrested and led away. Then he gives "The Eel" and Goldie their freedom and exits with a simple "Good Night"—and the curtain comes down—all in seven speeches.

The climax of "Blackmail" seems to come when Fallon shoots Mohun and Kelly breaks into the room—to the curtain it is seven speeches. But the real climax is reached when Kelly shouts over the telephone "Of course, in self-defense, you fool, of course, in self-defense." This is—the last speech.

Convincing evidence, is this not, of the speed with which the curtain must follow the climax?

And so we have come, to this most important point—the "finish" or "the curtain," as vaudeville calls it. The very last thing that must be shown, and the final word that must be said before the curtain comes down, are the last loose ends of the plot which must be spliced into place—the final illuminating word to round out the whole playlet humanly and cleverly. "The Lollard" goes back to Miss Carey's sleep, which Angela's knock on the door interrupted: "Now, thank Gawd, I'll get a little sleep," says Miss Carey as she puts out the light. A human, an everyday word it is, spoken like a reminiscent thrill—and down comes the curtain amid laughter and applause. A fine way to end.

But not the only way—let us examine "The System."

"Well, we're broke again," says Goldie tearfully. "We can't go West now, so there's no use packing." Now, note the use of business in the ending, and the surprise. The Eel goes stealthily to the window L, looks out, and pulls the dictograph from the wall. Then he comes down stage to Goldie who is sitting on the trunk and has watched him. He taps her on the shoulder, taking Dugan's red wallet out of his pocket. "Go right ahead and pack," says The Eel, while Goldie looks astonished and begins to laugh. The audience, too, look astonished and begin to laugh when they see that red wallet. It is a surprise—a surprise so cleverly constructed that it hits the audience hard just above the laughter-and-applause-belt— a surprise that made the act at least twenty-five per cent better than it would have been without it. And from it we may now draw the "rules" for the use of that most helpful and most dangerous element, surprise in the vaudeville finish:

Note first, that it was entirely logical for The Eel to steal the wallet—he is a pickpocket. Second, that the theft of the wallet is not of trivial importance to Goldie's destiny and to his—they are "broke" and they must get away; the money solves all their problems. And third, note that while The Eel's possession of the wallet is a surprise, the wallet itself is not a surprise—it has first played a most important part in the tempting of Goldie and has been shown to the audience not once but many times; and its very color—red—makes it instantly recognizable; the spectators know what it contains and what its contents mean to the destinies of both The Eel and Goldie—it is only that The Eel has it, that constitutes the surprise.

Now I must sound a warning against striving too hard after a surprise finish. The very nature of many playlets makes it impossible to give them such a curtain. If you have built up a story which touches the heart and brings tears to the eyes, and then turn it all into a joke, the chances are the audience will feel that their sympathies have been outraged, and so the playlet will fail. For instance, one playlet was ruined because right on top of the big, absorbing climax two of the characters who were then off stage stuck their heads in at the door and shouted at the hero of the tense situation, "April Fool."

Therefore, the following may be considered as an important "rule"; a playlet that touches the heart should never end with a trick or a surprise. [1]

[1] See Chapter XVIII, section III, par. 4.

Now, let me sum up these four elements of surprise:

A surprise finish must be fitting, logical, vitally important, and revealingly dramatic; if you cannot give a playlet a surprise-finish that shall be all of these four things at once, be content with the simpler ending.

The importance of a playlet's ending is so well understood in vaudeville that the insistence upon a "great finish" to every playlet has sometimes seemed to be over-insistence, for, important as it is, it is no more important than a "great opening" and "great scenes." The ending is, of course, the final thing that quickens applause, and, coming last and being freshest in the mind of the audience, it is more likely to carry just a fair act to success than a fine act is likely to win with the handicap of a poor finish. But, discounting this to be a bit under the current valuation of "great finishes," we still may round out this discussion of the playlet's three important parts, with this temperate sentence:

A well constructed playlet plot is one whose Beginning states the premises of its problem clearly and simply, whose Middle develops the problem logically and solves the entanglement in a "big" scene, and whose Ending rounds out the whole satisfyingly— with a surprise, if fitting.

But, temperate and helpful as this statement of a well constructed plot may be, there is something lacking in it. And that something lacking is the very highest test of plot—lightly touched on at various times, but which, although it enters into a playwright's calculations every step of the way, could not be logically considered in this treatise until the structure had been examined as a whole: I mean the formidable-sounding, but really very simple dramatic unities.

III. THE THREE DRAMATIC UNITIES

Now, but only for a moment, we must return to the straight line of investigation from which we swerved in considering the structural parts of a playlet plot.

At the beginning of this chapter we saw that a simple narrative of events is made a plot by the addition of a crisis or entanglement, and its resolution or untying. Now, the point I wish to present with all the emphasis at my command, is that complication does not mean complexity.

1. Unity of Action

In other words, no matter how many events you place one after another—no matter how you pile incident upon incident—you will not have a plot unless you so inter-relate them that the removal of anyone event will destroy the whole story. Each event must depend on the one preceding it, and in turn form a basis for the one following, and each must depend upon all the others so vitally that if you take one away the whole collapses. [1]

[1] See Aristotle, Poetics, Chapter VIII, and also Poe's criticism, The American Drama.

(a) Unity of Hero is not Unity of Action. One of the great errors into which the novice is likely to fall, is to believe that because he makes every event which happens happen to the hero, he is observing the rule of unity. Nothing could be farther from the truth—nothing is so detrimental to successful plot construction. [2]

[2] See Freytag's Technique of the Drama, p. 36.

Aristotle tried to correct this evil, which he saw in the plays of the great Athenian poets, by saying: "The action is the first and most important thing, the characters only second;" and, "The action is not given unity by being made to concern only one person."

Remember, unity of action means unity of story.

(b) Double-Action is Dangerous to Unity. If you have a scene in which two minor characters come together for a reason vital to the plot, you must be extremely careful not to tell anything more than the facts that are vital. In long plays the use of what is called "double-action "—that is, giving to characters necessary to the plot an interest and a destiny separate from that of the chief characters—is, of course, recognized and productive of fine results. But, even in the five-act play, the use of double-action is dangerous. For instance: Shakespere developed Falstaff so humorously that today we sometimes carelessly think of "Henry IV" as a delightful comedy, when in reality it was designed as a serious drama—and is most serious, when Falstaff's lines are cut from the reading version to the right proportions for to-day's stage effect. If Shakespere nodded, it is a nod even the legitimate dramatist of today should take to heart, and the playlet writer—peculiarly restricted as to time—must engrave deeply in his memory.

The only way to secure unity of action is to concentrate upon your problem or theme; to realize that you are telling a story; to remember that each character, even your hero, is only a pawn to advance the story; and to cut away rigorously all non-essential events. If you will bear in mind that a playlet is only as good as its plot, that a plot is a story and that you must give to your story, as has been said, "A completeness—a kind of universal dovetailedness, a sort of general oneness," you will have little difficulty in observing the one playlet rule that should never be broken—Unity of action.

2. Unity of Time

The second of the classical unities, unity of time, is peculiarly perplexing, if you study to "understand" and not merely to write. Briefly—for I must reiterate that our purpose is practice and not theory—the dramatists of every age since Aristotle have quarreled over the never-to-be-settled problem of what space of time a play should be permitted to represent. Those who take the stand that no play should be allowed to show an action that would require more than twenty-four hours for the occurrences in real life, base their premise on the imitative quality of the stage, rather than upon the selective quality of art. While those who contend that a play may disregard the classical unity of time, if only it preserves the unity of action, base their contention upon the fact that an audience is interested not in time at all—but in story. In other words, a play preserves the only unity worth preserving when it deals with the incidents that cause a crisis and ends by showing its effect, no matter whether the action takes story-years to occur or happens all in a story-hour.

If we were studying the long drama it might be worth our while to consider the various angles of this ancient dispute, but, fortunately, we have a practical and, therefore, better standard by which to state this unity in its application to the playlet. Let us approach the matter in this way:

Vaudeville is variety—it strives to compress into the space of about two hours and a half a great number of different acts which run the gamut of the entertainment forms, and therefore it cannot afford more than an average of twenty minutes to each. This time limit makes it difficult for a playlet to present effectively any story that does not occur in consecutive minutes. It has been found that even the lowering of the curtain for one second to denote the lapse of an hour or a year, has a tendency to distract the minds of the audience from the story and to weaken the singleness of effect without which a playlet is nothing.

On the other hand, this "rule" is not unbreakable: a master craftsman's genius is above all laws. In "The System" the first scene takes place in the evening; scene two, a little later the same evening; and scene three later that same night. The story is really continuous in time, but the story-time is not equal to the playing-time even though this playlet consumes nearly twice twenty minutes. But, you will note, the scenery changes help to keep the interest of the audience from flagging, and also stamp the lapses of time effectively.

A still greater violation of the "rule"—if it were stated as absolutely rigid—is to be found in Mr. Granville's later act, "The Yellow Streak," written in collaboration with James Madison. Here scene two takes place later in the evening of the first scene, and the third scene after a lapse of four months. But these two exceptions, out of many that might be cited, merely prove that dramatic genius can mold even the rigid time of the vaudeville stage to its needs.

Of course, there is the possibility of foreshortening time to meet the exigencies of vaudeville when the scene is not changed. For instance: a character telephones that he will be right over and solve the whole situation on which the punch of the playlet depends, and he enters five actual minutes later—although in real life it would take an hour to make the trip. This is an extreme instance, as time foreshortening goes, because it is one where the audience might grasp the disparity, and is given for its side-light of warning as well as for its suggestive value.

More simple foreshortenings of time are found in many playlets where the effect of an hour-or-more of events is compressed into the average twenty minutes. As an example of this perfectly safe use of shortening, note the quickness with which Harry returns to Miss Carey's apartment when he goes out to change into his regimentals. And as still safer foreshortenings, note the quickness with which Fred Saltus enters after Miss Carey goes to bed leaving Angela on the couch; and the quickness with which Angela falls in love with him—in fact, the entire compression inherent in the dramatic events which cannot be dissociated from time compression.

A safe attitude for a playlet writer to take, is that all of his action shall mimic time reality as closely as his dramatic moment and the time-allowance of presentation will permit. This is considered in all dramatic art to be the ideal.

A good way to obviate disparaging comparison is to avoid reference to time—either in the dialogue or by the movements of events.

To sum up the whole matter, a vaudeville playlet may be considered as preserving unity of time when its action occurs in continuous minutes of about the length the episode would take to occur in real life.

3. Unity of Place

The commercial element of vaudeville often makes it inadvisable for a playlet to show more than one scene—very often an otherwise acceptable playlet is refused production because the cost of supplying special scenes makes it a bad business venture. [1]

[1] See Chapter III.

Yet it is permissible for a writer to give his playlet more than one place of happening—if he can make his story so compact and gripping that it does not lose in effect by the unavoidable few seconds' wait necessary to the changing of the scenery. But, even if his playlet is so big and dramatic that it admits of a change of scenes, he must conform it to the obvious vaudeville necessity of scenic alternation. [2] With this scenic "rule" the matter of unity of place in the playlet turns to the question of a playwright's art, which rules cannot limit.

[2] See Chapter I.

This third and last unity of the playlet may, however, for all save the master-craftsman, be safely stated as follows:

Except in rare instances a playlet should deal with a story that requires but one set of scenery, thus conserving the necessities of commercial vaudeville, aiding the smooth running of a performance, and preserving the dramatic unity of place.

We may now condense the three dramatic unities into a statement peculiarly applicable to the playlet—which would seem as though specially designed to fulfill them all:

A playlet preserves the dramatic unities when it shows one action in one time and in one place.

And now it may be worth while once more to sum up what I have said about the elements of plot—of which the skeleton of every playlet must be made up:

A mere sequence of events is not a plot; to become a plot there must develop a crisis or entanglement due to a conflict of the characters' wills; the entanglement must be of such importance that when it is untangled the characters will be in a different relation to each other—changed in themselves by the crisis. A plot is divided into three parts: a Beginning, a Middle and an Ending. The Beginning must state the premises of the playlet's problem clearly and simply; the Middle must develop the problem logically and solve the entanglement in a "big" scene, and the Ending must round out the whole satisfyingly—with a surprise, if fitting. A plot, furthermore, must be so constructed that the removal of anyone of its component parts will be detrimental to the whole. It is told best when its action occurs in continuous time of about the length the episode would take to occur in real life and does not require the changing of scenery. Thus will a playlet be made to give the singleness of effect that is the height of playlet art.



CHAPTER XV

THE CHARACTERS IN THE PLAYLET

In this chapter the single word "character" must, of necessity, do duty to express three different things. First, by "characters," as used in the title, I mean what the programs sometimes more clearly express by the words "persons of the play." Second, in the singular, it must connote what we all feel when we use the word in everyday life, as "he is a man of—good or bad—character." And third, and also in the singular, I would also have it connote, in the argot of the stage, "a character actor," meaning one who presents a distinct type—as, say, a German character, or a French character. It is because of the suggestive advantage of having one word to express these various things that the single term "characters" is used as the title of this chapter. But, that there may be no possible confusion, I shall segregate the different meanings sharply.

I. CHARACTERS VERSUS PLOT

In discussing how a playwright gets an idea, you will recall, we found that there are two chief ways of fashioning the playlet: First, a plot may be fitted with characters; second, characters may be fitted with a plot. In other words, the plot may be made most prominent, or the characters may be made to stand out above the story. You will also remember we found that the stage—the vaudeville quite as much as the legitimate—is "character-ridden," that is, an actor who has made a pronounced success in the delineation of one character type forever afterward wants another play or playlet "just like the last, but with a different plot," so that he can go right on playing the same old character. This we saw has in some cases resulted in the story being considered merely as a vehicle for a personality, often to the detriment of the playlet. Naturally, this leads us to inquire: is there not some just balance between characters and plot which should be preserved?

Were we considering merely dramatic theory, we would be perfectly right in saying that no play should be divisible into plot and characters, but that story and characters should be so closely twinned that one would be unthinkable without the other. As Brander Matthews says, "In every really important play the characters make the plot, and the story is what it is merely because the characters are what they are." An exceptionally fine vaudeville example—one only, it is agreeable to note, out of many that might be quoted from vaudeville's past and present—that has but two persons in the playlet is Will Cressy's "The Village Lawyer." One is a penniless old lawyer who has been saving for years to buy a clarionet. A woman comes in quest of a divorce. When he has listened to her story he asks twenty dollars advance fee. Then he persuades her to go back home—and hands the money back. There is a splendid climax. The old lawyer stands in the doorway of his shabby office looking out into the night. "Well," he sighs, "maybe I couldn't play the darned thing anyway!" If the lawyer had not been just what he was there would have been no playlet. But vital as the indissoluble union of plot and characters is in theory, we are not discussing theory; we are investigating practice, and practice from the beginner's standpoint, therefore let us approach the answer to our question in this way:

When you were a child clamoring for "a story" you did not care a snap of your fingers about anything except "Once upon a time there was a little boy—or a giant—or a dragon," who did something. You didn't care what the character was, but whatever it was, it had to do something, to be doing something all of the time. Even when you grew to youth and were on entertainment bent, you cared not so much what the characters in a story were, just so long as they kept on doing something—preferably "great" deeds, such as capturing a city or scuttling a ship or falling in love. It was only a little later that you came to find enjoyment in reading a book or seeing a play in which the chief interest came from some person who had admirable qualities or was an odd sort of person who talked in an odd sort of way. Was it George Cohan who said "a vaudeville audience is of the mental age of a nine-year-old child"?

Theoretically and, of course, practically too, when it is possible, the characters of a playlet should be as interesting as the plot. Each should vitally depend upon the other. But, if you must choose whether to sacrifice plot-interest or character-interest, save the interest of plot every time. As Aristotle says, "the action is the first and most important thing, the characters only secondary."

How a playwright begins to construct a play, whether he fits a plot with characters, or fits characters with a plot, does not matter. What matters is how he ends. If the story and the characters blend perfectly the result is an example of the highest art, but characters alone will never make a stage story—the playlet writer must end with plot. Story is for what the stage is made. Plot is the life blood of the playlet. To vivify cold dramatic incidents is the province of playlet characters.

II. THE PERSONS OF THE PLAYLET

While it is true that, no matter with what method he begins, a playwright may end by having a successful playlet, the clearer way to understanding is for us to suppose that you have your plot and are striving to fit it with live people—therefore I shall assume that such is the case. For if the reverse were the case and the characters were all ready to fit with a plot, the question would be primarily not of characters but of plot.

1. The Number of Persons

How many people shall I have in my playlet? ought to be one of the very first questions the writer asks, for enough has been said in the earlier chapters, it would seem, to establish the fact that vaudeville is first of all a commercial pursuit and after that an artistic profession. While there can be no hard and fast rule as to the number of persons there may be in a playlet, business economy dictates that there shall be no more than the action of the playlet positively demands. But before I say a short word about this general "rule," permit me to state another that comes fast upon its heels: A really big playlet—big in theme, in grip of action, and in artistic effect—may have even thrice the number of characters a "little" playlet may possess. Merit determines the number.

Let us find the reasons for these two general statements in this way:

In "The Lollard" there are four persons, while in "The System " there are thirteen speaking parts and a number of "supers." Would it then be correct to suppose that "The System" is a "bigger" playlet than "The Lollard"? It would not be safe to assume any such judgment, for the circuit that booked "The System" may have been in need of a playlet using a large number of persons to make what is known as a "flash," therefore the booking manager may have given orders that this playlet be built to make that flash, and the total return to the producer might not have been any greater proportionally than the return to the producer of the numerically smaller "The Lollard." Therefore of two playlets whose total effects are equal, the one having the lesser number of persons is the better producing gamble, and for this reason is more likely to be accepted when offered for sale.

If you will constantly bear in mind that you are telling a story of action and not of character, you will find very little difficulty in reducing the number of players from what you first supposed absolutely necessary. As just one suggestion: If your whole playlet hangs on an important message to be delivered, the property man, dressed as a messenger boy, may hand in the message without a word. I have chosen this one monotonously often-seen example because it is suggestive of the crux of the problem—the final force of a playlet is affected little by what the character says when he delivers a vital message. All that matters is the message itself. The one thing to remember in reducing the number of characters to the lowest possible number is—plot.

Four Persons the Average. While there are playlets ranging in number of characters from the two-person "The Village Lawyer," through "The Lollard's" four, to "The System's" thirteen speaking parts, and even more in rare instances, the average vaudeville playlet employs four people. But it is a fact of importance to note that a three-person playlet can be sold more easily—I am assuming an equal standard of merit—than a four-person playlet. And, by the same law of demand, a two-person playlet wins a quicker market than a three-person playlet. The reason for this average has its rise in the demands of the dramatic, and not merely in economy. The very nature of the playlet makes it the more difficult to achieve dramatic effect the more the number of characters is reduced. But while four persons are perfectly permissible in a playlet designed for vaudeville's commercial stage, the beginner would do well to make absolutely sure that he has reduced his characters to their lowest number before he markets his playlet, and, if possible, make a three-person or a two-person offering.

2. Selecting the Characters

There would seem to be little need, in this day of wide curiosity about all the forms of writing and those of playwriting in particular, to warn the beginner against straying far afield in search of characters whom he will not understand even when he finds them. Yet this is precisely the fault that makes failures of many otherwise good playlets. The whole art of selecting interesting characters may be summed up in one sentence—choose those that you know. The most interesting characters in the world are rubbing elbows with you every day.

Willard Mack—who developed into a successful legitimate playwright from vaudeville, and is best known, perhaps, for the expansion of his vaudeville act, "Kick in," into the long play of the same name—has this to say on the subject: "I say to the ambitious playwright, take the types you are familiar with. Why go to the Northwest, to New Orleans in the 40's, to the court of Louis XIV, for characters? The milkman who comes to your door in the morning, the motorman on the passing street car, the taxi driver, all have their human-interest stories. Anyone of them would make a drama. I never attempt to write anything that has not suggested itself from something in real life. I must know it has existed." [1]

[1] Willard Mack on the "Vaudeville Playlet," The New York Dramatic Mirror, March 3, 1915.

Precisely as it is impossible to tell anyone how to grasp the dramatic and transplant it into a playlet, is it impossible to show how to seize on character and transplant it to the stage. Only remember that interesting characters are all about you, and you will have little difficulty—if you have, as the French say, the "flare."

III. FITTING CHARACTERS TO PLOT

It would seem that a playwright who has his plot all thought out would experience little difficulty in fitting the characters of a playlet into their waiting niches; it is easy, true enough—if his plot is perfectly dovetailed and motivated as to character. By this I mean, that in even a playlet in which plot rides the characters, driving them at its will to attain its end, logic must be used. And it certainly would not be logical to make your characters do anything which such persons would not do in real life. As there must be unity in plot, so must there be unity in character.

The persons in a playlet are not merely puppets, even if plot is made to predominate. They are—let us hope—live persons. I do not mean that you have transplanted living people to the stage, but that you have taken the elements of character that you require out of life and have combined these into a consistent whole to form characters necessary to your playlet. Therefore, you must be careful to make each character uniform throughout. You must not demand of any character anything you have not laid down in tbe premises of your problem—which presupposes that each character possesses certain definite and logical characteristics which make the plot what it is.

Bearing this single requirement firmly in mind, you must so motivate your plot that everything which occurs to a character rises out of that character's personality; you must make the crisis the outward evidence of his inner being and the change which comes through the climax the result of inner change. This was considered in the chapters on the dramatic and on plot construction and expressed when I said: It is the meaning hidden in the events that makes the dramatic. It is this inner meaning that lies in the soul of the character himself which marks the change in his own character and his own outward life.

IV. CHARACTERIZATION

How a playwright delineates character in the persons of his playlet, is at once the easiest thing to explain and the most difficult for which to lay down helpful methods, for while the novelist and the short-story writer have three ways of telling their readers what manner of man it is in whom he asks interest, the dramatist has but two.

1. Methods of Characterization

First, a playwright may build up a characterization by having one character tell another what sort of a person the third is. Second, he may make the character show by his own speech and actions what he is. This latter is the dramatic way, and peculiarly the playlet way.

As the first method is perfectly plain in itself, I shall dismiss it with the suggestive warning that even this essentially undramatic method must partake of the dramatic to be most effective: to get the most out of one character's describing a second to a third, the reason for the disclosure must be bone-and-brawn a part of the action.

The two elements of the dramatic method are: First, the character may disclose his inner being by his own words, and second, by his actions.

The first is so intimately connected with the succeeding chapter on dialogue that I shall postpone its consideration until then and discuss here the disclosure of character through action.

When you meet a man whom you have never met before, you carry away with you a somewhat complete impression. Even though he has spoken but a word or two, his appearance first of all, the cut of his clothes, his human twinkle, the way he lights his cigar, the courteous way in which he gives precedence to another, or his rough way of "butting into" a conversation, all combine to give him a personality distinct from every other man's. What he does not disclose of himself by actions, you read into his personality yourself. "First impressions are the strongest," is a common saying—we make them strong by reading character on sight, by jumping at conclusions. Man does not need to have a whole life laid before him to form a judgment. Little things are what drive character impressions home.

It is this human trait of which the playwright makes use in the delineation of character. The playlet writer has even less time than the legitimate dramatist to stamp character. He must seize on the essentials, and with a few broad strokes make the character live as distinct from all other men.

For much of his characterization—aside from that absolutely inherent in the plot—the playlet writer depends upon the actor. By the use of costumes and of make-up, the age and station in life, even the business by which a character earns his daily bread, are made clear at a glance. And by the trick of a twitching mouth, a trembling hand, or a cunningly humble glance, the inner being is laid bare, with the help of a few vital words which are made to do duty to advance the story as well.

In a word, the playwright and the actor work in partnership, with broad strokes, relying upon the eager imagination of the audience to amplify the tiny sketch into a well-rounded, full personality. This is the method simply stated. It does not admit of the laying down of precepts.

2. The Choice of Names

In the old days of vaudeville the persons of a playlet were often named to fit their most prominent characteristic; for instance, a sneaky fellow would be named Sam Sly, and a pretty girl Madge Dimples. But with the change in fashion in the long play, the playlet has relegated this symbolical method of naming characters to burlesque and the lurid types of melodrama, and even there it is going out of fashion.

Today, names are carefully chosen to seem as life-like as do the characters themselves. Instead of trying to express characteristics by a name, the very opposite effect is sought, except when the character would in real life have a "monicker," or the naming of the character in the old way would serve to relate the act more closely to its form and awaken pleasing reminiscences. [1] The method today is to select a name that shall fit a character in a general way and yet be so unobtrusive that it will not be remarked.

[1] See The System and My Old Kentucky Home, in the Appendix.

Simple names are always the best. The shorter they are the better—usually nicknames, if true to life and the character, have a "homey" sort of sound that is worth securing. Bill, and Jack, and Madge, and Flo, or anyone of a hundred others, sound less formidable than William, and James, and Margaret, and Florence. Names that are long and "romantic" are usually amusing; merely listen to Algernon, Hortense, and Reginald Montmorency, and you have to smile—and not always with pleasure.

But for a name to be simple or short or unromantic does not solve the problem for all cases. A long "romantic" name might be the very best one you could choose for a certain character. [1] The name you should select depends on what effect you wish to secure. No one can tell you just what name to choose for a character you alone have in mind.

[1] See The Villain Still Pursued Her in the Appendix.

But do not make the mistake of pondering too long over the naming of your characters. It is not the name that counts, it is the character himself, and behind it all the action that has brought the character into being—your gripping plot.

And now, let us sum up this brief discussion of characters and characterization before we pass on to a consideration of dialogue. Because of time-restriction, a playlet must depend for interest upon plot rather than upon character. The average number of persons in a playlet is four. Interesting characters are to be found everywhere, and the playlet writer can delineate those he rubs elbows with better than those he does not know well and therefore cannot fully understand. The same unity demanded of a plot is required of a character—characters must be consistent. Characterization is achieved by the dramatic method of letting actions speak for themselves, is done in broad strokes growing out of the plot itself, and is conveyed in close partnership with the actor by working on the minds of the audience who take a meagre first impression and instantly build it up into a full portrait.



CHAPTER XVI

DIALOGUE IN THE PLAYLET

We have now come to one of the least important elements of the playlet—yet a decorative element which wit and cleverness can make exceedingly valuable.

If it is true that scenery is the habitation in which the playlet moves, that its problem is the heart beating with life, that the dramatic is the soul which shines with meaning through the whole, that plot is the playlet's skeleton which is covered by the flesh of the characters—then the dialogue is, indeed, merely a playlet's clothes. Clothes do not make a man, but the world gives him a readier welcome who wears garments that fit well and are becoming. This is the whole secret of dialogue—speeches that fit well and are becoming.

1. What is Dialogue?

It has been said that "Romeo and Juliet" played in English in any country would be enjoyed by everyone, even though they could not understand a word of what was said. There is a story told about a Slav in Pennsylvania who could not speak one word of English, but who happened to come up from his work as a laborer in a coal mine just as the people were filing in to the performance of "The Two Orphans," and as he had nothing in particular to do, in he went—and nearly broke up the performance by the loudness of his sobbing. I shall never forget an experience of my own, when I took a good French friend to see David Warfield in "The Music Master"; this young chap could not understand more than a word here and there, but we were compelled to miss the last act because he cried so hard during the famous lost-daughter scene that he was ashamed to enter the theatre after the intermission.

Every great play is, in the last analysis, a pantomime. Words are unnecessary to tell a stage story that has its wellspring deep in the emotions of the human heart. Words can only embellish it. A great pantomimist—a Mlle. Dazie, who played Sir James M. Barrie's "The Pantaloon" in vaudeville without speaking a word; a Pavlowa, who dances her stories into the hearts of her audience; a Joe Jackson, who makes his audiences roar with laughter and keeps them convulsed throughout his entire act, with the aid of a dilapidated bicycle, a squeaky auto horn and a persistently annoying cuff—does not need words to tell a story.

The famous French playwright Scribe—perhaps the most ingenious craftsman the French stage has ever seen—used to say, "When my subject is good, when my scenario (plot) is very clear, very complete, I might have the play written by my servant; he would be sustained by the situation;—and the play would succeed." Plutarch tells us that Menander, the master of Greek comedy, was once asked about his new play, and he answered: "It is composed and ready; I have only the verses (dialogue) to write." [1]

[1] Reported in A Study of the Drama, by Brander Matthews.

If it is true that a great play, being in its final analysis a pantomime, is effective without dialogue, and if some famous dramatists thought so little of dialogue that they considered their plays all written before they wrote the dialogue, then speech must be something that has little comparative value—something primarily employed to aid the idea behind it, to add emphasis to plot—not to exist for itself.

2. The Uses of Dialogue

Dialogue makes the dramatic story clear, advances it, reveals character, and wins laughter—all by five important means:

(a) Dialogue Conveys Information of Basic Events at the Opening. As we saw in the discussion of the structural elements of plot, there are of necessity some points in the basic incidents chosen for the story of a playlet that have their roots grounded in the past. Upon a clear understanding of these prior happenings which must be explained immediately upon the rise of the curtain, depends the effect of the entire sequence of events and, consequently, the final and total effect of the playlet. To "get this information over" the characters are made to tell of them as dramatically as possible. For instance:

Angela Maxwell knocks on Miss Carey's door the instant the curtain rises on "The Lollard," and as soon as Miss Carey opens the door Angela says: "Listen, you don't know me, but I've just left my husband." And the dialogue goes on to tell why she left Harry, clearly stating the events that the audience must know in order to grasp the meaning of those that follow.