THE DRAMATIC--THE VITAL ELEMENT OF PLOT
What the dramatic is--no matter whether it be serious or comic in
tone--requires some consideration in a volume such as this, even
though but a brief discussion is possible and only a line of thought
may be pointed out.
This discussion is placed here in the sequence of chapters, because
it first begins to trouble the novice after he has accepted his
germ idea, and before he has succeeded in casting it into a stage
story. Indeed, at that moment even the most self-sure becomes
conscious of the demands of the dramatic. Yet this chapter will
be found to overlap some that precede it and some that
follow--particularly the chapter on plot structure, of which this
discussion may be considered an integral part--as is the case in
every attempt to put into formal words, principles separate in
theory, but inseparable in application.
In the previous chapter, the conscious thought that precedes even
the acceptance of a germ idea was insisted on--it was "played up,"
as the stage phrase terms a scene in which the emotional key is
pitched high--with the purpose of forcing upon your attention the
prime necessity of thinking out--not yet writing--the playlet.
Emphasis was also laid on the necessity for the possession of
dramatic instinct--a gift far different from the ability to think--by
anyone who would win success in writing this most difficult of
dramatic forms. But now I wish to lay an added stress--to pitch
even higher the key of emphasis--on one fundamental, this vital
necessity: Anyone who would write a playlet must possess in himself,
as an instinct--something that cannot be taught and cannot be
acquired--the ability to recognize and grasp the dramatic.
No matter if you master the technic by which the great dramatists
have built their plays, you cannot achieve success in writing the
playlet if you do not possess an innate sense of what is dramatic.
For, just as a man who is tone-deaf [1] might produce musical
manuscripts which while technically faultless would play inharmoniously,
so the man who is drama-blind might produce "perfect" playlet
manuscripts that would play in dramatic discords.
[1] Not organically defective, as were the ears of the great
composer, Beethoven, but tone-deaf, as a person may be color-blind.
1. What Dramatic Instinct Is
When you witness a really thrilling scene in a play you find
yourself sitting on the edge of your seat; you clench your hands
until the nails sink into your flesh; tears roll down your cheeks
at other scenes, until you are ashamed of your emotion and wipe
them furtively away; and you laugh uproariously at still other
scenes. But your quickened heart-beats, your tears, and your
laughter are, however, no evidence that you possess dramatic
instinct--they are a tribute to the possession of that gift in the
person who wrote the play. So do not confuse appreciation--the
ultimate result of another's gift--with the ability to create:
they are two very different things.
No more does comprehension of a dramatist's methods--a sort of
detached and often cold appreciation--indicate the possession of
gifts other than those of the critic.
Dramatic instinct is the ability to see the dramatic moments in
real life; to grasp the dramatic possibilities; to pick out the
thrills, the tears and the laughter, and to lift these out from
the mass and set them--combined, coherent and convincing--in a
story that seems truer than life itself, when unfolded on the
stage by characters who are more real than reality. [1]
[1] Arniel in his Journal says: "The ideal, after all, is truer
than the real; for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable
things; it is their type, their sum, their 'raison d'etre,' their
formula in the book of the Creator, and therefore at once the most
exact and the most condensed expression of them."
Elizabeth Woodbridge in her volume, The Drama, says: "It is in
finding the mean between personal narrowness which is too selective,
and photographic impersonality that is not selective at all, that
the individuality of the artist, his training, and his ideals, are
tested. It is this that determines how much his work shall possess
of what we may call poetic, or artistic, truth." [end footnote]
Yet, true as it is that dramatic ability inevitably shines through
finished drama when it is well played upon the stage, there are
so many determining factors of pleasing theme, acting, production
and even of audience--and so many little false steps both in
manuscript and presentation; which might be counted unfortunate
accident--that the failure of a play is not always a sure sign
that the playwright lacks dramatic instinct. If it were, hardly
one of our successful dramatists of today would have had the heart
to persevere--for some wrote twenty full-evening plays before one
was accepted by a manager, and then plodded through one or more
stage failures before they were rewarded with final success. If
producing managers could unerringly tell who has dramatic instinct
highly developed and who has it not at all, there would be few
play failures and the show-business would cease to be a gamble
that surpasses even horse-racing for hazard.
Not only is it impossible for anyone to weigh the quantity or to
assay the quality of dramatic instinct--whether in his own or
another's breast--but it is as nearly impossible for anyone to
decide from reading a manuscript whether a play will succeed or
fail. Charles Frohman is reported to have said: "A man who could
pick out winners would be worth a salary of a million dollars a
year."
And even when a play is put into rehearsal the most experienced
men in the business cannot tell unerringly whether it will succeed
or fail before an audience. An audience--the heart of the crowd,
the intellect of the mass, whatever you wish to call it--is at
once the jury that tries a play and the judge who pronounces
sentence to speedy death or a long and happy life. It is an
audience, the "crowd," that awards the certificate of possession
of dramatic instinct. [1]
[1] [four paragraphs:]
From three of the ablest critics of the "theatre crowd" I quote a
tabloid statement:
"The theatre is a function of the crowd," says Brander Matthews,
"and the work of the dramatist is conditioned by the audience to
which he meant to present it. In the main, this influence is
wholesome, for it tends to bring about a dealing with themes of
universal interest. To some extent, it may be limiting and even
harmful--but to what extent we cannot yet determine in our present
ignorance of that psychology of the crowd which LeBon has analyzed
so interestingly."
Here is M. LeBon's doctrine neatly condensed by Clayton Hamilton:
"The mental qualities in which men differ from one another are the
acquired qualities of intellect and character; but the qualities
in which they are one are basic passions of the race. A crowd,
therefore, is less intellectual and more emotional than the
individuals that compose it. It is less reasonable, less judicious,
less disinterested, more credulous, more primitive, more partisan;
and hence, a man, by the mere fact that he forms a part of an
organized crowd, descends several rungs on the ladder of civilization.
Even the most cultured and intellectual of men, when he forms an
atom of a crowd, loses consciousness of his acquired mental
qualities, and harks back to his primal nakedness of mind. The
dramatist, therefore, because he writes for the crowd, writes for
an uncivilized and uncultivated mind, a mind richly human, vehement
in approbation, violent in disapproval, easily credulous, eagerly
enthusiastic, boyishly heroic, and carelessly thinking."
And Clayton Hamilton himself adds that, ". . .both in its sentiments
and in its opinions, the crowd is hugely commonplace. It is
incapable of original thought and of any but inherited emotion.
It has no speculation in its eyes. What it feels was felt before
the flood; and what it thinks, its fathers thought before it. The
most effective moments in the theatre are those that appeal to
commonplace emotions--love of women, love of home, love of country,
love of right, anger, jealousy, revenge, ambition, lust and
treachery."
[end footnote]
2. What "Good Drama" Is
By what standards, then, do producers decide whether a play has
at least a good chance of success? How is it possible for a manager
to pick a successful play even once in a while? Why is it that
managers do not produce failures all the time?
Leaving outside of our consideration the question of changeable
fashions in themes, and the commercial element (which includes the
number of actors required, the scenery, costumes and similar
factors), let us devote our attention, as the manager does, to the
determining element--the story.
Does the story grip? Does it thrill? Does it lure to laughter?
Does it touch to tears? Is it well constructed--that is, does it
interest every minute of the time? Is every word, is every action,
thoroughly motivated? Is the dialogue fine? Are the characters
interesting, lovable, hateable, laughable, to be remembered? Does
it state its problem clearly, so that everyone can comprehend it,
develop its angle absorbingly, and end, not merely stop, with
complete satisfaction? Could one little scene be added, or even
one little passage be left out, without marring the whole? Is it
true to life--truer than life? If it is all this, it is good
drama.
Good drama is therefore more than plot. It is more than story
plus characters, dialogue, acting, costumes, scenery--it is more
than them all combined. Just as a man is more than his body, his
speech, his dress, his movings to and fro in the scenes where he
plays out his life, and even more than his deeds, so is a play
more than the sum of all its parts. Every successful play, every
great playlet, possesses a soul--a character, if you like--that
carries a message to its audiences by means which cannot be analyzed.
But the fact that the soul of a great play cannot be analyzed does
not prevent some other dramatist from duplicating the miracle in
another play. And it is from a study of these great plays that
certain mechanics of the drama--though, of course, they cannot
explain the hidden miracle--have been laid down as laws.
3. What is Dramatic?
These few observations upon the nature of drama, which have scarcely
been materially added to since Aristotle laid down the first over
two thousand years ago, will be taken up and discussed in their
relation to the playlet in the chapter on plot construction. Here
they have no place, because we are concerned now not with _how_
the results are obtained, but with _what they are_.
Let us approach our end by the standard definition route. The
word "drama" is defined by Webster as, "A composition in poetry
or prose, or both, representing a picture of human life, arranged
for action, and having a plot, developed by the words and actions
of its characters, which culminates in a final situation of human
interest. It is usually designed for production on the stage,
with the accessories of costumes, scenery, music, etc."
"Dramatic," is defined as, "Of or pertaining to the drama; represented
by action; appropriate to or in the form of a drama; theatrical.
Characterized by the force and fidelity appropriate to the drama."
In this last sentence we have the first step to what we are seeking:
anything to be dramatic must be forceful, and it also must be
faithful to life. And in the preceding sentence, "dramatic. . .
is theatrical," we have a second step.
But what is "forceful," and why does Webster define anything that
is dramatic as "theatrical"? To define one shadow by the name of
another shadow is not making either clearer. However, the necessary
looseness of the foregoing definitions is why they are so valuable
to us--they are most suggestive.
If the maker of a dictionary, [1] hampered by space restrictions,
finds it necessary to define "dramatic" by the word "theatrical,"
we may safely assume that theatrical effect has a foundation in
the very heart of man. How many times have you heard someone say
of another's action, "Oh, he did that just for theatrical effect"?
Instantly you knew that the speaker was accusing the other of a
desire to impress you by a carefully calculated action, either of
the fineness of his own character or of the necessity and righteousness
of your doing what he suggested so forcefully. We need not go
back several thousand years to Aristotle to determine what is
dramatic. In the promptings of our own hearts we can find the
answer. [2]
[1] Webster's Dictionary was chosen because it is, historically,
closely associated with American life, and therefore would seem
to reflect the best American thought upon the peculiar form of our
own drama.
[2] Shelley, in his preface to Cenci, says: "The highest moral
purpose aimed at in the highest species of the drama is the teaching
of the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the
knowledge of itself."
What is dramatic, is not what falls out as things ordinarily occur
in life's flow of seemingly disconnected happenings; it is what
occurs with precision and purpose, and with results which are
eventually recognizable as being far beyond the forces that show
upon its face. In an illuminating flash that reveals character,
we comprehend what led up to that instant and what will follow.
It is the revealing flash that is dramatic. Drama is a series of
revealing flashes.
"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.