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 the
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.