models, he was given an opportunity to design the settings and
costumes for Granville Barker's production of Anatole France's _The
Man Who Married a Dumb Wife_, which may be said to have advertised the
new practices in America more than any other single production.
[Illustration: _The Merchant of Venice._ A room in Belmont. Design by
Robert Edmond Jones. A great round window framed in the heavy molding
of Mantegna and the pale clear sky of Northern Italy.]
Writing of his own work shortly after, Mr. Jones says: "While the
scenery of a play is truly important, it should be so important that
the audience should forget that it is present. There should be
fusion between the play and the scenery. Scenery isn't there to be
looked at, it's really there to be forgotten. The drama is a fire, the
scenery is the air that lifts the fire and makes it bright.... The
audience that is always conscious of the back drop is paying a
doubtful compliment to the painter.... Even costumes should be the
handiwork of the scenic artist. Yes, and if possible, he should build
the very furniture."[11] Robert Edmond Jones has not only designed
settings and costumes for poetic and fantastic forms of drama, but he
has also been called upon to plan the productions of realistic modern
plays.
[Footnote 11: Robert Edmond Jones, _The Future Decorative Art
of the Theatre_, _Theatre Magazine_, Vol. XXV, May, 1917, p.
266.]
Three of his designs introducing three different aspects of his work
have been here reproduced. The model for Maeterlinck's _The Seven
Princesses_ is an example of an attempt to present the essential
significant structure of a setting in the simplest way conceivable and
by so doing to stimulate the imagination of the spectator to create
for itself the imaginative environment of the play. His design for a
room in Belmont for _The Merchant of Venice_ shows a great round
window framed in the heavy molding of Mantegna and the pale, clear sky
of Northern Italy. The scene for _Good Gracious Annabelle_ is a
corridor in an hotel. This scene is a typical example of a more or
less abstract rendering of a literal scene. It was designed primarily
with the idea of giving as many different exits and entrances as
possible, in order that the action of the drama might be swift and
varied.[12]
[Footnote 12: Robert Edmond Jones himself has suggested the
phrasing of these descriptions.]
When Sam Hume was connected with the Detroit Theatre of Arts and
Crafts, he used a symbolic and suggestive method for the setting of
poetic plays the scene of which was laid in no definite locality. In
this theatre he installed a permanent setting, including the following
units: "Four pylons [square pillars], constructed of canvas on wooden
frames, each of the three covered faces measuring two and one-half by
eighteen feet; two canvas flats each three by eighteen feet; two
sections of stairs three feet long, and one section eight feet long,
of uniform eighteen-inch height; three platforms of the same height,
respectively six, eight, and twelve feet long; dark green hangings as
long as the pylons; two folding screens for masking, covered with the
same cloth as that used in the hangings, and as high as the pylons;
and two irregular tree forms in silhouette.
"The pylons, flats, and stairs, and such added pieces as the arch and
window, were painted in broken color ...[13] so that the surfaces
would take on any desired color under the proper lighting."[14] The
economy of this method is illustrated by the fact that in one season
nineteen plays were given in the Arts and Crafts Theatre at Detroit,
and the settings for eleven of these were merely rearrangements of the
permanent setting. This kind of setting is sometimes called
"plastic"--a term which refers to the fact that the separate units are
in the round, and not flat. The effect secured in settings
representing outdoor scenes was made possible only by the use of a
plaster horizon of the general type described in connection with the
exhibition of the Stage Society.
[Footnote 13: See p. xxxiii.]
[Footnote 14: Sheldon Cheney, _The Art Theatre_, New York,
1917, pp. 167-168.]
[Illustration: _Good Gracious Annabelle._ A corridor in a hotel.
Design by Robert Edmond Jones. A typical example of a more or less
abstract rendering of a literal scene. It was designed primarily with
the idea of giving as many different exits and entrances as possible
in order that the action of the drama might be swift and varied.]
Robert Edmond Jones and Sam Hume are two of an increasingly large
number of artists in America, among whom should be mentioned
Norman-bel Geddes, Maurice Browne, and Lee Simonson, who are
experimenting with design, color, and light. Underlying the work of
all of these is the belief that the whole production, the play, the
acting, the lighting, and the setting, should be unified by some one
dominating mood. In the work of these new artists, there is no place
for the old-fashioned painted back drop, the use of which emphasizes
the disparity between the painted and the actual perspective, though
their backgrounds are by no means necessarily either screens or
draperies. Another new style of background is the skeleton setting, a
permanent structural foundation erected on the stage, which through
the addition of draperies and movable properties, or the variation of
lights, or the manipulation of screens, may serve for all the scenes
of a play. A permanent structure of this sort, representing the Tower
of London, was used by Robert Edmond Jones in a recent production of
_Richard III_ in New York, at the Plymouth Theatre. When Jacques
Copeau conducted the Theatre du Vieux Colombier in New York he had a
permanent structure built on the stage of the Garrick Theatre, that
he used for all the plays he produced; at times the upper half of the
stage was masked, at times the recess back of the two central columns
was used. The aspect of the stage was often completely changed by the
addition of tapestries, stairs, panels, screens, and furniture.
In the description of the equipment of the Detroit Theatre of Arts and
Crafts, reference has been made to a method of painting the plastic
units in broken color. This is so important a principle that it should
be more generally understood by those who are interested in the
theatre. The principle was put into operation by the Viennese
designer, Joseph Urban. In practice it means that a canvas painted
with red and with green spots upon which a red light is played, throws
up only the red spots blended so as to produce a red surface, and that
the same canvas under a green light shows a green surface; and, if
both kinds of lights are used, then both the green and red spots are
brought out, according to the proportion of the mixture of green and
red in the light.
Color is being used now not only for decorative purposes, but also
symbolically. The decorative use of color on the stage is, obviously,
like the decorative use of color in the design of textiles, or stained
glass, or posters. The symbolic use of color is less easy to
interpret, but it is plain that in most people's minds red is
connected with excitement and frenzy, and blues and grays, with an
atmosphere of mystery. This is a very bald suggestion of some of the
very subtle things that have been done with color on the modern stage.
The new methods of stage lighting make possible all kinds of color
combinations and effects. The use of the plaster horizon (or of the
cyclorama, a cheaper substitute, usually a straight semi-circular
curtain enclosing the stage, made of either white or light blue
cloth), combined with high-powered lights set at various angles on the
stage, makes outdoor effects possible, the beauty of which is new to
the theatre.[15] Nowadays footlights are not invariably discarded, but
where they are used they are wired so that groups of them can be
lighted when other sections are dimmed or darkened. When the setting
shows an interior scene with a window, though the scene may be lighted
from all sides, the window seems to be the source of all light. A
good deal of the lighting on the stage is what is known in the
interior decoration of houses as indirect lighting; colored lights are
produced most simply by the interposition between the source of light
and the stage of transparent colored slides, gelatine or glass.
[Footnote 15: For a description of modern lighting equipment
for a Little Theatre compare the section on the Theatre in
the School in this introduction.]
In any production that is made under the influence of the new
stagecraft, the costumes, like the setting of the play, are considered
in connection with the resources of lighting. The costumes, whether
historically correct or historically suggestive, whether of a period
or conventionalized, are conceived in their three-fold relation to the
characters of the play, the background, and the scheme of lights, by
the designer or the director under whose general supervision the play
is staged.
In general, American audiences are hardly conscious of the existence
of these reforms. Here and there, it is true, the manager of a
commercial theatre or an opera house has called in an artist to
supervise his productions and has thus given publicity to the new way
of making the arts of the theatre work together. Certain Little
Theatres, also, have educated their followers in the significance of
the new use of light and design to represent the mood of a play. The
demands that the new method makes on craftsmanship have also commended
it to students in schools and colleges interested in play production.
Both the Little Theatres and the school theatres are doing a real
service when they educate their communities in these new arts, for not
only will this education increase the capacity of these particular
audiences to enjoy the good things of the theatre, but the influence
of these groups is bound in the long run to popularize the new
stagecraft.
PLAYMAKING
Shortly before the death of William Dean Howells, he related the
experience that he had had of being circularized by a correspondence
school that offered to teach him the art of writing fiction in a
phenomenally short time at a ridiculously low rate. In this instance,
there was something wrong with the mailing list, but the fact remains
that in universities successful courses in writing short-stories and
plays are given and the best of these courses actually have turned out
writers who achieve various degrees of success financially and
artistically It is plain that a brief treatise like the present one
makes no such pretensions; it means merely to suggest some of the most
obvious points of departure for students in the drama who wish to
exercise themselves in the composition of the one-act play, much as a
student of poetry will try his hand at a _ballade_ or a sonnet without
taking himself or his metrical exercises too seriously.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of Theatre Arts Magazine_
_The Seven Princesses._ Design by Robert Edmond Jones. An example of
the attempt to present the essential significant structure of a
setting in the simplest way conceivable and by so doing to stimulate
the imagination of the spectator to create for itself the imaginative
environment of the play.]
In the famous Perse School in Cambridge, England, the boys begin at
the age of twelve to practise playmaking as an aid to the fuller
understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic workmanship, and this work is
developed throughout the rest of the course. The boys, having learned
that Shakespeare himself used stories that he found ready to hand,
discover in their own reading a story that will lend itself to
dramatization. The story is told and retold from every angle. The
class is then divided up into committees to every one of which is
entrusted some part of the dramatization. One little committee busies
itself with the setting, another with the structure, another with the
comic characters, another with the songs that are interspersed and so
on. These committees prepare rough notes to be presented in class.
These notes may propose an outline of successive scenes, present the
part of some principal character, or the "business" (illustrative
action) of some minor part. Lessons of this sort are followed by
composition rehearsals, where the dramatic and literary value of the
proposed plot, characterization, pantomime, and dialogue are tested,
and subjected to the criticism of teacher and boys. In the next
lessons, the teacher brings to bear on the special problems on which
the boys are working all the criticism that his wider range of reading
and experience can suggest. In the light of his suggestions the
various points are debated and the boys then proceed to careful
fashioning, shaping, and writing. A rehearsal of the nearly finished
product is held, followed by a final revision of the text. The work
then goes forward to a public performance given with all due ceremony.
In the higher classes playmaking is taught more especially in
connection with writing and the boys are trained to imitate the style
of various dramatists. Synge was used as a model at one time for, as
one of the masters of the school explained: "The style of Synge is
easy to copy because it is so largely composed of a certain
phraseology. The same words, phrases, and turns of sentence occur
again and again. Here are a few taken at random; the reader will find
them in a context on almost any page of the plays: _It's myself_ --
_Is it me fight him?_ -- _I'm thinking_ -- _It's a poor_ (_fine,
great, hard_, etc.) _thing_ -- _A little path I have_ -- _Let you
come_ -- _God help us all_ -- _Till Tuesday was a week_ -- _The end of
time_ -- _The dawn of day_ -- _Let on_ -- _Kindly_ -- _Now_, as in
_Walk out now_ -- _Surely_ -- _Maybe_ -- _Itself_ -- _At all_ --
_Afeard_ -- _Destroyed_ -- _It curse_. Synge is also mighty fond of
the words _ditch_ and _ewe_. And there are certain forms of rhythm
about Synge's prose which are used with equal frequency, and are quick
and easy to catch. So far from this imitation of style being an
artificial method, the fact is that once a boy of sixteen or over has
read a play or two of Synge's, if he has any power of style in him, it
will be all but impossible to stop him writing like Synge for a few
weeks." Learning playwriting from models recalls the method of
Benjamin Franklin and Robert Louis Stevenson who in their youth wrote
slavish imitations of the great masters in order to form their own
prose style. Of course, it is not claimed that this work at the Perse
School makes playwrights, only that it gives the boys a deeper
appreciation of dramatic workmanship and furnishes a new kind of
intellectual game to add to the joy of school life.
The one-act plays contained in this collection are, as has been
suggested in what has been said about their construction, illustrative
of various kinds of workmanship. Certain of them are excellent models
for those who are experimenting with playwriting. The one-act play,
not nearly so difficult a form as the full-length play, offers
undergraduates in school and college and inexperienced writers
generally unlimited scope for experiment.
The testimony of Lord Dunsany is to the effect that his play is made
when he has discovered a motive. Asked whether he always began with a
motive, "'Not always,' he said; 'I begin with anything or next to
nothing. Then suddenly, I get started, and go through in a hurry. The
main point is not to interrupt a mood. Writing is an easy thing when
one is going strong and going fast; it becomes a hard thing only when
the onward rush is impeded. Most of my short plays have been written
in a sitting or two.'"[16] This passage is quoted because insight
into the practice of professional writers is always helpful to
amateurs. Dunsany uses "motive," it seems, as a convenient term for
denoting the idea, the character, the incident or the mood that impels
the dramatist to start writing a play. Such material is to be found
everywhere. Many professional writers accumulate vast stores of such
themes against the day when they may have the necessary leisure,
energy, and insight to develop them.
[Footnote 16: Clayton Hamilton, _Seen on the Stage_, New
York, 1920, p. 239.]
It has been pointed out that there are only thirty-six possible
dramatic situations in any case, and that no matter how the plot
shapes itself, it is bound to classify itself somehow or other as one
of the inescapable thirty-six. There is comfort also in the suggestion
that Shakespeare drew practically all the dramatic material that he
used so transcendently direct from the familiar and accessible
narrative stores of his day. The young or inexperienced playwright
need have no hesitation, then, in turning to such sources as the Greek
myths for inspiration. Quite recently a highly successful one-act play
of Phillip Moeller's proved that Helen of Troy is as eternally
interesting as she is perennially beautiful. Maurice Baring draws on
the old Greek stories, too, for several of his _Diminutive Dramas_.
The Bible has proved dramatically suggestive to Lord Dunsany and to
Stephen Phillips. The old ballads of _Fair Annie_ and _The Wife of
Usher's Well_ have been found dramatically available. The myths of the
old Norse Gods, used by Richard Wagner for his music dramas, contain
much unmined dramatic gold. John Masefield and Sigurjonsson have
converted Saga material to the uses of the drama. In old English
literature, in _Widsith_, in the _Battle of Brunanburh_, the seeking
dramatist may find. The romances of the Middle Ages, the fairy lore of
all peoples, and the old Hindu animal fables are fertile in suggestion
to the intending dramatist. What a wonderful one-act play, steeped in
the mellow atmosphere of the Renaissance in Italy, might be made out
of Browning's _My Last Duchess!_ At least one new literary precedent
has recently been created by the author who wrote a sequel to _Dombey
and Son_. Certainly many famous novels and plays may be conceived as
calling out for similar treatment at the hands of the experimental
playwright. Famous literary and historic characters offer themselves
as promising dramatic material. When Robert Emmons Rogers, author of
the well-known play, _Behind a Watteau Picture_, was a sophomore at
Harvard, he wrote the following charming little play on Shakespeare
which is reprinted here, with the author's permission, as a pleasing
example of a promising piece of apprentice work:[17]
[Footnote 17: Robert Emmons Rogers, President of the Boston
Drama League and Assistant Professor, specializing in modern
literature and drama in the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey, in 1888. He
writes that his Anne Hathaway "was a particularly wild
idealization based on Miss Adams as Peter Pan," and that even
at eighteen he knew that his portrait of the girl, who was to
be Shakespeare's wife, was not historically correct.
Permission to perform the play must be secured from the
author.]
THE BOY WILL
_Within the White Luces Inn on a late afternoon in spring, 1582. The
room is of heavy-beamed dark oak, stained by age and smoke, with a
great, hooded fireplace on the left. At the back is a door with the
upper half thrown back, and two wide windows through whose open
lattices, overgrown with columbine, one can see the fresh country side
in the setting sun. Under them are broad window seats. At the right, a
door and a tall dresser filled with pewter plates and tankards. A
couple of chairs, a stool and a low table stand about. ANNE, a slim
girl of sixteen, is mending the fire. MASTER GEORGE PEELE, a bold and
comely young man, in worn riding dress and spattered boots, sprawls
against the disordered table. GILES, a plump and peevish old rogue in
tapster's cap and apron, stands by the door looking out._
PEELE [_rousing himself_]. Giles! Gi-les!
GILES [_hurries to him_]. What more, zur? Wilt ha' the pastry or--?
PEELE. Another quart of sack.
GILES. Yus, zur! Anne, bist asleep? [_The girl rises slowly._]
ANNE [_takes the tankard_]. He hath had three a'ready.
PEELE [_cheerfully_]. And shall have three more so I will. This
player's life of mine is a weary one.
ANNE [_pertly_]. And a thirsty one, too, methinks.
GILES [_scandalized_]. Come, wench! Ha' done gawking about, and haste!
[_ANNE goes at right._] 'Er be a forrard gel, zur, though hendy. I be
glad 'er's none o' mine, but my brother's in Shottery. He canna say I
love 'is way o' making wenches so saucy.
PEELE. A pox on you! The best-spirited maid I ha' seen in
Warwickshire, I say. Forward? Man alive, wouldst have her like your
blowsy wenches here, that lie i' the sun all day? I have seen no one
so comely since I left London.
GILES [_feebly_]. But 'ere, zur, in Stratford--
PEELE [_hotly_]. Stratford? I doubt if God made Stratford! Another day
here and I should die in torment. Your grass lanes, your rubbly
houses, fat burgesses, old women, your young clouter-heads who have no
care for a bravely acted stage-play. [_Bitingly._] "Can any good come
out of Stratford?"
GILES. Noa, Maister Peele! Others ha' spoke more fairly--
PEELE [_impatiently_]. My sack, man! Is the girl a-brewing it?
GILES. Anne! Anne! (I'll learn she to mess about.) Anne!
ANNE [_hurries in and serves PEELE_]. I heard you.
GILES. Then whoi cunst thee not bustle? Be I to lose my loongs over
'ee?
ANNE [_simply_]. Mistress Shakespeare called me to the butt'ry door.
Will hath not been home all day, and she is fair anxious. She bade me
send him home once I saw him.
PEELE [_drinking noisily_]. Who is it? [_ANNE is clearing the table._]
GILES [_shortly_]. Poor John Shakespeare's son Will.
PEELE. A Stratford lad? A straw-headed beater of clods!
GILES. Nay, zur. A wild young un, as 'ull do noa honest work, but
dreams the day long, or poaches the graaet woods wi' young loons o'
like stomach.
ANNE [_indignantly, dropping a dish_]. It's not true! He is no
poacher.
PEELE [_grinning_]. What a touchy lass! No poacher, eh?
ANNE. Nay, sir, but the brightest lad in Stratford. He hath learning
beyond the rest of us--and if he likes to wander i' the woods, 'tis
for no ill--he loves the open air--and you should hear the little
songs he makes!
PEELE. Do all the lads find in you such a defender, or only--? [_She
turns away._] Nay, no offense! I should like to see this Will.
GILES [_grumpily_]. 'E 'ave noa will to help 'is father in these sorry
times, but ever gawks at stage-plays. 'E 'ull come to noa good end.
[_The player starts up._]
PEELE. Stage-plays--no good end? Have a care, man!
GILES. Nay, zur--noa harm, zur! I--I--canna bide longer. [_Backs
out._]
ANNE [_at the window, wonderingly_]. He should be here. He hath never
lingered till sunset before. [_PEELE comes up behind her._]
PEELE. Troubled, lass?
ANNE. Nay, sir, but--but--[_Suddenly_] Listen!
PEELE [_blankly_]. To what? [_A faint singing without._]
ANNE [_eagerly_]. Canst hear nothing--a lilt afar off?
PEELE [_nodding_]. Like a May-day catch? I hear it.
ANNE. 'Tis Will! Cousin, Will is coming. [_GILES comes back._]
GILES [_peevishly_]. I canna help it. Byunt 'e later'n common?
A VOICE. [_The clear, boyish singing is coming very near._]
When springtime frights the winter cold, 5
(Hark to the children singing!)
The cowslip turns the fields to gold,
The bird from 's nest is winging--
PEELE. Look you! There the boy comes.
ANNE [_leaning out the window_]. Isn't he coming here? Will! Will!
[_He passes by the window singing the last words_
Young hearts are gay, while yet 'tis May,
Hark to the children singing!
_and leaps in over the lower part of the door, a sturdy, ruddy boy,
with merry face and a mop of brown hair. ANNE greets him with
outstretched hands._]
ANNE [_reproachfully_]. Will! Thy mother was so anxious!
WILL. I did na' think. I ha' been in the woods all day and forgot
everything till the sun set.
ANNE. All the day long? Thou must be weary.
WILL [_frankly_]. Nay, not very weary--but hungry.
ANNE. Poor boy. He shall have his supper now.
GILES [_protesting_]. 'E be allus eating 'ere, and I canna a-bear it.
Let him sup at his own whoam.