CHAPTER II

THE ESSENTIALS OF DRAMA: ACTION AND EMOTION

What is the common aim of all dramatists? Twofold: first, as promptly as possible to win the attention of the audience; secondly, to hold that interest steady or, better, to increase it till the final curtain falls. It is the time limit to which all dramatists are subject which makes the immediate winning of attention necessary. The dramatist has no time to waste. How is he to win this attention? By what is done in the play; by characterization; by the language the people of his play speak; or by a combination of two or more of these. Today we hear much discussion whether it is what is done, _i.e._ action, or characterization, or dialogue which most interests a public. Which is the chief essential in good drama? History shows indisputably that the drama in its beginnings, no matter where we look, depended most on action. The earliest extant specimen of drama in England, _circa_ 967, shows clearly the essential relations of action, characterization, and dialogue in drama at its outset. The italics in the following show the action; the roman type the dialogue.

_While the third lesson is being chanted, let four brothers vest themselves, one of whom, vested in an alb, enters as if to do something, and, in an inconspicuous way, approaches the place where the sepulchre is, and there holding a palm in his hand, sits quiet. While the third respond is chanted, let the three others approach, all alike vested in copes, bearing thuribles (censers) with incense in their hands, and, with hesitating steps, in the semblance of persons seeking something, let them come before the place of the sepulchre. These things are done, indeed, in representation of the angel sitting within the tomb and of the women who came with spices to anoint the body of Jesus. When, therefore, he who is seated sees the three approaching as if wandering about and seeking something, let him begin to sing melodiously and in a voice moderately loud_

Whom seek you at the sepulchre, O Christians?

_When this has been sung to the end, let the three respond in unison,_

Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified, O heavenly one.

_Then he,_

He is not here; he has risen, as was foretold. Go ye, announcing that he has risen from the dead.

_Upon the utterance of this command, let the three turn to the choir and say,_

Alleluia! the Lord is risen.

_This said, let him, still remaining seated, say, as if calling them back, the antiphon,_

Come, and see the place where the Lord lay. Alleluia, Alleluia!

_Having said this, however, let him rise and lift the veil, and show them the place empty of the cross, but the clothes, only, laid there with which the cross was wrapped. When they see this, let them set down the thuribles that they have carried within that same sepulchre, and take up the cloth and hold it up before the clergy, and, as if in testimony that the Lord has risen and is not now wrapped therein, let them sing this antiphon:_

The Lord has risen from the tomb, Who for us was crucified,

_and let them lay the cloth upon the altar. The antiphon finished, let the prior, rejoicing with them in the triumph of our King, in that, death vanquished, he has risen, begin the hymn,_

We praise thee, O Lord.

_This begun, all the bells are rung together, at the end of which let the priest say the verse,_

In thy resurrection, O Christ,

_as far as this word, and let him begin Matins, saying,_

O Lord, hasten to my aid![1]

Obviously in this little play the directions for imitative movement fill three quarters of the space; dialogue fills one quarter; characterization, except as the accompanying music may very faintly have suggested it, there is none. Historically studied, the English drama shows that characterization appeared as an added interest when the interest of action was already well established. The value of dialogue for its own sake was recognized even later.

What is true of the English drama is of course equally true of all Continental drama which, like the English drama, had its origin in the Trope and the Miracle Play. Even, however, if we go farther back, to the origin of Greek Drama in the Ballad Dance we shall find the same results. The Ballad Dance consisted "in the combination of speech, music, and that imitative gesture which, for lack of a better word, we are obliged to call dancing. It is very important, however, to guard against modern associations with this term. Dances in which men and women joined are almost unknown to Greek antiquity, and to say of a guest at a banquet that he danced would suggest intoxication. The real dancing of the Greeks is a lost art, of which the modern ballet is a corruption, and the orator's action a faint survival. It was an art which used bodily motion to convey thought: as in speech the tongue articulated words, so in dancing the body swayed and gesticulated into meaning.... In epic poetry, where thought takes the form of simple narrative, the speech (Greek _epos_) of the Ballad Dance triumphs over the other two elements. Lyric poetry consists in meditation or highly wrought description taking such forms as odes, sonnets, hymns,--poetry that lends itself to elaborate rhythms and other devices of musical art: here the music is the element of the Ballad Dance which has come to the front. And the imitative gesture has triumphed over the speech and the music in the case of the third branch of poetry; drama is thought expressed in action."[2]

Imitative movement is the drama of the savage.

"An Aleut, who was armed with a bow, represented a hunter, another a bird. The former expressed by gestures how very glad he was he had found so fine a bird; nevertheless he would not kill it. The other imitated the motions of a bird seeking to escape the hunter. He at last, after a long delay, pulled his bow and shot: the bird reeled, fell, and died. The hunter danced for joy; but finally he became troubled, repented having killed so fine a bird, and lamented it. Suddenly the dead bird rose, turned into a beautiful woman, and fell into the hunter's arms."[3]

Look where we will, then,--at the beginnings of drama in Greece, in England centuries later, or among savage peoples today--the chief essential in winning and holding the attention of the spectator was imitative movement by the actors, that is, physical action. Nor, as the drama develops, does physical action cease to be central. The most elaborate of the Miracle Plays, the Towneley _Second Shepherds' Play_ and the Brome _Abraham and Isaac_[4] prove this. In the former we are of course interested in the characterization of the Shepherds and Mak, but would this hold us without the stealing of the sheep and the varied action attending its concealment and discovery in the house of Mak? Undoubtedly in the _Abraham and Isaac_ characterization counts for more, but we have the journey to the Mount, the preparations for the sacrifice, the binding of the boy's eyes, the repeatedly upraised sword, the farewell embracings, the very dramatic coming of the Angel, and the joyful sacrifice of the sheep when the child is released. Without all this central action, the fine characterization of the play would lose its significance. In Shakespeare's day, audiences again and again, as they watched plays of Dekker, Heywood, and many another dramatist, willingly accepted inadequate characterization and weak dialogue so long as the action was absorbing. Just this interest in, for instance, _The Four Prentices_, or the various _Ages_[5] of Thomas Heywood, was burlesqued by Francis Beaumont in _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_. It may be urged that the plays of Racine and Corneille, as well as the Restoration Comedy in England, show characterization and dialogue predominant. It should be remembered, however, that Corneille and Racine, as well as the Restoration writers of comedy wrote primarily for the Court group and not for the public at large. Theirs was the cultivated audience of the time, proud of its special literary and dramatic standards. Around and about these dramatists were the writers of popular entertainment, which depended on action. In England, we must remember that Wycherley and Vanbrugh, who are by no means without action in their plays, belong to Restoration Comedy as much as Etherege or Congreve, and that the Heroic Drama, in which action was absolutely central, divided the favor of even the Court public with the Comedy of Manners. The fact is, the history of the Drama shows that only rarely does even a group of people for a brief time care more for plays of characterization and dialogue than for plays of action. Throughout the ages, the great public, cultivated as well as uncultivated, have cared for action first, then, as aids to a better understanding of the action of the story, for characterization and dialogue. Now, for more than a century, the play of mere action has been so popular that it has been recognized as a special form, namely, melodrama. This type of play, in which characterization and dialogue have usually been entirely subordinated to action, has been the most widely attended. Today the motion picture show has driven mere melodrama from our theatres, yet who will deny that the "movie" in its present form subordinates everything to action? Even the most ambitious specimens, such as _Cabiria_ and _The Birth of a Nation_, finding their audiences restless under frequent use of the explanatory "titles" which make clear what cannot be clearly shown in action, hasten to depict some man hunt, some daring leap from a high cliff into the sea, or a wild onrush of galloping white-clad figures of the Ku Klux Klan. From the practice of centuries the feeling that action is really central in drama has become instinctive with most persons who write plays without preconceived theories. Watch a child making his first attempt at play-writing. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the play will contain little except action. There will be slight characterization, if any, and the dialogue will be mediocre at best. The young writer has depended almost entirely upon action because instinctively, when he thinks of drama, he thinks of action.

Nor, if we paused to consider, is this dependence of drama upon action surprising. "From emotions to emotions" is the formula for any good play. To paraphrase a principle of geometry, "A play is the shortest distance from emotions to emotions." The emotions to be reached are those of the audience. The emotions conveyed are those of the people on the stage or of the dramatist as he has watched the people represented. Just herein lies the importance of action for the dramatist: it is his quickest means of arousing emotion in an audience. Which is more popular with the masses, the man of action or the thinker? The world at large believes, and rightly that, as a rule, "Actions speak louder than words." The dramatist knows that not what a man thinks he thinks, but what at a crisis he does, instinctively, spontaneously, best shows his character. The dramatist knows, too, that though we may think, when discussing patriotism in the abstract, that we have firm ideas about it, what reveals our real beliefs is our action at a crisis in the history of our country. Many believed from the talk of German Socialists that they would not support their Government in the case of war. Their actions have shown far more clearly than their words their real beliefs. Ulster sounded as hostile as possible to England not long ago, but when the call upon her loyalty came she did not prove false. Is it any wonder, then, that popular vote has declared action the best revealer of feeling and, therefore, that the dramatist, in writing his plays, depends first of all upon action? If any one is disposed to cavil at action as popular merely with the masses and the less cultivated, let him ask himself, "What, primarily in other people interests me--what these people do or why they do it?" Even if he belong to the group, relatively very small in the mass of humanity, most interested by "Why did these people do this?" he must admit that till he knows clearly what the people did, he cannot take up the question which more interests him. For the majority of auditors, action is of first importance in drama: even for the group which cares far more for characterization and dialogue it is necessary as preparing the way for that characterization and dialogue on which they insist.

Consider for a moment the nature of the attention which a dramatist may arouse. Of course it may be only of the same sort which an audience gives a lecturer on a historical or scientific subject,--a readiness to hear and to try to understand what he has to present,--close but unemotional attention. Comparatively few people, however, are capable of sustained attention when their emotions are not called upon. How many lectures last over an hour? Is not the "popular lecturer" popular largely because he works into his lecture many anecdotes and dramatic illustrations in order to avoid or to lighten the strain of close, sustained attention? There is, undoubtedly, a public which can listen to ideas with the same keen enjoyment which most auditors feel when listening to something which stirs them emotionally, but as compared with the general public it is infinitesimal. Understanding this, the dramatist stirs the emotions of his hearers by the most concrete means at his command, his quickest communication from brain to brain,--action just for itself or illustrating character. The inferiority to action of mere exposition as a creator of interest the two following extracts show.

ACT I. SCENE 1. _Britain. The garden of Cymbeline's palace_

_Enter two gentlemen_

_1. Gent._ You do not meet a man but frowns. Our bloods No more obey the heavens than our courtiers Still seem as does the King.

_2. Gent._ But what's the matter?

_1. Gent._ His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom He purpos'd to his wife's sole son--a widow That late he married--hath referred herself Unto a poor but worthy gentleman. She's wedded, Her husband banish'd, she imprison'd; all Is outward sorrow; though I think the King Be touched at very heart.

_2. Gent._ None but the King?

_1. Gent._ He that hath lost her too; so is the Queen, That most desir'd the match: but not a courtier, Although they wear their faces to the bent Of the King's look, hath a heart that is not Glad at the thing they scowl at.

_2. Gent._ And why so?

_1. Gent._ He that hath miss'd the Princess is a thing Too bad for bad report; and he that hath her-- I mean, that married her, alack, good man! And therefore banish'd--is a creature such As, to seek through the regions of the earth For one his like, there would be something failing In him that should compare. I do not think So fair an outward, and such stuff within Endows a man but he.

_2. Gent._ You speak him far.

_1. Gent._ I do extend him, sir, within himself, Crush him together rather than unfold His measure duly.

_2. Gent._ What's his name and birth?

_1. Gent._ I cannot delve him to the root. His father Was call'd Sicilius, who did gain his honour Against the Romans with Cassibelan, But had his titles by Tenantius whom He serv'd with glory and admir'd success, So gain'd the sur-addition Leonatus; And hath, besides this gentleman in question, Two other sons, who in the wars o' the time Died with their swords in hand; for which their father Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow That he quit being, and his gentle lady, Big of this gentleman our theme, deceas'd As he was born. The King he takes the babe To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus, Breeds him and makes him of his bed chamber, Puts to him all the learnings that his time Could make him the receiver of; which he took, As we do air, fast as 'twas minist'red, And in's spring became a harvest; liv'd in court-- Which rare it is to do--most prais'd, most lov'd, A sample to the youngest, to the more mature A glass that feated them, and to the graver A child that guided dotards; to his mistress, For whom he is now banish'd,--her own price Proclaims how she esteem'd him and his virtue; By her election may be truly read What kind of man he is.

_2. Gent._ I honour him Even out of your report. But, pray you, tell me Is she sole child to the King?

_1. Gent._ His only child. He had two sons,--if this be worth your hearing, Mark it--the eldest of them at three years old, I' the swathing-clothes the other, from their nursery Were stolen, and to this hour no guess in knowledge Which way they went.

_2. Gent._ How long is this ago?

_1. Gent._ Some twenty years.

_2. Gent._ That a King's children should be so convey'd, So slackly guarded and the search so slow, That could not trace them!

_1. Gent._ Howso'er 'tis strange, Or that the negligence may well be laughed at, Yet it is true, sir.

_2. Gent._ I do well believe you.

_1. Gent._ We must forbear; here comes the gentleman, The Queen and Princess. (_Exeunt._)[6]

Here Shakespeare trusts mere exposition to rouse interest. His speakers merely question and answer, showing little characterization and practically no emotion. Is this extract as interesting as the following?

_Fits Urse. (Catches hold of the last flying monk.)_ Where is the traitor Becket?

_Becket._ Here. No traitor to the King, but Priest of God, Primate of England. (_Descending into the transept._) I am he ye seek. What would ye have of me?

_Fits Urse._ Your life.

_De Tracy._ Your life.

_De Morville._ Save that you will absolve the bishops.

_Becket._ Never,-- Except they make submission to the Church. You had my answer to that cry before.

_De Morville._ Why, then you are a dead man; flee!

_Becket._ I will not. I am readier to be slain than thou to slay. Hugh, I know well that thou hast but half a heart To bathe this sacred pavement with my blood. God pardon thee and these, but God's full curse Shatter you all to pieces if ye harm One of my flock!

_Fitz Urse._ Seize him and carry him! Come with us--nay--thou art our prisoner--come!

(_Fitz Urse lays hold of Archbishop's pall._)

_Becket._ Down!

(_Throws him headlong._)

_De Morville._ Ay, make him prisoner, do not harm the man.

_Fitz Urse._ (_Advances with drawn sword._) I told thee that I should remember thee!

_Becket._ Profligate pander!

_Fitz Urse._ Do you hear that? Strike, strike.

(_Strikes the Archbishop and wounds him in the forehead._)

_Becket._ (_Covers his eyes with his hand._) I do commend my cause to God.

_Fitz Urse._. Strike him, Tracy!

_Rosamund._ (_Rushing down the steps from the choir._) No, no, no, no. Mercy, Mercy, As you would hope for mercy.

_Fitz Urse._ Strike, I say.

_Grim._ O, God, O, noble knight, O, sacrilege!

_Fitz Urse._ Strike! I say.

_De Tracy._ There is my answer then.

(_Sword falls on Grim's arm, and glances from it, wounding Becket._)

This last to rid thee of a world of brawls!

_Becket._ (_Falling on his knees._) Into thy hands, O Lord--into thy hands--! (_Sinks prone._)

_De Brito._ The traitor's dead, and will arise no more.

(_De Brito, De Tracy, Fitz Urse rush out, crying "King's men!" De Morville follows slowly. Flashes of lightning through the Cathedral. Rosamund seen kneeling at the body of Becket._)[7]

The physical action of this extract instantly grips attention. Interested at once by this action, shortly we rush on unthinking, but feeling more and more intensely. In this extract action is everywhere. The actionless _Cymbeline_ is undramatic. This extract is intensely dramatic.

Just what, however, is this action which in drama is so essential? To most people it means physical or bodily action which rouses sympathy or dislike in an audience. The action of melodrama certainly exists largely for itself. We expect and get little but physical action for its own sake when a play is announced as was the well-known melodrama, _A Race for Life_.

As Melodramatically and Masterfully Stirring, Striking and Sensational as Phil Sheridan's Famous Ride.

Superb, Stupendous Scenes in Sunset Regions. Wilderness Wooings Where Wild Roses Grow. The Lights and Shades of Rugged Border Life. Chinese Comedy to Make Confucius Chuckle. The Realism of the Ranch and Race Track. The Hero Horse That Won a Human Life. An Equine Beauty Foils a Murderous Beast. Commingled Gleams of Gladness, Grief, and Guilt. Dope, Dynamite and Devilish Treachery Distanced. Continuous Climaxes That Come Like Cloudbursts.

Some plays depend almost wholly upon mere bustle and rapidly shifting movement, much of it wholly unnecessary to the plot. Large portions of many recent musical comedies illustrate this. Such unnecessary but crudely effective movement Stevenson burlesqued more than once in the stage directions of his _Macaire_.

ACT I. SCENE I

_Aline and maids; to whom Fiddlers; afterwards Dumont and Charles. As the curtain rises, the sound of the violin is heard approaching. Aline and the inn servants, who are discovered laying the table, dance up to door L.C., to meet the Fiddlers, who enter likewise dancing to their own music. Air: "Haste to the Wedding." The Fiddlers exeunt playing into house, R.U.E. Aline and Maids dance back to table, which they proceed to arrange._

_Aline._ Well, give me fiddles: fiddles and a wedding feast. It tickles your heart till your heels make a runaway match of it. I don't mind extra work, I don't, so long as there's fun about it. Hand me up that pile of plates. The quinces there, before the bride. Stick a pink in the Notary's glass: that's the girl he's courting.

_Dumont._ (_Entering with Charles._) Good girls, good girls! Charles, in ten minutes from now what happy faces will smile around that board!

ACT II. SCENE 2

_To these all the former characters, less the Notary. The fiddlers are heard without, playing dolefully. Air: "O, dear, what can the matter be?" in time to which the procession enters._

_Macaire._ Well, friends, what cheer? \ | _Aline._ No wedding, no wedding! > _Together_ | _Goriot._ I told 'ee he can't, and he can't! /

_Dumont._ Dear, dear me. \ | _Ernestine._ They won't let us marry. > _Together_ | _Charles._ No wife, no father, no nothing. /

_Curate._ The facts have justified the worst anticipations of our absent friend, the Notary.

_Macaire._ I perceive I must reveal myself.[8]

If physical action in and of itself is so often dramatic, is all physical action dramatic? That is, does it always create emotion in an onlooker? No. It goes for naught unless it rouses his interest. Of itself, or because of the presentation given it by the dramatist, it must rouse in the onlooker an emotional response. A boy seeing "Crazy Mary" stalking the street in bedizened finery and bowing right and left, may see nothing interesting in her. More probably her actions will move him to jeer and jibe at her. Let some spectator, however, tell the boy of the tragedy in Crazy Mary's younger life which left her unbalanced, and, if he has any right feeling, the boy's attitude will begin to change. He may even give over the jeering he has begun. Reveal to him exactly what is passing in the crazed mind of the woman, and his mere interest will probably turn to sympathy. Characterization, preceding and accompanying action, creates sympathy or repulsion for the figure or figures involved. This sympathy or repulsion in turn converts mere interest into emotional response of the keenest kind. Though physical action is undoubtedly fundamental in drama, no higher form than crude melodrama or crude farce can develop till characterization appears to explain and interpret action.

The following extracts from Robertson's _Home_ show physical action, silly it is true, yet developing characterization by illustrative action. The first, even as it amuses, characterizes the timid Bertie, and the second shows the mild mentality and extreme confusion of the two central figures.

_Mr. Dorrison._ Will you give Mrs. Pinchbeck your arm, Colonel? Dora, my dear. (_Taking Dora's._) Lucy, Captain Mountraffe will--(_Sees him asleep._) Ah, Lucy, you must follow by yourself.

(_Colonel takes off Mrs. Pinchbeck; Dorrison, Dora. At that moment, Bertie enters window, R., and runs to Lucy, kneels at her feet, and is about to kiss her hand. Mountraffe yawns, which frightens Bertie. He is running off as the drop falls quickly._)

_End of Act I_

_Colonel_. I'd always give my eyes to be alone with this girl for five minutes, and whenever I am alone with her, I haven't a word to say for myself. (_Aloud._) That music, Miss Thornhaugh?

_Dora._ (_At piano._) Yes.

_Col._ (_Aside._) As if it could be anything else. How stupid of me. (_Aloud._) New music?

_Dora._ Yes.

_Col._ New laid--I mean, fresh from the country--fresh from London, or--yes--I--(_Dora sits on music stool at piano. This scene is played with great constraint on both sides. Colonel bends over Dora at piano._) Going to play any of it now?

_Dora._ No. I must practise it first. I can't play at sight.

_Col._ Can't you really? Don't you believe in--music--at first sight?

(_Dora drops a music book. Colonel picks it up. Dora tries to pick it up. They knock their heads together; mutual confusion. As they rise, each has hold of the book._)

_Dora._ \ I beg your pardon. (_Both trembling._) _Col._ /

_Dora._ It's nothing.

_Col._ Nothing, quite so.

(_Dora sits on music stool. As she does so, both leave hold of the book and it falls again._)

_Dora._ I thought you had the book.

_Col._ (_Picking it up._) And I thought you had it, and it appears that neither of us had it. Ha! ha! (_Aside._) Fool that I am! (_Dora sits thoughtfully, Colonel bending over her; a pause._) Won't you play something?

_Dora._ I don't know how to play.

_Col._ Oh, well, play the other one. (_They resume their attitudes; a pause._) The weather has been very warm today, has it not?

_Dora._ Very.

_Col._ Looks like thunder to me.

_Dora._ Does it?

_Col._ Are you fond of thunder--I mean fond of music? I should say are you fond of lightning? (_Dora touches keys of piano mechanically._) Do play something.

_Dora._ No, I--I didn't think of what I was doing. What were you talking about?

_Col._ About? You--me--no! About thunder--music--I mean lightning.

_Dora._ I'm afraid of lightning. (Act II.)[9]

The first scene of Act I of _Romeo and Juliet_ is full of interesting physical action--quarrels, fighting, and the halting of the fight by the angry Prince. The physical action, however, characterizes in every instance, from the servants of the two factions to Tybalt, Benvolio, the Capulets, the Montagues, and the Prince. Moreover, this interesting physical action, which is all the more interesting because it characterizes, is interesting in the third place because in every instance it helps to an understanding of the story. It shows so intense an enmity between the two houses that even the servants cannot meet in the streets without quarreling. By its characterization it prepares for the parts Benvolio and Tybalt are to play in later scenes. It motivates the edict of banishment which is essential if the tragedy of the play is to occur.

SCENE 1. _Verona. A public place_

_Enter Sampson and Gregory, of the house of Capulet, with swords and bucklers_

_Sampson._ Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals.

_Gregory._ No, for then we should be colliers.

_Sam._ I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.

_Gre._ Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.

_Sam._ I strike quickly, being mov'd.

_Gre._ But thou art not quickly mov'd to strike.

_Sam._ A dog of the house of Montague moves me.

* * * * *

Draw thy tool; here comes two of the house of Montague.

_Enter two other serving-men. (Abraham and Balthasar.)_

_Sam._ My naked weapon is out. Quarrel, I will back thee.

_Gre._ How! turn thy back and run?

_Sam._ Fear me not.

_Gre._ No, marry; I fear thee!

_Sam._ Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.

_Gre._ I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.

_Sam._ Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is disgrace to them if they bare it.

_Abraham._ Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

_Sam._ I do bite my thumb, sir.

_Abr._ Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

_Sam._ (_Aside to Gre._) Is the law of our side, if I say ay?

_Gre._ No.

_Sam._ No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.

_Gre._ Do you quarrel, sir?

_Abr._ Quarrel, sir? No, sir.

_Sam._ But if you do, sir, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you.

_Abr._ No better.

_Sam._ Well, sir.

_Enter Benvolio._

_Gre._ Say "better"; here comes one of my master's kinsmen.

_Sam._ Yes, better, sir.

_Abr._ You lie.

_Sam._ Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow. (_They fight._)

_Benvolio._ Part, fools! Put up your swords; you know not what you do. (_Beats down their swords._)

_Enter Tybalt_

_Tybalt._ What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.

_Ben._ I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword, Or manage it to part these men with me.

_Tyb._ What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. Have at thee, coward! (_They fight._)

_Enter three or four citizens, and officers, with clubs or partisans_

_Officer._ Clubs, bills, and partisans! Strike! Beat them down! Down with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!

_Enter Capulet in his gown and Lady Capulet_

_Capulet._ What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!

_Lady Capulet._ A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?

_Cap._ My sword, I say! Old Montague is come, And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

_Enter Montague and Lady Montague_

_Montague._ Thou villain, Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.

_Lady Montague._ Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.

_Enter Prince, with his train_

_Prince._ Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,-- Will they not hear?--What, ho! you men, you beasts, That quench the fire of your pernicious rage With purple fountains issuing from your veins, On pain of torture, from those bloody hands Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground, And hear the sentence of your moved prince. Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets, And made Verona's ancient citizens Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, To wield old partisans, in hands as old, Cank'red with peace, to part your cank'red hate; If ever you disturb our streets again Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. For this time, all the rest depart away. You, Capulet, shall go along with me; And Montague, come you this afternoon, To know our farther pleasure in this case, To old Free-town, our common judgement place, Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

(_Exeunt all but Montague, Lady Montague, and Benvolio._)

Even physical action, then, may interest for itself, or because it characterizes, or because it helps on the story, or for two or more of these reasons.

If we examine other extracts from famous plays we shall, however, find ourselves wondering whether action in drama must not mean something besides mere physical action. In the opening scene of _La Princesse Georges_, by Dumas fils, the physical action is neither large in amount nor varied, but the scene is undeniably dramatic, for emotions represented create prompt emotional response in us.

ACT I. SCENE 1

_A Drawing Room_

_Severine, watching near the window, with the curtain drawn a little aside, then Rosalie_

_Severine._ Rosalie! At last! What a night I have gone through! Sixteen hours of waiting! (_To Rosalie, who enters._) Well?

_Rosalie._ Madame, the Princess must be calm.

_Severine._ Don't call me Princess. That's wasting time.

_Rosalie._ Madame has not slept?

_Severine._ No.

_Rosalie._ I suspected as much.

_Severine._ Tell me, is it true?

_Rosalie._ Yes.

_Severine._ The details, then.

_Rosalie._ Well, then, last evening I followed the Prince, who went to the Western Railway, as he had told Madame that he would do, to take the train at half past nine; only, instead of buying a ticket for Versailles, he took one for Rouen.

_Severine._ But he was alone?

_Rosalie._ Yes. But five minutes after he arrived, she came.

_Severine._ Who was the woman?

_Rosalie._ Alas, Madame knows her better than I!

_Severine._ It is some one whom I know?

_Rosalie._ Yes.

_Severine._ Not one of those women?--

_Rosalie._ It is one of your intimate friends, of the best social position.

_Severine._ Valentine? Bertha? No.--The Baroness?

_Rosalie._ The Countess Sylvanie.

_Severine._ She? Impossible! She stayed here, with me, until at least nine o'clock. We dined alone together.

_Rosalie._ She was making sure that you didn't suspect anything.

_Severine._ Indeed, nothing. And she came to the train at what hour?

_Rosalie._ At twenty-five minutes past nine.

_Severine._ So, in twenty-five minutes--

_Rosalie._ She went home; she changed her dress (she arrived all in black); she went to the St. Lazare Station. It is true that only your garden and hers separate her house from yours; that she has the best horses in Paris; and that she is accustomed to doing this sort of thing, if I may believe what I have heard.

_Severine._ To what a pass we have come! My most intimate friend! Did they speak to each other?[10]

This scene wins our attention because it reveals in Severine a mental state which in itself interests and moves us far more than the mere physical action.

What has been said of _La Princesse Georges_ is even more true of the ending of Marlowe's _Faustus_.

_Faustus._ Ah, Faustus: Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damn'd perpetually! Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul! _O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!_ The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The devil will come, and Faustus will be damn'd. ..........All beasts are happy, For when they die, Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements; But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell. Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me! No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven. (_The clock strikes twelve._) O, it strikes, it strikes! Now body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell! (_Thunder and lightning._) O, soul, be chang'd into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!

_Enter Devils_

My God, my God, look not so fierce on me! Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while! Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer! I'll burn my books!--Ah, Mephistophilis! (_Exeunt Devils with Faustus._)[11]

Though this scene doubtless requires physical action as the tortured Faustus flings himself about the stage, would that action be clear enough to move us greatly were it not for the characterization of the preceding scenes and the masterly phrasing which exactly reveals the tortured soul? Is it not a mental state rather than physical action which moves us here? Surely.

The fact is, the greatest drama of all time, and the larger part of the drama of the past twenty years, uses action much less for its own sake than to reveal mental states which are to rouse sympathy or repulsion in an audience. In brief, marked mental activity may be quite as dramatic as mere physical action. Hamlet may sit quietly by his fire as he speaks the soliloquy "To be, or not to be," yet by what we already know of him and what the lines reveal we are moved to the deepest sympathy for his tortured state. There is almost no physical movement as Percinet reads to Sylvette from _Romeo and Juliet_ in the opening pages of Rostand's _Romancers_, yet we are amused and pleased by their excited delight.

ACT I

_The stage is cut in two by an old wall, mossy and garlanded by luxurious vines. To the right, a corner of Bergamin's park; to the left a corner of Pasquinot's. On each side, against the wall, a bench._

SCENE 1. _Sylvette. Percinet. When the curtain rises, Percinet is seated on the wall, with a book on his knees, from which he is reading to Sylvette. She stands on the bench in her father's park, her chin in her hands, her elbows against the wall, listening attentively._

_Sylvette_. O Monsieur Percinet, how beautiful it is!

_Percinet_. Isn't it? Hear Romeo's reply! (_He reads._) "It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale; look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night's candles are burnt out and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops: I must be gone...."

_Sylvette._ (_Alert, with animation._) Sh!

_Percinet._ (_Listens a moment, then_) No one! So, mademoiselle, don't have the air of an affrighted birdling on a branch, ready to spread wing at the slightest sound. Hear the immortal lovers talking:

_She._ "Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I: It is some meteor that the sun exhales, To be to thee this night a torch bearer."

_He._ "Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I'll say yon gray is not the morning's eye; 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow; Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads; I have more care to stay than will to go: Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so."

_Sylvette._ Oh, no! I won't have him talk of that; if he does, I shall cry.

_Percinet._ Then we'll shut our book till tomorrow, and, since you wish it, let sweet Romeo live.

(_He closes the book and looks about him._)

What an adorable spot! It seems made for lulling one's self with the lines of the great William.[12]

Here is great activity, but it is mental rather than physical action. To make it rouse us to the desired emotional response, good characterization and wisely chosen words are necessary.

Examine also the opening scene of Maeterlinck's _The Blind_. A group of sightless people have been deserted in a wood by their guide, and consequently are so bewildered and timorous that they hardly dare move. Yet all their trepidation, doubt, and awe are clearly conveyed to us, with a very small amount of physical action, through skilful characterization, and words specially chosen and ordered to create and intensify emotion in us.

_An ancient Norland forest, with an eternal look, under a sky of deep stars._

_In the centre and in the deep of the night, a very old priest is sitting, wrapped in a great black cloak. The chest and the head, gently upturned and deathly motionless, rest against the trunk of a giant hollow oak. The face is fearsome pale and of an immovable waxen lividness, in which the purple lips fall slightly apart. The dumb, fixed eyes no longer look out from the visible side of Eternity and seem to bleed with immemorial sorrows and with tears. The hair, of a solemn whiteness, falls in stringy locks, stiff and few, over a face more illuminated and more weary than all that surrounds it in the watchful stillness of that melancholy wood. The hands, pitifully thin, are clasped rigidly over the thighs._

_On the right, six old men, all blind, are sitting on stones, stumps, and dead leaves._

_On the left, separated from them by an uprooted tree and fragments of rock, six women, also blind, are sitting opposite the old men. Three among them pray and mourn without ceasing, in a muffled voice. Another is old in the extreme. The fifth, in an attitude of mute insanity, holds on her knees a little sleeping child. The sixth is strangely young and her whole body is drenched with her beautiful hair. They, as well as the old men, are all clad in the same ample and sombre garments. Most of them are waiting, with their elbows on their knees and their faces in their hands; and all seem to have lost the habit of ineffectual gesture and no longer turn their heads at the stifled and uneasy noises of the Island. Tall funereal trees,--yews, weeping-willows, cypresses,--cover them with their faithful shadows. A cluster of long, sickly asphodels is in bloom, not far from the priest, in the night. It is unusually oppressive, despite the moonlight that here and there struggles to pierce for an instant the glooms of the foliage._

_First Blind Man._ (_Who was born blind._) He hasn't come back yet?

_Second Blind Man._ (_Who also was born blind._) You have awakened me.

_First Blind Man._ I was sleeping, too.

_Third Blind Man._ (_Also born blind._) I was sleeping, too.

_First Blind Man._ He hasn't come yet?

_Second Blind Man._ I hear something coming.

_Third Blind Man._ It is time to go back to the Asylum.

_First Blind Man._ We ought to find out where we are.

_Second Blind Man._ It has grown cold since he left.

_First Blind Man._ We ought to find out where we are!

_The Very Old Blind Man._ Does any one know where we are?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ We were walking a very long while; we must be a long way from the Asylum.

_First Blind Man._ Oh! the women are opposite us?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ We are sitting opposite you.

_First Blind Man._ Wait, I am coming over where you are. (_He rises and gropes in the dark._) Where are you?--Speak! let me hear where you are!

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ Here; we are sitting on stones.

_First Blind Man._ (_Advances and stumbles against the fallen tree and the rocks._) There is something between us.

_Second Blind Man._ We had better keep our places.

_Third Blind Man._ Where are you sitting?--Will you come over by us?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ We dare not rise!

_Third Blind Man._ Why did he separate us?

_First Blind Man._ I hear praying on the women's side.

_Second Blind Man._ Yes; the three old women are praying.

_First Blind Man._ This is no time for prayer!

_Second Blind Man._ You will pray soon enough, in the dormitory!

(_The three old women continue their prayers._)

_Third Blind Man._ I should like to know who it is I am sitting by.

_Second Blind Man._ I think I am next to you.

(_They feel about them._)

_Third Blind Man._ We can't reach each other.

_First Blind Man._ Nevertheless, we are not far apart. (_He feels about him and strikes with his staff the fifth blind man, who utters a muffled groan._) The one who cannot hear is beside us.

_Second Blind Man._ I don't hear anybody; we were six just now.

_First Blind Man._ I am going to count. Let us question the women, too; we must know what to depend upon. I hear the three old women praying all the time; are they together?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ They are sitting beside me, on a rock.

_First Blind Man._ I am sitting on dead leaves.

_Third Blind Man._ And the beautiful blind girl, where is she?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ She is near them that pray.

_Second Blind Man._ Where is the mad woman, and her child?

_The Young Blind Girl._ He sleeps; do not awaken him!

_First Blind Man._ Oh! How far away you are from us! I thought you were opposite me!

_Third Blind Man._ We know--nearly--all we need to know. Let us chat a little, while we wait for the priest to come back.[13]

Many an inexperienced dramatist fails to see the force of these words of Maeterlinck: "An old man, seated in his armchair, waiting patiently, with his lamp beside him--submitting with bent head to the presence of his soul and his destiny--motionless as he is does yet live in reality a deeper, more human, and more universal life than the lover who strangles his mistress, the captain who conquers in battle, or the husband who 'avenges his honor.'" If an audience can be made to feel and understand the strong but contained emotion of this motionless figure, he is rich dramatic material.

In the extracts from _La Princesse Georges_, _Faustus_, _The Romancers_, _The Blind_, in the soliloquy of Hamlet referred to, and the illustration quoted from Maeterlinck, it is not physical outward expression but the vivid picture we get of a state of mind which stirs us. Surely all these cases prove that we must include mental as well as physical activity in any definition of the word _dramatic_. Provided a writer can convey to his audience the excited mental state of one or more of his characters, then this mental activity is thoroughly dramatic. That is, neither physical nor mental activity is in itself dramatic; all depends on whether it naturally arouses, or can be made by the author to arouse, emotion in an audience. Just as we had to add to physical action which arouses emotional response of itself, physical action which is made to arouse response because it develops the story or illustrates character, we must now add action which is not physical, but mental.

There is even another chance for confusion. A figure sitting motionless not because he is thinking hard but because blank in mind may yet be dramatic. Utter inaction, both physical and mental, of a figure represented on the stage does not mean that it is necessarily undramatic. If the dramatist can make an audience feel the terrible tragedy of the contrast between what might have been and what is for this perfectly quiet unthinking figure, he rouses emotion in his hearers, and in so doing makes his material dramatic. Suppose, too, that the expressionless figure is an aged father or mother very dear to some one in the play who has strongly won the sympathy of the audience. The house takes fire. The flames draw nearer and nearer the unconscious figure. We are made to look at the situation through the eyes of the character--some child or relative--to whom the scene, were he present, would mean torture. Instantly the figure, because of the way in which it is represented, becomes dramatic. Here again, however, the emotion of the audience could hardly be aroused except through characterization of the figure as it was or might have been, or of the child or relative who has won our sympathy. Again, too, characterization so successful must depend a good deal on well-chosen words.

This somewhat elaborate analysis should have made three points clear. First, we may arouse emotion in an audience by mere physical action; by physical action which also develops the story, or illustrates character, or does both; by mental rather than physical action, if clearly and accurately conveyed to the audience; and even by inaction, if characterization and dialogue by means of other figures are of high order. Secondly, as the various illustrations have been examined, it must have become steadily more clear that while action is popularly held to be central in drama, emotion is really the essential. Because it is the easiest expression of emotion to understand, physical action, which without illuminating characterization and dialogue can express only a part of the world of emotion, has been too often accepted as expressing all the emotion the stage can present. Thirdly, it should be clear that a statement one meets too frequently in books on the drama, that certain stories or characters, above all certain well-known books, are essentially undramatic material is at least dubious. The belief arises from the fact that the story, character, or idea, as usually presented, seems to demand much analysis and description, and almost to preclude illustrative action. In the past few years, however, the drama of mental states and the drama which has revealed emotional significance in seeming or real inaction, has been proving that "nothing human is foreign" to the drama. A dramatist may see in the so-called undramatic material emotional values. If so, he will develop a technique which will create in his public a satisfaction equal to that which the so-called undramatic story, character, or idea could give in story form. Of course he will treat it differently in many respects because he is writing not to be read but to be heard, and to affect the emotions, not of the individual, but of a large group taken as a group. He will prove that till careful analysis has shown in a given story, character, or idea, no possibility of arousing the same or dissimilar emotions in an audience, we cannot say that this or that is dramatic or undramatic, but only: "This material will require totally different presentation if it is to be dramatic on the stage, and only a person of acumen, experience with audiences, and inventive technique can present it effectively."

The misapprehension just analyzed rests not only on the misconception that action rather than emotion is the essential in drama, but also largely on a careless use of the word _dramatic_. In popular use this word means _material for drama_, or _creative of emotional response_, or _perfectly fitted for production under the conditions of the theatre_. If we examine a little, in the light of this chapter, the nature and purpose of a play, we shall see that _dramatic_ should stand only for the first two definitions, and that _theatric_ must be used for the third. Avoiding the vague definition _material for drama_, use _dramatic_ only as _creative of emotional response_ and the confusion will disappear.

A play exists to create emotional response in an audience. The response may be to the emotions of the people in the play or the emotions of the author as he watches these people. Where would satirical comedy be if, instead of sharing the amusement, disdain, contempt or moral anger of the dramatist caused by his figures, we responded exactly to their follies or evil moods? All ethical drama gets its force by creating in an audience the feelings toward the people in the play held by the author. Dumas fils, Ibsen, Brieux prove the truth of this statement. The writer of the satirical or the ethical play, obtruding his own personality as in the case of Ben Jonson, or with fine impersonality as in the case of Congreve or Moliere, makes his feelings ours. It is an obvious corollary of this statement that the emotions aroused in an audience need not be the same as those felt by the people on the stage. They may be in the sharpest contrast. Any one experienced in drama knows that the most intensely comic effects often come from people acting very seriously. In _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ (Act I, Scene 2), the morning reception of M. Jourdain affords an instance of this in his trying on of costumes, fencing, and lessons in dancing and language. Serious entirely for M. Jourdain they are as presented by Moliere, exquisitely comic for us. In brief, the dramatic may rouse the same, allied, or even contrasting emotions in an onlooker.

Nor need the emotion roused in an audience by actor or author be exactly the same in amount. The actress who abandons herself to the emotions of the part she is playing soon exhausts her nervous vitality. It would be the same if audiences listening to the tragic were permitted to feel the scenes as keenly as the figures of the story. On the other hand, in some cases, if the comic figure on the stage felt his comicality as strongly as the audience which is speechless with laughter, he could not go on, and the scene would fail. Evidently, an audience may be made, as the dramatist wills, to feel more or less emotion than the characters of the play.

That it is duplication of emotion to the same, a less, or a greater extent or the creation of contrasting emotion which underlies all drama, from melodrama, riotous farce and even burlesque to high-comedy and tragedy, must be firmly grasped if a would-be dramatist is to steer his way clearly through the many existing and confusing definitions of _dramatic_. For instance, Brunetiere said, "Drama is the representation of the will of man in contrast to the mysterious powers of natural forces which limit and belittle us; it is one of us thrown living upon the stage, there to struggle against fatality, against social law, against one of his fellow mortals, against himself, if need be, against the emotions, the interests, the prejudices, the folly, the malevolence of those around him."[14] That is, by this definition, conflict is central in drama. But we know that in recent drama particularly, the moral drifter has many a time aroused our sympathy. Surely inertness, supineness, stupidity, and even torpor may be made to excite emotion in an audience. Conflict covers a large part of drama but not all of it.

Mr. William Archer, in his _Play-Making_, declares that "a crisis" is the central matter in drama, but one immediately wishes to know what constitutes a crisis, and we have defined without defining. When he says elsewhere that that is dramatic which "by representation of imaginary personages is capable of interesting an average audience assembled in a theatre,"[15] he almost hits the truth. If we rephrase this definition: "That is dramatic which by representation of imaginary personages interests, through its emotions, an average audience assembled in a theatre," we have a definition which will better stand testing.

Is all dramatic material, _theatric?_ No, for _theatric_ does not necessarily mean _sensational, melodramatic, artificial_. It should mean, and it will be so used in this book, _adapted for the purpose of the theatre_. Certainly all dramatic material, that is, material which arouses or may be made to arouse emotion, is not fitted for use in the theatre when first it comes to the hand of the dramatist. Undeniably, the famous revivalists, Moody, J.B. Gough, Billy Sunday, have worked from emotions to emotions; that is, they have been dramatic. Intentionally, feeling themselves justified by the ends obtained, they have, too, been _theatric_ in the poor and popular sense of the word, namely, _exaggerated, melodramatic, sensational_. Yet _theatric_ in the best sense of the word these highly emotional speakers, who have swept audiences out of all self-control, have not been. They worked as speakers, not as playwrights. Though they sometimes acted admirably, what they presented was in no sense a play. To accomplish in play form what they accomplished as speakers, that is, to make the material properly theatric, would have required an entire reworking. From all this it follows that even material so emotional in its nature as to be genuinely dramatic may need careful reworking if it is to succeed as a play, that is, if it is to become properly _theatric_. Drama, then, is presentation of an individual or group of individuals so as to move an audience to responsive emotion of the kind desired by the dramatist and to the amount required. This response must be gained under the conditions which a dramatist finds or develops in a theatre; that is, dramatic material must be made theatric in the right sense of the word before it can become drama.

To summarize: accurately conveyed emotion is the great fundamental in all good drama. It is conveyed by action, characterization, and dialogue. It must be conveyed in a space of time, usually not exceeding two hours and a half, and under the existing physical conditions of the stage, or with such changes as the dramatist may bring about in them. It must be conveyed, not directly through the author, but indirectly through the actors. In order that the dramatic may become theatric in the right sense of the word, the dramatic must be made to meet all these conditions successfully. These conditions affect action, characterization, and dialogue. A dramatist must study the ways in which the dramatic has been and may be made theatric: that is what technique means.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Early Plays_, pp. 5-6. Riverside Literature Series. C. G. Child. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

[2] _The Ancient Classical Drama_, pp. 3-4. R. G. Moulton. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

[3] Quoted in _The Development of the Drama_, pp. 10-11. Copyright, 1903, by Brander Matthews. Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[4] For these two plays see _Early Plays_. Riverside Literature Series. C. G. Child. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

[5] _Works._ 6 vols. Pearson, London.

[6] _Cymbeline_, Act I, Scene 1.

[7] _Becket: A Tragedy._ Lord Tennyson. Arranged for the stage by Henry Irving. Macmillan & Co., London and New York.

[8] _Macaire._ By R. L. Stevenson and W. E. Henley. Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York. Copyright, 1895, by Stone & Kimball, Chicago.

[9] R. M. DeWitt, New York City.

[10] _Theatre Complet_, vol. v. Dumas fils. Calmann Levy, Paris.

[11] Marlowe's _Faustus_, Act v. Mermaid Series or Everyman's Library.

[12] _The Romancers._ Translated by Mary Hendee. Doubleday & McClure Co., New York.

[13] _The Blind._ Translated by Richard Hovey. Copyright, 1894 and 1896, by Stone & Kimball, Chicago.

[14] _Etudes Critiques_ vol. VII, p. 207.

[15] _Play-Making_, p. 48. William Archer. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.