CHAPTER VI

FROM SUBJECT TO PLOT: ARRANGEMENT FOR CLEARNESS, EMPHASIS, MOVEMENT

The chief desideratum of a dramatist beginning to arrange his material within a number of acts already decided on is to create interest as promptly as possible. To that end neither striking dialogue nor stirring situation is of prime consequence. Clearness is. When an audience does not understand who the people are with whom the play opens and their relations to one another, no amount of striking dialogue or stirring situation will create lasting interest. The danger for a later public of allusive reference clear enough at one time is shown by the verses sung when the Helstone Furry, or Flower Dance, takes place in Cornwall. Lines once full of meaning are today so out of date as to be meaningless.

From an early hour the place is alive with drums and fifes, and townsmen hoarsely chanting a ballad, the burden of which conveys the spirit of the festival:

With Hal-an-tow, Jolly rumble O, And we are up as soon as any day O, And for to fetch the Summer home, The Summer and the May O; For the Summer is a-come O, And Winter is a-go O!

The verses of the ballad seem to convey topical allusions that have become traditional. One speaks of Robin Hood and Little John as gone to the fair, and the revellers will go too; another triumphs in the Spaniards eating the gray goose feather while the singers will be eating the roast. Another runs thus quaintly:

God bless Aunt Mary Moses With all her power and might O; And send us peace in merry England Both night and day O. With Hal-an-tow, Jolly rumble O, And we were up as soon as any day O, And for to fetch the Summer home, The Summer and the May O; For the Summer is a-come O, And Winter is a-go O!

Thus singing they troop through the town; if they find anyone at work, they hale him to the river and make him leap across; arrived at the Grammar School they demand a holiday; at noon they go "fadding" into the country, and come back with oak branches and flowers in their hats and caps; then until dusk they dance hand-in-hand down the streets, and through any house, in at any door, out at another; when night falls they keep up the dancing indoors. The character of the dancing is exactly that of the ancient Comus; and the whole spirit of the Cornish Furry is a fair representation of primitive nature festivals, except, of course, that modern devoutness has banished from the flower dance all traces of a religious festival;--unless a trace is to be found in the fact that the dancers at one point make a collection.[1]

The Greek dramatist, staging religious legends, could assume in his audience common knowledge as to the identity and the historic background of his figures which saved him much exposition. Today, readers of his play demand explanatory notes because of these omissions.

The _Choephori_, like the plays of Aeschylus generally, consists of scenes from a story taken as known. Some indispensable parts of it are represented only by allusions. Others can scarcely be said to be represented at all. The history of Pylades belongs to the second class; that of Strophius belongs to the first. What is evident is that the author presumes us to be familiar with his conception of both, that as a fact we are not, and that our only way of approaching the play intelligently is by the assumption of some working hypothesis.[2]

Something like the position of these elder dramatists toward exposition is held today by writers of plays on George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. Dealing, as the dramatist ordinarily does, however, with a mixture of historical and fictitious figures or with characters wholly fictitious, he must in most cases carefully inform his audience at the outset who his people are, and what are their relations to one another, where the play is laid, and when.

Examine the first column of what follows: it is not a burlesque, but the beginning of a so-called play. Why is it unsatisfactory?

ORCHIDS

_Conservatory of the Strones' house. Natalie is walking about among the flowers and plants, arranging them for the day in the vases on the near-by table._

_Natalie._ _Natalie._ (_To herself._) O-oh, (_To herself._) O-oh, I'm sleepy this morning. It's I'm sleepy this morning. It's very nice to have your fiance live very nice to have your fiance in the next house, but when he live in the next house, but when insists on writing his stories and (Tom) insists on writing his stories things until two or three in the and things until two and morning--well, I don't think three in the morning--well, I it's very thoughtful of him. don't think it's very thoughtful He might realize that his light of him. He might realize shines directly across into my that his light shines directly eyes and keeps me awake. Oh, across into my eyes and keeps dear, Mary's been putting me awake. Oh, dear, (that lilies-of-the-valley in all the maid's) been putting vases again. I'll not have those lilies-of-the-valley in all the everywhere when we've got orchids vases again. I'll not have those instead. Flowers don't need everywhere when we've got orchids fragrance anyway; they're just instead. Flowers don't need meant to be seen. (_Dumping the fragrance anyway; they're just meant wilted lilies in a basket by her to be seen. (_Dumping the wilted side and arranging the newly-cut lilies in a basket by her side and orchids in their place._) Tom [Who arranging the newly-cut orchids is Tom--brother or fiance?] in their place._) always makes a fuss when I have Tom always makes a fuss when nothing but orchids, so I suppose I have nothing but orchids, so Mary put the others about I suppose Mary put the others to calm him down. [Who is about to calm him down. Mary, then: a maid, a sister, a girl friend, some one engaged to Tom?] Really I've got to speak to him about last Really I've got to speak to (Tom night when he comes. The light Hammond) about last night, is bad enough, but I won't when he comes. The light is bad have him firing his gun out of enough, but I won't have him the window besides. It must firing his gun out of the window have been at that horrid thin besides. It must have been cat that's always clawing Hopeful. at that horrid thin cat that's [A cat, a dog, or a small always clawing Hopeful. sister?] I'm glad _she_ [Hopeful I'm glad (Hopeful) or the thin cat?] was locked up was locked up indoors if Tom's indoors if Tom's going to act going to act that way (with cats). that way. Oh, dear, these are Oh, dear, these are the wrong the wrong shears again. (_Rings shears again. (_Rings bell. Enter bell. Enter maid._) Mary, bring maid._) Mary, bring me the me the other shears--and other shears--and Mary, Mary, where's Hopeful this where's Hopeful this morning; morning; I haven't seen her? I haven't seen her?

_Mary._ The kitten, Miss _Mary._ The kitten, Miss Strone? Strone?

_Natalie._. Yes, of course. _Natalie._ Yes, of course.

_Mary._ Why--why she hasn't _Mary._ Why--why she hasn't been in this morning. (_Starts been in this morning. (_Starts away._) away._)

_Natalie._ Come back, Mary. _Natalie._ Come back, Mary. Don't run off while I'm speaking Don't run off while I'm speaking to you. Haven't you seen to you. Haven't you seen her at all? her at all?

_Mary._ Well--yes, Miss _Mary._ Well--yes, Miss Strone--that is Parkins [another Strone--that is (the butler) maid, a butler, or a found--I mean-- milkman?] found--I mean--

_Natalie._ (_Impatiently._) Well? _Natalie._ (_Impatiently._) Well?

_Mary._ The shots last night, _Mary._ The shots last night, Miss Strone--that is we think Miss Strone--that is we think it was--although she _was_ on it was--although she _was_ on the _other_ side of the garden the _other_ side of the wall when when Parkins came on her--and Parkins came on her--and there's the wall and the alley there's the wall and the alley between--still, Mr. Hammond between--still, Mr. Hammond was shooting out of the was shooting out of the upper upper windows and-- windows and--

_Natalie._ (_Quickly._) Has _Natalie._ (_Quickly._) Has anything happened to Hopeful? anything happened to Hopeful?

_Mary._ Why--why, Parkins-- _Mary._. Why--why, Parkins--

(_Enter Parkins._) (_Enter Parkins._)

_Parkins._ (_Quietly._) I buried _Parkins._ (_Quietly._) I buried her all right just now, Miss her all right just now, Miss Strone. (_Louder._) Mr. Hammond. Strone. (_Louder._) (Mr. Hammond.)

(_Exit [sic.] Mary and Parkins,_ (_Exeunt Mary and Parkins,_ _enter Tom Hammond._) _enter Tom Hammond._)

In the left-hand column practically every one in the cast is unidentified when first mentioned. That is, the text fails in the first essential of clearness: we do not for some time know who the people are and their relations to one another. The very slight changes in the right-hand column do away with this fault.

Identify characters, then, as promptly as possible. Writing, "John Paul Jones enters in full Admiral's uniform," a dramatist often runs on for some time before the text itself reveals the identity of the person who has entered. Except in so far as the costume or make-up presents a well-known historical figure, or information carefully given before the figure enters may reveal identity, every newcomer is an entirely unknown person. He must promptly make clear who he is and his relation to the story. The following opening of a play shows another instance of the vagueness resulting when this identification is not well managed:

ANNE--A PLAY IN TWO ACTS

ACT I

_Evening of a June day. John Hathaway's Study. Door at right and at left back. Heavy, old-fashioned library furnishings. Walls lined with shelves of books. General disorder of books to produce the effect of recent using. Large flat-topped desk with a double row of drawers stands at front, half way between center and right wall. Desk is covered with books and loose manuscript. Chair at left front. Stool in front of desk. Other chairs toward back._

_When the curtain rises, John Hathaway is seated at desk working. Anne enters at right, bangs the door, and stands with back to it._

_Anne._ I hate Aunt Caroline. (_She hurries forward to stand at opposite side of desk._) Oh, I know what you will say--just preach and preach and call me "Anne" and tell me I must ask her pardon.--Why don't you begin?

_John._ (_Smiling._) Now, Anne!

_Anne._ Yes, there's the "Anne." I know the rest without your going on:--"Aunt Caroline is a peculiar woman, but is _most_ worthy. Her Puritanism keeps her from understanding your temperament, and you are too young to understand hers,--" and you'll go on preaching and smiling in that horrid way--you always do--and you'll make me see how wrong _I've_ been and how saintly _Aunt Caroline_ is, and at last I'll slink out of the room like a good little pussy-cat to find Aunt Caroline and beg her pardon. But it won't do _this_ time, for I begged her pardon _before_ I lost my temper so that you _couldn't_ send me back.--Oh, Duke, _can't_ we send Aunt Caroline away, and just you and me live here always together. (_She swings round the desk to sit on the stool at his side, her back to him. He turns a little in his chair, letting a hand fall on her shoulder._) When Dad died, he left me with you because next to me he loved you best in all the world. Hundreds and hundreds of times he told me that.--It would have been very nice, Duke, if Dad hadn't died, wouldn't it?

_John._ Yes, Nan.

_Anne._ In just that one thing God has not been quite fair to me. Aunt Caroline tries so hard to make me think I am wrong about it.--I know you think so too, but you never argue about it with me. I like you for that, Duke. You see, if Dad had lived, our kingdom would have been complete. Why! a kingdom's only _half_ a kingdom without a king.

_John._ That's true,--but there are still a few of us left. There's the Prime Minister, and the Countess, and the Slave, every one of them loyal to the Princess. Even the War Department is loyal--in warfare. Perhaps, who knows, some day from out a great foreign land a great king may come riding, and the Princess will place him beside her on the throne--and--live happily ever afterward.

_Anne._ (_Inattentively._) Perhaps. Duke, did you ever think that the Prime Minister was very fond of the Countess?

_John._ Why, I have thought so at times.

_Anne._ And did you ever think that perhaps the Prime Minister would like to _marry_ the Countess?

_John._ Why, yes, now you mention it, that also has occurred to me.

_Anne._ Well, why doesn't he?

_John._ Perhaps the Countess isn't willing.

Who is this "Anne"? What is her last name? Is she the niece of "Duke"? How could we learn from the text that "Duke" is John Hathaway? It is the stage direction which gives us that information. And what are we to do with this whole Burke's Peerage,--the Prime Minister, the Countess, the Slave? The author is depending for identification upon a list of _dramatis personae_ just preceding what has been quoted:

Time, present day.

Characters:

Anne Chesterfield, "The Princess." John Hathaway, Anne's guardian, "The Duke." Caroline Hathaway, John's aunt, "Head of the War Department." Doctor Stirling, a friend, "The Prime Minister." Katharine Bain, a friend, "The Countess." Tommy Bain, Katharine's young brother, "The Slave." Professor Heinrich Adler, "The Foreign Ambassador." James, a Servant.

Cut out this list of characters; in the stage directions strike out "John Hathaway," substituting "A man"; strike out "Anne," substituting "A young woman." At once it is clear that the dialogue reveals nothing about these people, except that a young woman who speaks is a niece of "Aunt Caroline." Yet these substitutions show what the scene looks like to a man entering the theatre without a program. Whenever such substitution of a type name for that of an individual in the titles prefixed to the speeches leaves the speakers unidentified, it is time to re-phrase the material for greater clearness.

Scenery and costume, of course, may show where the opening or later action of a play takes place. If these make clear the nationality of the speakers, or, at most, the province to which they belong, this is in many instances enough for any audience. In some cases, however, the nature of the plot is so dependent on the customs of a particular community that it is necessary or wise to make the text farther particularize any placing of the play by scenery or costumes. Simple interiors, too, are not always easily identifiable as of this or that province, or even country. If province or country at all determines the action of the piece, the text should help out the setting. One reason why the plays of Synge aroused bitter opposition was that some auditors believed them representations of life anywhere in Ireland and not, as they were meant to be, pictures of the manners of Aran Islanders, a group so isolated as to retain much savagery. Also, if the text is clear as to place, suggestion may take the place of realism in the scenery, thus decreasing expense. The emphasis on place in the opening of _The Rising of the Moon_ both permits scenery that merely suggests a quay and plants in the minds of hearers a setting essential to the whole development of the play:

SCENE: _Side of a quay in a seaport town. Some posts and chains. A large barrel. Enter three policemen. Moonlight._

_Sergeant, who is older than the others, crosses the stage to right and looks down steps. The others put down a pastepot and unroll a bundle of placards._

_Policeman B._ I think this would be a good place to put up a notice. (_He points to a barrel._)

_Policeman X._ Better ask him. (_Calls to Sergeant._.) Will this be a good place for a placard? (_No answer._)

_Policeman B._ Will we put up a notice here on the barrel? (_No answer._)

_Sergeant._ There's a flight of steps here that leads to the water. This is a place that should be minded well. If he got down here, his friends might have a boat to meet him; they might send it in here from outside.

_Policeman B._ Would the barrel be a good place to put a notice up?

_Sergeant._ It might; you can put it there. (_They paste the notice up._)

_Sergeant._ (_Reading it._) Dark hair--dark eyes, smooth face, height five feet five--there's not much to take hold of in that--It's a pity I had no chance of seeing him before he broke out of jail. They say he's a wonder, that it's he makes all the plans for the whole organization. There isn't another man in Ireland would have broken jail the way he did. He must have some friends among the jailers.

_Policeman B._ A hundred pounds reward is little enough for the Government to offer for him. You may be sure any man in the force that takes him will get promotion.

_Sergeant._ I'll mind this place myself. I wouldn't wonder at all if he comes this way. He might come slipping along there (_points to side of quay_) and his friends might be waiting for him there (_points down steps_), and once he got away it's little chance we'd have of finding him; it's maybe under a load of kelp he'd be in a fishing boat, and not one to help a married man that wants it to the reward.[3]

The period in which the play is supposed to take place, if of importance to the action, needs careful statement. Helped out by setting and costumes, the following shows that the play is taking place at the time of the French Revolution.

_At rise of curtain, drums are heard beating, trumpets sounding the charge in the distance. A report of a cannon as the curtain rises._

_Jennie._ (_R., going up to door C._) Did you hear that? It must be somewhere near the Rue d'Echelle now.

_Julie._ (_L. crossing to R._) My! I'm frightened to death.

_Marie._ (_Carrots--up C._) I only hope they won't come fighting down _our_ street.

_Julie._ (_Kneeling._) Bless us and save us!

_Jennie._ (_Up C._) Down our street. What should they come here for? It's the Tuileries and the King they're after. (_Going to window L._)

_First Neighbor and Omnes._ (_At back._) Of course they are. That's it.

_First Woman._ (_Up C._) I tell you they're at the Carrousel. (_Report of cannon._)

_Marie._ It will be a mercy if they don't smash every pane of glass in the shop.

_Julie._ Well I shan't forget this 10th of August in a hurry.

(_At back a National Guard wounded in the leg supported by two other guards enters at L., is taken into the druggist's shop. All the people move towards the shop._)[4]

Lapse of time between two acts, if important to the development of the plot, should also be clearly stated. Dramatists like to depend on the programs for such information, but they run the chance that many auditors will not see the printed note. Doubtless a program would give these words from the stage direction at the beginning of the fourth act of Hauptmann's _Lonely Lives_: "Time between 4 and 5 P.M.," but the quick passage of time is so important a fact in the development of the plot that six or seven pages later there is the following dialogue:

_Braun._ (_Looks at telegram._) It is the six o'clock train that Mr. Vockerat is coming by? What o'clock is it now?

_Mrs. Vockerat._ Not half-past four yet.

_Braun._ (_After a moment of reflection._) Has there been no change in the course of the week?

_Mrs. Vockerat._ (_Shakes her head hopelessly._) None.

_Braun._ Has she given no hint of any intention to go?[5]

In _The Galloper_, by Richard Harding Davis, what the audience hears will place the play in a hotel at Athens, even if the scenery does not:

_Before the curtain rises one hears a drum-and-fife corps playing a lively march, and the sound of people cheering. This comes from the rear and to the left, and continues after the curtain is up, dying away gradually as though the band, and the regiment with it, had passed and continued on up the street._

_Anstruther is discovered seated on the lower right-end corner of the table, with his right foot resting on the chair at that corner. He is reading the Paris "New York Herald" and smoking a cigarette. He is a young man of good manner and soldierly appearance. He wears gray whipcord riding breeches, tan riding boots, and Norfolk jacket of rough tweed. His slouch hat, with a white puggaree wrapped round it, lies on the table beside him. Griggs stands at the edge of the French window looking off left. In his hand he holds a notebook in which he takes notes. He is supposed to be watching the soldiers who are passing. He is a pompous little man of about forty with eyeglasses. He wears a khaki uniform similar to that of an officer of the British army, with the difference that the buttons are of bone. His left chest is covered with ribbons of war medals. Hewitt, a young man with a pointed beard and moustache, stands to the left of Griggs, also looking off left. He wears a khaki coat made like a Norfolk jacket, khaki riding breeches, and canvas United States Army leggings and tan shoes. On the table are his slouch hat and the khaki-colored helmet of Griggs._

_Captain O'Malley enters right. He is a dashing young Irishman, in the uniform of an officer of the Greek Army. He halts to right of Anstruther and salutes._

_Capt. O'Malley._ Pardon, I am Captain O'Malley of the Foreign Legion. Am I addressing one of the foreign war correspondents?

_Capt. Anstruther._ Yes.

_Capt. O'Malley._ (_Showing him a visiting card._) Pardon, is this your card?

_Capt. Anstruther._ (_Reading card._) "Mr. Kirke Warren." No.

_Capt. O'Malley._ Do you know if Mr. Warren is in this hotel?

_Capt. Anstruther._ I couldn't tell you. We arrived in Athens only last night.

_Capt. O'Malley._ (_Saluting and moving off left._) I thank you.

(_He exits left._)[6]

But the dramatist prefaced this with a careful description of the setting. What has just been quoted shows that the dramatist risked no chance that what would probably identify this setting,--"Greek letters of gilt" on the picture frames, and the distant view of the Acropolis,--might fail him. He added what has just been quoted.

_This scene shows the interior of the reading room in the Hotel Angleterre at Athens. It is large, cheerful-looking, and sunny, with a high ceiling. Extending nearly across the entire width of the rear wall is a French window, which opens upon the garden of the hotel. Outside it are set plants in green tubs, and above it is stretched a striped green-and-white awning. To the reading room the principal entrance is through a wide door set well down in the left wall. It is supposed to open into the hall of the hotel. Through this door one obtains a glimpse of the hall, where steamer trunks and hatboxes are piled high upon a black-and-white tiled floor. In the right wall there is another door, also well down on the stage. It is supposed to open into a corridor of the hotel. Below it against the wall are a writing desk and chair. A similar writing desk is placed against the rear wall between the right wall and the French window. On the left of the stage, end-on to the audience, is a long library table over which is spread a dark-green baize cloth. On top of it are ranged periodicals and the illustrated papers of different countries. Chairs of bent wood are ranged around this table, one being placed at each side of the lower end. Of these two, the chair to the left of the table is not farther from the left door than five feet. The walls of the room are colored a light, cool gray in distemper, with a black oak wainscot about four feet high. On the walls are hung photographs of the Acropolis and of classic Greek statues. On the black frames holding these photographs appear the names of shopkeepers in Greek letters of gilt. The floor is covered with a gray crash. The back drop, seen through the French window, shows the garden of the hotel, beyond that the trees of a public park, and high in the air the Acropolis. The light is that of a bright morning in May._

The test in deciding whether the place and the time should be stated is not, "Has it been given in the program?" nor, "May it with ingenuity be guessed from the settings and costumes?" but, first, "Does place or time, or do both at all determine the action of the piece?" secondly, "Will any intelligent observer be vague as to place or time, as the play develops?" If the answer to either of these questions is yes, it is wisest to make these matters clear in the text.

Far more troublesome than merely identifying the characters or emphasizing the place and time of the play is showing the relations of the characters to one another. This usually requires exposition of past history which must be clearly understood if the play is to have its full emotional effect. More than one reader has been disposed to believe the theory that _Macbeth_, as we know it, is a cut stage version because, when Lady Macbeth first enters, she seems less prepared for and less clearly related to the other figures than is Shakespeare's custom.

SCENE 5. _Inverness. Macbeth's castle_

_Enter Lady Macbeth, alone, with a letter_

_Lady Macbeth_. (_Reads._) "They met me in the day of success; and I have learn'd by the perfect'st report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burn'd in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanish'd. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the King, who all-hail'd me, 'Thane of Cawdor'; by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referr'd me to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, King thou shalt be!' This I have thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promis'd thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell."

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promis'd. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou'dst have, great Glamis, That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it"; And that which rather thou dost fear to do Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crown'd withal.

The Dumb Show, Chorus, and Soliloquy are now outworn devices for setting forth necessary initial expository facts. Today any experienced dramatist knows that such preliminary exposition demands the art which conceals art, for an audience resents a mere recital of necessary facts. Examine the first act of Schnitzler's _The Lonely Way_.[7] All of it is interesting for characterization and statement of facts essential to an understanding of the play, but it does not grip the attention as do the other acts where drama, not exposition, is of first consequence.

Early steps in advance on the Chorus were the butler and the maid servant, garrulously talking of what each must have known ever since he came into his position. A closely related form is unbosoming oneself to a male or female confidant.

ACT I

(_Enter Hippolytus, Theramenes._)

_Hippolytus._ My mind is settled, dear Theramenes, And I can stay not more in lovely Troezen. In doubt that racks my soul with mortal anguish, I grow ashamed of such long idleness. Six months and more my father has been gone, And what may have befallen one so dear I know not, nor what corner of the earth Hides him.

_Theramenes._ And where, prince, will you look for him? Already, to content your just alarm, Have I not cross'd the seas on either side Of Corinth, ask'd if aught were known of Theseus Where Acheron is lost among the Shades, Visited Elis, doubled Toenarus, And sail'd into the sea that saw the fall Of Icarus? Inspired with what new hope, Under what favor'd skies think you to trace His footsteps? Who knows if the king, your father, Wishes the secret of his absence known? Perchance, while we are trembling for his life, The hero calmly plots some fresh intrigue, And only waits till the deluded fair--

_Hippolytus._ Cease, dear Theramenes, respect the name Of Theseus. Youthful errors have been left Behind, and no unworthy obstacle Detains him. Phaedra long has fix'd a heart Inconstant once, nor need she fear a rival. In seeking him I shall but do my duty, And leave a place I dare no longer see.

_Theramenes._ Indeed! When, prince, did you begin to dread These peaceful haunts, so dear to happy childhood, Where I have seen you oft prefer to stay, Rather than meet the tumult and the pomp Of Athens and the court? What danger shun you, Or shall I say what grief?

_Hippolytus._ That happy time Is gone, and all is changed, since to these shores The gods sent Phaedra.

_Theramenes._ I perceive the cause Of your distress. It is the queen whose sight Offends you. With a step-dame's spite she schemed Your exile soon as she set eyes on you. But if her hatred is not wholly vanish'd, It has at least taken a milder aspect. Besides, what danger can a dying woman, One too who longs for death, bring on your head? Can Phaedra, sick'ning of a dire disease Of which she will not speak, weary of life And of herself, form any plots against you?

_Hippolytus._ It is not her vain enmity I fear; Another foe alarms Hippolytus. I fly, it must be owned, from Aricia, The soul survivor of an impious race.

_Theramenes._ What! You become her persecutor too! The gentle sister of the cruel sons Of Pallas shared not in their perfidy; Why should you hate such charming innocence?

_Hippolytus._ I should not need to fly, if it were hatred.

_Theramenes._ May I, then, learn the meaning of your flight?[8]

Another device is an intensely inquisitive stranger just returned from foreign parts who listens with patience not always shared by an auditor to any needed preliminary exposition.

_The Opportunity_,[9] by James Shirley, shows an ingenious adaptation of the device of the inquisitive stranger newly come to some city. Aurelio, a gentleman of Milan, coming to Urbino with his friend Pisauro, is mistaken for Borgia, who has been banished from Urbino. As one person after another, greeting Aurelio as Borgia, naturally talks to him of his past, his family, and what is to be expected of him now that he is returned, they identify and relate clearly to one another the chief people whom Aurelio is to meet in the play. A hearer would take in almost unconsciously the needed exposition, so amused would he be at the increasing bewilderment of Aurelio.

Such ways and means as these three--the servant, the confidant, the stranger--Buckingham ridiculed in the late seventeenth century in his _Rehearsal_:

_Enter Gentleman-Usher and Physician_

_Physician._ Sir, by your habit, I should guess you to be the Gentleman-Usher of this sumptuous palace.

_Usher._ And by your gait and fashion, I should almost suspect you rule the healths of both our noble Kings, under the notion of Physician.

_Physician._ You hit my function right.

_Usher._ And you mine.

_Physician._ Then let's embrace.

_Usher._ Come.

_Physician._ Come.

_Johnson._ Pray, sir, who are those so very civil persons?

_Bayes._ Why, sir, the Gentleman-Usher and Physician of the two Kings of Brentford.

_Johnson._ But, pray, then, how comes it to pass that they know one another no better?

_Bayes._ Phoo! that's for the better carrying on of the plot.[10]

Another method, talking back to people off stage, as one enters, in such a way as to bring out necessary facts, erence both used and ridiculed centuries ago. This is his use of the device:

_Enter Mysis_

_Mysis._ (_Speaking to the housekeeper within._) I hear, Archilis, I hear: Your orders are to fetch Lesbia. On my word she's a drunken reckless creature, not at all a fit person to take charge of a woman in her first labour: am I to fetch her all the same? (_Comes forward._)[11]

In the last lines of the following he ridicules this very use:

_Re-enter Lesbia_

_Lesbia._ (_Speaking through the doorway_.) So far, Archilis, the usual and proper symptoms for a safe delivery, I see them all here. After ablution give her the drink I ordered and in the prescribed quantity. I shall be back before long. (_Turning round._) Lor' me, but a strapping boy is born to Pamphilus. Heaven grant it live, for the father's a noble gentleman and has shrunk from wronging an excellent young lady. (_Exit._)

_Simo._ For example now, wouldn't any one who knew you think you were at the bottom of this?

_Davus._ Of what, sir?

_Simo._ Instead of prescribing at the bedside what must be done for the mother, out she plumps and shouts it at them from the street.[12]

Lately the telephone, the stenographer, and most recently the dictaphone have seemed to puzzled dramatists the swift road to successful initial exposition. To all these human or unhuman aids some overburdened soul has felt free to say anything the audience might need to hear. Probably this use of the telephone has come to stay, for daily there is proof that nothing is too intimate for it. There are, however, more ambitious workers who, weary of servants, confidants, telephones, stenographers, and dictaphones, want to set forth necessary information so naturally that no one may question whether it might have come out in this way. Also, they want the information to be so interestingly conveyed that an auditor thinks of what is happening rather than merely of the facts.

In the first act of _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_,[13] the audience must hear a narrative setting forth Aubrey Tanqueray's position in society, his first marriage, his relations with his daughter, and the nature of his proposed second marriage. What complicates the task is that the narrative must be told to old friends, so that much of it is to them well known. What device will make the narrative, under the circumstances, plausible? Here is where a modern dramatist sighs for the serviceable heralds, messengers, and chorus of plays of decades long past or for the freer methods in narrative of the novelist. How easy to tell much of this in your own person, as have Thackeray or Meredith, in comparison with stating it through another so placed that he will be glad to hear again much which he already knows! The necessity creates with Sir Arthur the device of the little supper party in Aubrey Tanqueray's chambers in the Albany, to which he has invited four of his oldest friends. The moment chosen for the opening of the play is when the old friends, over the coffee, fall quite naturally into reminiscent vein. What helps to freer exposition is their chance to talk of Cayley Drummle, who, even yet, though bidden, has not appeared. Before the chat is over and Cayley enters, much needed information is in the minds of the audience. Cayley brings news of a terrible _mesalliance_ in a family known to all the supper party. In his efforts to advise and comfort the distracted mother he has been kept from the meeting of old friends. The news leads Aubrey Tanqueray to avow his quixotic scheme for a second marriage. Through the contrasting comments of the friends, even through their reservations, the audience becomes perfectly informed as to the view the world will take of this second marriage. Indeed, as the supper party breaks up, all the audience requires in order to listen intelligently to the succeeding acts, is a chance to see Paula herself. Her impulsive visit to Tanqueray, just after the supper party ends, provides the information needed, for in it her character is sketched in broadly as it will be filled out in detail in the succeeding acts. Evidently device, the ingenious discovery of a plausible reason for exposition necessary in a play, is basal in the best stage narrative. Without it, character is sacrificed to mere necessary exposition; with it, the spectator, absorbed by incident or characterization, learns unconsciously that without which he cannot intelligently and sympathetically follow the story of the play. In other words, successful discovery of devices for such exposition clearly means that disguising which is essential to the best narrative in drama.

The first quality of good expository device is clearness. Secondly, it should be an adequate reason for the exposition it contains: i.e., it must seem natural that the facts should come out in this way. Thirdly, and of the utmost importance, the device must be something so interesting in itself as to hold the attention of an auditor while necessary facts are insinuated into his mind. Lastly, the device should permit this preliminary exposition to be given swiftly. It is hard to conceal exposition as such if the movement is as slow as in the first two scenes of Act I of _The Journey of Papa Perrichon_.

ACT I

_The Lyons railway station at Paris. At the back, a turn-stile opening on the waiting-rooms. At the back, right, a ticket window. At the back, left, benches, a cake vender; at the left, a book stall._

SCENE 1. _Majorin, A Railway Official, Travelers, Porters_

_Majorin._ (_Walking about impatiently._) Still this Perrichon doesn't come! Already I've waited an hour.... Certainly it is today that he is to set out for Switzerland with his wife and daughter. (_Bitterly._) Carriage builders who go to Switzerland! Carriage builders who have forty thousand pounds a year income! Carriage builders who keep their carriages! What times these are! While I,--I am earning two thousand four hundred francs ... a clerk, hard-working, intelligent, always bent over his desk.... Today I asked for leave ... I said it was my day for guard duty.... It is absolutely necessary that I see Perrichon before his departure.... I want to ask him to advance me my quarter's salary.... Six hundred francs! He is going to put on his patronizing air ... make himself important ... a carriage builder! It's a shame! Still he doesn't come! One would say that he did it on purpose! (_Addressing a porter who passes, followed by travelers._) Monsieur, at what time does the train start for Lyons?

_Porter._ (_Brusquely._) Ask the official. (_He goes out at the left._)

_Majorin._ Thanks ... clodhopper! (_Addressing the official who is near the ticket window._) Monsieur, at what time does the through train start for Lyons?

_The Official._ (_Brusquely._) That doesn't concern me! Look at the poster. (_He points to a poster in the left wings._)

_Majorin._ Thanks.... (_Aside._) The politeness of these corporations! If ever you come to my office, you...! Let's have a look at the poster.... (_He goes out at the left._)

SCENE 2. _The Official, Perrichon, Madame Perrichon, Henriette_

(_They enter at the right_)

_Perrichon._ Here we are! Let's keep together! We couldn't find each other again.... Where is our baggage? (_Looking to the right; into the wings._) Ah, that's all right! Who has the umbrellas?

_Henriette._ I, papa.

_Perrichon._ And the carpet bag? The cloaks?

_Madame Perrichon._ Here they are!

_Perrichon._ And my panama? It has been left in the cab! (_Making a movement to rush out and checking himself._) Ah! No! I have it in my hand!... Phew, but I'm hot!

_Madame Perrichon._ It is your own fault!... You hurried us, you hustled us!... I don't like to travel like that!

_Perrichon._ It is the departure which is tiresome ... once we are settled!... Stay here, I am going to get the tickets.... (_Giving his hat to Henriette._) There, keep my panama for me.... (_At the ticket window._) Three, first class, for Lyons!...

_The Official._ (_Brusquely._) Not open yet! In a quarter of an hour!

_Perrichon._ (_To the official._) Ah! pardon me! It is the first time I have traveled.... (_Returning to his wife._) We are early.

_Madame Perrichon._ There! When I told you we should have time. You wouldn't let us breakfast!

_Perrichon._ It is better to be early! ... one can look about the station! (_To Henriette._) Well, little daughter, are you satisfied?... Here we are, about to set out!... A few minutes yet, and then, swift as the arrow of William Tell, we rush toward the Alps! (_To his wife._) You brought the opera glasses?

_Madame Perrichon._ Of course!

_Henriette._ (_To her father._) I'm not criticizing, papa, but it is now two years, at least, since you promised us this trip.

_Perrichon._ My daughter, I had to sell my business.... A merchant does not retire from business as easily as his little daughter leaves boarding school.... Besides, I was waiting for your education to be ended in order to complete it by revealing to you the splendid spectacle of nature!

_Madame Perrichon._ Are you going on in that strain?

_Perrichon._ What do you mean?

_Madame Perrichon._ Phrase-making in a railway station!

_Perrichon._ I am not making phrases.... I'm improving the child's mind. (_Drawing a little notebook from his pocket._) Here, my daughter, is a notebook I've bought for you.

_Henriette._ For what purpose?

_Perrichon._ To write on one side the expenses, and on the other the impressions.

_Henriette._ What impressions?

_Perrichon._ Our impressions of the trip! You shall write, and I will dictate.

_Madame Perrichon._ What! You are now going to become an author?

_Perrichon._ There's no question of my becoming an author ... but it seems to me that a man of the world can have some thoughts and record them in a notebook!

_Madame Perrichon._ That will be fine, indeed!

_Perrichon._ (_Aside._) She is like that every time she doesn't take her coffee!

_A Porter._ (_Pushing a little cart loaded with baggage._) Monsieur, here is your baggage. Do you wish to have it checked?

_Perrichon._ Certainly! But first, I am going to count them ... because, when one knows the number ... One, two, three, four, five, six, my wife, seven, my daughter, eight, and for myself, nine. We are nine.

_Porter._ Put it up there!

_Perrichon._ (_Hurrying toward the back._) Hurry!

_Porter._ Not that way, this way! (_He points to the left._)

_Perrichon._ All right! (_To the women._) Wait for me there! We mustn't get lost! (_He goes out running, following the porter._)[14]

The first scene undoubtedly helps to create the atmosphere of a large railway station, but everything in it could be brought out in what is now Scene 2. Even the way in which Majorin is passed from one employee to the other could be transferred to Perrichon. Every fact in Majorin's soliloquy is either repeated in the scenes which follow, or could easily be brought out in them.

What has made necessary this swifter preliminary exposition is, probably, the growing popularity of three or four acts as compared with five. Less space has forced a swifter movement. Contrast, in the five-act piece _Une Chaine_[15] by Scribe, the slow exposition in a first act of thirty-two pages with the perfectly adequate re-statement in six and a half pages in the one-act adaptation by Sidney Grundy, _In Honour Bound_.[16]

It is easy, however, to overload a first act with what seems needed exposition but is not. Careful consideration may show that some part may be postponed for "later exposition." Here is the history which lies behind Act I of Sudermann's _Heimat_, or _Magda_.[17] The famous singer, Dall'Orto, who was Magda Schwartze, has returned to her native place for a music festival. Ten years before she was driven from home by her father, an army officer, because she would not marry the man of his choice, Pastor Hefferdingt. Going to Berlin to train her voice, she was betrayed by young von Keller, a former acquaintance. After six months he deserted her. A child was born to whom she is passionately devoted. Von Keller is now a much respected citizen of the home town, who lives in awe of public opinion. He and Magda have not met since their Berlin days and he does not know there was a child. Since his return to the town he has kept away from the Schwartzes. Hefferdingt has remained single, devoting himself to good works. Magda's father nearly lost his mind from an apoplectic shock when he learned of her flight, but he has won back some part of his health through the wise and tender aid of Hefferdingt. There has been no communication between Magda and her family in the ten years. Now the younger sister Marie is engaged to the nephew of von Keller, Max, but the young people have not enough money to marry. They have been hoping that an aunt, Franziska, who caused Magda much unhappiness in the old days, will aid them. The narrow life of the town and the subservience of the Schwartzes to it had much to do with the rebelliousness of Magda as a girl. Through hard work and much bitter experience, she has won a supreme place in the world of music. She has developed a somewhat cynical philosophy of life which calls for complete self-expression, at any cost to others. She craves sight of her family again, and especially of Marie, a mere child when Magda left home.

Somewhere in the course of the play an audience must learn all these facts. How many of them must be set forth in Act I, and how many may be set apart for "later exposition"? Sudermann decided to postpone till Act II any detailed statement of the past relations between Magda and Hefferdingt. In Act I we learn only that he wished to marry Magda, and that there is anger in the family because of the way in which she refused him. What that was is not stated. Thus by giving mystery to these past relations of Magda and Hefferdingt, curiosity and interest are aroused and suspense created.

Of Magda's relations with von Keller we really learn nothing in Act I. We are, it is true, made to suspect that his admitted meeting with her in Berlin covers more than he is willing to reveal, and that his avoidance of the Schwartzes means something, but we learn nothing clearly until Act III. Not till then do we know a child was born and is still alive. In other words, postponing detailed exposition of these matters provides the most important scene of Act II, that of Hefferdingt and Magda, and the central scene of Act III between von Keller and Magda. Note that deciding what shall be preliminary and what later exposition has much to do here, as always, with creating Suspense, a subject which will be treated under Movement. A difficult task for the dramatist is this determining what in the historical background of his play must be treated as preliminary exposition, and what may be postponed for later treatment, when the real action of the play is well under way.

Even when it is clear just what must go into preliminary exposition the ordering of the details chosen is very important. Look again at _Magda_. It is love for Marie which, in large part, draws Magda to her home, and at first keeps her there. The love affair which Magda fled from seemed to her conventional. Sudermann opens his play, therefore, with a picture of the thoroughly conventional engagement of Max and Marie, but remembering that the sooner a dramatist creates interest the better, he starts with the mysterious bouquet, far too expensive if sent by Max to Marie and wholly unacceptable if sent by any one else. When Max, entering, says that the flowers are not from him, there is a chance to emphasize two points of importance: the lovers' lack of money, and their fear of gossip. Meantime the fact has been planted that there is a music festival in the town. As the two young people talk of their need and the people who might help them, we learn that the father thinks Magda's departure was for some reason a "blot" on the family, and that Hefferdingt wished to marry her. The call of von Keller shows that since his return home he has been distant toward the Schwartzes; that he is afraid of public opinion; and that he met Magda in Berlin, "but only for a moment, on the street." With the entrance of the father and mother we have the petty social ambitions of the latter, and the tyrannical attitude of the former toward his family. The scene with von Klebs and Beckmann not only illustrates social conditions in the town, but begins to connect Dall'Orto with the lost daughter by showing the extraordinary interest of Hefferdingt in meeting the singer. The coming of Aunt Franziska with her announcement that the Dall'Orto is Magda ends the preliminary exposition, for with the arrival of Hefferdingt and his effort to bring Magda home, the real action of the play begins. Obviously much thought and care have gone into the re-ordering of these details, so that the facts which must be first understood are stated first and so that there shall be growing interest through the creation of more and more suspense.

In one of the early drafts of _Rosmersholm_, the opening page ran as follows. Note that there is no mention of any "white horses."

(_Mrs. Rosmer is standing by the farthest window, arranging the flowers. Madam Helset enters from the right with a basket of table linen._)

_Madam Helset._ I suppose I had better begin to lay the tea-table, ma'am?

_Mrs. Rosmer._ Yes, please do. He must soon be in now.

_Madam Helset._ (_Laying the cloth._) No, he won't come just yet; for I saw him from the kitchen--

_Mrs. Rosmer._ Yes, yes--

_Madam Helset._--on the other side of the millpond. At first, he was going straight across the foot-bridge; but then he turned back--

_Mrs. Rosmer._ Did he?

_Madam Helset._ Yes, and then he went all the way round. Ah, it's strange about such places. A place where a thing like that has happened--there--. It stays there; it isn't forgotten so soon.

_Mrs. Rosmer._ No, it is not forgotten.

_Madam Helset._ No, indeed it isn't. (_Goes out to the right._)

_Mrs. Rosmer._ (_At the window, looking out._) Forget. Forget, ah!

_Madam Helset._ (_In the doorway._) I've just seen the rector, ma'am. He's coming here.

_Mrs. Rosmer._ Are you sure of that?

_Madam Helset._ Yes, he went across the millpond.

_Mrs. Rosmer._ And my husband is not at home.

_Madam Helset._ The tea is ready as soon as you want it.

_Mrs. Rosmer._ But wait; we can't tell whether he'll stay.

_Madam Helset._ Yes, yes. (_Goes out to the right._)

_Mrs. Rosmer._ (_Goes over and opens the door to the hall._) Good afternoon; how glad I am to see you, my dear Rector![18]

In this version the "white horses" appear, definitely explained, after some sixteen pages:

_Rosmer._ ... My former self is dead. I look upon it as one looks upon a corpse.

_Mrs. Rosmer._ Yes, but that is just when these white horses appear.

_Rosmer._ White horses? What white horses?

(_Madam Helset brings in the tea-urn and puts it on the table._)

_Mrs. Rosmer._ What was it you told me once, Madam Helset? You said that from time immemorial a strange thing happened here whenever one of the family died.

_Madam Helset._ Yes, it's true as I'm alive. Then the white horse comes.

_Rosmer._ Oh, that old family legend--

_Mrs. Rosmer._ In it comes when the night is far gone. Into the courtyard. Through closed gates. Neighs loudly. Launches out with its hind legs, gallops once round and then out again and away at full speed.

_Madam Helset._ Yes, that's how it is. Both my mother and my grandmother have seen it.

_Mrs. Rosmer._ And you too?

_Madam Helset._ Oh, I'm not so sure whether I've seen anything myself. I don't generally believe in such things. But this about the white horse--I do believe in that. And I shall believe in it till the day of my death. Well, now I'll go and-- (_Goes out to the right._)[19]

In the final draft, Ibsen put the "white horses" into his opening page. The beginning of this draft emphasizes particularly a grim, unexplained tragedy. The most mysterious touch in the new arrangement is given by the "white horses," here treated referentially, not in definite explanation.

(_Sitting-room at Rosmersholm; spacious, old-fashioned, and comfortable._)

(_Rebecca West is sitting in an easy chair by the window and crocheting a large white woolen shawl, which is nearly finished. Now and then she looks out expectantly through the leaves of the plants. Soon after, Madam Helseth enters from the right._)

_Madam Helseth._ I suppose I'd better begin to lay the table, Miss?

_Rebecca West._ Yes, please do. The Pastor must soon be in now.

_Madam Helseth._ Do you feel the draught, Miss, where you're sitting?

_Rebecca._ Yes, there is a little draught. Perhaps you had better shut the window.

(_Madame Helseth shuts the door into the hall, and then comes to the window._)

_Madam Helseth._ (_About to shut the window, looks out._) Why, isn't that the Pastor over there?

_Rebecca._ (_Hastily._) Where? (_Rises._) Yes, it's he. (_Behind the curtain._) Stand aside, don't let him see us.

_Madam Helseth._ (_Keeping back from the window._) Only think, Miss, he's beginning to take the path by the mill again.

_Rebecca._ He went that way the day before yesterday, too. (_Peeps out between the curtains and the window frame._) But let us see whether--

_Madam Helseth._ Will he venture across the foot-bridge?

_Rebecca._ That's what I want to see. (_After a pause._) No, he's turning. He's going by the upper road again. (_Leaves the window._) A long way round.

_Madam Helseth._ Dear Lord, yes. No wonder the Pastor thinks twice about setting foot on _that_ bridge. A place where a thing like that has happened--

_Rebecca._ (_Folding up her work._) They cling to their dead here at Rosmersholm.

_Madam Helseth._ Now _I_ would say, Miss, that it's the dead that clings to Rosmersholm.

_Rebecca._ (_Looks at her._) The dead?

_Madam Helseth._ Yes, it's almost as if they couldn't tear themselves away from the folk that are left.

_Rebecca._ What makes you fancy that?

_Madam Helseth._ Well, if it weren't for that, there would be no white horse, I suppose.

_Rebecca._ Now what _is_ all this about the white horse, Madam Helseth?

_Madam Helseth._ Oh, I don't like to talk about it. And, besides, you don't believe in such things.

_Rebecca._ Do _you_ believe in them?

_Madam Helseth._ (_Goes and shuts the window._) Now you're making fun of me, Miss. (_Looks out._) Why, isn't that Mr. Rosmer on the mill path again--?

_Rebecca._ (_Looks out._) That man there? (_Goes to the window._) No, it's the Rector!

_Madam Helseth._ Yes, so it is.

_Rebecca._ How glad I am! You'll see, he's coming here.

_Madam Helseth._ He goes straight over the foot-bridge, _he_ does, and yet she was his sister, his own flesh and blood. Well, I'll go and lay the table then, Miss West.

(_She goes out to the right. Rebecca stands at the window for a short time; then smiles and nods to some one outside. It begins to grow dark._)

_Rebecca._ (_Goes to the door on the right._) Oh, Madam Helseth, you might give us some little extra dish for supper. You know what the Rector likes best.

_Madam Helseth._ (_Outside._) Oh yes, Miss, I'll see to it.

_Rebecca._ (_Opens the door to the hall._) At last! How glad I am to see you, my dear Rector.[20]

How a dramatist opens his play is, then, very important. He is writing supposedly for people who, except on a few historical subjects, know nothing of his material. If so, as soon as possible, he must make them understand: (1) who his people are; (2) where his people are; (3) the time of the play; and (4) what in the present and past relations of his characters causes the story. Is it any wonder that Ibsen, when writing _The Pillars of Society_, said: "In a few days I shall have the first act ready; and that is always the most difficult act of the play"?[21]

What has just been said as to ordering the details in preliminary exposition is equivalent to saying: Decide where, in this exposition, you will place your emphasis. What a dramatist is trying to do will not be clear throughout his play unless he knows how properly to emphasize his material, for it is above all else emphasis which reveals the meaning of a play. Right emphasis depends basally on knowing what exactly is the desired total effect of the piece,--a picture, a thesis, a character study, or a story. Remember that Dumas fils said: "You cannot very well know where you should come out, when you don't know where you are going." Often, too, a play is either meant to set people thinking of undesirable social conditions, or to state a distinct thesis. With these two kinds particularly in mind, Mr. Galsworthy has said: "A drama must be shaped so as to have a spire of meaning."[22]

Whatever we make prominent by repetition, by elaborate treatment, by the position given it in an act or in the play as a whole, or by striking illustration, we emphasize, for it stays in the memory and shapes the meaning of a play for an auditor. In _Othello_, why does Shakespeare bring forward Iago at the end of an act as chorus to his own villainy? In order that the audience may not go astray as to the purposes of Iago and the general meaning of the play. Hence the soliloquies: "Thus do I ever make my fool my purse," as well as "And what's he, then, that says I play the villain?" It might almost be said that good drama consists in right selection of necessary illustrative action and in right emphasis.

Even though the general exposition of a play be clear, it is sure, without well-handled emphasis, to leave a confused effect. When a play runs away with its author, its emphasis is always bad. The cause of this trouble usually is that the author drifts or rushes on, as the case may be, lured by an idea which he tries to present dramatically; or by the development of some character who, for the moment, possesses his imagination; or by the handling of some scene of large dramatic possibilities. In a recent play meant to illustrate amusingly a series of situations arising from the gossip of a small town, Act I so ended that a reader could not tell whether the school principal, a woman dentist, or the atmosphere of gossip was meant to be of prime importance. Nor was this poor emphasis ever corrected anywhere. Result: a confusing play.

A story-play in some respects of great merit failed in its total effect because the author never really knew whether it was a study of the deterioration of a young man's character or of a mother's self-sacrificing and redeeming love, a mere story-play, or a drama intended to drive home a central idea which, apparently, always eluded the author. Fine realism of detail, good characterization in places, and genuine if scattered interest could not carry this play to success.

In another play, Act I ended with the failure of a well-intentioned friend to take a child from her father for her better bringing-up. Apparently, we were entering upon a study of parental affection. In Act II, however, this interest practically disappeared, and we were asked to give all our attention to the way in which a son-in-law was bringing ruin upon this same parent. In Act III, another cause for anxiety on the part of the parent appeared, the other disappearing. At the end of the play, however, we were expected to understand that the fond parent was in sight of calm weather. Proper emphasis which would have brought out the central idea illustrated by each of the acts was missing.

In _The Trap_, a four-act play developed from a vaudeville sketch, lack of good emphasis went far to spoil an interesting play. In the original sketch, a woman, induced by lies of the villain, comes to the apartment of a man who has at one time been in love with her. She is determined to know whether what the villain has told her is true or not. All is a trap which the villain has set for her. From it the astuteness and quick decision of her former admirer rescue her. In the vaudeville sketch, it was the former lover who was the active person,--advising, scheming, and controlling the situation. When this was made over, in Act I the heroine was the central figure; in Act II the villain took this position away from her; in Act III the hero, as in the original sketch, had the centre of the stage; in Act IV there was an attempt to bring the heroine back into prominence, but she divided interest with the hero. As a result of this uncertain emphasis, the play seemed intended for the heroine but taken away from her by the greater human appeal of the hero. Just as the lecturer keeps clear from start to finish the main theme of his discourse and the bearing upon it of the various divisions of the work, the dramatist keeps his main purpose clear and also the relations to it of scenes and acts. This he does by well-handled emphasis. Othello, for instance, must have some proof which the audience will believe conclusive for him of Desdemona's infidelity. This is the handkerchief which Iago tells Othello that Desdemona gave to Cassio. Notice the iteration with which this handkerchief is impressed upon the attention of the public just before it is used as conclusive proof of Desdemona's guilt.

_Othello._ I have a pain upon my forehead here.

_Desdemona._ Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again: Let me but bind it hard, within this hour It will be well.

_Othello._ Your napkin is too little; (_Lets fall her napkin._) Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.

_Desdemona._ I am very sorry that you are not well. (_Exeunt Othello and Desdemona._)

_Emilia._ I am glad I have found this napkin; This was her first remembrance from the Moor. My wayward husband hath a hundred times Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token, For he conjur'd her she should ever keep it, That she reserves it evermore about her To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out, And give it to Iago. What he will do with it Heaven knows, not I; I nothing but to please his fantasy.

(_Re-enter Iago_)

_Iago._ How now! what do you here alone?

_Emilia._ Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.

_Iago._ A thing for me? It is a common thing--

_Emilia._ Ha!

_Iago._ To have a foolish wife.

_Emilia._ Oh, is that all? What will you give me now For that same handkerchief?

_Iago._ What handkerchief?

_Emilia._ What handkerchief! Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona; That which so often you did bid me steal.

_Iago._ Hast stolen it from her?

_Emilia._ No, faith; she let it drop by negligence, And, to the advantage, I, being here took't up. Look, here it is.

_Iago._ A good wench; give it me.

_Emilia._ What will you do with't, that you have been so earnest To have me filch it?

_Iago._ (_Snatching it._) Why, what is that to you?

_Emilia._ If it be not for some purpose of import, Give't me again. Poor lady, she'll run mad When she shall lack it.

_Iago._ Be not acknown on't; I have use for it, Go, leave me. (_Exit Emilia._) I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin, And let him find it. Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ; this may do something. The Moor already changes with my poison, Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons, Which at the first are scarce found to distaste, But with a little act upon the blood, Burn like the mines of sulphur.[23]

Five times the handkerchief is mentioned. The first time the action is such that Othello specially notices the handkerchief. The second time we find another reason why the Moor should specially remember the handkerchief, and learn that Iago wants it for some reason of his own. The third time appears the iteration,

... that same handkerchief?

_Iago._ What handkerchief?

_Emilia._ What handkerchief!

and emphasis on the ideas already stated:

_Emilia._ Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona; That which so often you did bid me steal.

The next time, the action, as Iago snatches the handkerchief and Emilia tries to get it back, holds it before our attention. Finally, Iago, left alone, tells us his malicious scheme in regard to it. Surely, after all this, the audience has been properly prepared for the scenes in which Iago deceives and enrages Othello by means of this very handkerchief.

In the first few minutes of the play, _Lady Windermere's Fan,_ the attention of the audience is drawn to the fan:

_Lady Windermere._ My hands are all wet with these roses. Aren't they lovely? They came up from Selby this morning.

_Lord Darlington._ They are quite perfect. (_Sees a fan lying on the table._) And what a wonderful fan! May I look at it?

_Lady Windermere._ Do. Pretty, isn't it! It's got my name on it, and everything. [Note the emphasis here.] I have only just seen it myself. It's my husband's birthday present to me. You know today is my birthday?

_Lord Darlington._ No? Is it really?[24]

Just before the close of the first act, it is with this fan that Lady Windermere points her threat against Mrs. Erlynne:

_Lady Windermere._ (_Picking up fan._) Yes, you gave me this fan today; it was your birthday present. If that woman crosses my threshold I shall strike her across the face with it.

That Lady Windermere owns a fan; that it bears her name; that, as a gift chosen by her husband and recently given her, he must recognize it on sight: all these important facts have been planted by neat emphasis when Act I ends. Even in Act II, the fan is kept before the public. Just before Mrs. Erlynne enters, we have:

_Lady Windermere._ Will you hold my fan for me, Lord Darlington? Thanks.

* * * * *

_Lady Windermere._ (_Moves up._) Lord Darlington, will you give me back my fan, please? Thanks.... A useful thing, a fan, isn't it?

When Mrs. Erlynne enters, Lady Windermere "clutches at her fan, then lets it drop on the floor":

_Lord Darlington._ You have dropped your fan, Lady Windermere. (_Picks it up and hands it to her._)

Such careful emphasizing makes sure that Lord Windermere's instant recognition of the significance of finding the fan in Lord Darlington's rooms, in the critical scene of the third act, will be immediately shared by any audience.

Mr. Augustus Thomas, in Act II of _As a Man Thinks_, wishes his audience to feel instantly the full significance of the opera libretto picked up by Hoover, as he watches Elinor enter the apartment of De Lota. Therefore, earlier in the act he emphasizes as follows:

_Elinor._ (_To Burril._) Here's a libretto of Aida. Find that passage of which you spoke.

_Burril._ There were several.

_Mrs. Seelig._ Our coffee won't interfere with your cigars.

_De Lota._ Do you mind?

_Elinor._ This room is dedicated to nicotine. (_To Mrs. Seelig._) Besides, we're going to take Dr. De Lota to the piano.

_De Lota._ Are you?

_Elinor._ (_To Vedah._) Aren't we?

_Vedah._ We are.

_Burril._ Here's one place. (_His pencil breaks._) Ah!

_Clayton._ (_Offering a pencil attached to his watch chain._) Here.

_Burril._ (_Giving libretto to Clayton._) Just mark that passage--"My native land," etc. (_To Elinor._) Now follow that when Aida sings Italian and note how the English stumbles.[25]

Two pages later, as Elinor goes out to the automobile, in order that the audience may see the libretto of which we have heard so much pass into the hands of De Lota, we have this:

_Elinor._ Take this for me. (_Hands libretto to De Lota._)

Later in the act, when Judge Hoover is telling Clayton that he saw some woman with De Lota as he was entering the apartment, the dialogue runs:

_Clayton._ You spoke to him?

_Hoover. Called_ to him.

_Clayton._ Called?

_Hoover._ Yes--I was forty feet away.

_Clayton._ Had your nerve with you.

_Hoover._ The girl dropped something--I thought it was a fan.

_Clayton._ Well?

_Hoover._ 'Twasn't--but that's why I called De Lota.

_Clayton._ How do you know it wasn't?

_Hoover._ I picked it up.

_Clayton._ What was it?

_Hoover._ A libretto.

_Clayton._ What libretto?

_Hoover._ Don't know--but grand opera--I remember that and libretto--

_Clayton._ You threw it away?

_Hoover._ No--kept it.

_Clayton._ Where is it?

_Hoover._ Overcoat pocket.

_Clayton._ (_Pause._) I'd like to see it. Think I could have some fun with De Lota.

_Hoover._ (_Going up the hallway._) My idea too--fun and word of caution. (_Gets coat and returns, feeling in pocket for libretto._)

_Clayton._ Caution--naturally.

_Hoover._ Here it is. (_Reads._) Aida.

_Clayton._ (_Taking libretto savagely._) Aida--let me see it.

_Hoover._ What's the matter? (_Puts coat on a chair._)

_Clayton._ (_In sudden anger, throws book._) The dog! Damn him--damn both of them!

_Hoover._ What is it? See here--Who's with Dick?

_Clayton._ Not his mother--no! (_Points to libretto on the floor._) Marked. _I_ did that myself, not an hour ago, and gave it to her.

_Hoover._ To Elinor?

_Clayton._ (_Calling as he rushes to the hall._) Sutton! Sutton!

_Hoover._ Hold on, Frank--there's some mistake.

_Clayton._ Get me a cab--never mind--I'll take Seelig's machine. (_Disappears._) Here! Doctor Seelig says to take me to-- (_He goes out. Door bangs._)

_Sutton enters from the dining-room_

_Sutton._ Is Master Dick in danger, sir?

_Hoover._ (_Nervously._) I don't know, Sutton. Where's his mother?

_Sutton._ Opera, sir.

_Hoover._ With whom?

_Sutton._ Mr. De Lota.

Because of the emphasis given the libretto in the first quotation, the audience's suspicions are roused at the same time as Clayton's and his emotions are theirs. Yet, even in this last scene, note the care of Mr. Thomas to make all absolutely clear. He does not stop when Hoover says "A libretto," and "Of grand opera," but he lets the audience see the same libretto which passed from Elinor to De Lota pass from Hoover to Clayton, the latter identifying it in his cry, "Aida." That there may be absolutely no doubt in the evidence piling up against Elinor, he has Clayton point to the marked place with the words: "I did that myself."

Emphasis, as in these three instances, may come on some detail--handkerchief, fan, libretto--which is to be made important later in the development of the plot. It may come within a scene or act, or at the end of either to emphasize a part or the whole of the scene or act. The soliloquies of Iago referred to on page 183 are of this sort. Emphasis may stress little by little or with one blow what the play means. The significance of the whole play _Strife_--the utter uselessness of the conflict chronicled--is thus emphasized in the last lines of the play:

_Harness._ A woman dead; and the two best men both broken!

_Tench._ (_Staring at him--suddenly excited._) D'you know, sir--these terms, they're the _very same_ we drew up together, you and I, and put to both sides before the fight began? All this--all this--and--and what for?

_Harness._ (_In a slow, grim voice._) That's where the fun comes in! (_Underwood without turning from the door makes a gesture of assent._)

_The curtain falls_[26]

_The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_[27] illustrates the play in which emphasis little by little brings out the meaning of the whole piece. Examine even the first act. It is full of the feeling: "It cannot nor it will not come to good." Tanqueray himself says frankly, "My marriage is not even the conventional sort of marriage likely to satisfy society." Drummle coming in declares that George Orreyed is "a thing of the past," because he has married Mabel Hervey. The group of old friends show anxiety, and it is clear that to the mind of Cayley Drummle Tanqueray is but repeating the rash step of Orreyed. The whole act prepares for the finale of the play.

Hervieu's _The Trail of the Torch_ shows the emphasis which strikes one hard blow and leaves to the rest of the play illustration of what has been clearly stressed. About one third of the way through Act I, Maravon explains to Sabine the thesis which the entire play illustrates:

_Sabine._ (_Pointing to the two who have just gone._) Ah, my dear Maravon, what an absurd friend I have there!

_Maravon._ Mme. Gribert, you mean?

_Sabine._ Haven't you noticed that she is beginning to look like a governess? I suppose it's because she has been doing a governess' work for so long that she has ceased to have any personal existence. She no longer cares to possess anything of her own, everything belongs to her daughter, and her husband works his fingers to the bone to pay for Beatrice's dresses, while Beatrice lords it over both of them in a way that is beginning to be just a trifle odious.

_Maravon._ I'm afraid I don't agree with you, Madame. With naively natural beings, like these, I enjoy watching the family wheels function with such simplicity. People of this kind conform to the law which begins by demanding of the mother the flesh of her flesh, often her beauty, her health, and, if need be, her life, for the formation of the child. And then, for the profit of the newer generation, Nature exerts herself to despoil the old. She exacts without stint from the parents in the shape of labors, anxieties, expenses, gifts, and sacrifices, all of their vital forces to equip, arm, and decorate their sons and daughters who are descending into the plain of the future. Take my own case, for instance. There was the question of my son's position in life. Didier was able to persuade me very quickly that my property would be better placed, for the future, in his hands. To show you that Mme. Gribert and her daughter are merely following out a tradition of the remotest antiquity, if you can endure the pedantry of an old college professor, I will give you an example from the classics.

_Sabine._ Oh! Please do.

_Maravon._ You have probably never heard of the "Lampadophories," have you? Well, on certain solemn occasions the citizens of Athens placed themselves at regular intervals, forming a sort of chain through the city. The first one lighted a torch at an altar, ran to the second and passed to him the light, and he to a third who ran to the fourth and so on, from hand to hand. Each one of the chain ran onward without ever looking back and without any idea except to keep the flame alight and pass it on to the next man. Then, breathlessly stopping, each saw nothing but the progress of the flaming light, as each followed it with his eyes, his then useless anxiety, and superfluous vows. In that Trail of the Torch has been seen a symbol of all the generations of the earth, though it is not I, but my very ancient friend Plato, and the good poet Lucretius, who made the analogy.

_Sabine._ That is not at all my idea of family relations. From my point of view, receiving life entails as great an obligation as giving it. There is a certain sort of link which makes the obligations counter balance. Since Nature has not made it possible for children to bring themselves into the world, of their own accord, I say that it was her intention to impose upon them a debt to those who give them life.

_Maravon._ They absolve that debt by giving life in turn to their children.

_Sabine._ They absolve it by filial piety which has been the inspiration of many deeds of heroism as you seem to forget.[28]

A recent editor of Hauptmann's _Gabriel Schilling's Flight_ writes of it: "His analysis is projected creatively in the characters of the two women--Evelyn Schilling and Hanna Elias. What is it, in these women, that--different as they are--menaces the man and the artist Schilling? It is a passion for possession, for absorption, a hunger of the nerves rather than of the heart. These modern women have abandoned the simple and sane preoccupations of their grandmothers; the enormous garnered nervous energy that is no longer expended in household tasks and in childbearing strikes itself, beak and clawlike, into man. But man has not changed. His occupations are not gone. He cannot endure the double burden. That is why Gabriel Schilling, rather than be destroyed spiritually by these tyrannies and exactions, seeks a last refuge in the great and cleansing purity of the sea.

'The modern malady of love is nerves.'"[29]

It is possible that all this may be derived from the play, but the Berlin audience which watched its first night left the theatre bewildered in more than one respect. There were a half-dozen opinions as to what this ugly story of a very weak man was meant to signify. Was it simply the tale of a weak man? Was it meant to show, as Professor Lewisohn thinks, that creation in an artist not naturally weak at first may be killed if he is pursued by women selfish in their love? Does the ending, however, show that Hanna is entirely selfish? Does the play signify that the man who chooses to follow women rather than his art is lost? Why is there so much emphasis on the awesomeness of Nature on the island? Have these conditions of Nature anything to do with Schilling's death? If so, do they not mitigate the effect upon him of the women? Lack of well-placed emphasis made _Gabriel Schilling's Flight_ a failure, interesting as were the questions it raised and masterly as is much of its characterization.

Too often young dramatists forget that the beginning and the ending of acts and plays emphasize even when the author does not so intend. As in real life, it is first and final impressions, rather than intermediate, which count most. An able young dramatist complained that though he wished one of his characters to dominate Act I she certainly failed to do this. The trouble was that an attractive old gardener, the character who took the act away from the young woman, opened the play attractively characterized and closed Act I with effective speech and pantomime, when the woman was busy only with unimportant pantomime. The prominence unintentionally given to the old gardener emphasized him at the expense of the young woman.

For the value of openings in emphasizing the meaning of the whole play, see Tennyson's _Becket_ as originally written, and as rearranged by Sir Henry Irving.[30] Tennyson's _Becket_ begins with Henry and the future Archbishop at chess, talking of matters in state and church.

PROLOGUE

_A Castle in Normandy. Interior of the hall. Roofs of a city seen through windows. Henry and Becket at chess._

_Henry._ So then our good Archbishop Theobald Lies dying.

_Becket._ I am grieved to know as much.

_Henry._ But we must have a mightier man than he For his successor.

_Becket._ Have you thought of one?

_Henry._ A cleric lately poison'd his own mother, And being brought before the courts of the Church, They but degraded him. I hope they whipt him. I would have hang'd him.

_Becket._ It is your move.

_Henry._ Well--there. (_Moves._) The Church in the pell-mell of Stephen's time Hath climb'd the throne and almost clutched the crown; But by the royal customs of our realm The Church should hold her baronies of me, Like other lords amenable to law. I'll have them written down and made the law.

_Becket._ My liege, I move my bishop.

_Henry._ And if I live, No man without my leave shall excommunicate My tenants or my household.

_Becket._ Look to your king.

_Henry._ No man without my leave shall cross the seas To set the Pope against me--I pray your pardon.

_Becket._ Well--will you move?

_Henry._ There. (_Moves._)

_Becket._ Check--you move so wildly.

_Henry._ There then! (_Moves._)

_Becket._ Why--there then, for you see my bishop Hath brought your king to a standstill. You are beaten.

_Henry._ (_Kicks over the board._) Why, there then--down go bishop and king together. I loathe being beaten; had I fixt my fancy Upon the game I should have beaten thee, But that was vagabond.

_Becket._ Where, my liege? With Phryne, Or Lais, or thy Rosamund, or another?

_Henry._ My Rosamund is no Lais, Thomas Becket; And yet she plagues me too--no fault in her-- But that I fear the Queen would have her life.

_Becket._ Put her away, put her away, my liege! Put her away into a nunnery! Safe enough there from her to whom thou art bound By Holy Church. And wherefore should she seek The life of Rosamund de Clifford more Than that of other paramours of thine?

_Henry._ How dost thou know I am not wedded to her?

_Becket._ How should I know?

_Henry._ That is my secret, Thomas.

_Becket._ State secrets should be patent to the statesman Who serves and loves his king, and whom the king Loves not as statesman, but true lover and friend.

_Henry._ Come, come, thou art but deacon, not yet bishop, No, nor archbishop, nor my confessor yet. I would to God thou wert, for I should find An easy father confessor in thee.

Irving, transposing, takes us at once into the plotting of the Queen against Becket because of her hatred for Rosamund and Becket's supposed protection of the King's mistress. A secondary interest in Tennyson's presentation becomes by this shifting first interest with Irving.

PROLOGUE

SCENE 1. _A Castle in Normandy. Eleanor. Fitz Urse_

_Eleanor._ Dost thou love this Becket, this son of a London merchant, that thou hast sworn a voluntary allegiance to him?

_Fitz Urse._ Not for my love toward him, but because he hath the love of the King. How should a baron love a beggar on horseback, with the retinue of three kings behind him, outroyaltying royalty?

_Eleanor._ Pride of the plebeian!

_Fitz Urse._ And this plebeian like to be Archbishop!

_Eleanor._ True, and I have an inherited loathing of these black sheep of the Papacy. Archbishop? I can see farther into man than our hot-headed Henry, and if there ever come feud between Church and Crown, and I do not charm this secret out of our loyal Thomas, I am not Eleanor.

_Fitz Urse._ Last night I followed a woman in the city here. Her face was veiled, but the back methought was Rosamund--his paramour, thy rival. I can feel for thee.

_Eleanor._ Thou feel for me!--paramour--rival! No paramour but his own wedded wife! King Louis had no paramours, and I loved him none the more. Henry had many and I loved him none the less. I would she were but his paramour, for men tire of their fancies; but I fear this one fancy hath taken root, and borne blossom too, and she, whom the King loves indeed, is a power in the State. Follow me this Rosamund day and night, whithersoever she goes; track her, if thou can'st, even into the King's lodging, that I may (_clenches her fist_)--may at least have my cry against him and her,--and thou in thy way shouldst be jealous of the King, for thou in thy way didst once, what shall I call it, affect her thine own self.

_Fitz Urse._ Ay, but the young filly winced and whinnied and flung up her heels; and then the King came honeying about her, and this Becket, her father's friend, like enough staved us from her.

_Eleanor._ Us!

_Fitz Urse._ Yea, by the blessed Virgin! There were more than I buzzing round the blossom--De Tracy--even that flint De Brito.

_Eleanor._ Carry her off among you; run in upon her and devour her, one and all of you; make her as hateful to herself and to the King as she is to me.

_Fitz Urse._ I and all should be glad to wreak our spite on the rose-faced minion of the King, and bring her to the level of the dust, so that the King--

_Eleanor._ If thou light upon her--free me from her!--let her eat it like the serpent and be driven out of her paradise!

The story of Nathan Hale might be made into a play with patriotism as its dominant idea, a close character study of Hale himself, or little more than a love story. Notice the way in which with Clyde Fitch the close of the acts steadily emphasizes the love story as the central interest. The first scene is in the school room where Hale is the teacher of Alice Adams.

(_Hale goes toward Alice with his arms outstretched to embrace her; Alice goes into his arms--a long embrace and kiss; a loud tapping on a drum outside startles them._)

_Hale._ The Tory meeting!

_Alice._ Fitzroy will be back. I don't want to see him!

_Hale._ Quick--we'll go by the window! (_Putting a chair under the window he jumps onto chair; then leans in the window and holds out his hands to Alice, who is on the chair._) And if tomorrow another drum makes me a soldier--?

_Alice._ It will make me a soldier's sweetheart!

_Hale._ Come.

(_She goes out of the window with his help, and with loud drum tattoo and bugle call, the stage is left empty and the curtain falls._)

The second act at Colonel Knowlton's house closes on Hale's decision to serve his country as a spy:

_Alice._ (_In a whisper._) You _will_ go?

_Hale._ I must.

_Alice._ (_A wild cry._) Then I hate you!

_Hale._ And I _love you_ and always will so long as a heart beats in my body. (_He wishes to embrace her._)

_Alice._ No!

(_She draws back her head, her eyes blazing, she is momentarily insane with fear and grief, anger and love. Hale bows his head and slowly goes from the room. Alice, with a faint heartbroken cry, sinks limply to the floor, her father hurrying to her as the curtain falls._)

This is the close of Act III.

_Fitzroy._ Look!

(_And he bends Alice's head back upon his shoulder to kiss her on the lips._)

_Hale._ Blackguard!

(_With a blow of his right arm he knocks Cunningham on the head, who, falling, hits his head against the pillar of the porch and is stunned. Meanwhile, the moment he has hit Cunningham, Hale has sprung upon Fitzroy, and with one hand over his mouth has bent his head back with the other until he has released Alice. Hale then throws Fitzroy down and seizing Alice about the waist dashes off with her to the right, where his horse is. Fitzroy rises and runs to Cunningham, kicks him to get his gun, which has fallen under him._)

_Fitzroy._ Get up! Get up! You fool!

(_Horse's hoofs heard starting off._)

_Third Picket's Voice._ (_Off stage._) Who goes there?

_Fitzroy._ (_Stops, looks up, and gives a triumphant cry._) Ah, the picket! They're caught! They're caught!

_Hale._ Returning with Alice Adams on private business.

_Picket._ The password.

_Hale._ "Love!"

_Fitzroy._ Damnation! Of course he heard! (_Runs off right, yelling._) Fire on them! Fire! For God's sake, fire!

(_A shot is heard, followed by a loud defiant laugh from Hale, and echoed "Love," as the clatter of the horse's hoofs dies away, and the curtain falls._)

Act IV has a double ending: the closing of the love story and the execution. The chief interest thus far created for the audience could end with the parting of the lovers.

(_The soldiers sing the air of what is now called "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms." Hale stands listening for the sound of Alice's coming. The Sentinel retires to the farther corner of the tent, and stands with arms folded, his back towards Hale. Tom comes on first, bringing Alice. As they come into Hale's presence, Alice glides from out of Tom's keeping, and her brother leaves the two together. They stand looking at each other a moment without moving and then both make a quick movement to meet. As their arms touch in the commencement of their embrace, they remain in that position a few moments, looking into each other's eyes. Then they embrace, Hale clasping her tight in his arms and pressing a long kiss upon her lips. They remain a few moments in this position, silent and immovable. Then they slowly loosen their arms--though not altogether discontinuing the embrace--until they take their first position and again gaze into each other's faces. Alice sways, about to fall, faint from the effort to control her emotions, and Hale gently leads her to the tree stump at right. He kneels beside her so that she can rest against him with her arms about his neck. After a moment, keeping her arms still tight about him, Alice makes several ineffectual efforts to speak, but her quivering lips refuse to form any words, and her breath comes with difficulty. Hale shakes his head with a sad smile, as if to say, "No, don't try to speak. There are no words for us." And again they embrace. At this moment, while Alice is clasped again tight in Hale's arms, the Sentinel, who has his watch in his hand, slowly comes out from the tent. Tom also re-enters, but Alice and Hale are oblivious. Tom goes softly to them and touches Alice very gently on the arm, resting his hand there. She starts violently, with a hysterical taking-in of her breath, and an expression of fear and horror, as she knows this is the final moment of parting. Hale also starts slightly, rising, and his muscles grow rigid. He clasps and kisses her once more, but only for a second. They both are unconscious of Tom, of everything but each other. Tom takes her firmly from Hale, and leads her out, her eyes fixed upon Hale's eyes, their arms outstretched toward each other. After a few paces she breaks forcibly away from Tom, and with a wild cry of "No! No!" locks her hands about Hale's neck. Tom draws her away again and leads her backward from the scene, her lips dry now and her breath coming in short, loud, horror-stricken gasps. Hale holds in his hand a red rose she wore on her breast, and thinking more of her than of himself, whispers, as she goes, "Be brave! be brave!" The light is being slowly lowered, till, as Alice disappears, the stage is in total darkness._)

The second ending merely connects the play more closely with history.

_Colonel Rutger's Orchard, the next morning. The scene is an orchard whose trees are heavy with red and yellow fruit. The centre tree has a heavy dark branch jutting out, which is the gallows; from this branch all the leaves and the little branches have been chopped off; a heavy coil of rope with a noose hangs from it, and against the trunk of the tree leans a ladder. It is the moment before dawn, and slowly at the back through the trees is seen a purple streak, which changes to crimson as the sun creeps up. A dim gray haze next fills the stage, and through this gradually breaks the rising sun. The birds begin to wake, and suddenly there is heard the loud, deep-toned, single toll of a bell, followed by a roll of muffled drums in the distance. Slowly the orchard fills with murmuring, whispering people; men and women coming up through the trees make a semicircle amongst them, about the gallows tree, but at a good distance. The bell tolls at intervals, and muffled drums are heard between the twittering and happy songs of birds. There is the sound of musketry, of drums beating a funeral march, which gets nearer, and finally a company of British soldiers marches in, led by Fitzroy, Nathan Hale in their midst, walking alone, his hands tied behind his back. As he comes forward the people are absolutely silent, and a girl in the front row of the spectators falls forward in a dead faint. She is quickly carried out by two bystanders. Hale is led to the foot of the tree before the ladder. The soldiers are in double lines on either side._

_Fitzroy._ (_To Hale._) Nathan Hale, have you anything to say? We are ready to hear your last dying speech and confession!

(_Hale is standing, looking up, his lips moving slightly, as if in prayer. He remains in this position a moment, and then, with a sigh of relief and rest, looks upon the sympathetic faces of the people about him, with almost a smile on his face._)

_Hale._ I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country!

(_Fitzroy makes a couple of steps toward him; Hale turns and places one foot on the lower rung of the ladder, as the curtain falls._)[31]

Watch, then, the beginning and the ending of scenes and acts, lest an unconscious and undesired emphasis result.

An important means of emphasis is contrast--in character, situation, and even dialogue. Melodrama has always rested, in large part, for its definite emotional appeals on sharply contrasted characters--the spotless hero, the double-dyed villain, the adventuress, and the heroine so innocent of the world as to provide unlimited dramatic situations. Recall the impetuous Julia and the gentle Sylvia of _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_. If it be said that such direct contrasting of dissimilar figures belongs more to the earlier plays of dramatists, this is not true. In _The Gay Lord Quex_,[32] contrast of the old and the young roues, Quex and Bastling, helps to make clear and to emphasize the point of the play. _The Princess and the Butterfly_[33] largely depends upon contrast,--among the restless women of Act I, the restless men of Act II, between the Princess and Sir George, between the love of Fay Zuliani for Sir George and that of Edward for the Princess.

Contrast in situation was a great reliance with the Elizabethans and, even when very crudely used, remains popular with the American public today. So much pleasure did the Elizabethan derive from contrasted situation that he was willing to have it worked up as a separate sub-plot, at times very slightly connected with the main plot. Take _The Changeling_ of Middleton: the titular part, written for comic value, deals with scenes in a madhouse; the other intensely tragic plot of De Flores and Beatrice-Joanna is but slightly connected with it. Think of the grave-diggers in _Hamlet_, just before the burial of Ophelia, and, above all, consider in _Macbeth_ the consummate use of a contrasting scene, in the porter at the gate just after the murder of Duncan.

It is a sense of the value of contrasting situation which produces the best dramatic irony. When in Scene 2, Act I, of _Hindle Wakes_, we listen to Alan Jeffcote's father and mother planning for his marriage, the fine dramatic irony comes from the contrast we feel with the facts of his conduct, known to us from the preceding scene, which may make his marriage impossible. Dramatic irony depends on a preceding planting in the minds of the auditors of information which makes what is true contrast sharply with what the characters of the particular scene suppose to be true. Contrast, then, underlies dramatic irony. An audience, feeling the dramatic irony of a scene, is put into a state of suspense as to how and when the blow they anticipate will fall. Evidently, then, emphasis by means of contrast, when it results in dramatic irony, makes for dramatic suspense.

Contrast may be used effectively in dialogue. The modern dramatist sometimes overdoes this use. Because he has observed that the greatest suffering of the strongest natures rarely finds expression in rich or varied speech, he tries to discover words which in their feebleness, their inappositeness, or their unexpected commonplaceness, contrast sharply with what a hearer feels is the intensity of the emotion behind them. This has given us in recent drama some dialogue unnatural in its tameness. This kind of contrast, however, when handled with real understanding, is extremely effective. In the parting of Laurie and the heroine in _Iris_,[34] the very commonplaceness of the details of which they talk shows that they do not dare to speak of what is really in their minds, and makes the best preparation for the sudden loosing of emotion by Iris in what would be ordinarily a simple request: "Close the jalousies!"

Except in our recent revival of Moralities for the delectation of moral Broadway, we are growing away dramatically from mere contrasting of types of character and from plays in which a serious and a comic plot are but loosely connected. Yet dramatists will always find contrast highly useful in emphasizing points of characterization and important values in the story. Moreover, any trained dramatist knows that when his audience has been somewhat exhausted by laughter or tears, a scene of contrasting emotional value is of the highest importance. By changing the focus of interest, it renews the power of response exhausted in the just preceding scene. As has been pointed out again and again, though it may be true that the drunken porter in _Macbeth_ was funnier for an Elizabethan public than he is today, nevertheless his coming breaks the tension of the terrible murder scene and makes it possible even now to turn to fresh horrors with surer responsiveness. There is no space here to go into any satisfactory analysis of the basal relations between the serious and the comic, but every competent actor knows that frequently, if the full desired comic values are to appear, it is necessary to play a part, or all the parts, with great seriousness, even in a piece meant to be broadly comic for the audience. This is true not merely in some of Shaw's plays,--_Man and Superman_, _You Never Can Tell_, etc., but in many old farces and even in burlesque. In the contrast the audience makes between the seriousness of the characters in what they do and say and the attitude the dramatist creates toward them lie the real comic values. Often it is only on the flint of the serious that one may strike the most brilliant spark of the comic.

Emphasis is needed not only to keep clear the development of the story and its thesis, if there be any, but also to determine and maintain the dramatic form in which it is cast--farce, comedy, melodrama, and tragedy. If an audience is kept long in the dark as to whether the dramatist is thinking of his material seriously or with amusement, or if they feel at the end that the story has been told with no coordinating emphasis to determine whether it is farce or comedy or tragedy, they are confused and likely to hold back part of their proper responsiveness. As has been pointed out, it is more than doubtful whether the scene of the attempted suicide in what is otherwise a genuine comedy of character, _The Girl with the Green Eyes_,[35] did not seriously hurt the effectiveness of the play for a great many people.

Here, again, beginnings and endings are of the utmost consequence. Notice the extreme care of Maeterlinck, at the outset of _Pelleas and Melisande_[36] to create a mood for his play. One is prepared for the tragic and the mysterious by the opening scene of the handmaidens washing the mysterious stain from the palace steps. An auditor has not heard ten speeches of Synge's _Riders to the Sea_[37] before he knows that the dramatist is dealing seriously with grim matters, that, in all probability, the play is a tragedy. Look at Rostand's _The Romancers_.[38] It is to be a graceful telling of a jest played upon two sentimental children by two fond fathers. The author must make clear early in the play that what may be tragic enough for the young people is to be fantastic comedy for any hearers. Could anything be better than the opening: these two children, on the wall between their homes, so reading _Romeo and Juliet_ together that it is obvious that they are in love with being in love, nothing more? There is the perfect emphasis which establishes early the attitude of the dramatist toward his material, in this case making the play poetic comedy. Can any one feel much doubt what form of drama is _The Importance of Being Earnest_?[39] The first few pages show that dialogue is to count heavily as such. Evidently the mood is comic. As evidently, there is exaggeration. Thus we move from initial farce to the more broadly farcical mourning for the death of the supposititious Earnest and to the fateful black handbag. If the ending of _The Romancers_ be played as it was in London, with the speakers of the last lines gradually fading from sight in the dimming lights, surely that emphasis must mean to the audience that it has been seeing a fantasy.[40]

However, as has been said, danger lurks in these places of easy emphasis, the beginning and the ending, for at times something effective in itself swings the emphasis the wrong way. In _Masks and Faces_,[41] two generations have shed tears over the woes of Triplet as meant for "real life," only to be somewhat rebuffed when, just before the final curtain, all the characters step out of the play for the "Epilogue," and so stamp it as "only a story after all."

In brief, unless some special purpose is subserved thereby, an audience should not long be left in the dark as to the form in which the dramatist thinks he has cast his play. He who treats his material in many different moods runs the chance of confusing his hearers. Only by sure and well-placed emphasis can he keep his chosen form clear. Particularly is this true in the mixed forms, tragi-comedy and farce-comedy. Only well-placed emphasis will carry an audience through these with just the result desired by the dramatist.

How decide what to emphasize? Tom Taylor, despising the intelligence of audiences of his day, used to say, "When you have something to say to an audience, tell them you are going to say it. Tell them you 're saying it. Tell them you've said it. Then, perhaps, they'll understand it." Truth probably lies between this and the statement of a dramatist of today, "I am re-writing a play originally composed some ten years ago. Do you know what I am doing? I am cutting and condensing, because the intervening years have taught me that I may suggest where I thought I must explain in full, and state but once what I thought I must repeat. Audiences are far quicker than ten years ago I supposed them to be." Till the training of the dramatist gives him a kind of sixth sense which tells him what in his plot needs emphasis for his public, he must depend on the comments of really intelligent hearers to whom he reads the manuscript and, above all, on retouching his play after the first performances.

It is not enough, however, by clearness and right emphasis to maintain interest: as the play develops, the interest should if possible be increased. Either to maintain or to increase interest means that a hearer must be led on from scene to scene, act to act, absorbed while the curtain is up and, between the acts, eager for it to rise again. Such attention given a play means that it has a third essential quality, movement. The plays of tyro dramatists today are often sadly lacking in good movement.

Good movement rests, first of all, on clearness; secondly, on right emphasis; and thirdly, on something already mentioned in connection with both clearness and right emphasis,--suspense. This means a straining forward of interest, a compelling desire to know what will happen next. Whether a hearer is totally at a loss to know what will happen, but eager to ascertain; partly guesses what will take place, but deeply desires to make sure; or almost holds back so greatly does he dread an anticipated situation, he is in a state of suspense, for be it willingly or unwillingly on his part, on sweeps his interest.

There should be good movement within the scene, the act, and even the play as a whole. It is, however, easily checked. If scenes or characters not essential are allowed place within a play, it has been shown on pages 87-89 that this may interfere with either clearness or good emphasis. They will hurt the movement of the play. Closely related as a possible danger are necessary scenes not well placed. Often shifting part of a scene or act makes all the difference between sustained and interrupted suspense. For example, a young man, after some quarrelsome words, threatens to shoot his sister. As they stand facing each other, steps are heard outside. A group which enters brings about an amusing scene. Good as it is, it may kill the suspense created by those two tense figures, if it switches interest wholly or in large part from them. If it does, any effective picking up the scene between the angry brother and sister, when the visitors go out, may be impossible. On the other hand, so write the scene that the audience, never diverted in its attention to those two figures, feels that the moment the visitors leave the quarrel will be resumed with greater intensity just because of the interruption: then there will be no loss of tension. Just here lies the important point: suspense once created must never be allowed to lapse so long as to be lost. A scene for contrast or to renew the power of desired emotional response in the audience or to develop part of a correlated story may be introduced, but always what is put between something which makes the audience strain forward and its goal should leave it as eager, and preferably more eager for the solution.

A shift in order may do much to increase suspense. When Ibsen transferred Rosmer's confession, which is very necessary to the play, from Act II to the end of Act I, he greatly added to the suspense created by the first act. To put it differently, he greatly accelerated the movement of the play. An audience, knowing that Rosmer is "an apostate from the faith of his fathers," eagerly desires to see what will happen to him in such surroundings as those made clear in Act I. In the earlier version, a reader learns that there are mysteries which the play will probably solve, but has nothing on which to focus his attention as a compelling element of suspense.

Any one knows that when an actor fails to come on at the right moment, unless quick-witted actors invent dialogue or action, the stage "waits" for the actor. There is something which exactly corresponds to this in the text of plays. Henry Le Barren comes to call on Madge Ellsworth. The maid, after showing him into the library, goes to find her mistress. "_Meanwhile Henry looks idly at the books on the table till Madge enters._" Unless Madge, perfectly sure that Henry would call at this hour, is waiting just outside the door, some action is needed on the stage to cover the time space until she can enter naturally. It is true that looking at the books fills the time for Henry, but it does not sustain for the audience interest already created in him or the story. When nothing is taking place on the stage, something is taking place in the audience which greatly concerns the dramatist: it is slipping away from him because it is losing interest. For contrast, suppose that Henry sits restlessly only a moment, then with a sigh picks up a book, tries to read, falls to dreaming, and holds the book so that we may see he is reading it upside down. He tries another book in vain. He starts three or four times, thinking that the door is about to open. He absent-mindedly examines a piece of bric-a-brac. He starts forward eagerly the moment Madge enters. Now we are interested, because he is either exhibiting emotions the cause of which we understand, emotions which lead us to expect an interesting scene between him and Madge, or his conduct sets us guessing as to what can lie ahead between the two. In the first illustration, the play lacks movement; in the second, commonplace as it is, the movement does not cease.

At times it helps suspense not only to shift the order of details but to separate two elements of suspense, treating them separately in well correlated groups. In _Hamlet_, Q1, the soliloquy, "To be, or not to be" precedes the meeting of Ophelia and Hamlet, part of Hamlet's tricking of Polonius, and the coming of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The greater part of the befuddling of Polonius then follows. The players enter and plan with Hamlet the performance of _The Mousetrap_. Hamlet, left alone, bursts into the soliloquy, "Why what a dunghill idiot slave am I!" Q2 rearranges thus: Polonius and Hamlet; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; Polonius returning to announce the players; the planning for _The Mousetrap_; Hamlet left alone crying, "Oh what a rogue and peasant's slave am I!" Here all the details bearing on the play are gathered together. Next come the King and Queen with their plot to try out Hamlet by means of Ophelia. The soliloquy, "To be, or not to be" follows this. Then Hamlet and Ophelia have the scene "To a nunnery go!" Instead of jumbling two elements of suspense,--probable results of the play planned by Hamlet and of the Ophelia-Hamlet interest,--each is given added suspense by separate treatment. In Q1, as we shift from one to the other, each weakens the other or is momentarily blocked by it. Rearranged, the very order of the details in each part makes not only for clearer but stronger suspense.[42]

Today a plot made up of two or three but slightly related stories is far less popular than in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Our public demands that such stories shall be so correlated within the play as to be mutually helpful. This desire results not from innate niceness of feeling for unity of design but from dislike of a distribution of interests which interferes with the suspense each story creates. Though it is, of course, possible perfectly to maintain suspense in plays of interwoven plots--the plays of Shakespeare and many writers since prove this--it is far more difficult than maintaining suspense in a play of single plot. Quite possibly this is the chief reason for the great popularity today of plays of single plot: they are both easier to follow and easier to write.

A related fault which interferes with suspense is the "stage wait" treated on page 209. As has also been pointed out, there is danger in transitional scenes meant to cover a time space or to shift the interest of an audience. If they accomplish either purpose and do not advance the plot, they really fail. Bulwer-Lytton met this difficulty in writing _Money_:

I think in the first 3 acts you will find little to alter. But in Act 4--the 2 scene with Lady B. & Clara--& Joke & the Tradesman don't help on the Plot much--they were wanted, however, especially the last to give time for change of dress & smooth the lapse of the theme from money to dinner; you will see if this part requires any amendment.[43]

Also exposition, undoubtedly necessary but delayed too long, may so clog an act as to weaken or kill it. In a play set in what was once a fashionable dining-room, but is now the fitting-room of a dressmaker, the scene is not placed for some time. Finally, a figure entering makes clear the supposed setting, but for this the action on stage has to be broken off.

The increasing popularity of a play of three or four acts as compared with five has almost wholly done away with another destroyer of suspense--the explanatory and adjusting last act. In it, intelligent auditors who knew from the close of the fourth act how the story must end were expected to watch with interest final disposition of the characters. Dramatists of the eighties and nineties turned from this use slowly. For proof examine the last act of _The Hypocrites_, by H. A. Jones, in other respects a play well away from the older methods of technique. Now, both the older and the younger generation of dramatists expect to carry suspense as near the end of the play as they possibly can. Letting an audience anticipate something of the end of a play is all very well, but when it foresees just what is going to happen and has no farther interest, except to learn whether it happens exactly as anticipated, suspense and even attention cease. In that case an audience begins to gather its belongings for departure. Something held back which cannot surely be anticipated is the very basis of suspense.

It follows from what has just been said that there can never be perfect suspense when the plot ends an act or more before the final curtain. It is vain to try to start new interests in order to create fresh suspense. Unless the latter part of a play grows out of the first, at least as much as the Perdita-Florizel story grows out of that of Leontes and Hermione, there can be no good suspense. When it seems necessary to tack on new material because all suspense is ended, do not add: rewrite.

It has often been said that surprise--springing something unexpectedly upon an audience--is better than suspense. Lessing said of the comparative value of surprise and suspense:

For one instance where it is useful to conceal from the spectator an important event until it has taken place there are ten and more where interest demands the very contrary. By means of secrecy a poet effects a short surprise, but in what enduring disquietude could he have maintained us if he had made no secret about it! Whoever is struck down in a moment, I can only pity for a moment. But how if I expect the blow, how if I see the storm brewing and threatening for some time about my head or his? For my part none of the personages need know each other if only the spectator knows them all. Nay I would even maintain that the subject which requires such secrecy is a thankless subject, that the plot in which we have to make recourse to it is not as good as that in which we could have done without it. It will never give occasion for anything great. We shall be obliged to occupy ourselves with preparations that are either too dark or too clear, the whole poem becomes a collection of little artistic tricks by means of which we effect nothing more than a short surprise. If on the contrary everything that concerns the personages is known, I see in this knowledge the source of the most violent emotions. Why have certain monologues such a great effect? Because they acquaint me with the secret intentions of the speaker and this confidence at once fills me with hope or fear. If the condition of the personages is unknown, the spectator cannot interest himself more vividly in the action than the personages. But the interest would be doubled for the spectator if light is thrown on the matter, and he feels that action and speech would be quite otherwise if the personages knew one another.

Only then I shall scarcely be able to await what is to become of them when I am able to compare that which they really are with that which they do or would do.[44]

Look at the quotation from the _First Part of Henry VI_ on Pp. 97-100. Talbot whispers to the Captain, and leaves us guessing what he means to do at his meeting with the Countess of Auvergne. In like manner the Countess merely refers to the plot she has laid with her Porter. We never know just what was the plan of the Countess. We get only a momentary sensation, surprise, when Talbot's soldiers force their way in. Suppose we had been allowed to know the plans of the Countess, and they had seemed very dangerous for Talbot. Then, as she played with him, sure of her position, there would have been more suspense than in Shakespeare's text, because an audience would have been wondering, not merely "What is the blow Talbot will strike?" but "Can any blow he will strike overcome the seemingly effective plans of the Countess?" Suppose we had been allowed to know the plans of both. Then, as we watched the Countess playing her scheme off against the plan of Talbot, of which she would be unaware, might there not easily be even more suspense? At every turn of their dialogue we should be wondering: "Why does not Talbot strike now? Can he save the situation, if he delays? With all this against him, can he save it in any case?" In the use of surprise, the dramatist depends almost entirely on his situation. Suspense permits him to elaborate his situation by means of the characters in it. In other words, surprise is situation, suspense is characterization.

On this matter recent words of William Archer seem final:

Curiosity [I said] is the accidental relish of a single night; whereas the essential and abiding pleasure of the theatre lies in foreknowledge. In relation to the characters of the drama, the audience are as gods looking before and after. Sitting in the theatre, we taste, for a moment, the glory of omniscience. With vision unsealed, we watch the gropings of purblind mortals after happiness and smile at their stumblings, their blunders, their futile quests, their misplaced exultations, their groundless panics. To keep a secret from us is to reduce us to their level, and deprive us of our clairvoyant aloofness. There may be a pleasure in that too; we may join with zest in the game of blind-man's-buff; but the theatre is in its essence a place where we are privileged to take off the bandage we wear in daily life, and to contemplate, with laughter or with tears, the blindfold gambols of our neighbors.[45]

What is basal in suspense is, of course, that an audience shall feel for some person or persons of the play just the degree of sympathy the dramatist desires. Unless their sympathy is as keen as his, the scene must fall short emotionally. For instance, in a play produced some years ago author and actors expected the audience to sympathize throughout with a mother. At the climax of one of the acts she was left on-stage in an agonized state of mind because her husband, who hates her illegitimate child, has left the stage with threats to kill it. The actress wrote of the first night: "In that scene I might as well have recited the alphabet for all the audience cared for my emotion. Their sympathy made them live, not with me, but with the defenceless child who at any moment might be murdered off-stage by the cruel father." Suspense for the audience there certainly was, but not of the kind intended. It was necessary to rewrite the scene.

Evidently, what happens off-stage may, by its greater interest for the audience, kill the effect of what is passing on-stage. What the dramatist dares not try to represent on-stage because of its mechanical difficulty or horror, he tries to carry off by vivid and even terrifying description. By making the audience see the off-stage action through the eyes of the person most affected, or by portraying vividly his emotions when another describes the action to him, dramatists endeavor to lose none of their desired suspense. The point to remember is that the moment the off-stage action becomes of more importance than the emotions caused by that action for persons on-stage, the real centre of interest has been shifted, the desired suspense is gone, and the scene must be rewritten. Suspense in a play is rightly handled, then, when it is promptly created to the extent desired by the dramatist; carries on with increasing intensity from act to act; and reaches its climax at or just before the final curtain. Climax is, therefore, an integral part of suspense. The point of greatest intensity reached in an incident, scene, act, or play is the moment of climax. Climax is not the result of theory but comes from long observation of audiences. A scene or act which breaks off or declines in interest towards its close never delights an audience as does a scene or act which closes with its strongest emotional effect. Look at the ending of _The Troublesome Raigne of King John, Part I_. Though King John declares himself "the joyfulst man alive," the audience does not so sympathize with him that his delight is a fitting climax to the play. Rather do they so keenly sympathize with Prince Arthur and even the lords who have been outraged by Arthur's proposed death that they want to know more of him and them.

_Hubert._ My lord, attend the happie tale I tell, For heauens health send Sathan packing hence That instigates your Highnes to despaire. If Arthurs death be dismall to be heard, Bandie the newes for rumors of vnthruth: He liues my Lord, the sweetest youth aliue, In health, with eyesight, not a hair amisse. This hart tooke vigor from this froward hand, Making it weake to execute your charge.

_Iohn._ What, liues he! Then sweete hope come home agen, Chase hence despaire, the purueyor for hell. Hye Hubert, tell these tidings to my Lords That throb in passions for yong Arthurs death: Hence Hubert, stay not till thou hast reueald The wished newes of Arthurs happy health. I go my selfe, the joyfulst man aliue To storie out this new supposed crime. (_Exeunt._)[46]

The author, though he got from this a suspense which carried his audience over to the performance of Part II on the next day, missed any real climax for Part I.

Inexperienced playwrights, in spite of good characterization and dialogue, frequently do not understand the value and the nature of real climax. Consequently, an audience feels that any interest it has given is cheated in the end. The following scenario, though its feebleness can hardly be traced solely to lack of climax, illustrates what is meant.

THE DEBUTANTE

_Characters_:

_Major Worthington_, an American financier;

_Emil Richter_, a young poet;

_Dr Van Metre_, \ who do "team work" for the hand of _Kitty_. _Willy Squeam_, /

_Kitty Worthington_, the _debutante_.

_Mme. Cavanaugh King_, a widow, _Kitty's_ aunt.

SCENE: _Den, off the ballroom of Major Worthington's home. Music from the ballroom is heard intermittently during the action._

DISCOVERED: _A group of guests who chatter and pass out, leaving Squeam and Van Metre. They talk of the attractions of Kitty, the debutante, and make a wager as to who will win out. Each agrees to back the other up in case of failure. They go off as Mrs. King and Major Worthington enter. She reproves her brother for looking tired and uninterested on this occasion of his daughter's "coming out."_ _At length, exhausted by his sister's flippancy, he tells her that they are financially ruined, and that the crash will come on the morrow. Mrs. King is distracted, but they both brighten as Kitty enters in a whirl. She is radiantly happy, and hugs one and then the other, then both. Enter Richter, a stalwart young westerner, who does not know how to dance. They congratulate him on his little volume of verses which has just been published. After promising to sit out a dance with him, Kitty sends him off to talk with Miss Smithkins. He picks up a rose which Kitty has dropped and goes off with it. Enter Dr. Van Metre and Squeam. Exeunt Major Worthington and Mrs. King. Van Metre and Squeam take turns in proposing to Kitty. Enter Mrs. King, to whom Squeam finds himself making violent love, mistaking her for Kitty. He starts to bolt, but she lays hold of him, and they go off together. Kitty and Van Metre go of to dance, she laughing at his ardent protestations. Enter Major. He takes out a revolver from his writing desk, and puts it back as some dancers pass through. Enter Emil, and the two exeunt arm-in-arm. Enter Mrs. King and Kitty. Mrs. King bluntly tells Kitty their financial straits, and adds that Kitty must give up any sentimental feelings she has for Richter, and must, if she gets the chance, accept Van Meter or Squeam on the spot. With this, she hastily departs, leaving Kitty in tears. The tears turn to dimples the moment Richter appears, and she tries to shock him into a dislike for her. Nevertheless, he makes a clumsy effort at proposing which is interrupted by Van Metre, then Squeam, then both, who insist on taking her to supper. She dismisses them. (Soft music.) Richter proposes, and Kitty refuses him, telling him the reason frankly, as her aunt has just given it to her. He reprimands her for having mercenary motives, and makes an eloquent plea for the equality of men. Enraged, she leaves the room, but quickly returns and throws herself into his arms. Enters Mrs. King hastily, and says they may go right on embracing, as the Major has just received a telegram stating that he has won out in a law suit involving millions of dollars' worth of iron mines. Enter the Major hilarious. Enter Squeam and Van Meter. They shake hands and declare the wager off. Enter the dancers from a cotillion figure. They are arrayed in grotesque paper hats and bonnets and garlands of paper flowers. They circle about Kitty and Richter, and pelt them with paper flowers. Exeunt. Tableau: Kitty and Richter looking into firelight._

_Curtain._

Obviously, though some slight suspense has been created as to the possible solution of Kitty's difficulties, the proposed play goes all to pieces the moment Mrs. King enters with her news. When an audience knows that had the dramatist so willed, the fateful telegram might have arrived at any moment in the play other than the point chosen, it is likely to vote unanimously that the telegram should have been received before the curtain was ever rung up. Except in amateur performances arranged for admiring friends, there is no hope that such a fizzle can be covered by introducing dancers to make a pretty picture and a pseudo-climax.

Climax is, then, whatever in action, speech, pantomime, or thought (whether conveyed or suggested) will produce in an audience the strongest emotion of the scene, act, or play.

The means to climax range from mere action to quiet speech, from pure theatricality to lifelike subtlety. The poisoned cup, the fatal duel, indeed, the general slaughter at the end of _Hamlet_ make a tremendous climax of action. Mere action, however, does not necessarily give climax. The writer of the scenario just quoted, missing a real climax, tried to offset this by the gay dance. Whether a dance, parade, or tableau is a genuine climax depends on whether it illustrates attainment of that in regard to which suspense has been created. No mere dance in costume, no spectacular parade or brilliant tableau is ever an adequate substitute for a climax which brings to the greatest intensity emotionalized interest already awakened in an audience. Such climax by action may, then, be as purely theatrical as in _revues_, much musical comedy, or pure melodrama, or as simple and true as in Heijermans' _The Good Hope_. The women, Joe and Kneirtje, are left alone, wild with anxiety for their fisherman-lover and son. A storm rages outside.

_Jo._ (_Beating her head on the table._) The wind! It drives me mad, mad!

_Kneirtje._ (_Opens the prayerbook, touches Jo's arm. Jo looks up, sobbing passionately, sees the prayerbook, shakes her head fiercely. Again wailing, drops to the floor, which she beats with her hands. Kneirtje's trembling voice sounds._) O Merciful God! I trust! With a firm faith, I trust.

(_The wind races with wild lashings about the house._)

_Curtain._[47]

Climax may come through surprise, as the discussion of suspense shows (pp. 212-214). Such surprise may be theatrical, as in _Home_[48] where it is obviously an arranged effect, or genuinely dramatic because justified by the preceding characterization, as in _The Clod_.

(_Mary goes to the cupboard; returns to the table with the salt. Almost ready to drop, she drags herself to the window nearer back, and leans against it, watching the Southerners like a hunted animal. Thaddeus sits nodding in the corner. The Sergeant and Dick go on devouring food. The Sergeant pours the coffee. Puts his cup to his lips, takes one swallow; then, jumping to his feet and upsetting his chair as he does so, he hurls his cup to the floor. The crash of china stirs Thaddeus. Mary shakes in terror._)

_Sergeant._ (_Bellowing and pointing to the fluid trickling on the floor._) Have you tried to poison us, you God damn hag?

(_Mary screams, and the faces of the men turn white. It is like the cry of the animal goaded beyond endurance._)

_Mary._ (_Screeching._) Call my coffee poison, will ye? Call me a hag? I'll learn ye! I'm a woman, and ye're drivin' me crazy.

(_Snatches the gun from the wall, points it at the Sergeant, and fires. Keeps on screeching. The Sergeant falls to the floor. Dick rushes for his gun._)

_Thaddeus._ Mary! Mary!

_Mary._ (_Aiming at Dick, and firing._) I ain't a hag. I'm a woman, but ye're killin' me.

(_Dick falls just as he reaches his gun. Thaddeus is in the corner with his hands over his ears. Mary continues to pull the trigger of the empty gun. The Northerner is motionless for a moment; then he goes to Thaddeus, and shakes him._)

_Northerner._ Go get my horse, quick!

(_Thaddeus obeys. The Northerner turns to Mary. She gazes at him, but does not understand a word he says._)

_Northerner._ (_With great fervor._) I'm ashamed of what I said. The whole country will hear of this, and you.

(_Takes her hand, and presses it to his lips; then turns and hurries out of the house. Mary still holds the gun in her hand. She pushes a strand of gray hair back from her face, and begins to pick up the fragments of the broken coffee cup._)

_Mary._ (_In dead, flat tone._) I'll have to drink out the tin cup now.

(_The hoof-beats of the Northerner's horse are heard._)

_Curtain._[49]

Note the wholly unexpected turn after the final speech of the Northerner. Yet this surprise merely rounds out the characterization of Mary.

This kind of climax by surprise recalls one of the principles in acting which Joseph Jefferson laid down for himself: "Never anticipate a strong effect; in fact, lead your audience by your manner, so that they shall scarcely suspect the character capable of such emotion; then when some sudden blow has fallen, the terrible shock prepares the audience for a new and striking phase in the character; they feel that under these new conditions you would naturally exhibit the passion which till then was not suspected."[50]

Before the present insistence on reality held sway, it was possible to close a play of pretended truth to life with a tag. Here is the quiet ending of _Still Waters Run Deep_ (1855):

_Potter._ My dear boy, you astonish me! But, however, there's an old proverb that says that "All is not gold that glitters."

_Mildmay._ Yes, and there is another old proverb and one much more to the purpose that says, "Still waters run deep."

The convention which made that sort of ending desirable has passed. However, today another convention,--the quiet ending,--might make it possible to end this same play with the speech just preceding the two quoted.

_Potter._ John Mildmay the master of this house? Emily, my dear, has your aunt been--I mean has your aunt lost her wits?

_Mrs. Mildmay._ No, she has found them, papa, as I have done, thanks to dear John. Ask his pardon, papa, as we have, for the cruel injustice we have done him.

_Potter._ Oh, certainly, if you desire it. John Mildmay, I ask your pardon--Jane and Emily say I ought; though what I have done, or what there is to ask pardon for--

_Mildmay._ Perhaps you'll learn in time. But we're forgetting dinner--Langford, will you take my wife? (_He does so._) Markham, you'll take Mrs. Sternhold?[51]

Add to this, "They all go out to dinner," and you have one of the "quiet endings" dear to the hearts of some recent dramatists. These writers, after an act has swept to a strong emotional height, add some very quiet ending such as going out to dinner or the conventional farewells of the group assembled, as if for some reason either were more artistic than to close on the moment of strong emotion. This is bad. On the other hand, if the quiet ending carries characterization, or irony, to point the scene, act, or play, or really illustrates the meaning, this and not the absence of strong emotion or physical action is what gives both real value and genuine climax. For instance, at the end of Act I of _Monsieur Poirier's Son-in-Law_, by Augier, this is the dialogue:

_Enter a Servant._

_Servant._ Dinner is served.

_Poirier._ (_To the Servant._) Bring up a bottle of 1811 Pomard--(_To the Duke._) The year of the comet, Monsieur le duc--fifteen francs a bottle! The king drinks no better. (_Aside to Verdelet._) You mustn't drink any--neither will I!

_Gaston._ (_To the Duke._) Fifteen francs, bottle to be returned when empty!

_Verdelet._ (_Aside to Poirier._) Are you going to allow him to make fun of you like that?

_Poirier._ (_Aside to Verdelet._) In matters of this sort, you must take your time. (_They all go out._)

_Curtain._[52]

Here it is not the quietude but the particularly apt, humorous illustration of Poirier's character which gives climax. In _The Amazons_, too, what could better illustrate acceptance of the usual by all the group who have been fighting against it than the sedate and utterly commonplace exeunt?

_Lady Castlejordan._ Lord Tweenwayes--

(_Tweenwayes comes with great dignity to Lady Castlejordan. The girls fall back._)

_Lady Castlejordan._ Lord Litterly--Lady Noeline. Monsieur de Grival--Lady Wilhelmina. Mr. Minchin--Lady Thomasin.

(_The couples are formed, and all go out sedately._)[53]

When quiet speech sums up the whole meaning of a scene or play, it too gives climax. Ann's words at the end of _Man and Superman_, "John you are still talking," make a fine ironic climax. Irony, whether quiet or decidedly dramatic, is a very effective means to climax. At the end of Act II, Herod, in the play of that name by Stephen Phillips, has ordered Mariamne killed. Completely infatuated by her, he has done this only when her enemies have forced him to believe that she is utterly false. Almost instantly his love overwhelms his mistrust. He tries to revoke his word, crying,

Yet will I not be bound, I will break free, She shall not die--she shall not die--she shall not--

News of the triumph he has longed for interrupts:

_Enter Attendant._

_Attendant._ O king, the Roman eagles! See!

_A cry._ (_Without._) From Rome!

_Enter Roman Envoy and Suite._

_Envoy._ O king, great Caesar sent us after you, But, though we posted fast, you still outran us. Thus then by word of mouth great Caesar greets Herod his friend. But he would not confine That friendship to the easy spoken word, And hear I bear a proof of Caesar's faith. Herein is added to thy boundaries Hippo, Samaria and Gadara, And high-walled Joppa, and Anthedon's shore, And Gaza unto these, and Straton's towers. (_Moves down._) Here is the scroll, with Caesar's own hand signed.

_Herod._ (_Taking the scroll--at foot of steps._) Mariamne, hear you this? Mariamne, see you? (_Turns to look at scroll._)

(_Servant enters and moves down to Gadias down L._) (_He goes up the stairs._)

Hippo, Samaria and Gadara, And high-walled Joppa, and Anthedon's shore, And Gaza unto these, and Straton's towers.

_Servant._ (_Aside to Gadias._) O sir, the queen is dead!

_Gadias._ (_Aside to Pheroras, Cypros, and Salome._) The queen is dead!

_Herod._ Mariamne, hear you this? Mariamne, see you? (_Repeating the words, and going up steps._)

Hippo, Samaria and Gadara, And high-walled Joppa, and Anthedon, (_As he moves up._) And Gaza unto these, and Straton's towers![54]

The perfect climax lies in the irony of the fact that all Herod most desires as ruler comes to him at just the moment when he has killed the thing that most he loved.

At the end of Act III of _Chains_, by Elizabeth Baker, everybody--the father-in-law and mother-in-law, Percy, the brother-in-law, and Sybil, a pretty but useless bit of femininity--has been making Charlie entirely miserable because no one can understand that his expressed desire to try his fortunes in Australia and then send for his wife, Lily, is not a pretext for abandoning her. Percy, with next to nothing a year, is just engaged to Sybil. Foster wants to marry Margaret, Charlie's sister-in-law, who is dissatisfied with her lot.

_Enter Lily, dressed for going out, also Mrs. Massey. Lily goes round, kissing and shaking hands, with a watery smile and a forced tearful cheerfulness._

_Charley._ (_Without going all around and calling from the door._) Good night, all! (_Exeunt Lily and Charley._)

_Mrs. Massey._ Well, I must say--

_Percy._ O, let's drop it, mother. Play something, Maggie.

_Maggie._ I don't want to.

_Mrs. Massey._ Walter would like to hear something, wouldn't you, Walter?

_Foster._ If Maggie feels like it.

_Maggie._ She doesn't feel like it.

_Massey._ Be as pleasant as you can, my girl--Charley's enough for one evening.

(_Maggie goes to the piano and sitting down plays noisily, with both pedals on, the chorus, "Off to Philadelphia."_)

_Mrs. Massey._ Maggie, it's Sunday!

_Maggie._ I forgot!

_Mrs. Massey._ You shouldn't forget such things--Sybil, my dear--

_Sybil._ I don't play.

_Massey._ Rubbish! Come on!

(_Sybil goes to the piano and Percy follows her._)

_Percy._ (_Very near to Sybil and helping her to find the music._) Charley is a rotter! What d'ye think he was telling me the other day?

_Sybil._ I don't know.

_Percy._ Told me to be sure I got the right girl.

_Sybil._ Brute!

_Percy._ What do you think I said? Darling! (_Kisses her behind music._)

_Massey._ (_Looking around._) Take a bigger sheet.

(_Sybil sits at piano quickly and plays the chorus to "Count Your Many Blessings." To which they all sing:_)

Count your many blessings, count them one by one, Count your blessings, see what God has done. Count your blessings, count them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.[55]

Is not the irony of this group of unsatisfied or dissatisfied people singing "Count your many blessings," fully climactic?

Not quietness of speech or action, then, but appropriateness makes any of these approved endings climactic and artistic.

There can hardly be any question that the original ending of _Still Waters Run Deep_ is theatrical in the sense that it is climactic only by the dramatic convention of its time. Except when theatricality is intentionally part of the artistic design, it is, of course, undesirable. Rostand, letting the figures in _The Romancers_ comment on their own play as a kind of epilogue, has a really artistic though theatrical climax.

_Sylvette._ (_Summoning the actors about her._) And now we five--if Master Straforel please-- Let us expound the play in which we've tried to please.

(_She comes down stage and addresses the audience, marking time with her hand._)

Light, easy rhymes; old dresses, frail and light; Love in a park, fluting an ancient tune. (_Soft music._)

_Bergamin._ A fairy-tale quintet, mad as Midsummer-night.

_Pasquin._ Some quarrels. Yes!--but all so very slight!

_Straforel._ Madness of sunstroke; madness of the moon! A worthy villain, in his mantle dight.

_Sylvette._ Light, easy rhymes; old dresses, frail and light; Love in a park, fluting an ancient tune.

_Percinet._ A Watteau picture--not by Watteau, quite; Release from many a dreary Northern rune; Lovers and fathers; old walls, flowery-bright; A brave old plot--with music--ending soon.

_Sylvette._ Light, easy rhymes; old dresses, frail and light.

(_The stage gradually darkens; the last lines are delivered in voices that grow fainter as the actors appear to fade away into mist and darkness._)

_Curtain._[56]

So light the finale, as in London, that the figures fade from sight till only their voices are faintly heard, and theatricality helps to place the play as a mere bit of fantasy. On the other hand, there is something like genuine theatricality at the end of Sudermann's _Fritzschen_. Fritz is going to his death in a prospective duel with a man who is an unerring shot. Though the others present suspect or know the truth, his mother thinks he is going to new and finer fortunes. Isn't the following the real climax?

_Fritz._ (_Stretching out his hand to her cheerfully._) Dear Ag--(_Looks into her face, and understands that she knows. Softly, earnestly._) Farewell, then.

_Agnes._ Farewell, Fritz!

_Fritz._ I love you.

_Agnes._ I shall always love you, Fritz!

_Fritz._ Away, then, Hallerpfort! Au revoir, papa! Au revoir! Revoir! (_Starts for the door on the right._)

_Frau von Drosse._ Go by the park, boys--there I have you longer in sight.

_Fritz._ Very well, mamma, we will do it! (_Passes with Hallerpfort through the door at the centre; on the terrace, he turns with a cheerful gesture, and calls once more._) Au Revoir! (_His voice is still audible._) Au revoir!

(_Frau von Drosse throws kisses after him, and waves her handkerchief, then presses her hand wearily to her heart and sighs heavily._)[57]

Because the history of the theatre shows that the contained appeal always moves an audience, Sudermann adds one more touch of misery as the mother dwells on her dream of the night before:

(_Agnes hurries to her, and leads her to a chair, then goes over to the Major, who, with heaving breast, is lost in thought._)

_Frau von Drosse._ Thank you, my darling!--Already, I am quite well again!... God, the boy! How handsome he looked! And so brown and so healthy.... You see, I saw him exactly like that last night.... No, that is no illusion! And I told you how the Emperor led him in among all the generals! And the Emperor said--(_More softly, looking far away with a beatific smile_.) And the Emperor said--

_Curtain_.[58]

Though a new twist is given our emotions, is not something lost to the artistry of the play?

If the means to climax be various, the ways in which it may elude a writer are several. If an audience foresees it, much of the value of climax, perhaps all, disappears. Bulwer-Lytton, in writing _Money_, recognized this:

And principally with regard to Act 5 I don't feel easy. The first idea suggested by you & worked on by me was of course to carry on Evelyn's trick to the last--& bring in the creditors &c when it is discovered that he is as rich as ever. I so made Act 5 at first. But ... the trick was so palpable to the audience that having been carried thro' Acts 3 & 4, it became stale in Act 5--& the final discovery was much less comic than you w^d suppose.[59]

If anticipating a climax will impair it for an audience, repetition may kill it. In the civic masque, _Caliban_,[60] as performed, many of the historical scenes were introduced in the same way: Ariel asked his master, Prospero, what he should show him next, and at his bidding summoned the episode. No variety in phrasing could surmount the monotony of this. There was consequent loss in suspense and climax.

It is easy, also, to miss possible climax by using more at a given point than is absolutely necessary. Sometimes it is wiser to postpone part or all of thoroughly desirable material for later treatment. In the novel, _Les Oberle_,[61] father and daughter sympathize with the Germans, mother and son with the old French tradition. In patriarchal fashion, the half-paralytic grandfather, as head of the house, keeps the keys. When a young German officer, favored by the daughter, asks her hand, feeling becomes intense and strained between the parents and the brother and the sister. Suddenly the old paralytic enters, half-supported by his attendant. Furious to think of his granddaughter as the wife of a German he cries, with a superb gesture of dismissal, "Clear out! This is my house!" (_Va t'en! Ici chez moi!_) The dramatizer saw that with the accompanying action of all concerned, especially the silent going of the German suitor, "Ici chez moi" made a sufficient climax. Therefore, with a touch of real genius, he saved the "Va t'en" for a climax to a totally different scene. Later in the play, Jean, who has determined to escape across the French boundary rather than serve longer in the German army, has been locked in his room by his outraged father. As usual, after the house has been locked up for the night, the keys have been handed to the old, half-paralytic grandfather, who lies sleepless in a room near Jean's. Learning from Uncle Ulrich what has occurred, the grandfather totters into the living room with his keys. Unlocking Jean's door, with a fine gesture of affection, and command toward the outer door, he cries to Jean, "Va." Here the dramatist gets two fine climaxes where the novelist gained but one.

Sometimes a very effective climax at a given point should be postponed because it will be even more effective later, and if given the first position would check preferable movement in the play. At the end of Act IV of _Magda_ (_Heimat_) by Sudermann, we seem all ready for a scene in which Magda confesses the truth about her past life to her father.

_Schwartze._ Magda,--I want Magda.

_Marie._ (_Goes to the door and opens it._) She's coming now,--down the stairs.

_Schwartze._ So! (_Pulls himself together with an effort._)

_Marie._ (_Clasping her hands._) Don't hurt her!

(_Pauses with the door open. Magda is seen descending the stairs. She enters in travelling dress, hat in hand, very pale but calm._)

_Magda._ I heard you call, father.

_Schwartze._ I have something to say to you.

_Magda._ And I to you.

_Schwartze._ Go in,--into my room.

_Magda._ Yes, father.

(_She goes to the door left. Schwartze follows her. Marie, who has drawn back frightened to the dining-room, makes an unseen gesture of entreaty._)[62]

Now, any interview between Magda and her father will both unduly lengthen an act already long and bring the play well into its final climax. Stopping the act here creates superb suspense. Starting a new act under slightly different conditions keeps all the suspense created by Act IV and intensifies it by new details. The new act gives us the chance easily to introduce von Keller, who is needed if the play is to be more than another treatment of the erring daughter confessing her sin to her father. Just through him comes emphasis which gives special meaning to the play. Therefore, we gain by postponing the full confession from the end of Act IV till well toward the end of Act V.

Evidently, climax rests on (a) right feeling for order in presenting ideas; (b) a correct sense of what is weaker and what is stronger in phrasing emotions; and (c) just appreciation of the feeling of the audience toward the emotions presented. For both clearness and climax it is usually a wise rule to consider but one idea at a time. In the following illustration, column 1 shows confusion, because three subjects--the fan, the greeting, and the compliment of Lady Windermere--are started at the same time. In column 2, quoted from Miss Anglin's acting version of _Lady Windermere's Fan_, treating each of these subjects in its natural sequence brings both clearness and climax.

_Parker._ Mrs. Erlynne. _Parker._ Mrs. Erlynne.

(_Lord Windermere starts. (_Lord Windermere starts. Mrs. Erlynne enters, very Mrs. Erlynne enters, very beautifully dressed and very beautifully dressed and very dignified. Lady Windermere dignified. Lady Windermere clutches at her fan, then clutches at her fan, then lets it drop on the floor. lets it drop on the floor. She bows coldly to She bows coldly to Mrs. Erlynne, who bows Mrs. Erlynne, who bows to her sweetly in turn, and to her sweetly in turn, and sails into the room._) sails into the room._)

_Lord Darlington._ You have _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_C._) How do dropped your fan, Lady you do again, Lord Windermere? Windermere. (_Picks it up and hands it _Lord Darlington._ You have to her_.) dropped your fan, Lady Windermere.

_Mrs. Erlynne._ (_C._) How do (_Picks it up and hands it you do again, Lord Windermere? to her._) How charming your sweet wife looks! Quite a picture!

_Lord Windermere._ (_In a low _Lord Windermere._ (_In a low voice._) It was terribly voice._) It was terribly rash of you to come! rash of you to come!

_Mrs. Erlynne._ (_Smiling._) _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_Smiling._) The wisest thing I ever did in my The wisest thing I ever did in my life. And, by the way, you must life. How charming your sweet pay me a good deal of attention wife looks! Quite a picture! And, this evening. by the way, you must pay me a good deal of attention this evening.[63]

In the next extract, note that omission of "I want to live childless still" and shifting the position of the words "For twenty years, as you say, I have lived childless" permit an actress to work up to the strongest climax of the speech, when spoken, "They made me suffer too much." Miss Anglin, trained by years of experience to great sensitiveness to the emotional values of words, has here arranged the sentences better than the author himself.

_Lord Windermere._ What do _Lord Windermere._ What do you mean by coming here this you mean by coming here this morning? What is your object? morning? What is your object?

(_Crossing L.C. and sitting._) _(Crossing L.C. and sitting._)

_Mrs. Erlynne._ (_With a note of _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_With a note of irony in her voice._) To bid good- irony in her voice._) To bid bye to my dear daughter, of good-bye to my dear daughter, of course. (_Lord Windermere bites course. (_Lord Windermere bites his underlip in anger. Mrs. Erlynne his underlip in anger. Mrs. Erlynne looks at him, and her voice looks at him, and her voice and manner become serious. In and manner become serious. In her accents as she talks there her accents as she talks there is a note of deep tragedy. For a is a note of deep tragedy. For a moment she reveals herself._) Oh, moment she reveals herself._) Oh, don't imagine I am going to have don't imagine I am going to a pathetic scene with her, weep have a pathetic scene with her, on her neck and tell her who I weep on her neck and tell her am, and all that kind of thing. who I am, and all that kind of I have no ambition to play the thing. I have no ambition to part of mother. Only once in my play the part of mother. For life have I known a mother's twenty years, as you say, I have feelings. That was last night. lived childless. Only once in my They were terrible--they made life have I known a mother's me suffer--they made me suffer feelings. That was last night. too much. For twenty years, They were terrible--they made as you say, I have lived me suffer--they made me suffer childless--I want to live too much.[64] childless still.

When an eighteenth-century manager, in his production of _The School for Scandal_, had colored fire set off in the wings as the falling screen revealed Lady Teazle, he failed of his intended effect because he thought that for his audience the falling of the screen was climactic. Really, of course, the enjoyment of the audience, as it listens to the dialogue, knowing that Lady Teazle overhears, is the chief source of pleasure. It is the dismay of Sir Peter, when he sees who is really behind the screen, which makes the climax. That dismay is not greater against a background of red fire. Crowded with action as the end of _Hamlet_ is, we close it in acting, not on the fatal wounding of Hamlet, but either on his words, "The rest is silence," or as the soldiers of Fortinbras march out with Hamlet's body on their shields. Experience has proved that a stronger climax for an audience lies in those words or in seeing the procession which passes among the kneeling courtiers, stronger than from all the noisy emotions which have just preceded. In brief, except when we feel sure that we have made our feeling as to the emotions of a scene or act the public's, it is they who must determine where the climax lies. Where it rests we must in all cases of doubt decide from our past experience of the public and present observation of it.

From all these illustrations it must be clear that the only rule for finding climax is: Understand clearly the audience for which you intend your play; create in it the sympathetic relation toward your characters you wish; then you may be sure that what seems to you a climax for your scene will be so for your audience.

Movement depends, then, on clearness, unity, emphasis, and a right feeling for suspense and climax. This movement may be steadily upward, as in the last scene of _Hamlet_, or it may have the wave-like advance found in Sigurjonsson's _Eyvind of the Hills_[65] or Sir Arthur Pinero's _The Gay Lord Quex_. The emotional interest in each of these sweeps up to a pure climax, drops back part way for a fresh start, and then advances to a stronger climax.

Granted that a would-be playwright understands the proportioning of his work and the correct development of it for clearness, emphasis and movement, he is ready to repeat the words of Ibsen: "I have just completed a play in five acts, that is to say, the rough draft of it. Now comes the elaboration, the more energetic individualization of the persons, and their modes of expression."[66] He is ready to perfect his characterization and dialogue.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Ancient Classical Drama_, chap. VII, "Elements of Comedy." Moulton. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

[2] _The "Choephori" of Aeschylus._ Introduction, p. xvi. A. W. Verral. The Macmillan Co., New York.

[3] _The Rising of the Moon_, Lady Gregory. _Contemporary Dramatists_. T. H. Dickinson, ed. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

[4] _Mme. Sans Gene_, Prologue, Scene 1. Sardou and Moreau. Samuel French, New York.

[5] _Lonely Lives_, Act IV. _The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann_, vol. III, p. 265. Ludwig Lewisohn, ed. B. W. Huebsch, New York.

[6] _Farces_, "The Galloper," Act I. Richard Harding Davis. Copyright, 1906, by Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[7] _The Lonely Way_, etc. _Three Plays by Arthur Schnitzler_. Translated by E. Bjorkman. Mitchell Kennerley.

[8] _Phaedra_, Act I. Racine. Translated by R. B. Boswell. _Chief European Dramatists._ Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

[9] _Works_, vol. 3. W. Gifford and Dyce. Murray, London.

[10] _The Rehearsal_, Act I. The Duke of Buckingham. Bell's _British Theatre_, vol. XV. London, 1780.

[11] _The Lady of Andros_, Act I. Terence. Translated by J. Sargeaunt. The Macmillan Co., New York; W. Heinemann, London.

[12] _The Lady of Andros_, Act III.

[13] Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.

[14] _Theatre Complet_, vol. II. Calmann Levy, Paris.

[15] _Theatre_, vol. II. Michel Levy freres, Paris.

[16] Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston.

[17] _Magda_, translated by A. E. A. Winslow. Lamson, Wolffe & Co., Boston.

[18] _From Ibsen's Workshop_, pp. 271-272. Translated by A. G. Chater. Copyright, 1911, by Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[19] _Idem_, pp. 288-289.

[20] _Ibsen's Prose Dramas_, vol. V, Walter Scott, London; Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[21] _Letters of Henrik Ibsen_, p. 291. Fox, Duffield & Co., New York.

[22] _Some Platitudes concerning Drama. Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1909.

[23] _Othello_, Act III, Scene 3.

[24] _Lady Windermere's Fan_, Act I. Oscar Wilde. J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[25] Duffield & Co., New York.

[26] _Plays._ G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

[27] Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.

[28] _The Trail of the Torch_, Paul Hervieu. Translated by J. H. Haughton. Drama League Series, vol. XII. Doubleday Page & Co., New York.

[29] _The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann_, vol. VI, Introduction, p. xi, Ludwig Lewisohn, ed. B. W. Huebsch, New York.

[30] The Macmillan Co. publish both forms.

[31] _Nathan Hale_, Act IV, Scene 2. Clyde Fitch. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

[32] Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.

[33] _Idem._

[34] Pp. 143-45. R. H. Russell, New York. Also published by Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston.

[35] Act IV, Scene 2. The Macmillan Co.

[36] _Contemporary Dramatists._ Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

[37] J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[38] Translated by May Hendee. Doubleday, McClure & Co., New York.

[39] _Plays of Oscar Wilde_, vol. II. J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[40] _The Fantasticks_, pp. 145-146. Translated by George Fleming. R. H. Russell, New York.

[41] Samuel French, New York.

[42] _The Devonshire Hamlets_, pp. 34-46. Sampson Low, Son & Co., London.

[43] _Letters of Bulwer-Lytton to Macready_, LXIII. Brander Matthews, ed.

[44] _Hamburg Dramaturgy_, p. 377. Lessing. Bohn, ed.

[45] _Play-Making_, pp. 171-172. William Archer. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.

[46] _The Troublesome Raigne of King Iohn_, pp. 279-280; _Shakespeare's Library_, vol. V. Reeves & Turner, London.

[47] _The Good Hope_, Act III. Herman Heijermans. _The Drama_, November, 1912.

[48] See pp. 29-30.

[49] _Washington Square Plays; The Clod._.\ Lewis Beach. Drama League Series, No. XX. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.

[50] _The Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson_, pp. 210-211. Century Co., New York.

[51] The DeWitt Publishing House, New York.

[52] _Monsieur Poirier's Son-in-Law_, Act I. Emile Augier. Translated by B. H. Clark. A. Knopf, New York.

[53] _The Amazons_, Act III. Sir Arthur Pinero. Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston.

[54] _Herod, A Tragedy_, Act. II. Stephen Phillips. John Lane, New York.

[55] J. W. Luce & Co., Boston; Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London.

[56] _The Fantasticks_, Act III. Edmond Rostand. Translated by Geo. Fleming. R. H. Russell & Co., New York.

[57] _Morituri, Fritzshen_, Herman-Sudermann. Translated by Archibald Alexander. Copyright, 1910, by Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[58] _Idem._

[59] _Letters of Bulwer-Lytton to Macready_, Brander Matthews, ed.

[60] Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.

[61] _Les Oberle._ Rene Bazin. Dramatized by E. Haraucourt. L'Illustration Theatrale, December 9, 1905, p. 14.

[62] _Magda._ Translated by C. E. A. Winslow. Lamson, Wolffe & Co., Boston.

[63] _Lady Windermere's Fan_, Act II. Oscar Wilde. Acting version as arranged by Miss Margaret Anglin.

[64] _Idem_, Act IV. Acting version as arranged by Miss Margaret Anglin.

[65] _Eyvind of the Hills_, J. Sigurjonsson. American Scandinavian Society, New York.

[66] _From Ibsen's Workshop_, p. 8. Copyright, 1911, by Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.