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Catherine. (Alone, the key in her hand.) Oh, what is she doing? What hasn’t she courage for? Ah, she is crazy—yes, crazy. Here is what will ruin me. That’s the truth! I must throw this key away, throw it far away, into the river, so that it may never be found again. It burns my hand like a hot coal. (Dreamily.) This is how we are ruined, people like me! Slavery, that isn’t a gay business for any one. How many ideas it puts into our heads. Another would be enchanted with what has happened to me, and would rush on full tilt. How can one act in that way without reflection, without reason? Misfortune comes so quickly, and afterward there is all the rest of one’s life in which to weep and torment oneself, and the slavery will be still more bitter. (Silence.) And how bitter it is, slavery! Oh, how bitter it is! Who would not suffer from it? And we other women suffer more than all the rest. Here am I at this moment battling with myself in vain, not seeing a ray of light, and I shan’t see one. The further I go, the worse it is. And here is this additional sin that I am going to take on my conscience. (She dreams a moment.) Were not my mother-in-law—she has broken me: it is she who has made me come to hate this house. I hate its very walls. (She looks pensively at the key.) Ought I to throw it away? Of course I ought. How did it get into my hands? To seduce me to my ruin. (Listening.) Some one is coming! My heart fails me. (She puts the key into her pocket.) No!—no one. Why was I so frightened? And I hid the key—Very well, that’s the way it is to be. It is clear that fate wills it. And after all, where is the sin in seeing him just once, if at a distance? And if I were even to talk with him a little, where would the harm be?—But my husband—Very well, it was he himself who didn’t forbid it! Perhaps I shall never have such another chance in all my life. Then I shall weep and say to myself, “You had a chance to see him and didn’t know how to take advantage of it.” What am I saying? Why lie to myself? I will die for it if necessary, but see him I will. Whom do I want to deceive here? Throw away the key? No, not for anything in the world. I keep it. Come what will, I will see Boris. Ah, if the night would only come more quickly!

Curtain. 20

Sometimes, even a playwright of considerable experience, though his mind is full of dramatic material, finds his plotting at a standstill. The trouble is that he has not sifted his material by means of the purpose he has in mind. When he does, details of setting, bits of characterization or even characters as wholes, parts or all of a scene and many ideas good in themselves but not necessarily connected with his real subject, will drop out. Many plays of modern realism have been overloaded with details of setting, with figures, or even scenes really unessential. In a recent play of Breton life a prominent detail in the setting of a cave was the figurehead of a ship. Even if one missed noticing this striking detail, its presence was emphasized by the text. It turned out, however, that the figurehead had nothing to do with the story or its development, nor was it really needed for any special color it gave. It should, therefore, have been omitted. No fault is more common than the use of unnecessary figures. When Lady Gregory wrote her version of The Workhouse Ward, she wisely cut out the matron, the doorkeeper, and all the inmates except two. With three figures her play is a masterpiece. With five actors and voices from off stage, Dr. Hyde’s Gaelic version is not. A one-act play adapted from the Spanish showed some dozen or more individual parts and a mob of at least forty. Ultimately, on a small stage, the plot was done full justice with half that number of individual parts and the crowd reduced to twenty or less. An amusing play of mistaken identity had a delightful scene in which an aunt of the heroine is proposed to by a friend of her youth. In it, the dramatist, with admirable characterization, set forth the views on matrimony of many middle-aged women. Yet the whole scene had nothing whatever to do with the story of the heroine. Consequently it was ultimately dropped out. That dramatic ideas must be sifted was shown on page 75 in the play seemingly about architects’ draughtsmen.

Not even when a scene, a bit of dialogue or some other detail, is entirely in character may it always keep its position. Though a detail or episode must be in character before it is admitted, it can hold its position only if it is necessary for the purpose of the play. Time limits everything for the dramatist. The final curtain impending inevitably at the end of two hours and a half is the dramatist’s “sword of Damocles.” It reminds him that in a play, “whatever goes for nothing, goes for less than nothing” because it shuts out something which, in its place, might be effective. In Tennyson’s Becket is a fine scene, the washing of the beggars’ feet by the Archbishop.21 It illustrates both customs of the time and a side of Becket’s character, yet it contained nothing absolutely necessary to the central purpose of the play. Consequently, as the play must be condensed for acting purposes, Sir Henry Irving cut out the whole scene.

This time limit forces the dramatist, when choosing between two episodes of equal value otherwise, to select that which does more in less space, or to combine desirable parts of the two episodes when possible. In Tennyson’s Becket, Scene 1 of Act II and Scene 1 of Act III take place in Rosamund’s Bower. Henry and Rosamund are the principal speakers in both. There is, too, no marked lapse of time between the scenes, though Tennyson chose to separate them by the “Meeting of the Kings” at Montmirail. Very naturally, therefore, when condensation was necessary, Irving by severe cutting brought these two scenes together as Act II of his version. He not only saved time; he gained in unity of effect. Similarly, Irving brings together the essential parts of Scene 2, Act II, the “Meeting of the Kings,” and Scene 3, Act III, “Traitor’s Meadow at Freteval,” making them the first scene of the third act in his version.

A cluttered play is always a bad play. Such clutter usually comes from including details of setting, characterization or idea, and even whole characters or scenes, not really necessary. Selection with one’s purpose clearly in mind is the remedy for such clutter.

Even, however, when a writer has so carefully selected his dramatic episodes that each is one or more bits of illustrative action bearing on the main idea and entirely in character, he may still be short of story. He cannot rouse and maintain interest moving at haphazard. His central idea must appear in dramatic episodes so ordered as to have sequence—a beginning, a middle, and an end—and so emphasized as to have the increasing interest which means movement. He cannot have good story till it has unity of action. When Bulwer-Lytton wrote Macready that he had discovered the heart of his proposed play on Marillac to be Richelieu, note that he speaks of the simplification and the unity resulting: “You will be pleased to hear that I have completed the rough Sketch of the Play in 5 acts—& I hope you will like it. I have taken the subject of Richelieu. Not being able to find any other so original & effective, & have employed somewhat of the story I before communicated to you, but simplified and connected.—You are Richelieu, & Richelieu is brought out, accordingly, as the prominent light round which the other satellites move. It is written on the plan of a great Historical Comedy, & I have endeavoured to concentrate a striking picture of the passions & events—the intrigue & ambition of that era—in a familiar point of view.”22

Thomas Dekker found the source of his Shoemakers’ Holiday23 in a pamphlet by Thomas Deloney, The Pleasant and Princely History of the Gentle-Craft.24 This loosely written pamphlet tries to tell three stories supposed to redound to the credit of the shoemakers: that of Prince Hugh and his love for Winifred; that of Crispin and Crispinianus and the brave deeds of the latter in the wars in France; and, finally, that of Simon Eyre, the master shoemaker who rose to be Lord Mayor of London, his wife and his apprentices. What obviously attracted Dekker in the pamphlet was the third story, to which he saw he could give much realism from his knowledge of the shoemakers about Leadenhall. Unfortunately, the story of Simon Eyre, though it provided him with delightful characters, gave him little variety of incident. Perhaps today a dramatist might make such a play carry almost wholly on the characterization of the shoemaker group. The Elizabethans, however, wanted a complicated story of varied action. Dekker, though he had first-rate romantic material in the story of Crispin and Crispinianus, could hardly weave this in with the story of Eyre, a relatively recent historical figure, for one material called for romantic and the other for realistic treatment. There seemed the deadlock. But Dekker, thinking of this Crispin in love with a princess, who disguised himself as a shoemaker in order to win her hand, remembered the wars of 1588 and English sympathy for the Huguenots involved therein. Therefore he turned Crispin into Lacy, a youth of that period. Lacy is not a prince, but a relative of the Earl of Lincoln, and something of a ne’er-do-well, in love with the Lord Mayor’s daughter, Rose. He fears that if he goes to the wars in France, his duty as “chief colonel” of the London Companies, he will lose her. Therefore he sends Askew in his stead and stays in London disguised as one of Eyre’s shoemaker apprentices. The purpose of Dekker to write a realistic play of complicated plot has helped him to reshape his material till two stories, as in the case of The Country Boy, have become one. Unity appears in materials seemingly as irreconcilable as romance and realism.

There are, however, two weaknesses in this story as now developed: Rose and Lacy, though they appear against the background of the wars, do not connect the apprentices with the enlistment, nor do they afford many scenes of marked dramatic force. Wishing one or two scenes of stronger emotion which at the same time would bring the apprentices into closer connection with the wars, Dekker creates Ralph, Jane, and Hammon. Ralph is one of the shoemakers who, pressed to the war, is torn from his protesting wife and fellow apprentices. In his absence, the citizen Hammon falls in love with Jane. Trying to make her believe that Ralph is dead, he wishes to marry her. Ralph, returning from the war to his former work with Eyre, can find no trace of Jane, for after a slight difference with Margery Eyre, she has disappeared. One day a servant brings Ralph a pair of shoes to be duplicated for a wedding gift. The pair to be copied Ralph recognizes as his parting gift to Jane. Summoning his fellow apprentices to aid him, he goes to the place proposed for the wedding and rescues Jane. Thus some scenes of fine if homely emotion are provided. Wedded love is contrasted with that of Rose and Lacy and with Hammon’s courtship, and through Ralph the apprentices are brought closely into connection with the wars.

Many a would-be dramatist suffers, however, not from a superabundance of material bearing on his subject but a dearth of it. Again and again one hears the complaint: “I know who my characters are to be, and I have dramatic situation, but I cannot find my story. I haven’t enough dramatic situation to round it out.” Just this difficulty troubled Bulwer-Lytton when he was preparing for Richelieu. He wrote to Macready:

Many thanks for your letter. You are right about the Plot—it is too crowded & the interest too divided.—But Richelieu would be a splendid fellow for the Stage, if we could hit on a good plot to bring him out—connected with some domestic interest. His wit—his lightness—his address—relieve so admirably his profound sagacity—his Churchman’s pride—his relentless vindictiveness and the sublime passion for the glory of France that elevated all. He would be a new addition to the Historical portraits of the Stage; but then he must be connected with a plot in which he would have all the stage to himself, & in which some Home interest might link itself with the Historical. Alas, I’ve no such story yet & he must stand over, tho’ I will not wholly give him up. …

… Depend on it, I don’t cease racking my brains, & something must come at last.25

Such difficulty means that a writer forgets or is ignorant of one of the first principles of dramatic composition. When he has three or four good situations which are in character, he should not hunt new situations till he is sure he knows the full emotional possibilities of the situations he already has. To decide after the closest scrutiny of the situations in hand, that others are needed is one thing. On the other hand, the inexperienced workman presents as quickly as possible the climactic moment of the scene he has in mind, and gets away as rapidly as possible to another intense climax. Finding himself, as a result, badly in need of additional dramatic moments, he hunts for situations as situations. Returning triumphantly with some strong emotional effect, he must perforce put the characters of the earlier scenes into these. Usually, as they have no real part in these later scenes, they prove troublesome. Sometimes the new scenes may be so reshaped as to fit the original characters, but usually the result of this method is that the scenes are foisted on the original characters, becoming obvious misfits, or that the original characters are so modified as to fit them. When modified, however, the original characters no longer perfectly fit the original scenes. Driven backward and forward between character and story, the dramatist pursuing this method often gives up the attempt, saying despairingly: “It is no use. My characters will not give me a plot.”

The trouble here is that the inexperienced dramatist treats the situation as if its value lay in its most climactic moment. Often, however, there is as much pleasure for the public emotionally in working up to the climax as in the climax itself. To “hold a situation,” that is, to get from it the full dramatic possibilities the characters involved offer, a dramatist must study his characters in it till he has discovered the entire range of their emotion in the scene. This will give him not only many and many a new situation within the original situation, but the transitional scenes which will unify situations originally apparently unrelated except as the same figures appeared in them. For example, consider this.

A kindly woman in middle life comes in friendliest fashion to offer to take the daughter of a proud man in great financial straits into her own home. As treated by an inexperienced writer, there was a prompt, clear statement of what the woman desired, with an immediate passionate denial of the request by the jealously affectionate father. In this treatment we lose the best of the scene. Really this worldly-wise woman, talking to such a man, would lead up tactfully to her proposal. As she led up to it, there would be many dramatic moments, with much interesting revelation of her own and the man’s character. Caring for the man as she does, and loving the girl deeply, she would not immediately accept a refusal. After the man’s first denial, as she tried by turns to cajole, convince or dominate him, there would be strong dramatic conflict, and, once more, interesting revelation of character. Given, then, some happening, the nature of the human being involved in it will affect its look. A second person involved will affect it even more. Two people, influencing each other because affected by the same incident will give still a third look to the original situation. When you have what seems a good situation, don’t rush into another at your earliest opportunity, but instead study it till you know every permutation and combination it holds emotionally for every one involved, both because the situation affects every character, and because every character may affect all the others. Then you will know how to “hold a situation.” Said Dumas the Younger: “Before every situation that a dramatist creates, he should ask himself three questions. In this situation, what should I do? What would other people do? What ought to be done? Every author who does not feel disposed to make this analysis should renounce the theatre, for he will never become a dramatist.”26 Though every writer may not examine his material by means of such formal categories, he must in some way gain the thorough information about it for which Dumas calls. Then and then only he can select from the results of his thinking that which will best accomplish his purpose in the play.

A one-act play with a very good central situation came to nothing because its author had not grasped the principle just set forth. A young man and a girl, eloping, come to the station of a small settlement. They find no one about, but the door of the ticket office ajar as if the person in charge had stepped out for a moment. They fear that the father and mother of the girl and perhaps another admirer are on their trail. Partly from curiosity and partly from the desire not to be seen till the train comes, they step into the office, closing the door behind them. Then they discover that they are prisoners, for the door can be opened even from their side only by a person with the right key. Just at this point, the father and mother arrive, amazed at finding no trace of the fugitives. They too are puzzled by the absence of the ticket-seller. Just as they start out to find him he appears, apologetic for his absence. He is mildly interested in their story, but as he has seen no young persons, and as he expects the train shortly, he starts to go into his office. Then he discovers the closed door and admits that he went out to look for his key, which he must have dropped somewhere since he opened the station that morning. Here was of course a dramatic situation of large possibilities, but in the play it was treated almost as just stated. Of course the sensations of the two young people cooped up in the ticket office, expecting the parents, the station agent, and the train, should have given us a comic scene before any one else appeared. The effect of the discovery that they are prisoners upon the girl, the effect upon the young man, the way in which the resulting emotions of each affect the other, all this must be given if the potential comedy of the situation inside the ticket office is to be fully used. The arrival of the father and mother offers a chance not only for the individual emotions of each and their effect upon one another, but for the emotion of the concealed elopers as they hear the familiar voices and understand how enraged the parents are. There is opportunity for a good scene of some length here before the station master appears. When he does enter, he should be interesting, not simply for himself, but for the effect he has on father, mother, girl, and young man, and the new interplay of emotions he causes among them. Add the coming of the former admirer with evidence he has found that the elopers have been making for this station; and as the new complications developed by his coming take shape, let the train be heard far up the line. Surely here is a group of very promising situations.

In this play so crowded with dramatic opportunity, its author found only the most dramatic moments, rushing rapidly from one to the other. Result, a failure. Any dramatic situation made up of a congeries of minor situations is like a great desk the pigeon holes of which are crowded with letters and personal documents. The biographer sitting down before it first makes himself thoroughly conversant with all the data. Then he selects for use only what is of value for the biographical purpose he has in mind. The people in a situation are, for a dramatist, the human data he must study till he so completely understands them that he can differentiate clearly in what they offer between what is useful for his purposes and what is not.

Even Shakespeare, in his earliest work, had not grasped the importance of “holding a situation,” as a scene in the First Part of Henry VI shows. He knows how to inform his audience in Scene 2 of Act II why it is that Talbot visits the Countess of Auvergne; in the Whispers of the next to the last line of this scene he even prepares for the surprise Talbot springs upon the Countess in the next scene; but Scene 3 itself he treats merely for the broad situation and a few bits of rhetoric.

A Messenger come to the English camp has just asked which of the men before him is the famous Talbot.

Talbot. Here is the Talbot; who would speak with him?

Messenger. The virtuous lady, Countess of Auvergne, With modesty admiring thy renown, By me entreats, great lord, thou wouldst vouchsafe To visit her poor castle where she lies, That she may boast she hath beheld the man Whose glory fills the world with loud report.

Burgundy. Is it even so? Nay, then, I see our wars Will turn unto a peaceful comic sport, When ladies crave to be encount’red with. You may not, my lord, despise her gentle suit.

Tal. Ne’er trust me then; for what a world of men Could not prevail with all their oratory, Yet hath a woman’s kindness over-rul’d; And therefore tell her I return great thanks, And in submission will attend on her. Will not your honours bear me company?

Bedford. No, truly, ’tis more than manners will; And I have heard it said, unbidden guests Are often welcomest when they are gone.

Tal. Well, then, alone, since there’s no remedy, I mean to prove this lady’s courtesy. Come hither, captain. (Whispers.) You perceive my mind?

Captain. I do, my lord, and mean accordingly. (Exeunt.)

SCENE 3. The Countess’s castle

Enter the Countess and her porter

Countess. Porter, remember what I gave in charge; And when you have done so, bring the keys to me.

Porter. Madam, I will. (Exit.)

Countess. The plot is laid. If all things fall out right I shall as famous be by this exploit As Scythian Tomyris by Cyrus’ death. Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight, And his achievements of no less account; Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears, To give their censure of these rare reports.

Enter Messenger and Talbot

Messenger. Madam, According as your ladyship desir’d, By message crav’d, so is Lord Talbot come.

Countess. And he is welcome. What! is this the man?

Mess. Madam, it is.

Countess. Is this the scourge of France? Is this the Talbot, so much fear’d abroad That with his name the mothers still their babes? I see report is fabulous and false. I thought I should have seen some Hercules, A second Hector, for his grim aspect, And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs. Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf! It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp Should strike such terror to his enemies.

Tal. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you; But since your ladyship is not at leisure, I’ll sort some other time to visit you. (Going.)

Countess. What means he now? Go ask him whither he goes.

Mess. Stay, my Lord Talbot; for my lady craves To know the cause of your abrupt departure.

Tal. Marry, for that she’s in a wrong belief, I go to certify her Talbot’s here.

Reënter Porter with keys

Countess. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.

Tal. Prisoner! To whom!

Countess. To me, blood-thirsty lord; And for that cause I train’d thee to my house. Long time, thy shadow hath been thrall to me, For in my gallery thy picture hangs; But now the substance shall endure the like, And I will chain these legs and arms of thine, That hast by tyranny these many years Wasted our country, slain our citizens, And sent our sons and husbands captivate.

Tal. Ha, ha, ha!

Countess. Laughest thou, wretch? Thy mirth shall turn to moan.

Tal. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond To think that you have aught but Talbot’s shadow Whereon to practice your severity.

Countess. Why, art not thou the man?

Tal. I am indeed.

Countess. Then have I substance too.

Tal. No, no, I am but shadow of myself. You are deceiv’d, my substance is not here. For what you see is but the smallest part And least proportion of humanity. I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here, It is of such a spacious, lofty pitch, Your roof were not sufficient to contain’t.

Countess. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce; He will be here, and yet he is not here. How can these contrarieties agree?

Tal. That will I show you presently.

(Winds his horn. Drums strike up: a peal of ordnance. The gates are forced.)

Enter Soldiers

How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded

That Talbot is but shadow of himself?

These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,

With which he yoketh your rebellious necks,

Razeth your cities and subverts your towns

And in a moment makes you desolate.

Countess. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse. I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited And more than may be gathered by the shape. Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath; For I am sorry that with reverence I did not entertain thee as thou art.

Tal. Be not dismay’d, fair lady; nor misconstrue The mind of Talbot, as you did mistake The outward composition of his body. What you have done hath not offended me; Nor other satisfaction do I crave, But only with your patience, that we may Taste of your wine and see what cates you have; For soldiers’ stomachs always serve them well.

Countess. With all my heart, and think me honoured To feast so great a warrior in my house.

(Exeunt.)

Except for a few lines of rhetoric, could the account in Scene 3 be shortened? The Countess awaits Talbot; he comes; she reviles him in a few lines; he turns to go; she declares him a prisoner; he laughs at her; and as she stands amazed, calls in his forces brought in secret to the castle. When Talbot invites himself and his men to feast at her expense, the Countess immediately agrees. Reading the scene, one recalls the words of Dumas fils: “Any one can relate a dramatic situation: the art lies in preparing it, getting it accepted, making it plausible, especially in untying the knot.”27 Here Shakespeare does not untie the knot; the Countess merely yields. What she feels, what happened thereafter—all these are omitted. It is merely the situation which counts. Before Talbot comes in, the scene could easily be made to reveal much more of the character of the Countess. When he does enter, the play of wits between them, even as it disclosed character, might provide interesting dramatic conflict. Surely the moment when the Countess thinks Talbot trapped and he coolly jeers at her, is worth more development. Here it is treated so quickly that the surprise in the entrance of the soldiers hardly gets its full effect. All this is the work of a tyro, even if he be Shakespeare.

In Richard II, there is a scene, not as long as that just quoted, in which the central situation might seem to many people less dramatic than that of Talbot and the Countess, yet note to what a clear and convincing conclusion Shakespeare brings it, how plausible he makes the scene, how thoroughly he prepares it for the largest emotional effect by entering thoroughly into the characters involved.

Enter Aumerle

Duchess. Here comes my son Aumerle.

York. Aumerle that was; But that is lost for being Richard’s friend, And, madam, you must call him Rutland now. I am in Parliament pledge for his truth And lasting fealty to the new made king.

Duch. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now That strew the green lap of the new come spring?

Aum. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not God knows I had as lief be none as one.

York. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time, Lest you be cropp’d before you come to prime. What news from Oxford? Do these jousts and triumphs hold?

Aum. For aught I know, my lord, they do.

York. You will be there, I know.

Aum. If God prevent not, I purpose so.

York. What seal is that, that hangs without thy bosom? Yea, look’st thou pale? Let me see the writing.

Aum. My lord, ’tis nothing.

York. No matter, then, who see it. I will be satisfied: let me see the writing.

Aum. I do beseech your grace to pardon me. It is a matter of small consequence, Which for some reasons I would not have seen.

York. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see. I fear, I fear—

Duch. What should you fear? ’Tis nothing but some hand, which he has ent’red into For gay apparel ’gainst the triumph day.

York. Bound to himself! What doth he with a bond That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool. Boy, let me see the writing.

Aum. I do beseech you, pardon me. I may not show it.

York. I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.

(He plucks it out of his bosom and reads it.)

Treason! foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!

Duch. What is the matter, my lord?

York. Ho! who is within there?

Enter a Servant

Saddle my horse.

God for his mercy, what treachery is here!

Duch. Why, what is it, my lord?

York. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.

(Exit Servant.)

Now, by mine honour, by my life, by my troth,

I will appeach the villain.

Duch. What is the matter?

York. Peace, foolish woman.

Duch. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?

Aum. Good mother, have content; it is no more Than my poor life must answer.

Duch. Thy life answer!

York. Bring me my boots; I will unto the King.

Reënter Servant with boots

Duch. Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz’d. —Hence villain! never more come in my sight.

York. Give me my boots, I say.

Duch. Why, York, what wilt thou do? Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own? Have we more sons? Or are we like to have? Is not my teeming date drunk up with time? And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age, And rob me of a happy mother’s name? Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?

York. Thou fond mad woman. Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy? A dozen of them here have ta’en the sacrament, And interchangeably set down their hands, To kill the King at Oxford.

Duch. He shall be none; We’ll keep him here; then what is that to him?

York. Away, fond woman! Were he twenty times my son, I would appeach him.

Duch. Hadst thou groan’d for him As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful. But now I know thy mind; thou dost suspect That I have been disloyal to thy bed, And that he is a bastard, not thy son. Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind. He is as like thee as a man may be, Not like to me or any of my kin, And yet I love him.

York. Make way, unruly woman! (Exit.)

Duch. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse; Spur post and get before him to the King, And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee. I’ll not be long behind; though I be old, I doubt not but to ride as fast as York. And never will I rise up from the ground Till Bolingbroke have pardon’d thee. Away, be gone!

(Exeunt.)

So far as the situation is concerned we might go directly from York’s “fealty to the new made King” to his “What seal is that?” omitting some ten lines. We should lose, however, the deft touches which make the discovery all the more dramatic—the words of York which show that he has no idea that his son is really involved in any disloyalty; the affectionate effort of the mother to draw the talk from unpleasant subjects; and the distrait mood of Aumerle. Again, the discovery of the contents of the seal might be made at once, but the fifteen intervening lines before York cries “Treason! foul treason!” increase our suspense by their clear presentation of the emotions of father, mother, and son. Once more the situation is held when York does not declare at once the nature of the treason and the frantic mother demands again and again the contents of the paper before Aumerle says bitterly, and in perfect character with his first speeches of the scene,

“it is no more Than my poor life must answer.”

Still again we should have the necessary action of the scene perfectly if York, as soon as he has his boots, flung out of the room, to be followed immediately by the Duchess, crying that she will follow him to the King and ask the boy’s pardon. However, had Shakespeare’s treatment here been that he used in the scene of Talbot and the Countess we should have lacked the perfect portrayal of the mother who loses all sense of right and wrong in fear that her loved child may die. Finally, do we not gain greatly by the characterization of the Duchess in the last lines of the scene? Five times, then, Shakespeare, by entering into his characters, “holds the situation.”

The second act of The Magistrate,28 by Sir Arthur Pinero, is in central situation broadly this. Cis Farringdon, represented by his mother to his stepfather, Mr. Posket, as fourteen, because she does not like to admit her own age, is really nineteen and precocious at that. He has brought Mr. Posket to one of his haunts, a supper room in the Hotel des Princes, Meek Street, London, where they are to sup together. As Mr. Posket is a police justice, he has been induced to figure for the evening as “Skinner of the stock exchange.” Shortly after the arrival of the two comes word that a frequenter of the restaurant twenty years ago, now returned to London, wants to sup in their chosen room for the sake of old times. Therefore Mr. Posket and Cis are put into an adjoining room. Colonel Lukyn, the returned stranger, and a friend, Captain Vale, enter. Just as they are ordering supper, a note comes to the effect that Mrs. Posket, with a woman friend, is below, begging to speak with her old acquaintance, Colonel Lukyn. As Mrs. Posket asks a private interview, Captain Vale is put out on the balcony. With Mrs. Posket comes her sister Charlotte. We have already learned from Vale that he is deeply depressed because he thinks Charlotte no longer cares for him. Mrs. Posket has come to beg Colonel Lukyn, who knew her before she became a widow, not to reveal the truth about her age.

Watch now the permutations and combinations the author develops from this general situation. Cis is hardly in the room before Isadore presents his bill for past meals. Cis sees the chance, by borrowing from his stepfather, to settle a long postponed account. Three figures, moved in turn by shrewdness, trickiness, and gullibility, stir us to amusement, giving us Situation I. Even as the bill is paid, Cis asks Isadore to show Mr. Skinner the trick of “putting the silver to bed.” Three people amused or interested by a trick, amuse us—Situation II. With the coming of the note from Alexander Lukyn, and the assignment of the room adjoining to Cis and Mr. Skinner-Posket, there is a hint of future complication which amuses us—Situation III. Lukyn and Vale entering, the former sentimental over his memories of the place, and the latter comically depressed over what he thinks to be the faithlessness of Charlotte Verrinder, give us Situation IV. The note saying Mrs. Posket is below with a friend, asking a private interview, produces Situation V, for it amuses us to think what may happen with Mr. Posket and Cis just on the other side of the door. Placing Vale on the balcony leads to Situation VI, for he goes with amusing regret for the delayed supper.

Up to this point the situations may be declared parts of the main situation, which must now itself be developed. Just after Blond, the proprietor, ushers in the ladies, the pattering of rain outside is heard.

Lukyn. Good gracious, Blond! What’s that?

Blond. The rain outside. It is cats and dogs.

Lukyn. (Horrified.) By George, is it? (To himself, looking towards window.) Poor devil! (To Blond.) There isn’t any method of getting off that balcony is there?

Blond. No—unless by getting on to it.

Lukyn. What do you mean?

Blond. It is not at all safe. Don’t use it.

(Lukyn stands horror-stricken. Blond goes out. Heavy rain is heard.)—Situation VII.

As Mrs. Posket reveals to Lukyn the complications in which her lie is involving her, voices from the next room, not clearly distinguished by those on the stage, but known to us as the voices of Cis and Mr. Skinner-Posket, are heard—Situation VIII. Just when Lukyn is straining every nerve to get the ladies away so that he may release Vale, Charlotte, overwhelmed by hunger, invites herself to supper—Situation IX. As the two women eat, Lukyn sits in anxious despair, at times forgetful of his guests. This brings Situation X, when Vale reaches out from behind the curtains of the balcony and passes to the absent-minded Lukyn from the buffet the dishes Charlotte desires. When Charlotte, turning suddenly, sees the outstretched arm, we have Situation XI. When Vale reënters, thoroughly irritated and quarrels with Lukyn, we have Situation XII. The reunion of Charlotte and Vale makes the thirteenth. That is, if six initial situations produced the situation when all the characters were upon the stage, Sir Arthur has developed seven new situations from the sixth. Now by adding a fresh complication through some new figures, he develops six more situations.

Just as Lukyn, Mrs. Posket, Charlotte, and Vale are about to leave amicably, Blond rushes in to say that the police are below because the prescribed hour for closing has passed. The names and addresses of all persons found on the premises will be taken—Situation XIV. Lukyn, Vale, Mrs. Posket and Charlotte hide themselves in different parts of the room, putting out the lights. Situation XV is the entrance in the darkness of Blond leading Cis and Mr. Skinner-Posket, in order that the other room may be searched safely. At last, the room where all are hidden is examined by the police. All try to hold their breath, but in vain. The police detect some one breathing—Situation XVI. In the resulting confusion, Cis escapes, dragging his stepfather with him—Situation XVII. The other four when caught, foolishly give false names. Lukyn, thoroughly irritated by the officers, flings one of them aside and attempts to force his way out, when he and his party are promptly arrested for assault—Situation XVIII.

Lukyn. You’ll dare to lock us up all night?

Messiter. It’s one o’clock now, Colonel—you’ll come on first thing in the morning.

Lukyn. Come on? At what court?

Messiter. Mulberry Street.

Agatha Posket. Ah! The Magistrate?

Messiter. Mr. Posket, Mum.

(Agatha Posket sinks into a chair, Charlotte at her feet; Lukyn, overcome, falls on Vale’s shoulders.)—Situation XIX.

Five situations of nineteen lead up to the sixth. Seven are developed from that sixth by means of four people. The new complication, the search of the restaurant by the police and the bringing into one room of all the figures, gives us six more situations. Certainly Sir Arthur knows how to “hold a situation.”

Act III of Mrs. Dane’s Defence29 is just equally divided between preparatory material and the great scene which ebbs and flows about the following situation. Mrs. Dane, in love with Lionel, the adopted son of Sir Daniel Carteret, at the opening of the scene has lied so successfully about her past that Sir Daniel, who has been suspicious of her, has been entirely convinced of her innocence. Eager to help her set herself right, he asks in the kindest way for information which may aid him. Trying not to commit herself, Mrs. Dane slips once or twice and all the old suspicions of Sir Daniel are rearoused. He cross-examines her so rigidly that ultimately she breaks down and confesses. Handled by the inexperienced that situation might have been good for four or five pages. As treated by Mr. H.A. Jones, it makes a scene of twenty pages of finest suspense and climax. The situation is well held because every reaction upon it by the two characters has been worked out.

One would hardly think two quarrelsome inmates of a poorhouse, visited by a relative of one of them who wishes to take him away to manage her place, likely to produce a masterpiece of comic drama. Yet it does with Lady Gregory in The Workhouse Ward,30 for she knows Irish character and speech so intimately that minor situation after minor situation develops, through the characters, from the original situation.

Indeed, much of our so-called new drama is but a prolonged holding of a situation stated as the play opens, or clearly before us at the end of Act I. Chains31 of Miss Elizabeth Baker in Act I puts this double situation before us. A young married man without children, though happy enough in his marriage, is so weary of the sordidness of his small means and limited opportunities that he longs to break away, go out to Australia, and when he has made a career for himself, send for his wife. His sister-in-law, a shop girl, equally weary of her life, is weakly thinking of marrying a man she does not love, but who really loves her, in order to escape the grayness of her life. At the end of the play these two are accepting the situations in which we found them. Yet the three acts of the play are full of varied interest for an audience, so admirably does the writer discern the situations which her characters will develop from the original situation. Hindle Wakes,32 the best play of Stanley Houghton, is really a study of the way in which a situation which took place before the play began affects three families.

Surely it must now be evident that if a dramatist should in the first place understand perfectly that illustrative action is the core of drama, and must be carefully selected; and secondly that he must, among possible illustrative actions, select those which quickest will produce the largest emotional results; he must also recognize that till he has searched and probed his situations by means of the characters, in the first place he cannot know which are his strongest, and in the second place cannot hope to hold the situations chosen.

Another complaint from the inexperienced dramatist when shaping up his story is that though he sees the big moments in his play, he does not see his way from one to another. That is, transitional scenes are lacking. They will not worry him long, however, if he follows the methods just stated for holding a situation. Let him watch the people who have come into his imagination, first simply as people. Who and what are they? Secondly, what are they feeling and thinking in the situations which have occurred to him? He can’t long consider this without deciding what people they must have been in order to be in the situations in question. Hard upon this comes the question: “What will people who have been like these and have passed through this experience do immediately, and thereafter?” In the answer to the question, “What have they been?” he finds the transitional scenes which take him back into an earlier episode; in the answer to “What will they become?” the transitional scenes that carry him forward. In the scene cited from Richard II the main moments are the home-coming, the discovery of the traitorous paper, and the departure of the Duke and Duchess of York. How is the transition from one to the other to be gained? Through knowledge of the characters, as the analysis showed. What applies here to transition within a scene from dramatic moment to dramatic moment applies equally in transition from scene to scene. Suppose that Sir Arthur Pinero had as the starting-point of the third act of The Magistrate the idea that Mrs. Posket should be arrested under such conditions that she must appear in the court of her husband when he is as guilty as she. Sir Arthur has decided that they must be in some place like the Hotel des Princes when it is raided. He has in mind episodes which will bring them all together at that place. He already sees clearly the scene of the raid and the arrest. But the place cannot be raided till late in the evening, and Agatha Posket is too jealous of her reputation thoughtlessly to stay late in such a place. What are to be the transitional “scenes” which, in the first place, shall make us feel that considerable time has passed since Mrs. Posket came to the hotel, and secondly shall keep us amused? Sir Arthur finds them through the characters. It is the hunger of self-indulgent Charlotte which motivates the staying and gives us the supper “scene.” It is the character of Vale which gives us his quarrel with Lukyn. The love making of Charlotte and Vale provides another transitional “scene.” In other words, whether one is looking for more episodes or for transitions from one chosen episode to another, one should not go far afield hunting episodes as episodes, but should become acquainted with the characters as closely as possible. They will solve the difficulties.

All this lengthy consideration of selection makes for unity of action in the story resulting. Some unity of action, whether the story be slight or complicated, there must be. Of the three great unities over which there has been endless discussion, Action, Place, and Time, the modern dramatists, as we shall see, treat Place with the greatest freedom, and are constantly inventing devices to avoid the Time difficulty. With the dramatists of the present, as with the dramatists of the past, however, what they write must be a whole, a unit. Some central idea, plan, purpose, whatever we choose to call it, must give the play organic structure. Story is the first step to this. Which gives most pleasure—a string of disconnected anecdotes and jests; or a series of them given some unity because they concern some man of note, for instance, Abraham Lincoln; or the same series edited till, taken all together, they make Abraham Lincoln, in one or more of his characteristics, clearer than ever before? Does not a large part of our pleasure in biography come from the way in which it co-ordinates and interprets episodes and incidents hitherto not properly inter-related in our minds? Unity of action is, then, of first importance in story.

There is, however, another kind of unity which has not been enough considered—what may, perhaps, be called artistic unity. Why is it that a play which begins seriously and for most of its course so develops, only to end farcically, or which begins lightly only to become tragic, leaves us dissatisfied? Because the audience finds it difficult to readjust its mood as swiftly as does the author. The Climbers33 and The Girl With the Green Eyes34 of Clyde Fitch are examples in point. The first begins with such dignity and mysteriousness that its lighter moods, after Act I, seem almost trivial. In the second play the very tragic scene of the attempted suicide, after the light comedy touch of the preceding parts, is distinctly jarring. A recent play which for two acts or more seemingly had been dealing with but slightly disguised figures of the political world had a late scene in which one of these politicians, like Manson in The Servant in the House,35 or The Stranger in The Passing of the Third Floor Back,36 shadowed the figure of Christ himself. The effect was jarring, unpleasant, and confusing, mainly because of its suddenness. It will be noted that in both the plays mentioned, Manson and The Stranger carry their suggestion from the start. Should we know how to take Percinet and Sylvette in The Romancers37 of Rostand did not that opening scene, when these two, in love with being in love, read Romeo and Juliet together, prepare us for all the later fantasy? A dramatist will do well, then, to know clearly before he begins to write whether he wishes his story to be melodrama, tragedy, farce, or comedy of character or intrigue. Unless he does and in consequence selects his illustrative material so that he may give it artistic unity, he is likely to produce a play of so mixed a genre as to be confusing.

“Just what is tragi-comedy, then?” a reader may ask. The Elizabethan dramatist frequently offered one serious and one comic plot, running parallel except when brought together in the last scene of the play. Technically, however, tragi-comedy is a form which, although it may contain tragic elements, is throughout given a general emphasis as comedy and ends in comedy. We do not have good tragi-comedy when most of the play is comedy or tragedy, and one scene or act is distinctly the opposite. Therefore not only unity of action but artistic unity, unity of genre, should be sought by the dramatist shaping up his story.

How much story does a play require? This is a difficult point to settle, but first of all let us clearly understand that there are great differences in audiences as far as plotting is concerned. Some periods require more plot than others. Today we do not demand, as did the audience of Shakespeare’s time, plays containing two or more stories, sometimes scarcely at all connected, sometimes neatly interwoven. Middleton’s The Changeling38 contains two almost independent stories. This is nearly as true of The Coxcomb39 by Beaumont and Fletcher. On the other hand, in Much Ado About Nothing the Hero-Claudio story, the Beatrice-Benedict story, and the Dogberry-Verges story are so deftly interwoven that they are, to all appearances, a unit. Even as late as thirty years ago one found in many plays a group of characters for the serious interest and another for the comic values. Gradually, however, dramatists have come to get their comic values from people essential to the serious story, or from a comic emphasis they place on certain aspects of the serious figures of the play. Today is the time of the single story rather than the interwoven story. Yet even now, so far as the public of the United States is concerned, a writer may easily go too far in simplicity, or rather scantiness of story, trusting too much to admirable characterization. That is why that delightful play, The Mollusc,40 failed in this country. Many people, among them the intelligent, declared the play too thin to give them pleasure. That is, apparently we of the United States care more in our plays for elaborate stories than do our English cousins.

Indeed, national taste differs as to the amount of plot desirable. Both Americans and English care more for plot than do most of the Continental nations, which are often satisfied with plays of slight story-value but admirable characterization. Nor is the difference a new one. Writing of Wycherley’s arrangement of Molière’s Misanthrope in his Plain Dealer, Voltaire said, “The English author has corrected the only fault of Molière’s piece, lack of plot.”41 In the same Letter on Comedy, Voltaire brings out clearly what any student of English drama knows, that all through its greatest period it depended far more on complicated story than did the drama of the Continent. Lessing in his Hamburg Dramaturgy, speaking of Colman’s The English Merchant, says it has not action enough for the English critics. “Curiosity is not sufficiently fostered, the whole complication is visible in the first act. We Germans are well content that the action is not richer and more complex. The English taste on this point distracts and fatigues us, we love a simple plot that can be grasped at once. The English are forced to insert episodes into French plays if they are to please on their stage. In like manner we have to weed episodes out of the English plays if we want to introduce them to our stage. The best comedies of Congreve and Wycherley would seem intolerable to us without this excision. We manage better with their tragedies. In part these are not so complex and many of them have succeeded well amongst us without the least alteration, which is more than I could say for any of their comedies.”42

About all the generalization one may permit one’s self here is: For the public of the United States one can at present feel sure that story increases its interest in characterization, however fine. As we shall see in dealing with character, the latter should never be sacrificed to story, but story often ferries a play from the shore of unsuccess to the shore of success. Even today it is not the great poetry, the subtle characterization nor the fine thinking of Hamlet which give it large audiences: it is the varied story, full of surprises and suspense.

In another way, Hamlet is a case in point. It shows the impossibility of laying down any golden rule as to the amount of story a play should have. Only speaking broadly is it true that different kinds of plays seem to call for different amounts of story. Melodrama obviously does depend on story-happenings often unmotivated and forced on the characters by the will of the dramatist. Romance is almost synonymous with action and we associate with it a large amount of story. The word Intrigue in the title “Comedy of Intrigue” at once suggests story. Tragedy and High Comedy, on the other hand, depend for their values on subtle characterization. In these last two forms it would seem that the increasing characterization must, because of the time limit, mean decrease in the amount of story; then Hamlet, with its complicated story, occurs to us as by no means a single instance of a play of subtle characterization in complicated story. Farce may be either of character or of situation, but there are also farces in which both situation and character have the exaggerations which distinguish this form from comedy. Comedy of Manners must obviously use much characterization, but it does not preclude a complicated story. Melodrama, then, does call above all else for story. With all the other forms it is in the last analysis the common sense of the dramatist which must tell him how much story to use. He will employ the amount the time limits permit him if he is at the same time to do justice to his characters and to the idea, if any, he may wish to convey. That is, story as we have been watching it develop from the point of departure is, for the dramatist, story in the rough. It is only when it has been proportioned and emphasized so that upon the stage it will produce in an audience the exact emotional effects desired by the dramatist that it becomes plot.

Just as the point of departure for a play comes to a writer as a kind of unconscious selection from among all possible subjects, so we have seen that story takes shape by a similar process of conscious or unconscious selection till it is something with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and clear. Nor does selection stop here. The very necessary proportioning and emphasizing mean, as we shall see, that the dramatist selects, and again selects.