Dramatis personae

“ No extraneous character is introduced to discuss moral and social theories, or to acquaint us with the psychology of the real dramatis personae, or to suggest humorous observations about the progress of the dramatic action. ”

“ Above all, her dramatis personæ are no longer fixed and defined at their first entrance: they grow with the story, often surprising us at last by qualities, no doubt dormant from the beginning, and never strained or inconsistent, but only possible to development through experience. ”

“ In the comedies which came into favour, the dramatis personæ represented a strange society of opulent old men, spendthrift sons, intriguing slaves, and courtezans. If we did not know what temptation there is to make literary capital out of the tender passion, we might suppose that the youth of that day were entirely occupied in clandestine amours, and in buying and selling women as if they were dogs and parrots. ”

“ They put themselves behind and within their characters, and so make us feel that every act of their personages is not only natural but even—given the conditions— inevitable. We recognise that their story is the sole logical outcome of the interaction of their dramatis personæ. ”

“ While the dramatis personæ play their parts with the utmost spirit while the story proceeds, they do not, as the past creations do, seem to survive this first contact and live in our minds. This is particularly true of the women. They are well drawn, and play the assigned parts well enough, but they do not, as a rule, make a place for themselves either in our hearts or memories. ”

“ More important than this external aspect is the vitality of the dramatis personae. Such ought not to be merely specific interests personified, which is only too frequently the case at the hands of modern dramatists. Such abstract impersonations of particular passions and aims are wholly destitute of dramatic effect. A purely superficial individualization is equally insufficient. Content and form in such cases, as in the analogous type of allegorical figures, fail to coalesce. Profound emotions and reflections, imposing ideas and language offer no real compensation. ”

“ But an actor is often so absorbed in his own part that he does not easily estimate the bearing of any given speech, even his own, upon the whole play. "Cuts" at rehearsal are not unfrequently found to be too hastily made. Then, what is the action? Not merely the external incidents, but the shifting phases of thought, emotion, character, in the dramatis personæ. It is these that give the incidents their value, and so give dramatic interest to the plot, or story. The dialogue and the incidents are but two phases of the presentment of the story. ”

“ Goethe, treating of the drama, has said, that “to be theatrical a piece must be symbolical; that is to say, every action must have an importance of its own, and it must tend to one more important still.” It is still more important, for dramatic effect, that the dramatis personæ should embody attributes of passion, humour, sentiment, character, with which large miscellaneous audiences can establish sympathy ”

“ The past is to be to the student no longer a graveyard, in which he rambles confusedly, reading ridiculous epitaphs upon monuments whose comparative impressiveness is misleading, but a series of dramatic performances, appealing to the senses, the mind and the soul, in which the dramatis personæ will present history as a serial-play in which the latest act is one in which he himself is taking a minor part. ”

“ In conclusion, genuine dramatic art consists in the expression of individuals in the conflict of their interests and the discord roused between their characters and their transitory passions. It is here that the twofold aspect of lyric and epic poetry [11] will assert its power in true dramatic union: and we have then attached to this the aspect of positive external fact expressed likewise in the medium of language, as where we have, for instance, the departure and entrance of dramatis personae as a rule announced beforehand ”

“ Now, although it may be urged that the vicissitudes of human life have occasionally led an individual through as many scenes of singular fortune as are represented in the most extravagant of these fictions, still the causes and personages acting on these changes have varied with the progress of the adventurer’s fortune, and do not present that combined plot, (the object of every skilful novelist) , in which all the more interesting individuals of the dramatis personæ have their appropriate share in the action and in bringing about the catastrophe. ”

“ I applaud the boldness with which you [14] attack de front all the difficulties of the damnable little art, and which ought to bring you all honour. It is refreshingly courageous of you, for example, to have staked your fortune on a dramatis personae of 3, when you might, like H.A. Jones, have sought safety in 30 or so. ”

“ In crown 8vo., 2 vols., cloth, price 6s.
THE VALLEY OF SOREK. By Gertrude M. George, with a Critical Introduction by Richard Herne Shepherd.
“There is in the book a high and pure moral and a distinct conception of character.... The dramatis personæ ... are in reality strongly individual, and surprise one with their inconsistencies just as real human beings do.... ”

“ But is pleasure all that we expect to find? What we should look for above everything in a comedy or a drama is a representation, exact as possible, of the manners and characters of the dramatis persona of the play ”

“ Why, as to dramatic genius, sir, the fact is this—to give a true picture of life, a man should enter into all its scenes,—should follow nature, sir—but modern authors plunder from one another—the mere shades of shadows.—Now, sir, for my part, I dive into the world—I search the heart of man;—'tis true I'm called a rake—but, upon my soul, I only game, drink, and intrigue, that I may be better able to dramatize each particular scene. ”

“ There is a genuine dramatic motive for the display by the heroine of ‘Comedy and Tragedy’ of quickly changing emotions and accomplishments. She acts because circumstances really call upon her to act, and not because the showman pulls the strings of his puppet as the whim of the moment may suggest. ”

“ THE inscription over the Drama in olden times used to be, "Man, look into this mirror of life; your soul will be gripped in its innermost depths, anguish and dread will take possession of you in the face of this rage of human desire and passion. ”

“ "Wherever there is human nature, there is drama. ”

“ It is in the seizure and presentation of the essential and distinguishing marks of a character, of a scene, of a passion, of a society, of a phase of life, of a movement of national thought—it is in the seizure and vivid treatment of some of these, to the exclusion or falsification of non-essentials, that the dramatist must lay his claim to sincerity and being “true to nature.” ”

“ One must ask, "According to this method what will the child recall if his mind reverts to the story—courage, or the variety of images from the number of short-stories told to impress the abstract moral idea of courage?" Dramatization like life represents character in the making and therefore helps to make character. ”

“ And now I may add intelligibly that the drama of primitive man is performed in an equally dramaturgic spirit, whether seen, as in its merely culminating or final enactment, or unseen and often secret, as in its long-continued preparations. ”

“ Out of the narrative interest, a primary instinct with men, and out of the interest, only gradually developed, in individual character for its own sake, is evolved a special literary form, called drama. ”

“ We recognize the relative insignificance of the individual drama, but its reality holds us. Its characters may be few, its scenery bare, its action trite and simple to other eyes, yet each of us, as the leading actor, finds in the development of a human soul a part which fascinates him, and lends itself to the finest shades of expression. ”

“ Though the term dramatic faculty means the power by which one personates others, yet when analyzed, we find it identical with that by which we express our own thoughts and emotions. We are all when natural, and thoroughly in earnest, dramatic. One can personate others only so far, as he by his conception, passes into their life, making their sentiments and emotions, as well as their words his own, and, as such, expressing them. ”

“ Consider the potential for creating drama, alone! Every word ever read or spoken, every emotion ever conveyed, every gesture of anger, love, jealousy, pain, pleasure—all this raw material glittering brightly, ready to pour out in new conflicts, dramatic situations, sharp pungent dialogue—"
He made me sense his enthusiasm, but I couldn't quite feel it. Would such a tremendous ability necessarily be good? ”

“ When the ruling idea of his life gained ascendancy over his mind—the idea that drama is, of all arts, the one that can exercise the greatest amount of influence over the world—it aroused the most active emotions in his whole being. ”

“ 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 202 of the world as to provide unlimited dramatic situations. ”

“ Can those, who, loving the drama, and feeling its beauties with a true classic spirit, wish to see the public taste won over to the tragic muse, hope that it can be accomplished, or can they be surprised that on the contrary, tragedy so often excites merriment when they reflect upon the way dramatic poetry is often delivered upon the stage. ”

“ The dramatist draws his characters of men and women not for himself, not to be visible only to his own eyes, or to eyes as penetrating as his own, but to live and move and have their being in the sympathies and antipathies, in the senses and emotions, in the imaginations and intellect of his audience. This is the reason why the drama discloses in some respects better than any other branch of literature the average character of the age. ”

“ Drama of all kinds has clung round its frills and furbelows. Revelations philosophical, historical, sociological, lurk in its shimmering folds. Men have died for it, women have sold youth and honour, husband, child, and lover, for it. ”

“ It is only thanks to such a low, trivial understanding of the significance of the drama that there appears among us that infinite quantity of dramatic works describing men's actions, positions, characters, and frames of mind, not only void of any spiritual substance, but often of any human sense. ”

“ In tragedy, passion or intensity sweeps all before it, and when I say passion, I mean the passion of pathos as well as wrath or revenge. These are the supreme elements of the actor's art, which cannot be taught by any system, however just, and to which all education is but tributary.
Now all that can be said of the necessity of a close regard for nature in acting applies with equal or greater force to the presentation of plays. You want, above all things, to have a truthful picture which shall appeal to the eye without distracting the imagination from the purpose of the drama. ”

“ Those to whom the struggles of every, even the meanest, human being are scenes of an awful drama, every incident of which is to be noted with reverent interest, will not find them void of meaning; while the life which opens in my next chapter is, perhaps, full enough of mere dramatic interest (and whose life is not, were it but truly written?) to amuse merely as a novel. ”

“ Who will deny that it may be merely the defect of the playwrights of our time? Who will assert that a more accomplished dramatist may not come forward in the twentieth century to prove that the drama is a fit instrument for emotional dissection? ”

“ I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even illuminating ways. ”

“ In looking back, those stand out as the real things—the prosaic grind of existence falls away and shows itself as mere illusion. After all, what would life be without contrasts? They are the chief elements of drama. ”

“ Of course we should honour first the playwright, who has given form to each well knit act and telling scene. But that worthy man, perhaps at this moment sipping his coffee at the Authors' Club, gave his drama its form only; its substance is created by the men and women who, with sympathy, intelligence and grace, embody with convincing power the hero and heroine, assassin and accomplice, lover and jilt. ”

“ The purpose of the Drama is, universally, “to represent human life in the way of action.” But as such representation it made for separate and distinct ENDS, it is, further, distinguished into different species, which we know by the names of Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce. ”

“ It must not, therefore, be imagined that it was without the knowledge and will of the poet that a heroic drama turns out a comedy in his hands, and ends in the manner of Comedy with a marriage of convenience. ”

“ As the unwritten play of a great dramatist lies in his mind before it is uttered or acted, with every problem solved and every contingency provided for—so we believe the whole extended drama lay in the Eternal Mind—the path of struggle and pain—the cross-currents of human will—the glorious conclusion of it all. ”

“ The second or moral period of the drama is shown by the increasing prevalence of the Morality plays. In these the characters were allegorical personages,--Life, Death, Repentance, Goodness, Love, Greed, and other virtues and vices. The Moralities may be regarded, therefore, as the dramatic counterpart of the once popular allegorical poetry exemplified by the Romance of the Rose. It did not occur to our first, unknown dramatists to portray men and women as they are until they had first made characters of abstract human qualities. ”