Playwriting

“ While you must have wordless pantomime at the basis of every play, it is those plays which exhibit in high degree the use of action in the form of dialogue that are the more comfortable reading; and, always postulating that a play is a play—not necessarily a playwright's play, the admiration of his brother craftsmen, but a thing practicable, actable and effective on the stage—the more physical action is subordinated to character, to the exploration of the springs of human motive, the better it is for reading purposes and the better for all purposes. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI DIALOGUE IN THE PLAYLET We have now come to one of the least important elements of the playlet—yet a decorative element which wit and cleverness can make exceedingly valuable.
If it is true that scenery is the habitation in which the playlet moves, that its problem is the heart beating with life, that the dramatic is the soul which shines with meaning through the whole, that plot is the playlet's skeleton which is covered by the flesh of the characters—then the dialogue is, indeed, merely a playlet's clothes. ”

“ How comes it, then, that there is a constant demand for text-books of the art and craft of drama? How comes it that so many people--and I among the number--who could not write a play to save their lives, are eager to tell others how to do so? And, stranger still, how comes it that so many people are willing to sit at the feet of these instructors? It is not so with the novel. Popular as is that form of literature, guides to novel-writing, if they exist at all, are comparatively rare. ”

“ One of the all-rules-in-one for writing drama that I have heard, though I cannot now recall what playwright told me, deals with precisely this point. He expressed it this way: "First tell your audience what you are going to do, then show it to them happening, and then tell 'em it has happened!" You will not make a mistake, of course, if you show the audience those events in which the dramatic conflict enters. The soul of a playlet is the clash of the wills of the characters, from which fly the revealing flashes ”

“ We feel that the playwright is, so to speak, inventing as he goes along--that the action, like the child's fantastic serpentine of blocks, might at any moment take a turn in any possible direction without falsifying its antecedents or our expectations. No part of it is necessarily involved in any other part. If the play were found too long or too short, an act might be cut out or written in without necessitating any considerable readjustments in the other acts. ”

“ How long is it since a play has been written and accepted and played which has in it any so-called literary quality or is an addition to literature? And what is dramatic art as at present understood and practiced by the purveyors of plays for the public? If any one can answer these questions, he will contribute something to the discussion about the tendency of the modern stage.
Every one recognizes in the "good old plays" which are occasionally "revived" both a quality and an intention different from anything in most contemporary productions. ”

“ First, the very fact that these disquisitions are written proves that the play is designed to be printed and read, and that we are, therefore, justified in applying to it the standard of what may be called literary illusion. Second, when a playwright gets into the habit of talking around his characters, he inevitably, even if unconsciously, slackens his endeavour to make them express themselves as completely as may be in their own proper medium of dramatic action and dialogue. You cannot with impunity mix up two distinct forms of art--the drama and the sociological essay or lecture. ”

“ Literature, in the conventional sense, may be a closed book to innumerable theater-goers who nevertheless can witness a drama and react to its exhibition of life. The word, which in printed letters is so all-important, on the stage becomes secondary to action and scene, for the story can be, and sometimes is, enacted in pantomime, without a single word being spoken. In essence, therefore, a play may be called unliterary, and thus it makes a wider, more democratic appeal than anything in print can. ”

“ In many cases, indeed, our pleasure consists of a delicate blending of surprise with realized anticipation. We foresaw, and are pleased to recognize, the art of the whole achievement, while details which had grown dim to us give us each its little thrill of fresh admiration. Regarded in this aspect, a great play is like a great piece of music: we can hear it again and again with ever-new realization of its subtle beauties, its complex harmonies, and with unfailing interest in the merits and demerits of each particular rendering. ”

“ In many cases, no doubt, it is the plain and literal fact that the impulse to write some play--any play--exists, so to speak, in the abstract, unassociated with any particular subject, and that the would-be playwright proceeds, as he thinks, to set his imagination to work, and invent a story. ”

“ Watch a child making his first attempt at play-writing. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the play will contain little except action. There will be slight characterization, if any, and the dialogue will be mediocre at best. The young writer has depended almost entirely upon action because instinctively, when he thinks of drama, he thinks of action.
Nor, if we paused to consider, is this dependence of drama upon action surprising. “From emotions to emotions” is the formula for any good play. ”

“ The clever playlet writer is advertised by the ease—the simplicity—with which he condenses every bit of the exposition into the opening speeches. You are right in the middle of things before you realize it and it is all done so skillfully that its straightforwardness leaves never a suspicion that the simplicity is not innate but manufactured; it seems artless, yet its artlessness is the height of art. The beginning of a playlet, then, must convey to the audience every bit of information about the characters and their relations to each other that is necessary for clear understanding. ”

“ They include strengthening of the power to memorize, widening of the imagination through interpretation of character, familiarity with a work of art, training in poise, utilization of speaking ability, awakening of self-confidence, and participation in a worthy coöperative effort.
In a broader sense such interest in good, acted plays is an intellectual stimulus. As better plays are more and more effectively presented the quality of play production in schools will be improved, and both pupils and communities will know more and more of the world's great dramatic literature. ”

“ And I have marvelled at the nonchalant way in which the fiction writer often rushes into the writing of a play, when a painter would never think of trying to "sculpt" until he had learned at least some of the very different processes employed in the strange art-form of sculpture. The radical difference between writing and playwrighting [1] has never been popularly understood, but some day it will be comprehended by everybody as clearly as by those whose business it is to make plays. ”

“ And now, let us sum up this brief discussion of characters and characterization before we pass on to a consideration of dialogue. Because of time-restriction, a playlet must depend for interest upon plot rather than upon character. The average number of persons in a playlet is four. Interesting characters are to be found everywhere, and the playlet writer can delineate those he rubs elbows with better than those he does not know well and therefore cannot fully understand. The same unity demanded of a plot is required of a character—characters must be consistent. ”

“ If it be a serious play, in which character and action are very closely intertwined, any pause or break in the conjoint development is to be avoided. If, on the other hand, it is a play of light and graceful dialogue, in which the action is a pretext for setting the characters in motion rather than the chief means towards their manifestation, then the playwright can afford to relax the rate of his progress, and even to wander a little from the straight line of advance. ”

“ The play-writer's or playwright's work, then, supposing that he possesses the requisite knowledge of life as it is lived to go on with, is to select or evolve from that knowledge the basic idea, plot or theme, which, skillfully displayed, will attract; and then to invent, plan, devise, and construct the trap wherein it is to be used to snare the sympathies, etc., of audiences. ”

“ The playwright selects from the affairs of a group of people a few characters and incidents, and works them together into a three-hour plot. He may include no matter which is not relevant to the development of his story, and although in the hands of the artist the play seems to pierce clearly into the characters of the persons involved, in reality he is constructing a framework, whose angles are only the more prominent salients of character and episode. ”

“ Studying Plays. In nearly every grade of school and college, plays are either read or studied. The usual method of study is to read the lines of the play in rotation about the class, stopping at times for explanations, definitions, impressions, general discussions. Such minute analysis may extend to the preparation of outlines and diagrams. The methods used to get pupils to know plays are almost as varied as teachers. After such analytical study has been pursued it is always a stimulating exercise to get another impression of the play—not as mere poetry or literature, but as acted drama. ”

“ Instead of working from the inside out, they work from the outside in. They gather up a haphazard handful of theatric situations and try to string them together into a story; they congregate an ill-assorted company of characters and try to achieve a play by letting them talk to each other. Many of our playwrights are endowed with a sense of situation; several of them have a gift for characterisation, or at least for caricature; and most of them can write easy and natural dialogue, especially in slang. ”

“ While it is possible to write a most enthralling novel of mystery or a detective short-story which suddenly, at the very last moment, may disclose the trick by which it has all been built up, such a thing is not successfully possible in a playlet. You must not conceal the identity of anyone of your characters from the audience. Conceal his identity from every other character and you may construct a fine playlet, but don't conceal his motive from the audience. ”

“ I laugh constantly in writing a farce. I have found it far easier to compose a commercial play than an artistic novel. How our princes of the dramatic kingdom can contrive to spend two years over a single piece, as they say they do, I cannot imagine. The average play contains from eighteen to twenty thousand words; the average novel contains eighty thousand; after all, writing is a question of words. At the rate of a thousand words a day, one could write a play three times over in a couple of months ”

“ We see every day that a mere story-play--a play which appeals to us solely by reason of the adroit stimulation and satisfaction of curiosity--very rapidly exhausts its success. No one cares to see it a second time; and spectators who happen to have read the plot in advance, find its attraction discounted even on a first hearing. But if we jump to the conclusion that the skilful marshalling and development of the story is an unimportant detail, which matters little when once the first-night ordeal is past, we shall go very far astray. ”

“ Every play which contains a house on fire, a sinking steamer, a railway accident, and a dance in a casino will (if it is liberally placed on the stage) succeed in spite of itself. In point of fact, nothing could wreck such a piece but carefully written dialogue, and a strict attention to probability. Avoid these two stumbling blocks (and nothing is easier than to avoid them) , and your piece will succeed triumphantly. But it is not easy to write a stage-play which, on account of its literary merit, shall deserve to succeed. ”

“ We makers of plays, your grace, often have but a small part in our own contrivances. Many a time have I devised a play in the spirit of comedy, but it is ever the characters themselves who spin the plot. ”

“ If we do not emphasize this play element, it is not from failure to realize the difference between a work of art and an essay, a sermon, a speech or a mathematical demonstration; it is merely because the play element in art is recognized by everyone, to the exclusion of the element of rational thought and purpose, which is no less essential.
Let us ask: what is play? The answer is: play is nature’s device whereby the young train themselves for reality. Two puppies pretending to bite each other’s throats, learn to fight without having their throats torn in the process. ”

“ So long as one has not reached the end of his play he has neither the beginning nor the middle. This part of the work is obviously the most laborious. It is the creation, the parturition.
As soon as my plan is complete, I go over it and ask concerning each scene its purpose, whether it prepares for or develops a character or situation, and then whether it advances the action. A play is a thousand-legged creature which must keep on going. If it slows up, the public yawns; if it stops, the public hisses. ”