Dramatic Technique Part 26

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 repet.i.tion, by elaborate treatment, by the position given it in an act or in the play as a whole, or by striking ill.u.s.tration, we emphasize, for it stays in the memory and shapes the meaning of a play for an auditor. In _Oth.e.l.lo_, 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 ill.u.s.trative 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 princ.i.p.al, 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 ill.u.s.trated 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. Oth.e.l.lo, 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 Oth.e.l.lo that Desdemona gave to Ca.s.sio. 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.

_Oth.e.l.lo._ 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.

_Oth.e.l.lo._ 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 Oth.e.l.lo 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!