Dramatic Technique Part 32

THE DeBUTANTE

_Characters_:

_Major Worthington_, an American financier;

_Emil Richter_, a young poet;

_Dr Van Metre_, who do "team work" for the hand of _Kitty_.

_w.i.l.l.y Squeam_, /

_Kitty Worthington_, the _debutante_.

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

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

DISCOVERED: _A group of guests who chatter and pa.s.s out, leaving Squeam and Van Metre. They talk of the attractions of Kitty, the debutante, and make a wager as to who will win out. Each agrees to back the other up in case of failure. They go off as Mrs. King and Major Worthington enter. She reproves her brother for looking tired and uninterested on this occasion of his daughter's "coming out."_ _At length, exhausted by his sister's flippancy, he tells her that they are financially ruined, and that the crash will come on the morrow. Mrs. King is distracted, but they both brighten as Kitty enters in a whirl. She is radiantly happy, and hugs one and then the other, then both. Enter Richter, a stalwart young westerner, who does not know how to dance. They congratulate him on his little volume of verses which has just been published. After promising to sit out a dance with him, Kitty sends him off to talk with Miss Smithkins. He picks up a rose which Kitty has dropped and goes off with it. Enter Dr. Van Metre and Squeam. Exeunt Major Worthington and Mrs. King. Van Metre and Squeam take turns in proposing to Kitty. Enter Mrs. King, to whom Squeam finds himself making violent love, mistaking her for Kitty. He starts to bolt, but she lays hold of him, and they go off together. Kitty and Van Metre go of to dance, she laughing at his ardent protestations. Enter Major. He takes out a revolver from his writing desk, and puts it back as some dancers pa.s.s through. Enter Emil, and the two exeunt arm-in-arm. Enter Mrs. King and Kitty. Mrs.

King bluntly tells Kitty their financial straits, and adds that Kitty must give up any sentimental feelings she has for Richter, and must, if she gets the chance, accept Van Meter or Squeam on the spot. With this, she hastily departs, leaving Kitty in tears. The tears turn to dimples the moment Richter appears, and she tries to shock him into a dislike for her. Nevertheless, he makes a clumsy effort at proposing which is interrupted by Van Metre, then Squeam, then both, who insist on taking her to supper. She dismisses them. (Soft music.) Richter proposes, and Kitty refuses him, telling him the reason frankly, as her aunt has just given it to her. He reprimands her for having mercenary motives, and makes an eloquent plea for the equality of men.

Enraged, she leaves the room, but quickly returns and throws herself into his arms. Enters Mrs. King hastily, and says they may go right on embracing, as the Major has just received a telegram stating that he has won out in a law suit involving millions of dollars' worth of iron mines. Enter the Major hilarious. Enter Squeam and Van Meter. They shake hands and declare the wager off. Enter the dancers from a cotillion figure. They are arrayed in grotesque paper hats and bonnets and garlands of paper flowers. They circle about Kitty and Richter, and pelt them with paper flowers. Exeunt. Tableau: Kitty and Richter looking into firelight._

_Curtain._

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

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

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

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

_Kneirtje._ (_Opens the prayerbook, touches Jo's arm. Jo looks up, sobbing pa.s.sionately, sees the prayerbook, shakes her head fiercely.

Again wailing, drops to the floor, which she beats with her hands.

Kneirtje's trembling voice sounds._) O Merciful G.o.d! I trust! With a firm faith, I trust.

(_The wind races with wild las.h.i.+ngs about the house._)

_Curtain._[47]

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

(_Mary goes to the cupboard; returns to the table with the salt.

Almost ready to drop, she drags herself to the window nearer back, and leans against it, watching the Southerners like a hunted animal.

Thaddeus sits nodding in the corner. The Sergeant and d.i.c.k go on devouring food. The Sergeant pours the coffee. Puts his cup to his lips, takes one swallow; then, jumping to his feet and upsetting his chair as he does so, he hurls his cup to the floor. The crash of china stirs Thaddeus. Mary shakes in terror._)

_Sergeant._ (_Bellowing and pointing to the fluid trickling on the floor._) Have you tried to poison us, you G.o.d d.a.m.n hag?

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

_Mary._ (_Screeching._) Call my coffee poison, will ye? Call me a hag?

I'll learn ye! I'm a woman, and ye're drivin' me crazy.

(_s.n.a.t.c.hes the gun from the wall, points it at the Sergeant, and fires. Keeps on screeching. The Sergeant falls to the floor. d.i.c.k rushes for his gun._)

_Thaddeus._ Mary! Mary!

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

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

_Northerner._ Go get my horse, quick!

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

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

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

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

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

_Curtain._[49]

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

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

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

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

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

The convention which made that sort of ending desirable has pa.s.sed.

However, today another convention,--the quiet ending,--might make it possible to end this same play with the speech just preceding the two quoted.

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

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

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

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

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

_Enter a Servant._

_Servant._ Dinner is served.