Dramatic Technique Part 35

Now, any interview between Magda and her father will both unduly lengthen an act already long and bring the play well into its final climax. Stopping the act here creates superb suspense. Starting a new act under slightly different conditions keeps all the suspense created by Act IV and intensifies it by new details. The new act gives us the chance easily to introduce von Keller, who is needed if the play is to be more than another treatment of the erring daughter confessing her sin to her father. Just through him comes emphasis which gives special meaning to the play. Therefore, we gain by postponing the full confession from the end of Act IV till well toward the end of Act V.

Evidently, climax rests on (a) right feeling for order in presenting ideas; (b) a correct sense of what is weaker and what is stronger in phrasing emotions; and (c) just appreciation of the feeling of the audience toward the emotions presented. For both clearness and climax it is usually a wise rule to consider but one idea at a time. In the following ill.u.s.tration, column 1 shows confusion, because three subjects--the fan, the greeting, and the compliment of Lady Windermere--are started at the same time. In column 2, quoted from Miss Anglin's acting version of _Lady Windermere's Fan_, treating each of these subjects in its natural sequence brings both clearness and climax.

_Parker._ Mrs. Erlynne. _Parker._ Mrs. Erlynne.

(_Lord Windermere starts. (_Lord Windermere starts.

Mrs. Erlynne enters, very Mrs. Erlynne enters, very beautifully dressed and very beautifully dressed and very dignified. Lady Windermere dignified. Lady Windermere clutches at her fan, then clutches at her fan, then lets it drop on the floor. lets it drop on the floor.

She bows coldly to She bows coldly to Mrs. Erlynne, who bows Mrs. Erlynne, who bows to her sweetly in turn, and to her sweetly in turn, and sails into the room._) sails into the room._)

_Lord Darlington._ You have _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_C._) How do dropped your fan, Lady you do again, Lord Windermere?

Windermere.

(_Picks it up and hands it _Lord Darlington._ You have to her_.) dropped your fan, Lady Windermere.

_Mrs. Erlynne._ (_C._) How do (_Picks it up and hands it you do again, Lord Windermere? to her._) How charming your sweet wife looks! Quite a picture!

_Lord Windermere._ (_In a low _Lord Windermere._ (_In a low voice._) It was terribly voice._) It was terribly rash of you to come! rash of you to come!

_Mrs. Erlynne._ (_Smiling._) _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_Smiling._) The wisest thing I ever did in my The wisest thing I ever did in my life. And, by the way, you must life. How charming your sweet pay me a good deal of attention wife looks! Quite a picture! And, this evening. by the way, you must pay me a good deal of attention this evening.[63]

In the next extract, note that omission of "I want to live childless still" and s.h.i.+fting the position of the words "For twenty years, as you say, I have lived childless" permit an actress to work up to the strongest climax of the speech, when spoken, "They made me suffer too much." Miss Anglin, trained by years of experience to great sensitiveness to the emotional values of words, has here arranged the sentences better than the author himself.

_Lord Windermere._ What do _Lord Windermere._ What do you mean by coming here this you mean by coming here this morning? What is your object? morning? What is your object?

(_Crossing L.C. and sitting._) _(Crossing L.C. and sitting._)

_Mrs. Erlynne._ (_With a note of _Mrs. Erlynne._ (_With a note of irony in her voice._) To bid good- irony in her voice._) To bid bye to my dear daughter, of good-bye to my dear daughter, of course. (_Lord Windermere bites course. (_Lord Windermere bites his underlip in anger. Mrs. Erlynne his underlip in anger. Mrs. Erlynne looks at him, and her voice looks at him, and her voice and manner become serious. In and manner become serious. In her accents as she talks there her accents as she talks there is a note of deep tragedy. For a is a note of deep tragedy. For a moment she reveals herself._) Oh, moment she reveals herself._) Oh, don't imagine I am going to have don't imagine I am going to a pathetic scene with her, weep have a pathetic scene with her, on her neck and tell her who I weep on her neck and tell her am, and all that kind of thing. who I am, and all that kind of I have no ambition to play the thing. I have no ambition to part of mother. Only once in my play the part of mother. For life have I known a mother's twenty years, as you say, I have feelings. That was last night. lived childless. Only once in my They were terrible--they made life have I known a mother's me suffer--they made me suffer feelings. That was last night.

too much. For twenty years, They were terrible--they made as you say, I have lived me suffer--they made me suffer childless--I want to live too much.[64]

childless still.

When an eighteenth-century manager, in his production of _The School for Scandal_, had colored fire set off in the wings as the falling screen revealed Lady Teazle, he failed of his intended effect because he thought that for his audience the falling of the screen was climactic.

Really, of course, the enjoyment of the audience, as it listens to the dialogue, knowing that Lady Teazle overhears, is the chief source of pleasure. It is the dismay of Sir Peter, when he sees who is really behind the screen, which makes the climax. That dismay is not greater against a background of red fire. Crowded with action as the end of _Hamlet_ is, we close it in acting, not on the fatal wounding of Hamlet, but either on his words, "The rest is silence," or as the soldiers of Fortinbras march out with Hamlet's body on their s.h.i.+elds. Experience has proved that a stronger climax for an audience lies in those words or in seeing the procession which pa.s.ses among the kneeling courtiers, stronger than from all the noisy emotions which have just preceded. In brief, except when we feel sure that we have made our feeling as to the emotions of a scene or act the public's, it is they who must determine where the climax lies. Where it rests we must in all cases of doubt decide from our past experience of the public and present observation of it.

From all these ill.u.s.trations it must be clear that the only rule for finding climax is: Understand clearly the audience for which you intend your play; create in it the sympathetic relation toward your characters you wish; then you may be sure that what seems to you a climax for your scene will be so for your audience.

Movement depends, then, on clearness, unity, emphasis, and a right feeling for suspense and climax. This movement may be steadily upward, as in the last scene of _Hamlet_, or it may have the wave-like advance found in Sigurjonsson's _Eyvind of the Hills_[65] or Sir Arthur Pinero's _The Gay Lord Quex_. The emotional interest in each of these sweeps up to a pure climax, drops back part way for a fresh start, and then advances to a stronger climax.

Granted that a would-be playwright understands the proportioning of his work and the correct development of it for clearness, emphasis and movement, he is ready to repeat the words of Ibsen: "I have just completed a play in five acts, that is to say, the rough draft of it.

Now comes the elaboration, the more energetic individualization of the persons, and their modes of expression."[66] He is ready to perfect his characterization and dialogue.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Ancient Cla.s.sical Drama_, chap. VII, "Elements of Comedy."

Moulton. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

[2] _The "Choephori" of aeschylus._ Introduction, p. xvi. A. W.

Verral. The Macmillan Co., New York.

[3] _The Rising of the Moon_, Lady Gregory. _Contemporary Dramatists_. T. H. d.i.c.kinson, ed. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

[4] _Mme. Sans Gene_, Prologue, Scene 1. Sardou and Moreau. Samuel French, New York.

[5] _Lonely Lives_, Act IV. _The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann_, vol. III, p. 265. Ludwig Lewisohn, ed. B. W. Huebsch, New York.

[6] _Farces_, "The Galloper," Act I. Richard Harding Davis.

Copyright, 1906, by Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[7] _The Lonely Way_, etc. _Three Plays by Arthur Schnitzler_.

Translated by E. Bjorkman. Mitch.e.l.l Kennerley.

[8] _Phaedra_, Act I. Racine. Translated by R. B. Boswell. _Chief European Dramatists._ Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

[9] _Works_, vol. 3. W. Gifford and Dyce. Murray, London.

[10] _The Rehearsal_, Act I. The Duke of Buckingham. Bell's _British Theatre_, vol. XV. London, 1780.

[11] _The Lady of Andros_, Act I. Terence. Translated by J.

Sargeaunt. The Macmillan Co., New York; W. Heinemann, London.

[12] _The Lady of Andros_, Act III.

[13] Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.

[14] _Theatre Complet_, vol. II. Calmann Levy, Paris.

[15] _Theatre_, vol. II. Michel Levy freres, Paris.

[16] Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston.

[17] _Magda_, translated by A. E. A. Winslow. Lamson, Wolffe & Co., Boston.

[18] _From Ibsen's Workshop_, pp. 271-272. Translated by A. G.

Chater. Copyright, 1911, by Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.

[19] _Idem_, pp. 288-289.

[20] _Ibsen's Prose Dramas_, vol. V, Walter Scott, London; Chas.

Scribner's Sons, New York.

[21] _Letters of Henrik Ibsen_, p. 291. Fox, Duffield & Co., New York.

[22] _Some Plat.i.tudes concerning Drama. Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1909.

[23] _Oth.e.l.lo_, Act III, Scene 3.

[24] _Lady Windermere's Fan_, Act I. Oscar Wilde. J. W. Luce & Co., Boston.

[25] Duffield & Co., New York.