Dramatic Technique Part 59

_The Maid._ (_In the Hall._) _Ellen._ (_Half-dressed in the Here is a letter for you, ma'am. Hall_.) Here is a letter for you, ma'am.

_Helmer._ Give it here. (_He _Helmer._ Give it to me. (_Seizes seizes the letter and shuts the letter and shuts the door._) Yes, door._) Yes, from him. Look from him. You shall not have it.

here. I shall read it.

_Nora._ Read it. _Nora._ Read it.

_Helmer._ I have hardly the _Helmer._ (_By the lamp_.) I courage. I fear the worst. We have hardly the courage to. We may both be lost, both you and I. may both be lost, both you and Ah! I must know. (_Hastily I. Ah! I must know. (_Hastily tears the letter open; reads a tears the letter open; reads a few few lines with a cry of joy._) few lines, looks at an enclosure; Nora! a cry of joy._) Nora!

(_Nora looks inquiringly at (_Nora looks inquiringly at him._) him._)

_Helmer._ Nora!--Oh, I must read _Helmer._ Nora! Oh, I must read it again. Yes, yes, it is so. You it again. Yes, yes, it is so.

are saved, Nora, you are saved. I are saved, Nora, I am saved.

_Nora._ How, saved? _Nora._ And I?

_Helmer._ Look here. He sends _Helmer._ You too, of course; you back your promissory note. we are both saved, both of us.

He writes that he regrets and Look here, he sends you back your apologises, that a happy turn promissory note. He writes that in his life--Oh, what matter he regrets and appologises; that what he writes. We are saved, a happy turn in his life--Oh, Nora! There is nothing to matter what he writes. We are witness against you. Oh, Nora, saved, Nora! No one can harm you.

Nora.[20] Oh, Nora, Nora.[21]

The text of the right-hand column brings out more clearly than the original the complete but unconscious selfishness of Helmer. Ibsen, understanding that character more fully than in his first draft, makes not only the change from "You are saved, Nora" to the self-revelatory "I am saved!" but also the change to that infinitely more dramatic "And I?"

which replaces Nora's "How, saved?"

In a second set of extracts from the same scene, a firmer grasp of the characters has permitted Ibsen to replace the general and conventional in the last two speeches of the left-hand column with the more specific and characterizing lines of Helmer and the lines of Nora that are an inspiration.

_Nora._... It never for a moment _Nora._... When Krogstad's letter occurred to me that you lay in the box, it never occurred would think of submitting to to me that you would think of that man's conditions, that you submitting to that man's would agree to direct your conditions. I was convinced that actions by the will of another. I you would say to him, "Make it was convinced that you would known to all the world"; and that say to him, "Make it known to then-- the whole world"; and that then--

_Helmer._ Well? I should give _Helmer._ Well? When I had you up to punishment and disgrace. given my own wife's name up to disgrace and shame--?

_Nora._ No; then I firmly believed _Nora._ Then I firmly believed that you would come forward, take that you would come forward, everything upon yourself, and say, take everything upon yourself, "I am the guilty one"-- and say, "I am the guilty one."

_Helmer._ Nora! _Helmer._ Nora!

_Nora._ You mean I would _Nora._ You mean I would never have accepted such a never have accepted such a sacrifice? No, of course not. But sacrifice? No, certainly not. But what would my word have been what would my a.s.sertions have in opposition to yours? I so been worth in opposition to yours?

firmly believed that you would That was the miracle that I hoped sacrifice yourself for me--"don't for and dreaded. And it was to listen to her," you would hinder that that I wanted to die.

say--"she is not responsible; she is out of her senses"--you would say that it was love of you--you would move heaven and earth. I thought you would get Dr. Rank to witness that I was mad, unhinged, distracted.

I so firmly believed that you would ruin yourself to save me. That is what I dreaded, and therefore I wanted to die.

_Helmer._ Oh, Nora, Nora! _Helmer._ I would gladly work for you day and night, Nora-- bear sorrow and want for your sake--but no man sacrifices his honour, even for one he loves.

_Nora._ And how did it turn _Nora._ Millions of women have out? No thanks, no outburst of done so.[23]

affection, not a shred of a thought of saving me.[22]

Perfect phrasing rests, then, on character thoroughly understood and complete emotional accord with the character. Short of that in dialogue, one stops at the commonplace and colorless, the personal, or the literary.

Even, however, when dialogue expounds properly and is thoroughly in character, it will fail if not fitted for the stage. John Oliver Hobbes stated a truth, if somewhat exaggeratedly, in these lines of her preface to _The Amba.s.sador_:

Once I found a speech in prose--prose so subtly balanced, harmonious, and interesting that it seemed, on paper, a song: But no actor or actress, though they spoke with the voice of angels, could make it, on the stage, even tolerable.... Yet the speech is nevertheless fine stuff: it is nevertheless interesting in substance: it has imagination: it has charm. What, then, was lacking? Emotion in the _tone_ and, on the part of the writer, consideration for the speaking voice. Stage dialogue may have or may not have many qualities, but it must be emotional. It rests primarily on feeling. Wit, philosophy, moral truths, poetic language--all these count as nothing unless there is feeling of an obvious, ordinary kind.[24]

When reading a play aloud, do we give all the stage directions, or, cutting out those which state how certain speeches should be read, try to give these as directed? Even when reading some story aloud, do we not often find troublesome full directions as to just how the speakers delivered their lines? If given by us, they provide an awkward standard by which to judge our reading. If we wish to suppress them, they are not, in rapid reading, always seen in time. As was pointed out very early in this book, gesture, facial expression, movement about the stage, and above all, the voice, aid the dramatist as they cannot aid the novelist. These aids and the time limits of a play have, as we shall see, very great effect on dialogue. Note in the opening of _The Case of Rebellious Susan_, by Henry Arthur Jones, the effects demanded from the aids just named.

ACT I. _SCENE. Drawing-room at Mr. Harabin's; an elegantly furnished room in Mayfair. At back, in centre, fireplace, with fire burning. To right of fireplace a door leading to lady Susan's sitting-room. A door down stage left._

_Enter footman left showing in Lady Darby_

_Lady Darby._ (_A lady of about fifty._) Where is Lady Susan now?

_Footman._ Upstairs in her sitting-room, my lady.

(_Indicating the door right._)

_Lady D._ Where is Mr. Harabin?

_Footman._ Downstairs in the library, my lady.

_Enter Second Footman showing in Inez, a widow of about thirty, fascinating, inscrutable_

_Lady D._ (_To First Footman._) Tell Lady Susan I wish to see her at once.

_Inez._ And will you say that I am here too?

(_Exit First Footman at door right. Exit Second Footman at door left._)

_Lady D._ (_Going affectionately to Inez, shaking hands very sympathetically._) My dear Mrs. Quesnel, you know?

_Inez._ Sue wrote me a short note saying that she had discovered that Mr. Harabin had--and that she had made up her mind to leave him.

_Lady D._ Yes, that's what she wrote me. Now, my dear, you're her oldest friend. You'll help me to persuade her to--to look over it and hush it up.

_Inez._ Oh, certainly. It's the advice everybody gives in such cases, so I suppose it must be right. What are the particulars?

_Lady D._ I don't know. But with a man like Harabin--a gentleman in every sense of the word--it can't be a very bad case.

_Enter Lady Susan._[25]

If the voice does not deftly stress "now" in Lady Darby's first speech, and the "upstairs" and the "downstairs" of the footman, this opening will fail of its desired effect. Everything in this well-written beginning of an interesting play depends on bringing to the delivery of the lines right use of the dramatist's greatest aids: gesture, facial expression, pantomime, and above all the exquisite intonations of which the human voice is capable. Write this scene as a novelist would handle it, and see to what different proportions it will swell. Note in the final result how much less connotative, how much more commonplace the dialogue probably is. Contrasting two pa.s.sages--one from a novel, the other in a play drawn from it--will perhaps best ill.u.s.trate that the dialogue of the novel and of the play treating the same story usually differ greatly.

And when it became clear that somebody, good or bad, was without, Patty, having regard to the lateness of the hour and the probability of supernatural visitations, was much disposed to make as though the knocking were unheard, and to creep quietly off to bed. But Mistress Beatrice prevailed upon her to depart from this prudent course; and the two peered from an upper window to see who stood before the door.

At first they could see no one; but presently a little figure stepped back from the shadow, looking up to the window above, and Beatrice Cope, although she discerned not the face, felt more than ever certain that this summons was for her.

"'Tis but a child there without, Patty," she said. "Maybe 'tis some poor little creature that has lost its way, and come here for help and shelter. Heaven forbid that we should leave it to wander about, all the dreary night through!"

Patty's fears were not much calmed by the sight of this lonely child.

"'Twas the Phantom Child," she murmured, "who comes wailing piteously to honest folks' doors o' nights; and if they take it in and cherish it, it works them grievous woe."

Mistress Beatrice, however, tried to hear as little as she might of what Patty was saying; and she went downstairs and undid the heavy bar very cautiously. Then she opened the door a little s.p.a.ce; and Patty Joyce stood by her staunchly, although disapproving of what she did.