Dramatic Technique Part 65

Towards the right a sofa. Night._

SCENE 1.

_Ernest._ (_Seated at a table and preparing to write._) Nothing--impossible. It is striving with the impossible. The idea is there; my head is fevered with it; I feel it. At moments an inward light illuminates it, and I see it. I see it in its floating form, vaguely outlined, and suddenly a secret voice seems to animate it, and I hear sounds of sorrow, sonorous sighs, shouts of sardonic laughter--a whole world of pa.s.sions alive and struggling--They burst forth from me, extend around me and the air is full of them. Then, then I say to myself: "'Tis now the moment." I take up my pen, stare into s.p.a.ce, listen attentively, restraining my very heart-beats, and bend over the paper--Ah, but the irony of impotency! The outlines become blurred, the vision fades, the cries and sighs faint away--and nothingness, nothingness encircles me--The monotony of empty s.p.a.ce, of inert thought, of dreamy la.s.situde! and more than all the monotony of an idle pen and lifeless paper that lacks the life of thought! Ah, how varied are the shapes of nothingness, and how, in its dark and silent way, it mocks creatures of my stamp! So many, many forms. Canvas without color, bits of marble without shape, confused noise of chaotic vibrations. But nothing more irritating, more insolent, meaner than this insolent pen of mine (_throws it away_), nothing worse than this white sheet of paper. Oh, if I cannot fill it, at least I may destroy it--vile accomplice of my ambition and my eternal humiliation. Thus, thus--smaller and still smaller. (_Tears up paper. Pauses_.) And then!

How lucky that n.o.body saw me! For in truth, such fury is absurd and unjust. No, I will not yield. I will think and think until I have conquered or am crushed. No, I will not give up. Let me see, let me see--if in that way--[50]

Such soliloquy, even if conventionally justifiable in its own time, is rarely, if ever, necessary. Scene 2 of Echegaray's play shows Ernest and Don Julian discussing the former's difficulty in working. What could be easier, then, than to cut the scene just cited to Ernest seated at a writing table and showing by his pantomime how impossible he finds composition? Why should he not act out the lines, "I take up my pen, stare into s.p.a.ce, listen attentively,--bend over the paper ... and nothingness, nothingness"? If as a climax he throws away his pen and tears up his paper, it certainly should be clear that he is thoroughly exasperated with his failure to write what he wishes. In Scene 2 a very slight change or amplification in the phrasing will permit him to bring out whatever of importance in Scene 1 the suggested revision has omitted.

Doubtless it would not be so easy to get rid of the soliloquies of the Cardinal, Iago, and Emilia, but ingenuity in handling the scene preceding and the scene following soliloquies will usually dispose of all or most of them. When _Lady Windermere's Fan_ of Wilde first appeared, hardly any one seriously objected to its soliloquies. They were an accepted convention of the stage. When Miss Margaret Anglin revived the play very successfully a year or two ago, she rightly felt these soliloquies to be outworn. By use of pantomime, in some cases hardly more than the pantomime called for in the stage directions, she disposed of all except an occasional line or two of the original soliloquies. The instances cited from her prompt book of the play show one soliloquy cut to stage directions and two lines of the original, and the second cut to mere stage direction.

ACT I.

_Lady Windermere._ How horrible! (_Lady Windermere sits left I understand now what of centre, looks toward Lord Darlington meant by the desk, rises, starts toward imaginary instance of the couple desk, hesitates centre, goes not two years married. Oh! it to desk, tries drawer, hunts can't be true--she spoke of for and finds key, unlocks enormous sums of money paid drawer, takes out check to this woman. I know where book, looks over stubs, finds Arthur keeps his bank book--in nothing and is relieved, one of the drawers of that then sees first entry._) desk. I might find out by that.

I _will_ find out. (_Opens drawer._) _Lady Windermere._ Mrs. Erlynne-- No, it is some hideous mistake. 600--Mrs. Erlynne--700--Mrs.

(_Rises and goes C_.) Some silly Erlynne--400. Oh! it is true!

scandal! He loves _me_! He loves it is true!

_me_! But why should I not look?

I am his wife, I have a right to look! (_Returns to bureau, takes out book and examines it, page by page, smiles and gives a sigh of relief._) I knew it, there is not a word of truth in this stupid story. (_Puts book back in drawer.

As she does so, starts and takes out another book._) A second book--private--locked! (_Tries to open it but fails. Sees paper knife on bureau, and with it cuts cover from book. Begins to start at the first page._) Mrs.

Erlynne--600--Mrs. Erlynne-- 700--Mrs. Erlynne--400. Oh! it is true! it is true! How horrible!

(_Throws book on floor._)[51]

ACT III.

_Lady Windermere._ (_Standing_ (_Lady Windermere discovered _by the fireplace._) Why doesn't at fireplace, L., crosses he come? This waiting is horrible. to chair, L. of C., takes He should be here. Why is he not cloak from chair, puts here, to wake by pa.s.sionate words cloak on crossing to door some fire within me? I am cold-- U.L., stops, decides to cold as a loveless thing. Arthur stay, crosses to R. of D.C.

must have read my letter by this Enter Mrs. Erlynne._) time. If he cared for me, he would have come after me, and have taken me back by force. But he doesn't care. He's entrammeled by this woman--fascinated by her--dominated by her. If a woman wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to what is worst in him. We make G.o.ds of men and they leave us. Others make brutes of them and they fawn and are faithful. How hideous life is! ... Oh! it was mad of me to come here, horribly mad. And yet which is the worst, I wonder, to be at the mercy of a man who loves one, or the wife of a man who in one's own house dishonors one? What woman knows? What woman in the whole world? But will he love me always, this man to whom I am giving my life?

What do I bring him? Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are blighted by tears, chill hands and icy heart. I bring him nothing. I must go back--no; I can't go back, my letter has put me in their power-- Arthur would not take me back!

That fatal letter! No! Lord Darlington leaves England tomorrow. I will go with him--I have no choice. (_Sits down for a few moments. Then starts up and puts on her cloak._) No, no! I will go back, let Arthur do with me what he pleases. I can't wait here. It has been madness my coming. I must go at once. As for Lord Darlington--Oh! here he is! What shall I do? What can I say to him? Will he let me go away at all? I have heard that men are brutal, horrible.

... Oh! (_Hides her face in her hands._)

_Enter Mrs. Erlynne, L._[52]

Soliloquy when a character is left alone on the stage is a perfect ill.u.s.tration of the difference between permanent and ephemeral technique. As a device for easy exposition, it has been popular from the beginning of drama till recently. Now, though one may use it in a rough draft, a technique which is likely to become permanent in this respect forces us to go over this draft, cutting soliloquy to mere action and the few exclamations which the character might utter under the circ.u.mstances. Soliloquy has no such permanent place in technique as have preliminary exposition, suspense, and climax. Soliloquy, when other people are on the stage and known by the speaker to be listening is also absurd. It is because of this fact that the dramatic or psychologic monologue, the form taken by a very large portion of Browning's voluminous poetry, breaks down if we attempt to stage it. "Some speaker is made to reveal his character, and, sometimes, by reflection, or directly, the character of some one else--to set forth some subtle and complex soul-mood, some supreme, all-determining movement or experience of a life, or, it may be, to ratiocinate subtly on some curious question of theology, morals, philosophy, or art. Now it is in strictly preserving the monologue character that obscurity often results. A monologue often begins with a startling abruptness, and the reader must read along some distance before he gathers what the beginning means.

Take the monologue of Fra Lippo Lippi for example. The situation is necessarily left more or less unexplained. The poet says nothing _in propria persona_, and no reply is made to the speaker by the person or persons addressed. Sometimes a look, a gesture or a remark must be supposed on the part of the one addressed, which occasions a responsive remark. Sometimes a speaker _imputes_ a question, and the reader is sometimes obliged to stop and consider whether a question is imputed by the speaker to the one he is addressing, or is a direct question of his own. This is often the case throughout _The Ring and the Book_."[53]

_Giuseppe Caponsacchi_. Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?

Have patience! In this sudden smoke from h.e.l.l,-- So things disguise themselves,--I cannot see My own hand held thus broad before my face And know it again. Answer you? Then that means Tell over twice what I, the first time, told Six months ago: 'twas here, I do believe, Fronting you same three in this very room, I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs, Who then ... nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did, As good as laugh, what in a judge we style Laughter--no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!

Only,--I think I apprehend the mood: There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk, The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth, The t.i.tter stifled in the hollow palm Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose, When first I told my tale: they meant, you know, "The sly one, all this we are bound believe!

Well, he can say no other than what he says.

We have been young, too,--come, there's greater guilt!

Let him but decently disembroil himself, Scramble from out the sc.r.a.pe nor move the mud,-- We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!"

And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast As if I were a phantom: now 'tis--"Friend, Collect yourself!"--no laughing matter more-- "Counsel the Court in this extremity, Tell us again!"--tell that, for telling which, I got the jocular piece of punishment, Was sent to lounge a little in the place Whence now of a sudden here you summon me To take the intelligence from just--your lips, You, Judge Tommati, who then t.i.ttered most,-- That she I helped eight months since to escape Her husband, is retaken by the same Three days ago, if I have seized your sense.[54]

It may be true that when one reads a dramatic monologue, the changes in thought caused by some movement or look of an imagined hearer may seem sufficiently motivated. When, on the other hand, this monologue is staged, it becomes exceedingly unreal because we feel that the second person would not be silent but would interrupt with question or comment.

More than this, unless the listening actor changes from pose to pose with rapid plasticity, he will become stiff in att.i.tude, thus making us conscious of him when we should be listening to the speaker. Increasing the number of hearers does not relieve the situation, but merely increases the number of possible interrupters or of people who stand about the stage more and more stiffly. Soliloquy is, therefore, to be avoided except when it seems or can be made to seem perfectly natural.

Monologue, acceptable perhaps to a reader, becomes well-nigh impossible on the stage.

The aside must be subjected to very nearly the same tests. In _Two Loves and a Life_ of Tom Taylor and Charles Reade, Musgrave and his daughter, Anne, are opening letters surrept.i.tiously. They come to the letter of William Hyde, which the girl opens with reluctance, crying,--

Ah, see, father, it is a blank!

_Musgrave._ A blank! Then it is as I thought!

_Anne._ How?

_Musgrave._ Here, girl!

(_He takes the letter and holds it to the fire in the brazier._)

_Anne._ See! Letters become visible!

_Musgrave._ A stale trick. 'Tis done with lemon juice or milk, when folks would keep what they write from those who are in their secret.

Politicians correspond so, Anne, and rebels.

_Anne._ But William Hyde is neither, father.

_Musgrave._ Of course not. Now then!

_Anne._ (_Aside._) Thank Heaven! 'tis all about his calling!

_Musgrave._ Read! (_Aside._) I have learned the key to their cypher, which I have copied from the priest's letter.

_Anne._ (_Reads._) "Dear Will, we have thine advices, and shall be at Lancaster Fair. All the smart fellows--"

_Musgrave._ (_To himself._) Ah! Bardsea Hole--all the Jacobite gentlemen--good.

_Anne._ (_Reads._) "By the time the grilse come ash.o.r.e--"

_Musgrave._ (_To himself._) Grilse? ammunition. Go on.

_Anne._ (_Reads._) "Which shall be as you fix, on Tuesday the 16th, at ten of the clock, P.M. There is a bill against you and the old clothier, payable at Ulverstone today, drawn by the butcher. Look out and see that he does not nab either of you--"

_Musgrave._ (_Aside._) The proclamation!

_Anne._ (_Reads._) "For your friends a.s.sembled. John Trusty."

_Musgrave._ From Townley. It _is_ as I suspected. (_He starts up._)

_Anne._ Father!

_Musgrave._ I'm a made man, Anne. Give me joy--joy![55]

In this once popular drama we have five asides close together, for of course "to himself" is the equivalent of an aside. All are bad, for in each case the other person on the stage must be supposed not to hear, and the aside is merely a device for telling us what the speaker is thinking. They vary in badness, however, for while Musgrave might well explain "grilse" to Anne as "ammunition," he says, "I have learned the key to their cipher, which I have copied from the priest's letter," not as something which he is necessarily thinking at the time, but as something which the audience needs to know at this point. An aside is objectionable when a man speaks what he would be careful only to think, either because of the very nature of his thought or because somebody is near at hand who should not overhear. Asides should be kept for confidential remarks which may be made to some person standing near the speaker, but could not be heard by persons standing at a greater distance; and to what naturally breaks from us in a moment of irritation, terror, or other strong emotion. Asides of the first group, confidential remarks, gain much in naturalness if spoken in half tones.

Nothing could be more preposterous than the old stage custom of coming down to the footlights to tell an audience in clear-cut tones confidences which must not be overheard by people close at hand on the stage. Asides which are only brief soliloquies are little better. Asides in which the speaker merely says to the audience what he might perfectly well say to the people on the stage are foolish unless the author wishes to make the point that the character has the habit of talking to himself. The following from Vanbrugh's _The Provoked Wife_ shows two entirely natural uses of the aside by Lady Brute, and one debatable use by Sir John.