Dramatic Technique Part 77

and Mrs. Price._

_Enter Mrs. North for her knitting. Mary wraps her up in a shawl, puts a ha.s.sock at her feet, suggests lighting a fire in the stove, and tries to comfort her mother by telling her she will take her away from Old Chester if the Captain keeps on bothering her. Mrs. North remonstrates feebly, and Mary decides she needs some beef-tea after the excitement. Exit Mary to make the tea._

_Enter the Captain without ringing or knocking, in great wrath. Gussie has spoken to him. At first they laugh at the children's stupidity and by degrees decide to carry out and confirm the children's suspicions by eloping. Enter Mary. Confusion, but the Captain pretends he has come to say good-bye to her because he is going away for a few weeks and under that cover, makes the appointment for the eloping._

_Curtain with his exit_

THE CAPTAIN, A MELODRAMA

[Diagram]

_Dramatis Personae_

_Captain La Rue, a little sea captain.

Bromley Barnes, former special investigator for the U.S. Customs Service.

Patrick Clancy, his friend.

A burly Butler.

John Felspar, junior partner of the firm of Felspar & Felspar, wine merchants.

Two Dinner Guests, members of the firm.

Carl Cozzens, the firm's Canadian representative._

SCENE. _The dining-room of Felspar's Summer Cottage_

_Time: Early evening_

_The Captain is discovered sitting on the end of the table next the window with his legs dangling dejectedly. Suddenly he sees something and, rus.h.i.+ng to the window, goes through a violent pantomime imploring help and caution from some one without and indicating the way to enter the house. He then wrings his hands and paces the floor excitedly ending at D. R. C. where he listens. The key turns in the lock and Barnes and Clancy enter cautiously. The Captain throws himself at their feet and tells them of being kidnapped and confined and his s.h.i.+p's papers taken from him and asks frantically for the time. Barnes tells him, and the Captain becomes at once dejected and silent. The other two, however, draw from him the story of how he has been racing over the Atlantic to get a cargo of champagne to an American port in time to get the benefit of the old tariff rate, just increased by the governments concerned. He got in in time but was drugged and confined in this house till too late and his papers taken from him. They advise him to stay where he is and, promising to help him at once, slip out as they came. The Butler comes in D. R. C. and begins setting table, joking the Captain about the supper to be held in his honor, but growling about the suddenness of his master's decision to have it. The Captain is excited and helps him in mock politeness. As they are working, Felspar comes in. Butler tells him that he has hired a waiter for the evening, subject to his approval--a man who happened to be walking by, with a friend. Felspar congratulates him and the new waiter is called. It is Clancy. La Rue controls himself as he recognizes him. Felspar orders the Butler to lock La Rue in the up-stairs bedroom, which has been prepared, till he shall be wanted, telling him at the same time that all the guests have arrived but Mr. Cozzens, who is to be brought directly to the dining-room when he arrives. The others will not wait for him. The Butler hurries La Rue off. Felspar gives a few parting instructions to the new waiter and goes to bring the guests. Clancy finishes the preparations and signals out the window to Barnes to come. Felspar comes back with the guests D. L. C. The Butler reappears, is called to the door-bell and ushers in Barnes as "Mr. Cozzens." Felspar introduces him as the Canadian representative of the firm whom he has never seen before. Barnes takes the cue and excuses his costume, saying that he arrived late and has not had time to change. All sit again and Felspar, telling the Butler to bring La Rue, tells the company that the s.h.i.+p's papers of the rival business house have come into his hands. These he produces and pa.s.ses along the table. Barnes, at the opposite end, pockets them as they come to him and refuses to give them up. All are astonished and half-angry. The Butler, having brought in the Captain at Felspar's order (who stands unnoticed at the back) again answers the bell and ushers in Mr. Cozzens, announcing him in a doubtful voice. Felspar stutters, "You--you Mr. Cozzens?" "So me mother and father says," the new-comer replies. "And you?" says the wine-merchant wheeling on Barnes. Barnes presents his card which is read aloud by Felspar, who goes into a white heat and demands the papers back. Barnes blandly refuses. Felspar threatens, saying he has four to one. At this point Clancy and La Rue step forward and signify their readiness to side with Barnes. Felspar laughs and tells them to take the papers then as the new law went into effect at four-thirty that afternoon. But Barnes informs him that the provisions of the French-American commercial treaty demand that the customs houses remain open till midnight when such a law goes through, and that they still have several hours. Felspar is again furious and orders them out and the three go together leaving the company in an angry stupor._

_Curtain_

Let it be clearly understood that there is no definitely established length for a scenario. It may run from one to two pages for a play of one act to twenty or more pages for a longer play. Obviously, a scenario should be as brief as clear presentation of what it must give permits, for it primarily exists as a short cut for the person who reads it to necessary information about a proposed play. Clearness is the first essential; brevity the second. The exact length must in each case be decided by the particular needs of the subject treated and the best judgment of the writer.

Above all, it should be remembered that a scenario unless it is simply an abbreviated presentation of a play already in ma.n.u.script should be considered something flexible. What is meant by this is that many a writer working with a scenario which has been approved by a manager or actor feels hampered because as he writes he has almost irresistible impulses to break away from the scenario as planned into situations or details of characterization and even of general treatment which, though they occur to him at the moment, seem to him undoubted improvements. Yet he hesitates to change his plan because it has been approved. This is folly. A scenario is at its best when it concerns not a completed but a proposed play and is held to be not fixed but thoroughly flexible. If changes suggesting themselves are felt by the writer to be improvements, he should by all means incorporate them. A good scenario bears much the same relation to a completed play that an architect's plans bear to a completed house. Where would the carpenter be without such plans, yet where is the set of plans which has not been modified or even greatly changed while the building is in construction? "Ibsen had no respect for any dramatist who proceeded otherwise [than from a carefully prepared scenario]. Once besought by a young dramatist to read the ma.n.u.script of his new play, Ibsen curtly asked for the scenario. When the young man proudly replied that he needed no scenario, having followed his inspiration whithersoever it led him from scene to scene, Ibsen grew furious and showed the pseudo-dramatist the door, declaring that any one who dispensed with a scenario didn't know what a drama was and couldn't possibly write one. And yet, after all, the scenario as first outlined by Ibsen may best be regarded as an experimental foreshadowing subject to radical modification as the writing of the play itself proceeds. It serves as the skeleton framework for Ibsen's later ideation. ... While it is true, then, that the material took shape in his mind long before he wrote a word of actual dialogue, yet Ibsen expressly acknowledged that it never took such unalterable shape in his mind as to permit him to write the last act first or the first act last. During the course of the work the details emerged by degrees."[11]

The fact is, a scenario is almost always a photograph of the mind of the person who writes it. If he is not ready to write his play, the scenario will show it, making clear whether this unreadiness comes from insufficiently understood characterization; thin or incomplete story; a lack of right proportioning of the material so that what is unimportant seems important; or a general vagueness as to what the author wants to do with his material. Just here lies the strong reason why every would-be dramatist will do well to become expert in scenario writing. He may for a long time fool himself into thinking that he can work better without a scenario; he may be able to write without putting on paper all that in this chapter has been required from the writer of a scenario, but sooner or later he goes through all the processes in his mind and either on paper or in his brain fulfils these requirements. The very people who shrink from forcing themselves to work out all the details required by a good scenario are merely dodging the inevitable. They avoid something irksome as a preliminary merely to do all this work before the completed play is ready. He who wants to write his play rapidly will find that he makes time in his final composition by taking all the time he needs in the preliminary task of drawing a good scenario. Undeniably, a scenario is the most effective way of forcing oneself to know the characters and the story of a play before one begins to write the play in detail. Work out a scenario carefully and all the difficult problems the play involves will have been solved except those of dialogue and perhaps some subtleties of characterization. Regard the resulting scenario as something entirely flexible and the composition of the play should be safe and even sure. He who steers by the compa.s.s knows how with safety to change his course. He who steers by dead reckoning is liable to error and delay.

Often questions as to scenarios are asked which imply that there must be some set form fulfilling all the requirements stated which can be adhered to strictly. Not at all. These various requirements may be met in almost as many ways as there are writers. One man may use more description. Another writer may use more narration. Some will use dialogue very freely. Some will characterize more than others. Yet all these different workers may produce scenarios equally good in that they are clear, brief, move by suggested dramatic action, are definite in _genre_, and make thoroughly evident their elements of suspense and climax.

Here are some scenarios which use dialogue rather freely. They are given not because such use is especially commendable but merely to ill.u.s.trate it.

THE LEGACY

_The persons_

_David Brice, a young attorney.

Reene Brice, his uncle.

Benjamin Doyle, his fiancee's father.

Dr. w.a.n.gren, family physician.

Mrs. Brice, the mother.

"Ditto" Brice, the sister.

Katherine Doyle, fiancee._

_The Time: The present.

The Place: Any city._

SCENE. _The Brice living-room comfortably furnished in walnut. A piano centre L., a round table rear R. Four entrances: upper L., rear centre, upper right, right centre. Curtained windows rear R. & L._

Joy seems to radiate through the household. Ditto and Katherine are discovered; Katherine, a pretty enthusiast of 22 playing diminuendo a joy-melody at piano; Ditto, pretty, 20 and nervous, crossing R. with an armload of tagged packages of various sizes and prettily tied--birthday presents for her brother David. Arrived at table, rear R., she deposits them.

_Ditto._ (_Stacking packages._) Don't you wish you were getting these birthday presents, Katherine?

_Katherine._ (_Playing._) I am, Ditto, dear. David is mine; therefore, what is David's belongs to me.

_Ditto._ (_Petulantly._) And what is yours....

_Katherine._ (_In fun._) ... Belongs to father.

(_Begins to sing merrily._) (_Exit Ditto, R._)

_Enter Mrs. Brice, L., a thoughtful woman of 50, quite grey and though careworn, attractive. She carries a linen spread and goes to the table. Katherine sings softly, playing diminuendo._

_Mrs. Brice._ (_Covering presents_.) You are very happy tonight, aren't you?

_Katherine._ (_Cheerily._) Why shouldn't I be, Mrs. Brice? It is David's birthday. (_Going to her._) But you aren't.

_Mrs. Brice._ (_Bravely._) Yes, I am. But you see this is probably David's last birthday at home and....

_Katherine._ (_Lovingly._) By no means! I shall bring him home every birthday. (_Kissing her._) ... And once in a while between.

_Mrs. Brice._ (_As they go down, arm in arm._) I know you will, Katherine, but we mothers ...

_David._ (_Entering centre rear, overcoat, hat and traveling grip._) h.e.l.lo everybody!... (_Tosses grip on table and makes for them._) ...

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year (_kisses mother_) and a quiet Fourth of July. (_Kisses Katherine._)

(_David is a well-built handsome man of 28 neatly dressed in business suit, light-weight overcoat and hat._)

_David._ (_Removing coat, Katherine a.s.sisting._) Well, how are all the little details?

(_Coat off, he begins kissing Katherine again. Enter Ditto, R._)

_Ditto._ (_Petulantly._) Do you realize this is your birthday?

_David._ (_Kissing mother._) I am doing my best to show it! (_Tossing Ditto his coat._) Hang that up and I will show you. (_Exit Ditto, R., with his coat and hat._)

_David._ (_Coming down from table with blue-print in hand._) Now, mother and child, look ye!

(_He shows them the architectural plans of the new cottage he is going to build as a wedding present to Katherine. They like them very much. More joy. Ditto, reentering, is also enthusiastic over plans._

_David next announces that he has been invited to become a member of his employer's law firm, one of the most successful in the State.