CHAPTER XIV : DRAMATICS
Difference between Public Speaking and Acting. In practically all the
aspects of public speaking you deliver your own thoughts in your own
words. In dramatic presentation you deliver the words already written
by some one else; and in addition, while you are delivering these
remarks you speak as though you were no longer yourself, but a totally
different person. This is the chief distinction between speaking in
public and acting. While you must memorize the lines you deliver when
you try to act like a character other than yourself, speeches in
dramatic production are not like usual memorized selections. Usually a
memorized selection does not express the feelings or opinions of a
certain character, but is likely to be descriptive or narrative. Both
prose and verse passages contain more than the uttered words of a
single person.
As preparation for exercise in dramatics, whether simple or elaborate,
training in memorizing and practice in speaking are extremely
valuable. Memorizing may make the material grow so familiar that it
loses its interest for the speaker. Pupils frequently recite committed
material so listlessly that they merely bore hearers. Such a
disposition to monotony should be neutralized by the ability to speak
well in public.
Naturalness and Sincerity. When you speak lines from a play inject as
much naturalness and sincerity into your delivery as you can command.
Speak the words as though they really express your own ideas and
feelings. If you feel that you must exaggerate slightly because of the
impression the remark is intended to make, rely more upon emphasis
than upon any other device to secure an effect. Never slip into an
affected manner of delivering any speech. No matter what kind of
acting you have seen upon amateur or professional stage, you must
remember that moderation is the first essential of the best acting.
Recall what Shakespeare had Hamlet say to the players.
Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus: but use all
gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind
of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give
it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious,
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split
the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of
nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.
Character Delineation. In taking part in a play you must do more than
simply recite words spoken by some one other than yourself. You must
really act like that person. This adds to the simple delivery of
speeches all those other traits by which persons in real life are
different from one another. Such complete identification of your
personality with that of the person you are trying to represent in a
play is termed character delineation, or characterization.
You may believe that you cannot represent an Indian chief or a British
queen, or an Egyptian slave, or a secret service agent, but if you
will recall your childish pastime of day-dreaming you will see at once
that you have quite frequently identified yourself with some one else,
and in that other character you have made yourself experience the
strangest and most thrilling adventures. When you study a role in a
scene or play, use your imagination in that same manner. In a short
time it will be easy for you to think as that other character would.
Then you have become identified with him. The first step in your
delineation has been taken.
Visualize in your mind's eye--your imagination--the circumstances in
which that character is placed in the play. See yourself looking,
moving, acting as he would. Then talk as that character would in those
circumstances. Make him react as he would naturally in the situations
in which the dramatist has placed him.
Let us try to make this more definite. Suppose a boy is chosen to act
the part of an old man. An old man does not speak as rapidly as a boy
does. He will have to change the speed of his speech. But suppose the
old man is moved to wrath, would his words come slowly? Would he speak
distinctly or would he almost choke?
The girl who is delineating a foreign woman must picture her accent
and hesitation in speaking English. She would give to her face the
rather vacant questioning look such a woman would have as the English
speech flits about her, too quickly for her to comprehend all of it.
The girl who tries to present a British queen in a Shakespeare play
must not act as a pupil does in the school corridor. Yet if that queen
is stricken in her feelings as a mother, might not all the royal
dignity melt away, and her Majesty act like any sorrowing woman?
EXERCISES
You are sitting at a table or desk. The telephone rings. You pick up
the receiver. A person at the other end invites you to dinner. Deliver
your part of the conversation.
1. Speak in your own character.
2. Speak as a busy, quick-tempered old man in his disordered office.
3. Speak as a tired wife who hasn't had a relief for weeks from the
drudgery of house-work.
4. Speak as a young debutante who has been entertained every day for
weeks.
5. Speak as the office boy.
6. Speak as an over-polite foreigner.
7. Delineate some other kind of person.
Improvisations are here given first because such exercises depend upon
the pupil's original interpretation of a character. The pupil is
required to do so much clear thinking about the character he
represents that he really creates it.
Dialogues. As it is easier to get two people to speak naturally than
where more are involved we shall begin conversation with dialogues.
Each character will find the lines springing spontaneously from the
situation. In dramatic composition any speech delivered by a character
is called a line, no matter how short or long it is.
As you deliver the dialogues suggested by the exercises try to make
your speeches sound natural. Talk as real people talk. Make the
remarks conversational, or colloquial, as this style is also termed.
What things will make conversation realistic? In actual talk, people
anticipate. Speakers do not wait for others to finish. They interrupt.
They indicate opinions and impressions by facial expression and slight
bodily movements. Tone changes as feelings change.
Try to make your remarks convey to the audience the circumstances
surrounding the dialogue. Let the conversation make some point clear.
Before you begin, determine in your own mind the characterization you
intend to present.
Situation. A girl buys some fruit from the keeper of a stand at a
street corner.
What kind of girl? Age? Manner of speaking? Courteous? Flippant?
Well-bred? Slangy? Working girl? Visitor to town?
What kind of man? Age? American? Foreigner? From what country?
Dialect? Disposition? Suspicious? Sympathetic?
Weather? Season of year? Do they talk about that? About themselves?
Does the heat make her long for her home in the country? Does the cold
make him think of his native Italy or Greece? Will her remarks change
his short, gruff answers to interested questions about her home? Will
his enthusiasm for his native land change her flippancy to interest in
far-off romantic countries? How would the last detail impress the
change, if you decide to have one? Might he call her back and force
her to take a gift? Might she deliver an impressive phrase, then dash
away as though startled by her exhibition of sympathetic feeling?
These are mere suggestions. Two pupils might present the scene as
indicated by these questions. Two others might show it as broadly
comic, and end by having the girl--at a safe distance--triumphantly
show that she had stolen a second fruit. That might give him the cue
to end in a tirade of almost inarticulate abuse, or he might stand in
silence, expressing by his face the emotions surging over him. And his
feeling need not be entirely anger, either. It might border on
admiration for her amazing audacity, or pathetic helplessness, or
comic despair, or determination to "get even" next time.
Before you attempt to present any of the following suggestive
exercises you should consider every possibility carefully and decide
definitely and consistently all the questions that may arise
concerning every detail.
EXERCISES
1. Let a boy come into the room and try to induce a girl (the mistress
of a house) to have a telephone installed. Make the dialogue realistic
and interesting.
2. Let a girl demonstrate a vacuum cleaner (or some other appliance)
to another girl (mistress of a house).
3. Let a boy apply for a position to a man in an office.
4. Let a boy dictate a letter to a gum-chewing, fidgety, harum-scarum
stenographer.
5. Let this stenographer tell the telephone girl about this.
6. Show how a younger sister might talk at a baseball or football game
to her slightly older brother who was coerced into bringing her with
him.
7. Show a fastidious woman at a dress goods counter, and the tired,
but courteous clerk. Do not caricature, but try to give an air of
reality to this.
8. Show how two young friends who have not seen each other for weeks
might talk when they meet again.
9. Deliver the thoughts of a pupil at eleven o'clock at night trying
to choose the topic for an English composition due the next morning.
Have him talk to his mother, or father, or older brother, or sister.
10. A foreign woman speaking and understanding little English, with a
ticket to Springfield, has by mistake boarded a through train which
does not stop there. The conductor, a man, and woman try to explain to
her what she must do.
11. Let three different pairs of pupils represent the girl and the
fruit seller cited in the paragraphs preceding these exercises.
12. A young man takes a girl riding in a new automobile. Reproduce
parts of the ride.
13. Two graduates of your school meet after many years in a distant
place. Reproduce their reminiscenses.
14. A woman in a car or coach has lost or misplaced her transfer or
ticket. Give the conversation between her and the conductor.
15. Let various pairs of pupils reproduce the conversations of patrons
of moving pictures.
16. Suggest other characters in appropriate situations. Present them
before the class.
Characters Conceived by Others. In all the preceding exercises you
have been quite unrestricted in your interpretation. You have been
able to make up entirely the character you presented. Except for a few
stated details of sex, age, occupation, nature, no suggestions were
given of the person indicated. Delineation is fairly easy to
construct when you are given such a free choice of all possibilities.
The next kind of exercise will involve a restriction to make the
acting a little more like the acting of a role in a regular play. Even
here, however, a great deal is left to the pupil's thought and
decision.
How much chance there may be for such individual thought and decision
in a finished play written by a careful dramatist may be illustrated
by _Fame and the Poet_ by Lord Dunsany. One of the characters is a
Lieutenant-Major who calls upon a poet in London. Nothing is said
about his costume. In one city an actor asked the British consul. He
said officers of the army do not wear their uniforms except when in
active service, but on the British stage one great actor had by his
example created the convention of wearing the uniform. In another city
at exactly the same time the author himself was asked the same
question. He said that by no means should the actor wear a uniform.
In the next exercises you are to represent characters with whom you
have become acquainted in books. You will therefore know something
about their dispositions, their appearance, and their actions. Your
task will be to give life-like portraits which others will recognize
as true to their opinions of these same people. For all who have read
the books the general outlines will be identical. The added details
must not contradict any of the traits depicted by the authors.
Otherwise they may be as original as you can imagine.
In the _Odyssey_, the great old Greek poem by Homer, the wandering
hero, Odysseus (also called Ulysses), is cast up by the sea upon a
strange shore. Here he meets Nausicaa (pronounced Nau-si'-ca-a) who
offers to show him the way to the palace of her father, the Bang. But
as she is betrothed she fears that if she is seen in the company of an
unknown man some scandalous gossip may be carried to her sweetheart.
So she directs that when they near the town Odysseus shall tarry
behind, allowing her to enter alone. In this naive incident this much
is told in detail by the poet. We are not told whether any gossip does
reach the lover's ears. He does not appear in the story. We are not
told even his name. Nor are we told how either she or he behaved when
they first met, after she had conducted the stranger to the palace.
If you enact this scene of their meeting you will first have to find a
name for him. You are free to create all the details of their behavior
and conversation. Was he angry? Was he cool towards her? Had he heard
a false account?
Before attempting any of the following exercises decide all the
matters of interpretation as already indicated in this chapter.
EXERCISES
1. Molly Farren tries to get news of Godfrey Cass from a Stable-boy.
_Silas Marner_.
2. The two Miss Gunns talk about Priscilla Lammeter. _Silas Marner_.
3. The Wedding Guest meets one of his companions. _The Ancient
Mariner_.
4. Nausicaa tells her betrothed about Odysseus. _Odyssey_.
5. Reynaldo in Paris tries to get information about Laertes.
_Hamlet_.
6. Fred tells his wife about Scrooge and Crachit. _A Christmas Carol_.
7. Jupiter tells a friend of the finding of the treasure. _The Gold
Bug_.
8. Two women who know David Copperfield talk about his second
marriage. _David Copperfield_.
Memorized Conversations. You can approach still more closely to the
material of a play if you offer in speech before your class certain
suitable portions from books you are reading or have read. These
selections may be made from the regular class texts or from
supplementary reading assignments. In studying these passages with the
intention of offering them before the class you will have to think
about two things. First of all, the author has in all probability,
somewhere in the book, given a fairly detailed, exact description of
the looks and actions of these characters. If such a description does
not occur in an extended passage, there is likely to be a series of
statements scattered about, from which a reader builds up an idea of
what the character is like. The pupil who intends to represent a
person from a book or poem must study the author's picture to be able
to reproduce a convincing portrait.
The audience will pass over mere physical differences. A young girl
described in a story as having blue eyes may be acted by a girl with
brown, and be accepted. But if the author states that under every kind
remark she made there lurked a slight hint of envy, that difficult
suggestion to put into a tone must be striven for, or the audience
will not receive an adequate impression of the girl's disposition.
So, too, in male characters. A boy who plays old Scrooge in _A
Christmas Carol_ may not be able to look like him physically, but in
the early scenes he must let no touch of sympathy or kindness creep
into his voice or manner.
It is just this inability or carelessness in plays attempting to
reproduce literary works upon the stage that annoys so many
intelligent, well-read people who attend theatrical productions of
material which they already know. When _Vanity Fair_ was dramatised
and acted as _Becky Sharp_, the general comment was that the
characters did not seem like Thackeray's creations. This was even more
apparent when _Pendennis_ was staged.
If you analyze and study characters in a book from this point of view
you will find them becoming quite alive to your imagination. You will
get to know them personally. As you vizualize them in your imagination
they will move about as real people do. Thus your reading will take on
a new aspect of reality which will fix forever in your mind all you
glance over upon the printed page.
Climax. The second thing to regard in choosing passages from books to
present before the class is that the lines shall have some point.
Conversation in a story is introduced for three different purposes. It
illustrates character. It exposes some event of the plot. It merely
entertains. Such conversation as this last is not good material for
dramatic delivery. It is hardly more than space filling. The other two
kinds are generally excellent in providing the necessary point to
which dramatic structure always rises. You have heard it called a
climax. So then you should select from books passages which provide
climaxes.
One dictionary defines climax: "the highest point of intensity,
development, etc.; the culmination; acme; as, he was then at the
climax of his fortunes." In a play it is that turning-point towards
which all events have been leading, and from which all following
events spring. Many people believe that all climaxes are points of
great excitement and noise. This is not so. Countless turning-points
in stirring and terrible times have been in moments of silence and
calm. Around them may have been intense suspense, grave fear,
tremendous issues, but the turning-point itself may have been passed
in deliberation and quiet.
EXERCISES
1. Choose from class reading--present or recent--some passage in
conversation. Discuss the traits exhibited by the speakers. Formulate
in a single statement the point made by the remarks. Does the interest
rise enough to make the passage dramatic?
2. Several members of the class should read certain passages from
books, poems, etc. The class should consider and discuss the
characterization, interest, point, climax.
3. Read Chapters VI and VII of _Silas Marner_ by George Eliot. Are the
characters well marked? Is the conversation interesting in itself?
Does the interest rise? Where does the rise begin? Is there any
suspense? Does the scene conclude properly? If this were acted upon a
stage would any additional lines be necessary or desirable?
4. Read the last part of Chapter XI of _Silas Marner_. What is the
point?
5. Memorize this dialogue and deliver it before the class. Did the
point impress the class?
6. Consider, discuss, and test passages from any book which the
members of the class know.
7. Present before the class passages from any of the following:
Dickens _A Christmas Carol_
_A Tale of Two Cities_
_David Copperfield_
George Eliot _Silas Marner_
_The Mill on the Floss_
Scott _Ivanhoe_
_Kenilworth_
_The Lady of the Lake_
Mark Twain _Huckleberry Finn_
_The Prince and the Pauper_
O. Henry _Short Stories_
Thackeray _Vanity Fair_
_Henry Esmond_
_Pendennis_
Kipling _Captains Courageous_
_Stalkey and Co_.
Hugo _Les Miserables_
Tennyson _Idylls of the King_
_The Princess_
Arnold _Sohrab and Rustum_
Stevenson _Treasure Island_
Gaskell _Cranford_
Carroll _Alice in Wonderland_
Kingsley _Westward Ho!_
Barrie _Sentimental Tommy_
Characters in Plays. In acting regular plays you may find it necessary
to follow either of the preceding methods of characterization. The
conception of a character may have to be supplied almost entirely by
some one outside the play. Or the dramatist may be very careful to
set down clearly and accurately the traits, disposition, actions of
the people in his plays. In this second case the performer must try to
carry out every direction, every hint of the dramatist. In the first
case, he must search the lines of the play to glean every slightest
suggestion which will help him to carry out the dramatist's intention.
Famous actors of characters in Shakespeare's plays can give a reason
for everything they show--at least, they should be able to do so--and
this foundation should be a compilation of all the details supplied by
the play itself, and stage tradition of its productions.
In early plays there are practically no descriptions of the
characters. Questions about certain Shakespeare characters will never
be solved to the satisfaction of all performers. For instance, how old
is Hamlet in the tragedy? How close to madness did the dramatist
expect actors to portray his actions? During Hamlet's fencing match
with Laertes in the last scene the Queen says, "He's fat, and scant of
breath." Was she describing his size, or meaning that he was out of
fencing trim?
Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Julius Caesar a detailed
description of the appearance and manner of acting of one of the chief
characters of the tragedy.
Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
* * * * *
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men; he loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit
That could be mov'd to smile at any thing.
In _As You Like It_ when the two girls are planning to flee to the
forest of Arden, Rosalind tells how she will disguise herself and act
as a man. This indicates to the actress both costume and behavior for
the remainder of the comedy.
Were it not better,
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand; and--in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will--
We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblances.
In many cases Shakespeare clearly shows the performer exactly how to
carry out his ideas of the nature of a man during part of the action.
One of the plainest instances of this kind of instruction is in
_Macbeth_. The ambitious thane's wife is urging him on to murder his
king. Her advice gives the directions for the following scenes.
O never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Modern dramatists are likely to be much more careful in giving advice
about characterization. They insert a large number of stage directions
covering this matter. Speed of delivery, tone and inflection, as well
as underlying feeling and emotion are minutely indicated.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK
Mr. Hopper, I am very angry with you. You have taken Agatha
out on the terrace, and she is so delicate.
HOPPER
[_At left of center_] Awfully sorry, Duchess. We went out
for a moment and then got chatting together.
DUCHESS
[_At center_] Ah, about dear Australia, I suppose?
HOPPER
Yes.
DUCHESS
Agatha, darling! [_Beckons her over._]
AGATHA
Yes, mamma!
DUCHESS
[_Aside_] _Did Mr. Hopper definitely--_
AGATHA
Yes, mamma.
DUCHESS
And what answer did you give him, dear child?
AGATHA
Yes, mamma.
DUCHESS
[_Affectionately_] My dear one! You always say the right
thing. Mr. Hopper! James! Agatha has told me everything. How
cleverly you have both kept your secret.
HOPPER
You don't mind my taking Agatha off to Australia, then,
Duchess?
DUCHESS
[_Indignantly_] To Australia? Oh, don't mention that
dreadful vulgar place.
HOPPER
But she said she'd like to come with me.
DUCHESS
[_Severely_] Did you say that, Agatha?
AGATHA
Yes, mamma.
DUCHESS
Agatha, you say the most silly things possible.
Descriptions of Characters. In addition to definite directions at
special times during the course of the dialogue, modern writers of
plays describe each character quite fully at his first entrance into
the action. This gives the delineator of each role a working basis for
his guidance. Such directions carefully followed out assure the tone
for the whole cast. They keep a subordinate part always in the proper
relation to all others. They make certain the impression of the whole
story as a consistent artistic development. They prevent
misunderstandings about the author's aim. They provide that every
character shall appear to be swayed by natural motives. They remove
from the performance all suggestions of unregulated caprice.
Dramatists vary in the exactness and minuteness of such descriptive
character sketches, but even the shortest and most general is
necessary to the proper appreciation of every play, even if it is
being merely read. When a student is assimilating a role for
rehearsing or acting, these additions of the author are as important
as the lines themselves.
EXERCISES
Analyze the following. Discuss the suitability of various members of
the class for each part. Which details do you think least essential?
1. He is a tall, thin, gaunt, withered, domineering man of sixty. When
excited or angry he drops into dialect, but otherwise his speech,
though flat, is fairly accurate. He sits in an arm-chair by the empty
hearth working calculations in a small shiny black notebook, which he
carries about with him everywhere, in a side pocket.
2. When the curtain rises a man is seen climbing over the balcony. His
hair is close cut; his shirt dirty and blood-stained. He is followed by
another man dressed like a sailor with a blue cape, the hood drawn
over his head. Moonlight.
3. Enter Dinah Kippen quickly, a dingy and defiant young woman
carrying a tablecloth. She is a nervous creature, driven half-mad by
the burden of her cares. Conceiving life, necessarily, as a path to be
traversed at high speed, whenever she sees an obstacle in her way,
whether in the physical or in the moral sphere, she rushes at it
furiously to remove it or destroy it.
4. Mrs. Rhead, a woman of nearly sixty, is sitting on the sofa,
crocheting some lace, which is evidently destined to trim petticoats.
Her hair is dressed in the style of 1840, though her dress is of the
1860 period.
5. The song draws nearer and Patricia Carleon enters. She is dark and
slight, and has a dreamy expression. Though she is artistically
dressed, her hair is a little wild. She has a broken branch of some
flowering tree in her hand.
6. Enter a Neat-herd, followed by King Alfred, who is miserably clad
and shivering from cold; he carries a bow and a few broken arrows. A
log fire is burning smokily in a corner of the hut.
7. Enter from the right Ito, the cynic philosopher, book in hand.
8. The rising of the curtain discovers the two Miss Wetherills--two
sweet old ladies who have grown so much alike it would be difficult
for a stranger to tell the one from the other. The hair of both is
white, they are dressed much alike, both in some soft lavender colored
material, mixed with soft lace.
9. Newte is a cheerful person, attractively dressed in clothes
suggestive of a successful follower of horse races. He carries a white
pot hat and tasselled cane. His gloves are large and bright. He is
smoking an enormous cigar.
10. She is young, slender, graceful; her yellow hair is in disorder,
her face the color of ruddy gold, her teeth white as the bones of the
cuttle-fish, her eyes humid and sea-green, her neck long and thin,
with a necklace of shells about it; in her whole person something
inexpressibly fresh and glancing, which makes one think of a creature
impregnated with sea-salt dipped in the moving waters, coming out of
the hiding-places of the rocks. Her petticoat of striped white and
blue, torn and discolored, falls only just below the knees, leaving
her legs bare; her bluish apron drips and smells of the brine like a
filter; and her bare feet in contrast with the brown color that the
sun has given her flesh, are singularly pallid, like the roots of
aquatic plants. And her voice is limpid and childish; and some of the
words that she speaks seem to light up her ingenuous face with a
mysterious happiness.
Studying Plays. In nearly every grade of school and college, plays are
either read or studied. The usual method of study is to read the lines
of the play in rotation about the class, stopping at times for
explanations, definitions, impressions, general discussions. Such
minute analysis may extend to the preparation of outlines and
diagrams. The methods used to get pupils to know plays are almost as
varied as teachers. After such analytical study has been pursued it is
always a stimulating exercise to get another impression of the
play--not as mere poetry or literature, but as acted drama.
This may be accomplished in a short time by very simple means. Pupils
should memorize certain portions and then recite them before the
class. Neither costumes nor scenery will be required. All the members
of the class have in their minds the appearances of the surroundings
and the persons. What they need is to _hear_ the speeches the
dramatist put into the hearts and mouths of his characters.
The best presentation would be the delivery of the entire play running
through some four or five class periods. If so much time cannot be
allotted to this, only certain scenes need be delivered. The teacher
might assign the most significant ones to groups of pupils, allowing
each group to arrange for rehearsals before appearing before the
class. In some classes the pupils may be trusted to arrange the entire
distribution of scenes and roles. When their preliminary planning has
been finished, they should hand to the teacher a schedule of scenes
and participants.
Whenever a play is read or studied, pupils will be attracted more by
some passages than by others. A teacher may dispense with all
assignments. The pupils could be directed merely to arrange their own
groups, choose the scenes they want to offer, and to prepare as they
decide. In such a voluntary association some members of the class
might be uninvited to speak with any group. These then might find
their material in prologue, epilogue, chorus, soliloquy, or inserted
songs. Nearly every play contains long passages requiring for their
effect no second speaker. Shakespeare's plays contain much such
material. All the songs from a play would constitute a delightful
offering. Nothing in all the acted portion of _Henry V_ is any better
than the stirring speeches of the Chorus. _Hamlet_ has three great
soliloquies for boys. _Macbeth_ contains the sleepwalking scene for
girls. Milton's _Comus_ is made up of beautiful poetic passages. Every
drama studied or read for school contains enough for every member of a
class.
Some pupils may object that unless an exact preliminary assignment is
made, two or more groups may choose the same scene. Such a probable
happening, far from being a disadvantage to be avoided, is a decided
advantage worthy of being purposely attempted. Could anything be more
stimulating than to see and hear two different casts interpret a
dramatic situation? Each would try to do better than the other. Each
would be different in places. From a comparison the audience and
performers would have all the more light thrown upon what they
considered quite familiar.
It would be a mistake to have five quartettes repeat the same scene
over and over again. Yet if twenty pupils had unconsciously so chosen,
three presentations might be offered for discriminating observation.
Then some other portion could be inserted and later the first scene
could be gone through twice.
Assigning Roles. Teacher and pupils should endeavor to secure variety
of interest in roles. At first, assignments are likely to be
determined by apparent fitness. The quiet boy is not required to play
the part of the braggart. The retiring girl is not expected to
impersonate the shrew. In one or two appearances it may be a good
thing to keep in mind natural aptitude.
Then there should be a departure from this system. Educational
development comes not only from doing what you are best able to do,
but from developing the less-marked phases of your disposition and
character. The opposite practice should be followed, at least once.
Let the prominent class member assume a role of subdued personality.
Let the timid take the lead. Induce the silent to deliver the majority
of the speeches. You will be amazed frequently to behold the best
delineations springing from such assignments.
Such rehearsing of a play already studied should terminate the minute
analysis in order to show the material for what it is--actable drama.
It will vivify the play again, and make the characters live in your
memory as mere reading never will. You will see the moving people, the
grouped situations, the developed story, the impressive climax, and
the satisfying conclusion.
In dealing with scenes from a long play--whether linked or
disconnected--pupils will always have a feeling of incompleteness. In
a full-length play no situation is complete in itself. It is part of a
longer series of events. It may finish one part of the action, but it
usually merely carries forward the plot, passing on the complication
to subsequent situations.
Short Plays. To deal with finished products should be the next
endeavor. There are thousands of short plays suitable for class
presentation in an informal manner. Most of them do not require
intensive study, as does a great Greek or English drama, so their
preparation may go on entirely outside the classroom. It should be
frankly admitted that the exercises of delivering lines "in character"
as here described is not acting or producing the play. That will come
later. These preliminary exercises--many or few, painstaking or
sketchy--are processes of training pupils to speak clearly,
interestingly, forcefully, in the imagined character of some other
person. The pupil must not wrongly believe that he is acting.
Though the delivery of a complete short play may seem like a
performance, both participants and audience must not think of it so.
It is class exercise, subject to criticism, comment, improvement,
exactly as all other class recitations are.
Since the entire class has not had the chance to become familiar with
all the short plays to be presented, some one should give an
introductory account of the time and place of action. There might be
added any necessary comments upon the characters. The cast of
characters should be written upon the board.
This exercise should be exactly like the preceding, except that it
adds the elements of developing the plot of the play, creating
suspense, impressing the climax, and satisfactorily rounding off the
play. In order to accomplish these important effects the participants
will soon discover that they must agree upon certain details to be
made most significant. This will lead to discussions about how to make
these points stand out. In the concerted attempt to give proper
emphasis to some line late in the play it will be found necessary to
suppress a possible emphasis of some line early in the action. To
reinforce a trait of some person, another character may have to be
made more self-assertive.
To secure this unified effect which every play should make the persons
involved will have to consider carefully every detail in lines and
stage directions, fully agree upon what impression they must strive
for, then heartily cooeperate in attaining it. They must forget
themselves to remember always that "the play's the thing."
The following list will suggest short plays suitable for informal
classroom training in dramatics. Most of these are also general enough
in their appeal to serve for regular production upon a stage before a
miscellaneous audience.
Aldrich, T.B. _Pauline Pavlovna_
Baring, M. _Diminutive Dramas_
Butler, E.P. _The Revolt_
Cannan, G. _Everybody's Husband_
Dunsany, Lord _Tents of the Arabs_
The Lost Silk Hat
Fame and the Poet_
Fenn and Pryce. _'Op-o-Me-Thumb_
Gale, Z. _Neighbors_
Gerstenberg, A. _Overtones_
Gibson, W. W. Plays in Collected Works
Gregory, Lady. _Spreading the News
The Workhouse Ward
Coats,_ etc.
Houghton, S. _The Dear Departed_
Jones, H. A. _Her Tongue_
Kreymborg, A. _Mannikin and Minnikin_
Moeller, P. _Pokey_
Quintero, J. and S.A. _A Sunny Morning_
Rice, C. _The Immortal Lure_
Stevens, T.W. _Ryland_
Sudermann, H. _The Far-Away Princess_
Tchekoff, A. _A Marriage Proposal_
Torrence, R. _The Rider of Dreams_
Walker, S. _Never-the-Less_
Yeats, W.B. _Cathleen Ni Houlihan_
Producing Plays. Any class or organization which has followed the
various forms of dramatics outlined thus far in this chapter will find
it an easy matter to succeed in the production of a play before an
audience.
The Play. The first thing to decide upon is the play itself. This
choice should be made as far in advance of performance as is possible.
Most of the work of producing a play is in adequate preparation. Up to
this time audiences have been members of the class, or small groups
with kindly dispositions and forbearing sympathies. A general audience
is more critical. It will be led to like or dislike according to the
degree its interest is aroused and held. It will be friendly, but more
exacting. The suitability of the play for the audience must be
regarded. A comedy by Shakespeare which delights and impresses both
performers and audience is much more stimulating and educating than a
Greek tragedy which bores them.
The Stage. The second determining factor is the stage. What is its
size? What is its equipment? Some plays require large stages; others
fit smaller ones better. A large stage may be made small, but it is
impossible to stretch a small one.
Equipment for a school stage need not be elaborate. Artistic ingenuity
will do more than reckless expenditure. The simplest devices can be
made to produce the best effects. The lighting system should admit of
easy modification. For example, it should be possible to place lights
in various positions for different effects. It should be possible to
get much illumination or little.
Scenery. No scenery should be built when the stage is first erected.
If a regular scene painter furnishes the conventional exterior,
interior, and woodland scenery, the stage equipment is almost ruined
for all time. It is ridiculous that a lecturer, a musician, a school
principal, and a student speaker, should appear before audiences in
the same scenery representing a park or an elaborate drawing-room. The
first furnishings for a stage should be a set of beautiful draped
curtains. These can be used, not only for such undramatic purposes as
those just listed, but for a great many plays as well.
No scenery should be provided until the first play is to be presented.
Certain plays can be adequately acted before screens arranged
differently and colored differently for changes. When scenery must be
built it should be strongly built as professional scenery is. It
should also be planned for future possible manipulation. Every
director of school dramatics knows the delight of utilizing the same
material over and over again. Here is one instance. An interior set,
neutral in tones and with no marked characteristics of style and
period, was built to serve in Acts I and V of _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_. Hangings, furniture, costumes gave it the proper appearance.
Later it was used in _Ulysses_. It has also housed Moliere's _Doctor
in Spite of Himself_ (_Le Medecin Malgre Lui_) and _The Wealthy
Upstart_ (_Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_), Carrion and Aza's _Zaragueeta_,
Sudermann's _The Far-Away Princess_, Houghton's _The Dear Departed_.
The wooden frames on the rear side were painted black, the canvas
panels tan, to serve in _Twelfth Night_ for the drinking scene, Act
II, scene 3. With Greek shields upon the walls it later pictured the
first scene of _The Comedy of Errors_. With colorful border designs
attached and oriental furniture it set a Chinese play.
A definite series of dimensions should be decided upon, and all
scenery should be built in relation to units of these sizes. As a
result of this, combinations otherwise impossible can be made.
Beginners should avoid putting anything permanent upon a stage. The
best stage is merely space upon which beautiful pictures may be
produced. Beware of adopting much lauded "new features" such as
cycloramas, horizonts, until you are assured you need them and can
actually use them. In most cases it is wise to consult some one with
experience.
In considering plays for presentation you will have to think of
whether your performers and your stage will permit of convincing
production. Remembering that suggestion is often better than realism,
and knowing that beautiful curtains and colored screens are more
delightful to gaze upon than cheap-looking canvas and paint, and
knowing that action and costume produce telling effects, decide what
the stage would have to do for the following scenes.
EXERCISES
1. Read scene 2 of _Comus_ by Milton. Should the entire masque be
acted out-of-doors? If presented on an indoors stage what should the
setting be? Inside the palace of Comus? How then do the Brothers get
in? How do Sabrina and her Nymphs arise? From a pool, a fountain?
Might the stage show an exterior? Would the palace be on one side? The
edge of the woods on the other? Would the banks of the river be at the
rear? Would such an arrangement make entrances, exits, acting,
effective? Explain all your opinions.
Read one of the following. Devise a stage setting for it. Describe it
fully. If you can, make a sketch in black and white or in color,
showing it as it would appear to the audience. Or make a working plan,
showing every detail. Or construct a small model of the set, making
the parts so that they will stand. Or place them in a box to reproduce
the stage. Use one-half inch to the foot.
2. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, scene 1. Interior? Exterior? Color?
Lighting?
3. _Hamlet_, Act I, scene 5. Castle battlements? A graveyard? Open
space in country some distance from castle?
4. _Comus_, scene 3.
5. _The Tempest_, Act I, scene 1.
6. _Twelfth Night_, Act II, scene 3.
7. _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I, scene I.
8. _Julius Caesar_, Act III, scene 2.
9. In a long, high-vaulted room, looking out upon a Roman garden where
the cypresses rise in narrowing shafts from thickets of oleander and
myrtle, is seated a company of men and women, feasting.
WILLIAM SHARP: _The Lute-Player_
10. A room, half drawing-room, half study, in Lewis Davenant's house
in Rockminister. Furniture eighteenth century, pictures, china in
glass cases. An April afternoon in 1860.
GEORGE MOORE: _Elizabeth Cooper_
11. An Island off the West of Ireland. Cottage kitchen, with nets,
oil-skins, spinning wheel, some new boards standing by the wall, etc.
J.M. SYNGE: _Riders to the Sea_
12. Loud music. After which the Scene is discovered, being a
Laboratory or Alchemist's work-house. Vulcan looking at the registers,
while a Cyclope, tending the fire, to the cornets began to sing.
BEN JONSON: _Mercury Vindicated_
13. Rather an awesome picture it is with the cold blue river and the
great black cliffs and the blacker cypresses that grow along its
banks. There are signs of a trodden slope and a ferry, and there's a
rough old wooden shelter where passengers can wait; a bell hung on the
top with which they call the ferryman.
CALTHROP AND BARKER: _The Harlequinade_
Long before any play is produced there should be made a sketch or plan
showing the stage settings. If it is in color it will suggest the
appearance of the actual stage. One important point is to be noted.
Your sketch or model is merely a miniature of the real thing. If you
have a splotch of glaring color only an inch long it will appear in
the full-size setting about two feet long. A seemingly flat surface
three by five inches in the design will come out six by ten feet
behind the footlights.
Casting the Play. When the play is selected, the roles must be cast.
To select the performers, one of many different methods may be
followed. The instructor of the class or the director of the
production may assign parts to individuals. When this person knows the
requirements of the roles and the abilities of the members, this
method always saves time and effort. By placing all the responsibility
upon one person it emphasizes care in choosing to secure best results.
At times a committee may do the casting. Such a method prevents
personal prejudice and immature judgments from operating. It splits
responsibility and requires more time than the first method. It is an
excellent method for seconding the opinions of a director who does not
know very well the applicants for parts. The third method is by
"try-outs." In this the applicants show their ability. This may be
done by speaking or reciting before an audience, a committee, or the
director. It may consist of acting some role. It may be the delivery
of lines from the play to be acted. It may be in a "cast reading" in
which persons stand about the stage or room and read the lines of
characters in the play. If there are three or four applicants for one
part, each is given a chance to act some scene. In this manner all the
roles are filled.
There are two drawbacks to this scheme which is the fairest which can
be devised. It consumes a great deal of time. Some member of the class
or organization best fitted to play a role may not feel disposed to
try for it. Manifestly he should be the one selected. But it appears
unfair to disregard the three boys who have made the effort while he
has done nothing. Yet every role should be acted in the very best
manner. For the play's sake, the best actor should be assigned the
part. A pupil may try for a part for which he is not at all suited,
while he could fill another role better than any one who strives to
get it.
In a class which has been trained in public speaking or dramatics as
this book suggests, it should be no difficult task to cast any play,
whether full-length or one act. Performers must always be chosen
because of the possible development of their latent abilities rather
than for assured attainments.
These qualities must be sought for in performers of roles--obedience,
dependableness, mobility, patience, endurance.
Rehearsing. A worthy play which is well cast is an assured success
before its first rehearsal.
The entire group should first study the whole play under the
director's comment. It is best to have each actor read his own part.
The behavior of a minor character in the second act may depend upon a
speech in the first. The person playing that role must seize upon that
hint for his own interpretation.
It might be a good thing to have every person "letter perfect," that
is, know all his speeches, at the first rehearsal. Practically, this
never occurs. Reading from the book or the manuscript, a performer
"walks through" his part, getting at the same time an idea of where he
is to stand, how to move, how to speak, what to do, where to enter,
when to cross the stage. All such directions he should jot down upon
his part. Then memorizing the lines will fix these stage directions in
his mind. He will be assimilating at the same time lines and
"business." "Business" on the stage is everything done by a character
except speaking lines.
At all rehearsals the director is in absolute charge. His word is
final law. This does not mean that members of the cast may not discuss
things with him, and suggest details and additions. They must be
careful to choose a proper time to do such things. They should never
argue, but follow directions. Time outside rehearsals may be devoted
to clearing up points. Of course an actor should never lose his
temper. Neither should the director. Both of these bits of advice are
frequently almost beyond observation of living human beings. Yet they
are the rules.
Rehearsals should be frequent rather than long. Acts should be
rehearsed separately. Frequently only separate portions should be
repeated. Combinations should be made so as not to keep during long
waits characters with only a few words. Early portions will have to be
repeated more frequently than later ones to allow the actors to get
into their characterizations. Tense, romantic, sentimental, comic
scenes may have to be rehearsed privately until they are quite good
enough to interest other members of the cast.
The time for preparation will depend upon general ability of the cast,
previous training, the kind of play, the amount of leisure for study
and rehearsing. In most schools a full-length play may be crowded into
four weeks. Six or seven weeks are a better allowance.
During first rehearsals changes and corrections should be made when
needed. Interruptions should be frequent. Later there should be no
interruptions. Comments should be made at the end of a scene and
embodied in an immediate repetition to fix the change in the actors'
minds. Other modifications should be announced before rehearsal, and
embodied in the acting that day.
The acting should be ready for an audience a week before the date set
for the performance. During the last rehearsals, early acts should be
recalled and repeated in connection with later ones, so that time and
endurance may be counted and estimated. During these days rehearsals
must go forward without any attention from the director. He must be
giving all his attention to setting, lighting, costumes, properties,
furniture, and the thousand and one other details which make play
producing the discouraging yet fascinating occupation it is. Such
repetition without constant direction will develop a sense of
independence and cooeperation in the actors and assistants which will
show in the enthusiasm and ease of the performance. Stage hands and
all other assistants must be trained to the same degree of reliability
as the hero and heroine. Nothing can be left to chance. Nothing can be
unprovided until the last minute. The dress rehearsal must be exactly
like a performance, except that the audience is not present, or if
present, is a different one. In schools, an audience at the dress
rehearsal is usually a help to the amateur performers.
Results. A performance based on such principles and training as here
suggested should be successful from every point of view.
The benefits to the participants are many. They include strengthening
of the power to memorize, widening of the imagination through
interpretation of character, familiarity with a work of art, training
in poise, utilization of speaking ability, awakening of
self-confidence, and participation in a worthy cooeperative effort.
In a broader sense such interest in good, acted plays is an
intellectual stimulus. As better plays are more and more effectively
presented the quality of play production in schools will be improved,
and both pupils and communities will know more and more of the world's
great dramatic literature.
APPENDIX A : _Additional Exercises in Exposition_
PUBLIC SPEAKING By CLARENCE STRATTON
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