1Samuel French, New York.2Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.3Drama League Series, Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.4Brentano, New York.5Le Berceau.P. V. Stock, Paris.6Preface,Au Public, toLa Princesse Georges. A. Dumas fils.Œuevres, vol.V, p. 79. Calmann Levy, Paris.7De la Poésie Dramatique.Diderot.Œuvres, vol.VII, pp. 321-322. Garnier Frères, Paris.8Auteurs Dramatiques. F. de Curel. L’Année Psychologique, 1874, p. 121.9Letters of Bulwer-Lytton to Macready, p. 35. Introduction by Brander Matthews. Privately printed. The Carteret Book Club, Newark, N.J., 1911.10A False Saint.F. de Curel. Translated by B. H. Clark. Drama League Series. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.11Auteurs Dramatiques. F. de Curel. L’Année Psychologique, 1894, pp. 121-123.12Play-Making, pp. 58-59, note. William Archer. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.13See chapterX, “The Dramatist and His Public.”14See chapterIX.15My Best Play.Edgar Selwyn.The Green Book Magazine, March, 1911, pp. 536-537.16Idem.17Les Oberlé.Edmond Haraucourt.L’Illustration Théâtrale, Dec. 9, 1905, p. 5.18Les Oberlé, p. 7.19Plays of Thomas Middleton.Mermaid Series. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.20Chefs-d’Œuvres Dramatiques de A. N. Ostrovsky.E. Durand-Gréville. E. Plon Nourrit et Cie, Paris.21Becket, ActI, Scene 4. Alfred Lord Tennyson. The Macmillan Co., New York.22Letters of Bulwer-Lytton, p. 38. Brander Matthews, ed.23Plays of Thomas Dekker.Mermaid Series. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.24A. F. Lange, ed. Mayer & Müller, Berlin.25Letters of Bulwer-Lytton, pp. 36-37. Brander Matthews, ed.26Preface,Au Public, toLa Princesse Georges.Œuvres, vol.V.p. 78. Calmann Lévy, Paris.27Preface toLe Supplice d’une Femme.Œuvres, vol.V.Calmann Lévy, Paris.28Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.29The Macmillan Co., New York.30Seven Short Plays.Maunsel & Co., Dublin.31J. W. Luce & Co., Boston; Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London.32J. W. Luce & Co., Boston; Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London.33Harper & Bros., New York.34Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., London.35Doubleday & McClure Co., New York.36The Macmillan Co., New York.37The Macmillan Co., New York.38Plays of Thomas Middleton.Mermaid Series. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.39Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, vol.IV. Whalley & Colman, eds. 1811.40The Mollusc.H. H. Davies. Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.41Lettres sur les Anglais, LettreXIX,Sur la Comédie, p. 170. A. Basle, 1734.42Hamburg Dramaturgy, p. 265. Bohn ed.
1Samuel French, New York.
2Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
3Drama League Series, Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.
4Brentano, New York.
5Le Berceau.P. V. Stock, Paris.
6Preface,Au Public, toLa Princesse Georges. A. Dumas fils.Œuevres, vol.V, p. 79. Calmann Levy, Paris.
7De la Poésie Dramatique.Diderot.Œuvres, vol.VII, pp. 321-322. Garnier Frères, Paris.
8Auteurs Dramatiques. F. de Curel. L’Année Psychologique, 1874, p. 121.
9Letters of Bulwer-Lytton to Macready, p. 35. Introduction by Brander Matthews. Privately printed. The Carteret Book Club, Newark, N.J., 1911.
10A False Saint.F. de Curel. Translated by B. H. Clark. Drama League Series. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York.
11Auteurs Dramatiques. F. de Curel. L’Année Psychologique, 1894, pp. 121-123.
12Play-Making, pp. 58-59, note. William Archer. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.
13See chapterX, “The Dramatist and His Public.”
14See chapterIX.
15My Best Play.Edgar Selwyn.The Green Book Magazine, March, 1911, pp. 536-537.
16Idem.
17Les Oberlé.Edmond Haraucourt.L’Illustration Théâtrale, Dec. 9, 1905, p. 5.
18Les Oberlé, p. 7.
19Plays of Thomas Middleton.Mermaid Series. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
20Chefs-d’Œuvres Dramatiques de A. N. Ostrovsky.E. Durand-Gréville. E. Plon Nourrit et Cie, Paris.
21Becket, ActI, Scene 4. Alfred Lord Tennyson. The Macmillan Co., New York.
22Letters of Bulwer-Lytton, p. 38. Brander Matthews, ed.
23Plays of Thomas Dekker.Mermaid Series. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
24A. F. Lange, ed. Mayer & Müller, Berlin.
25Letters of Bulwer-Lytton, pp. 36-37. Brander Matthews, ed.
26Preface,Au Public, toLa Princesse Georges.Œuvres, vol.V.p. 78. Calmann Lévy, Paris.
27Preface toLe Supplice d’une Femme.Œuvres, vol.V.Calmann Lévy, Paris.
28Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.
29The Macmillan Co., New York.
30Seven Short Plays.Maunsel & Co., Dublin.
31J. W. Luce & Co., Boston; Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London.
32J. W. Luce & Co., Boston; Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London.
33Harper & Bros., New York.
34Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., London.
35Doubleday & McClure Co., New York.
36The Macmillan Co., New York.
37The Macmillan Co., New York.
38Plays of Thomas Middleton.Mermaid Series. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York.
39Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, vol.IV. Whalley & Colman, eds. 1811.
40The Mollusc.H. H. Davies. Walter H. Baker & Co., Boston; W. Heinemann, London.
41Lettres sur les Anglais, LettreXIX,Sur la Comédie, p. 170. A. Basle, 1734.
42Hamburg Dramaturgy, p. 265. Bohn ed.
CHAPTER V
FROM SUBJECT TO PLOT: PROPORTIONING THE MATERIAL: NUMBER AND LENGTH OF ACTS
A dramatist, proportioning his rough story for performance in the limited space of time the stage permits, faces at once the question: “How many acts?” If inexperienced, noting the number of changes of set his story seems to demand he finds himself in a dilemma: to give an act to each change of scene is to break the play into many scrappy acts of a few minutes each; to crowd all his needed scenes into five acts is to get scenes as scrappy as the eight which make the fifth act of Shakespeare’sMacbethor the ten in Act IV ofHenry VI, Part II. In either case, if he gives his numerous scenes adequate treatment, he is likely to find their combined length forces him beyond the time limit the theatre allows—about two hours and a half.
Let him rid himself immediately of any feeling that custom or dramatic dignity calls for any preference among three, four, or five acts. The Elizabethan drama put such a spell upon the imagination of English-speaking peoples that until recently the idea was accepted: “Five is dignity, with a trailing robe, whereas one, two, or three acts would be short skirts, and degrading.”1Today a dramatist may plan for a play of three, four, or five acts, as seems to him best.
Why, if no change of scene be required, is not a play of one long act desirable? At first sight, there would seem to be a gain in the unbroken movement. The power of sustained attention in audiences is, however, distinctly limited. Any one who has seen a performance ofThe Trojan Women2byEuripides, or von Hofmannsthal’sElectra3needs no further proof that though each makes a short evening’s entertainment it is exhausting because of uninterrupted movement from start to finish. To plays of one long act most audiences become unresponsive from sheer physical fatigue. Consequently, use has confined one-act plays to subjects that may be treated in fifteen minutes to an hour, with an average length of from twenty to forty-five minutes. Strindberg has stated well the problem which the play in one long act involves: “I have tried,” he wrote in his Introduction toMiss Julia, “to abolish the division into acts. And I have done so because I have come to fear that our decreasing capacity for illusion might be unfavorably affected by intermissions during which the spectator would have time to reflect and to get away from the suggestive influence of the author-hypnotist. My play will probably last an hour and a half, and as it is possible to listen that length of time, or longer, to a lecture, a sermon, or a debate, I have imagined that a theatrical performance could not become fatiguing in the same time. As early as 1872, in one of my first dramatic experiments,The Outlaw, I tried the same concentrated form, but with scant success. The play was written in five acts, and wholly completed, when I became aware of the restless, scattered effect it produced. Then I burned it, and out of the ashes rose a single, well-built act, covering fifty printed pages, and taking an hour for its performance. Thus the form of the present play is not new, but it seems to be my own, and changing aesthetical conventions may possibly make it timely.
“My hope is still for a public educated to a point where it can sit through a whole-evening performance in a single act. But that point cannot be reached without a great deal of experimentation.”4
The difficulty with a play of only two acts is similar. If the piece is to fill an evening, each act must last an hour or more.The Winter’s Taleis really a two-act play: Act I is the story ofHermioneandLeontes, Act II the story ofFlorizelandPerdita, withTimeas Chorus separating the acts. Division of this play into five acts and use of modern scenery have given it the effect of breaking to pieces midway, where Time speaks. When each of the two parts is played uninterruptedly, as in Mr. Granville Barker’s recent revival, this effect disappears and it becomes clear that the original division is artistically right. However, so long is each of the two parts thatThe Winter’s Tale, when seen in this way, badly strains the attention of a present-day audience.
Contrastingly, to use more than five acts in the space of two hours and a half is either to carry the performance over into a second day, as with the two-part play of Elizabeth’s time—something we cannot now tolerate; or to write such scrappy acts that the frequent shifting of scenery and dropping of the curtain spoil desired illusion. If it be remembered that there is nothing essentially wrong in a play of one, two, six, or even more acts, and that changing tastes or the necessities of particular subjects may in very rare instances make any of these divisions desirable, it can be said that three, four, or five acts are today the normal divisions for plays.
An objection to long plays of one or two acts is that when the piece lasts only an hour and a half, as in the case ofMiss Julia, the evening must be filled out with something else. In the first place, it is by no means easy to arrange a mixed program in which each play shows to complete advantage. Nor are audiences usually fond of adjusting themselves to new characters and new plots two or three times in an evening. On the professional stage, Barrie’s short plays have done something to make the general public more ready to shift their interest to fresh subjects in the course of an evening,but a mixed program of plays is rarely popular except in theatres of the so-called “experimental” class.
The advantage in three acts is that each allows a longer space than does the division into four or five acts in which characterization may develop before the eyes of the audience, or a larger number of illustrative actions bearing on the central purpose of the act may be shown. The offset is that three acts provide only two breaks by which the passing of time may be suggested. Neither four nor three acts have any essential superiority over each other, or over five acts. Five acts, in and of themselves, have no superiority over four or three; nor, as some persons have seemed to think, are they the only divisions in which a drama in verse may be written. Avoidance of awkward changes of scene within an act may compel use of four or five acts rather than three. The more episodes in the story to be dramatized, the more aspects of character to be shown by action, the more acts or scenes the dramatist must use. If long spaces of time must be allowed for because they are part of the story or marked changes of character demand them, the dramatist will need moreentr’actespace, and, consequently, more acts. It is, then, necessary change of place and passage of time which are the chief factors in determining choice among three, four, or five acts.
For centuries theoretical students of the drama have worried themselves about the two unities: place and time. Practising dramatists, however, have usually found that generalizations in regard to them help little and that in each individual play they must work out the place and time problems for themselves. Practice as to shifting scenes has depended most, and always will, upon whether the physical conditions of the stage permit many real or imagined shifts. The Greek stage, with its fixed background and its chorus nearly always present, forced an attempt at unity of place, though the Greeks often broke through it.
Unity of action was the first dramatic law of the ancients; unity of time and place were mere consequences of the former which they would scarcely have observed more strictly than exigency required had not the combination with the chorus arisen. For since their actions required the presence of a large body of people and this concourse always remained the same, who could go no farther from their dwellings nor remain absent longer than it is customary to do from mere curiosity, they were almost obliged to make the scene of the action one and the same spot and confine the time to one and the same day. They submitted bona fide to this restriction; but with a suppleness of understanding such that in seven cases out of nine they gained more than they lost thereby. For they used this restriction as a reason of simplifying the action and to cut away all that was superfluous, and thus, reduced to essentials, it became only the ideal of an action which was developed most felicitously in this form which required the least addition from circumstances of time and place.The French, on the contrary, who found no charms in true unity of action, who had been spoilt by the wild intrigues of the Spanish school, before they had learnt to know Greek simplicity, regarded the unity of time and place not as consequences of unity of action, but as circumstances absolutely needful to the representation of an action, to which they must therefore adapt their more complicated and richer actions with all the severity required in the use of chorus, which, however, they had totally abolished. When they found, however, how difficult, nay at times impossible this was, they made a truce with the tyrannical rules against which they had not the courage to rebel. Instead of a single place they introduced an uncertain place, under which we could imagine now this now that spot; enough if the places combined were not too far apart and none required special scenery, so that the scenery could fit the one about as well as the other. Instead of the unity of a day, they substituted unity of duration, and a certain period during which no one spoke of sunrise or sunset, or went to bed, or at least did not go to bed more than once, however much might occur in this space, they allowed to pass as a day.5
Unity of action was the first dramatic law of the ancients; unity of time and place were mere consequences of the former which they would scarcely have observed more strictly than exigency required had not the combination with the chorus arisen. For since their actions required the presence of a large body of people and this concourse always remained the same, who could go no farther from their dwellings nor remain absent longer than it is customary to do from mere curiosity, they were almost obliged to make the scene of the action one and the same spot and confine the time to one and the same day. They submitted bona fide to this restriction; but with a suppleness of understanding such that in seven cases out of nine they gained more than they lost thereby. For they used this restriction as a reason of simplifying the action and to cut away all that was superfluous, and thus, reduced to essentials, it became only the ideal of an action which was developed most felicitously in this form which required the least addition from circumstances of time and place.
The French, on the contrary, who found no charms in true unity of action, who had been spoilt by the wild intrigues of the Spanish school, before they had learnt to know Greek simplicity, regarded the unity of time and place not as consequences of unity of action, but as circumstances absolutely needful to the representation of an action, to which they must therefore adapt their more complicated and richer actions with all the severity required in the use of chorus, which, however, they had totally abolished. When they found, however, how difficult, nay at times impossible this was, they made a truce with the tyrannical rules against which they had not the courage to rebel. Instead of a single place they introduced an uncertain place, under which we could imagine now this now that spot; enough if the places combined were not too far apart and none required special scenery, so that the scenery could fit the one about as well as the other. Instead of the unity of a day, they substituted unity of duration, and a certain period during which no one spoke of sunrise or sunset, or went to bed, or at least did not go to bed more than once, however much might occur in this space, they allowed to pass as a day.5
The Elizabethan author writing, in his public performances, for an audience accustomed to build imaginativelya setting from hints given by properties, signs on the stage, or descriptions in the text, changed the scene at will. Recall the thirteen changes in Act III ofAntony and Cleopatra.
On the modern stage such frequent change is undesirable for three reasons: the expense of constructing and painting so many scenes; the time consumed in making the changes, which may reduce decidedly the acting time of the play; and the check in sustained interest on the part of the audience caused by these many changes. The growth of the touring system also has led to reduction in the number of scenes, for transportation of numerous and elaborate sets is too expensive. Moreover, the interest in extreme realism has carried us more and more into such scenes of simple or sordid living as call for only one to three sets in a play.
At times it is easy, or at least possible with ingenuity, to have for a play, whatever its length, but one setting. Von Hofmannsthal’sElectrais an illustration. Another isThe Servant in the House, a play in five acts by Rann Kennedy.
The scene, which remains unchanged throughout the play, is a room in the vicarage. Jacobean in character, its oak-panelling and beamed-ceiling, together with some fine pieces of antique furniture, lend it an air of historical interest, whilst in all other respects it speaks of solid comfort, refinement, and unostentatious elegance.6
The scene, which remains unchanged throughout the play, is a room in the vicarage. Jacobean in character, its oak-panelling and beamed-ceiling, together with some fine pieces of antique furniture, lend it an air of historical interest, whilst in all other respects it speaks of solid comfort, refinement, and unostentatious elegance.6
Hervieu’sConnais-Toi, a play of three acts, is another instance of one setting throughout.7
Not infrequently it is comparatively simple to confine a play to one set for each act, or even less.The Great Divide, by William Vaughn Moody, andThe Weavers, by Hauptmann, show a new setting for each act. InThe Truth, by Clyde Fitch, Acts I and II have the same setting: “AtMrs. Warder’s. An extremely attractive room in the best of taste”;Acts III and IV are in “Mr. Roland’srooms inMrs. Crespigny’sflat in Baltimore.” In the four acts ofThe Witching Hour, by Augustus Thomas, there is a change of set only for Act II.8Such reducing of possible settings to two or three for a play of four or five acts requires practice, and, in some cases, decided ingenuity. In present-day use the safest principle is this: a set to an act, if really needed, but no change of set within the act unless there be unavoidable reason for it.
What, then, is the would-be dramatist to do when faced by six or more settings to a five-act play, or two or three settings within what he believes should be an act? Often what seems a necessary early scene is but clumsy exposition: skilful handling would incorporate it with the scene immediately following. Scene 1, Act III, of Dryden’sThe Spanish Friaris in the street. Lorenzo, in friar’s habit, meeting the real friar, Dominic, bribes him to introduce him into the chamber of Elvira. The scene is merely the easiest way of making the audience understand why the two men enter together very early in the next scene.
ACT III. SCENE 1.The StreetEnter Lorenzo, in Friar’s habit, meeting Dominic
ACT III. SCENE 1.The Street
Enter Lorenzo, in Friar’s habit, meeting Dominic
Here follow some fifteen speeches in which the arrangements are made. Then:
SCENE 2Enter Elvira, in her chamberElvira.He’ll come, that’s certain; young appetites are sharp, and seldom need twice bidding to such a banquet;—well, if I prove frail,—as I hope I shall not till I have compassed my design,—never woman had such a husband to provoke her, such a lover to allure her, or such a confessor to absolve her. Of what am I afraid, then? not my conscience that’s safe enough; my ghostlyfather has given it a dose of church opium to lull it; well, for soothing sin, I’ll say that for him, he’s a chaplain for any court in Christendom.Enter Lorenzo and DominicO father Dominic, what news? How, a companion with you! What game have you on hand, that you hunt in couples?Lorenzo.(Lifting up his hood.) I’ll show you that immediately.Elvira.O my love!Lorenzo.My life!Elvira.My soul! (They embrace.)Dominic.I am taken on the sudden with a grievous swimming in my head and such a mist before my eyes that I can neither hear nor see.9
SCENE 2
Enter Elvira, in her chamber
Elvira.He’ll come, that’s certain; young appetites are sharp, and seldom need twice bidding to such a banquet;—well, if I prove frail,—as I hope I shall not till I have compassed my design,—never woman had such a husband to provoke her, such a lover to allure her, or such a confessor to absolve her. Of what am I afraid, then? not my conscience that’s safe enough; my ghostlyfather has given it a dose of church opium to lull it; well, for soothing sin, I’ll say that for him, he’s a chaplain for any court in Christendom.
Enter Lorenzo and Dominic
O father Dominic, what news? How, a companion with you! What game have you on hand, that you hunt in couples?
Lorenzo.(Lifting up his hood.) I’ll show you that immediately.
Elvira.O my love!
Lorenzo.My life!
Elvira.My soul! (They embrace.)
Dominic.I am taken on the sudden with a grievous swimming in my head and such a mist before my eyes that I can neither hear nor see.9
All the needed exposition given in Scene 1 could, with very little difficulty, be transferred to Scene 2. Were the two men to enter, not to Elvira, but by themselves, they could quickly make their relationship clear. The conduct and speech of Elvira could be made to illustrate what she now states in soliloquy just before the two men enter.
In the original last act10of Lillo’sGeorge Barnwell, the settings are: “A room in a prison,” “A dungeon.” The whole act could easily have been arranged to take place in some room where prisoners could see friends. Today we should in many cases exchange a number of settings as used in eighteenth century plays for one setting.
Scenes, which in the original story occurred upstairs or downstairs, inside or outside a house, may often be easily interchanged or combined.The Clod, by Lewis Beach, a one-act success of the Washington Square Players, in its first draft showed a setting both upstairs and downstairs. This unsightly arrangement was quickly changed so that all the action took place in a lower room. At one time Bulwer-Lytton thought seriously of changing what is now Scene 1,Act I, of hisRichelieu, an interior, to an exterior scene. To Macready he wrote:
Let me know what you mean about omitting altogether the scene at Marion de Lorme’s.Do you mean to have no substitute for it?What think you of merely the outside of the House? François, coming out with the packet and making brief use of Huguet and Mauprat [who figure in the interior scene]. Remember you wanted to have the packet absolutely given to François.11
Let me know what you mean about omitting altogether the scene at Marion de Lorme’s.
Do you mean to have no substitute for it?
What think you of merely the outside of the House? François, coming out with the packet and making brief use of Huguet and Mauprat [who figure in the interior scene]. Remember you wanted to have the packet absolutely given to François.11
Greek plays, because of the fixed backing, provide many illustrations of interior scenes brought outdoors:
...The dramatic action was necessarily laid in the open air—usually before a palace or temple.... In general the dramatists displayed an amazing fertility of invention in this particular, as a few illustrations will suffice to show. In theAlcestisApollo explains his leaving Ametus’ palace on the ground of the pollution which a corpse would bring upon all within the house (Euripides’Alcestis, 22 f.) and Alcestis herself, though in a dying condition, fares forth to look for the last time upon the sun in heaven (ibid.206). Œdipus is so concerned in the afflictions of his subjects that he cannot endure making inquiries through a servant but comes forth to learn the situation in person (Sophocles’Œdipus Rex, 6 f.). Karion is driven out of doors by the smoke of sacrifice upon the domestic altar (Aristophanes’Plutus, 821 f.). In Plautus’Mostellaria(1, ff.) one slave is driven out of doors by another as the result of a quarrel. Agathon cannot compose his odes in the winter time, unless he bask in the sunlight (Aristophanes’Thesmophoriazuæ, 67 f.). The love-lorn Phædra teases for light and air (Euripides’Hippolytus, 181). And Medea’s nurse apologizes for her soliloquizing before the house with the excuse that the sorrows within have stifled her and caused her to seek relief by proclaiming them to earth and sky (Euripides’Medea, 56 ff.).12
...The dramatic action was necessarily laid in the open air—usually before a palace or temple.... In general the dramatists displayed an amazing fertility of invention in this particular, as a few illustrations will suffice to show. In theAlcestisApollo explains his leaving Ametus’ palace on the ground of the pollution which a corpse would bring upon all within the house (Euripides’Alcestis, 22 f.) and Alcestis herself, though in a dying condition, fares forth to look for the last time upon the sun in heaven (ibid.206). Œdipus is so concerned in the afflictions of his subjects that he cannot endure making inquiries through a servant but comes forth to learn the situation in person (Sophocles’Œdipus Rex, 6 f.). Karion is driven out of doors by the smoke of sacrifice upon the domestic altar (Aristophanes’Plutus, 821 f.). In Plautus’Mostellaria(1, ff.) one slave is driven out of doors by another as the result of a quarrel. Agathon cannot compose his odes in the winter time, unless he bask in the sunlight (Aristophanes’Thesmophoriazuæ, 67 f.). The love-lorn Phædra teases for light and air (Euripides’Hippolytus, 181). And Medea’s nurse apologizes for her soliloquizing before the house with the excuse that the sorrows within have stifled her and caused her to seek relief by proclaiming them to earth and sky (Euripides’Medea, 56 ff.).12
When it is not easy to see how a number of settings may be cut down, a dramatist should carefully consider this: May episodes happening to the same person or personsin the same settings, but apparently demanding separate treatment because they occur at widely different times, be brought together? The dramatizer of a novel faces many opportunities for this telescoping of scenes. Any one adaptingA Tale of Two Cities, if he uses Jerry Cruncher, will probably combine the two scenes in his home. To bring together incidents happening to the same person or persons at the same place, but at different times, is the easiest method of cutting down possible scenes.
It is, of course, possible to bring together circumstances which happened at different places at different times, but to the same persons. A notable instance is Irving’s compacting of two scenes in Tennyson’sBecket: he places at Montmirail what is essential in both Scene 2, Act II, Montmirail. “The Meeting of the Kings,” and Scene 3, Act III, “Traitor’s Meadow at Freteval.” It is, indeed, often necessary to transfer a group of people from the exact setting in which an occurrence took place to another which makes possible other important action. In Haraucourt’s adaptation ofLes Oberlé, a dinner party at the Brausigs’ is transferred to the home of Jean Oberlé, with his father and mother as hosts. This change permits the adapter to follow the dinner party with episodes which must take place in Jean’s home. This group of changes concerns, obviously, bringing to one place events which happened to the same persons at another place, and even at another time.
Sometimes necessary condensation forces a dramatist to bring together at one place what really happened at the same time, but to other people in another place. For instance, the heroine of the play is concealing in the house her Jacobite brother, supposed by the people who have seen him to be the Pretender himself. The Whig soldiery come to search the house. Sitting at the spinet, the girl makes her brother crouch between her and the wall, folding her ample gownaround and over him. Then, as the officer and his men minutely search the room, she plays, apparently idly song after song of the day. Just at this time, but at a distance, her lover, a young Whig officer, is eating his heart out with jealousy, because he fears that she is concealing the Pretender through love of him. Why waste time on a separate scene for the lover? Make him the officer in command of the searching troop: then all that is vital in what was his scene can be brought out when what happened to the same people at the same time, but at different places, is made to happen at the same place.
Similarly, what happened to two people in the same place but at different times may sometimes, with ingenuity, be made to happen to one person, and thus time saved.
Finally, what happened to another person at another time, and at another place may at times be arranged so that it will happen to any desired figure. About midway in the novelLes Oberlé, Jean and his uncle Ulrich hear the women at the autumn grape-picking sing the song of Alsace. In the play, in the first scene, Jean sings it as he passes from the railway station to his house.13Shakespeare, in handling the original sources ofMacbeth, also illustrates successful combination around one person of incidents or details historically associated with other persons, times, and even places.
Most of the story is taken from Holinshed’s account [in theHistorie of Scotland] of the reigns of Duncan and Macbeth (A.D.1034-1057), but certain details are drawn from other parts of the chronicle. Thus several points in the assassination of Duncan, like the drugging of the grooms by Lady Macbeth, and the portents described inII, iv., are from the murder of Duncan’s ancestor Duffe (A.D.972); and the voice that called “Sleep no more!” seems to have been suggested by the troubled conscience of Duffe’s brother Kenneth, who had poisoned his own nephew.14
Most of the story is taken from Holinshed’s account [in theHistorie of Scotland] of the reigns of Duncan and Macbeth (A.D.1034-1057), but certain details are drawn from other parts of the chronicle. Thus several points in the assassination of Duncan, like the drugging of the grooms by Lady Macbeth, and the portents described inII, iv., are from the murder of Duncan’s ancestor Duffe (A.D.972); and the voice that called “Sleep no more!” seems to have been suggested by the troubled conscience of Duffe’s brother Kenneth, who had poisoned his own nephew.14
Marlowe, in hisEdward II,—a dramatization of a part of Holinshed’sHistory,—proves that he perfectly understood all these devices for compacting his material.
The action covers a period of twenty years, from 1307, when Gaveston was recalled, to the death of Edward in 1327. Marlowe’s treatment of the story shows a selection and transposing of events in order to bring out the one essential fact of the King’s utter incompetence and subjection to unworthy favorites. Gaveston was executed in 1312, and the troubles in Ireland (II, ii.) and in Scotland (II, ii.) occurred after his death, but Marlowe shifts both forward in point of time in order to connect them with Gaveston’s baleful influence. Warwick died in his bed in 1315, seven years before the battle of Boroughbridge, but Marlowe keeps him alive to have him captured and ordered to execution in retaliation for his killing of Gaveston. At the time the play opens the Earl of Kent was six years old, but Marlowe, needing a counsellor and supporter of the King, used Kent for the purpose. In the play young Spencer immediately succeeds Gaveston as the King’s favorite; really the young Hugh le Despenser, who had been an enemy of Gaveston, remained an opponent of Edward’s for some six years after Gaveston’s death. Historically the Mortimers belong with the Spencers, i.e. to the later part of the reign, but in order to motivate the affair between the Queen and young Mortimer Marlowe transfers them to the beginning of the play and makes them leaders in the barons’ councils.15
The action covers a period of twenty years, from 1307, when Gaveston was recalled, to the death of Edward in 1327. Marlowe’s treatment of the story shows a selection and transposing of events in order to bring out the one essential fact of the King’s utter incompetence and subjection to unworthy favorites. Gaveston was executed in 1312, and the troubles in Ireland (II, ii.) and in Scotland (II, ii.) occurred after his death, but Marlowe shifts both forward in point of time in order to connect them with Gaveston’s baleful influence. Warwick died in his bed in 1315, seven years before the battle of Boroughbridge, but Marlowe keeps him alive to have him captured and ordered to execution in retaliation for his killing of Gaveston. At the time the play opens the Earl of Kent was six years old, but Marlowe, needing a counsellor and supporter of the King, used Kent for the purpose. In the play young Spencer immediately succeeds Gaveston as the King’s favorite; really the young Hugh le Despenser, who had been an enemy of Gaveston, remained an opponent of Edward’s for some six years after Gaveston’s death. Historically the Mortimers belong with the Spencers, i.e. to the later part of the reign, but in order to motivate the affair between the Queen and young Mortimer Marlowe transfers them to the beginning of the play and makes them leaders in the barons’ councils.15
The essential point in all this compacting is: when cumbered with more scenes than you wish to use, determine first which scenes contain indispensable action, and must be kept as settings; then consider which of the other scenes may by ingenuity be combined with them.
Evidently a dramatist must develop great ingenuity and skill in so re-working scenes originally conceived as occurring in widely separated places and times that they may be acted in a single set. As has been said, the audience of the public theatres in Shakespeare’s day imaginatively shifted the scene at any hint from text, stage properties, or even signs. Withthe Restoration came elaborate scenery, a gift from earlier performances at the English court and from the continental theatres which the English nobility had attended in their exile. By means of the “drawn scene” dramatists now changed rapidly from place to place. InThe Spanish Friar, Scene 1 of Act II is “The Queen’s ante-chamber.” For Scene 2, “The scene draws, and shows the Queen sitting in state; Bertram standing next her; then Teresa, etc.” These drawn scenes held the stage until very recently. Painted on flats which could be pulled off stage from left and right, these scenes could not be “drawn” without hurting theatrical illusion. If moved in any light, all illusion departed; if changed in darkness, but not instantaneously, they interfered with illusion. To overcome these objections there have been many inventions in recent years—Revolving, Wagon, Sinking Stages.16Undoubtedly, these make changes of scene within the act well-nigh unobjectionable. The difficulty with them is that most are elaborate and expensive, and therefore exist in only a few theatres. It is, consequently, useless to stage a play with them in mind, for on the road it will not find the conditions of production essential to its success. Occasionally, as inOn Trial, some simple, easily portable device makes these very quick changes possible even on the road. At present, though invention tries steadily to make change of scene so swift as to be unobjectionable, it is wiser to keep to one setting to an act, unless the play will greatly suffer by so doing, or the change is one which may be made almost instantaneously when the lights are lowered or the curtain dropped.
On the other hand, recently dramatists have rather overdone reducing possible settings to the minimum. While a change of setting within the act always demands justification, forcing a play of three to five acts into one or two settingswhen, at a trifling additional cost, a pleasing variety to the eye and a change of place helpful to the dramatist might have been provided, is undesirable. Lately there have been signs that our audiences are growing weary of plays of only one set, especially when they suspect the play has been thus arranged by skill, rather than necessity. Certainly, the newer group of dramatists permit themselves changes of scene even within the act. Act II ofThe Silver Box,17by Galsworthy, shows as Scene 1, “The Jones’s lodgings, Merthyr Street”; as Scene 2, “The Barthwicks’ dining-room.” InHindle Wakes,18by Stanley Houghton, Scene 1, Act I, is the “Kitchen of theHawthorns’house”; Scene 2 is the “Breakfast room of theJeffcotes’house.” To the preliminary statement of scenes the dramatist appended words which hint the underlying danger in all changes of setting,—disillusioning waits:
Note.—The scene for Act I, Scene 1, should be very small, as a contrast to the room at the Jeffcotes’. It might well be set inside the other scene so as to facilitate the quick change between Scenes 1 and 2, Act I.
Note.—The scene for Act I, Scene 1, should be very small, as a contrast to the room at the Jeffcotes’. It might well be set inside the other scene so as to facilitate the quick change between Scenes 1 and 2, Act I.
All things considered, it is probably best to repeat the statement already made: a change of scene within the act is desirable only when absolutely necessary; a change of scene with each act is desirable, except when truth to life, expense, or undue time required for setting it forbid.
What exactly does this constantly repeated word “Scene” mean? In English theatrical usage today, and increasingly the world over, it signifies: “a change of setting.” All that happens from one change of set to another change makes a scene. French usage, based on the Latin, till very recently always marked off a scene when any person more important than a servant or attendant entered or left the stage. For instance, inLes Petits Oiseauxof Labiche, known in English asA Pair of Spectacles, four consecutive scenes in Act I, which throughout has no change of setting read thus:
SCENE 4.Blandinet, Henriette, Leonce, then Joseph [a servant].
SCENE 4.Blandinet, Henriette, Leonce, then Joseph [a servant].
A scene of some fourteen brief speeches follows, when:
(They start to go out, Tiburce appears.)SCENE 5.The same persons, Tiburce
(They start to go out, Tiburce appears.)
SCENE 5.The same persons, Tiburce
After a scene of eleven short speeches,
(Blandinet goes over to left with Leonce.)SCENE 6.Henriette, TiburceHenriette, who sat down after the entrance of Tiburce, and took up her work again, rises immediately on the exit of Blandinet, folding her work.Tiburce.(Approaching her hesitatingly.) You are not working any longer, Aunt.... It’s done already?(Henriette bows to him frigidly and goes out at right.)SCENE 7.Tiburce, then François19
(Blandinet goes over to left with Leonce.)
SCENE 6.Henriette, Tiburce
Henriette, who sat down after the entrance of Tiburce, and took up her work again, rises immediately on the exit of Blandinet, folding her work.
Tiburce.(Approaching her hesitatingly.) You are not working any longer, Aunt.... It’s done already?
(Henriette bows to him frigidly and goes out at right.)
SCENE 7.Tiburce, then François19
What this French use of the word “scene” leads to, when logically carried out so that even servants entering or leaving the stage create a scene, the following from Act IV ofGeorge Barnwell, will show:
SCENE 5.To them a ServantThorowgood.Order the groom to saddle the swiftest horse, and prepare himself to set out with speed!—An affair of life and death demands his diligence.(Exit Servant.)SCENE 6.Thorowgood, Trueman, and LucyThorowgood.For you, whose behavior on this occasion I have no time to commend as it deserves, I must ingage your farther assistance. Return and observe this Millwood till I come. I have your directions, and will follow you as soon as possible.(Exit Lucy.)SCENE 7.Thorowgood and TruemanThorowgood.Trueman, you I am sure would not be idle on this occasion.(Exit.)SCENE 8.Trueman.He only who is a friend can judge of my distress.(Exit.)20
SCENE 5.To them a Servant
Thorowgood.Order the groom to saddle the swiftest horse, and prepare himself to set out with speed!—An affair of life and death demands his diligence.
(Exit Servant.)
SCENE 6.Thorowgood, Trueman, and Lucy
Thorowgood.For you, whose behavior on this occasion I have no time to commend as it deserves, I must ingage your farther assistance. Return and observe this Millwood till I come. I have your directions, and will follow you as soon as possible.
(Exit Lucy.)
SCENE 7.Thorowgood and Trueman
Thorowgood.Trueman, you I am sure would not be idle on this occasion.
(Exit.)
SCENE 8.
Trueman.He only who is a friend can judge of my distress.
(Exit.)20
This French division of scenes is, of course, made for the convenience of the dramatist as he composes and for the reader, not for the actor or the audience. Though somewhat copied in the past by English authors, it is now rejected by most stages. Even French dramatists are breaking away from it. Memory of this French usage, however, still affects popular speech: when we speak of any part of an act in which two or more people are on stage, we are very likely to call it their “scene” no matter whether they have come on in a changed setting or not. Obviously ifsceneis to correspond withsetting, we need another word for what in our practice is the same as the older Frenchscene.
Not only do necessary changes in setting make proportioning material into acts and within acts difficult, but the time question also raises many problems. It may be troublesome within the act, between the acts, and at the opening of the play. In the final soliloquy ofFaustus(p. 35), an hour is supposed to elapse in some thirty lines. Though the Elizabethan, in a case like this, was ready to assist the dramatist, today we are so conscious of time spaces that practically all stage clocks are temporarily out of order, lest they mark too distinctly the discrepancy between pretended and real time.21The novelist, in a few lines, tells us of many happenings in a considerable space of time, or writes: “Thus, in idle talk, a full hour passed,” and we do not query the supposed passage of time. On the stage, however, when one gossip says to another: “I must be off. I meant to stop a minute, and I have gossiped an hour,” auditors who recognize perfectly that the two people have not talked ten minutes are likely to laugh derisively. As has been pointed out,22this time difficulty hasmade it practically impossible to dramatize satisfactorily Stevenson’sThe Sire de Maletroit’s Door. The swiftly-moving simple story demands the one-act form, but certain marked changes in feeling, convincing enough when they are said to come after ten or twelve hours of strong emotion, become, when they are seen to occur after twenty minutes to an hour, unconvincing. The central situation may be used, but for success on the stage the story must be so re-told that the marked changes in feeling are convincing even when seen. A dilemma results: lapses of time are handled more easily in three or four acts than in one act; the momentThe Sire de Maletroit’s Dooris re-cast into three or four acts, it needs so much padding as to lose nearly all its original values.
When a dramatist faces the need to represent on stage, a passage of time which could not in real life be coincident with the action of the scene, he must (a) hypnotize an audience by a long scene of complicated and absorbing emotion into thinking that the required time has passed; or (b) must discover some motive sufficiently strong to account for a swift change in feeling; (c) or must get his person or persons off stage and write what is known as a “Cover Scene.”
An audience led through an intense emotional experience does not mark accurately the passage of time. Make the emotional experience protracted, as well as absorbing, and you may imply or even state that any reasonable length of time has passed. The fearful agony ofFaustusso grips an audience that it loses track of the time necessary for the speech, or would, were it not for the unfortunate emphasis on the actual time: “Ah, half the hour is passed; ’twill all be passed anon”; “The clock strikes twelve.” InHamlet, the fourth act takes place during the absence of Hamlet in England. By its many intensely moving happenings, it makes an auditor willing to believe that Hamlet has been absent for a long time, when in reality he has been on the stage within ahalf hour. Such time fillings may, of course, be a portion of a scene, a whole scene, or even a whole act. In most cases, it is quite impossible that the time really requisite and the time of action should coincide. The business of the dramatist is to make the audience feel as if the time had passed—to create an illusion of time.
The second method of meeting the time difficulty, finding motivation of some marked change in character or circumstances which permits it to be as swift as it is on the stage, is best treated in the next chapter.
InThe Russian Honeymoon,23a play once very popular with amateurs, there is bad handling of a time difficulty. The hero, going out in his peasant costume, must return after a few speeches, in full regimentals. A lightning change of costume is, therefore, necessary. More than once this lack of a proper Cover Scene has caused an awkward wait at this point in the play. Mark the absurdly short time Steele, in hisConscious Loversallows Isabella for bringing Bevil Junior on stage. Apparently, the latter and all his group must have been waiting at the end of the corridor.