Play Making - William Archer
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PLAY-MAKING
_A Manual of Craftsmanship_
by William Archer
1912
PREFATORY NOTE
This book is, to all intents and purposes, entirely new. No considerable
portion of it has already appeared, although here and there short
passages and phrases from articles of bygone years are embedded
--indistinguishably, I hope--in the text. I have tried, wherever
it was possible, to select my examples from published plays, which the
student may read for himself, and so check my observations. One reason,
among others, which led me to go to Shakespeare and Ibsen for so many of
my illustrations, was that they are the most generally accessible of
playwrights.
If the reader should feel that I have been over lavish in the use of
footnotes, I have two excuses to allege. The first is that more than
half of the following chapters were written on shipboard and in places
where I had scarcely any books to refer to; so that a great deal had to
be left to subsequent enquiry and revision. The second is that several
of my friends, dramatists and others, have been kind enough to read my
manuscript, and to suggest valuable afterthoughts.
LONDON
_January_, 1912
To
Brander Matthews
Guide Philosopher and Friend
CONTENTS
BOOK I
PROLOGUE
_CHAPTER I_ INTRODUCTORY
_CHAPTER II_ THE CHOICE OF A THEME
_CHAPTER III_ DRAMATIC AND UNDRAMATIC
_CHAPTER IV_ THE ROUTINE OF COMPOSITION
_CHAPTER V_ DRAMATIS PERSONAE
BOOK II
THE BEGINNING
_CHAPTER VI_ THE POINT OF ATTACK: SHAKESPEARE AND IBSEN
_CHAPTER VII_ EXPOSITION: ITS END AND ITS MEANS
_CHAPTER VIII_ THE FIRST ACT
_CHAPTER IX_ "CURIOSITY" AND "INTEREST"
_CHAPTER X_ FORESHADOWING, NOT FORESTALLING
BOOK III
THE MIDDLE
_CHAPTER XI_ TENSION AND ITS SUSPENSION
_CHAPTER XII_ PREPARATION: THE FINGER-POST
_CHAPTER XIII_ THE OBLIGATORY SCENE
_CHAPTER XIV_ THE PERIPETY
_CHAPTER XV_ PROBABILITY, CHANCE AND COINCIDENCE
_CHAPTER XVI_ LOGIC
_CHAPTER XVII_ KEEPING A SECRET
BOOK IV
THE END
_CHAPTER XVIII_ CLIMAX AND ANTICLIMAX
_CHAPTER XIX_ CONVERSION
_CHAPTER XX_ BLIND-ALLEY THEMES--AND OTHERS
_CHAPTER XXI_ THE FULL CLOSE
BOOK V
EPILOGUE
_CHAPTER XXII_ CHARACTER AND PSYCHOLOGY
_CHAPTER XXIII_ DIALOGUE AND DETAILS
_BOOK I_
PROLOGUE
_CHAPTER I_
INTRODUCTORY
There are no rules for writing a play. It is easy, indeed, to lay down
negative recommendations--to instruct the beginner how _not_ to do it.
But most of these "don'ts" are rather obvious; and those which are not
obvious are apt to be questionable. It is certain, for instance, that if
you want your play to be acted, anywhere else than in China, you must
not plan it in sixteen acts of an hour apiece; but where is the tyro who
needs a text-book to tell him that? On the other hand, most theorists of
to-day would make it an axiom that you must not let your characters
narrate their circumstances, or expound their motives, in speeches
addressed, either directly to the audience, or ostensibly to their
solitary selves. But when we remember that, of all dramatic openings,
there is none finer than that which shows Richard Plantagenet limping
down the empty stage to say--
"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried"--
we feel that the axiom requires large qualifications. There are no
absolute rules, in fact, except such as are dictated by the plainest
common sense. Aristotle himself did not so much dogmatize as analyse,
classify, and generalize from, the practices of the Attic dramatists. He
said, "you had better" rather than "you must." It was Horace, in an age
of deep dramatic decadence, who re-stated the pseudo-Aristotelian
formulas of the Alexandrians as though they were unassailable dogmas
of art.
How comes it, then, that there is a constant demand for text-books of
the art and craft of drama? How comes it that so many people--and I
among the number--who could not write a play to save their lives, are
eager to tell others how to do so? And, stranger still, how comes it
that so many people are willing to sit at the feet of these instructors?
It is not so with the novel. Popular as is that form of literature,
guides to novel-writing, if they exist at all, are comparatively rare.
Why are people possessed with the idea that the art of dramatic fiction
differs from that of narrative fiction, in that it can and must
be taught?
The reason is clear, and is so far valid as to excuse, if not to
justify, such works as the present. The novel, as soon as it is legibly
written, exists, for what it is worth. The page of black and white is
the sole intermediary between the creative and the perceptive brain.
Even the act of printing merely widens the possible appeal: it does not
alter its nature. But the drama, before it can make its proper appeal at
all, must be run through a highly complex piece of mechanism--the
theatre--the precise conditions of which are, to most beginners, a
fascinating mystery. While they feel a strong inward conviction of their
ability to master it, they are possessed with an idea, often exaggerated
and superstitious, of its technical complexities. Having, as a rule,
little or no opportunity of closely examining or experimenting with it,
they are eager to "read it up," as they might any other machine. That is
the case of the average aspirant, who has neither the instinct of the
theatre fully developed in his blood, nor such a congenital lack of that
instinct as to be wholly inapprehensive of any technical difficulties or
problems. The intelligent novice, standing between these extremes,
tends, as a rule, to overrate the efficacy of theoretical instruction,
and to expect of analytic criticism more than it has to give.
There is thus a fine opening for pedantry on the one side, and quackery
on the other, to rush in. The pedant, in this context, is he who
constructs a set of rules from metaphysical or psychological first
principles, and professes to bring down a dramatic decalogue from the
Sinai of some lecture-room in the University of Weissnichtwo. The quack,
on the other hand, is he who generalizes from the worst practices of the
most vulgar theatrical journeymen, and has no higher ambition than to
interpret the oracles of the box-office. If he succeeded in so doing,
his function would not be wholly despicable; but as he is generally
devoid of insight, and as, moreover, the oracles of the box-office vary
from season to season, if not from month to month, his lucubrations are
about as valuable as those of Zadkiel or Old Moore.[1]
What, then, is the excuse for such a discussion as is here attempted?
Having admitted that there are no rules for dramatic composition, and
that the quest of such rules is apt to result either in pedantry or
quackery, why should I myself set forth upon so fruitless and foolhardy
an enterprise? It is precisely because I am alive to its dangers that I
have some hope of avoiding them. Rules there are none; but it does not
follow that some of the thousands who are fascinated by the art of the
playwright may not profit by having their attention called, in a plain
and practical way, to some of its problems and possibilities. I have
myself felt the need of some such handbook, when would-be dramatists
have come to me for advice and guidance. It is easy to name excellent
treatises on the drama; but the aim of such books is to guide the
judgment of the critic rather than the creative impulse of the
playwright. There are also valuable collections of dramatic criticisms;
but any practical hints that they may contain are scattered and
unsystematic. On the other hand, the advice one is apt to give to
beginners--"Go to the theatre; study its conditions and mechanism for
yourself"--is, in fact, of very doubtful value. It might, in many cases,
be wiser to warn the aspirant to keep himself unspotted from the
playhouse. To send him there is to imperil, on the one hand, his
originality of vision, on the other, his individuality of method. He may
fall under the influence of some great master, and see life only through
his eyes; or he may become so habituated to the current tricks of the
theatrical trade as to lose all sense of their conventionality and
falsity, and find himself, in the end, better fitted to write what I
have called a quack handbook than a living play. It would be ridiculous,
of course, to urge an aspirant positively to avoid the theatre; but the
common advice to steep himself in it is beset with dangers.
It may be asked why, if I have any guidance and help to give, I do not
take it myself, and write plays instead of instructing others in the
art. This is a variant of an ancient and fallacious jibe against
criticism in general. It is quite true that almost all critics who are
worth their salt are "stickit" artists. Assuredly, if I had the power, I
should write plays instead of writing about them; but one may have a
great love for an art, and some insight into its principles and methods,
without the innate faculty required for actual production. On the other
hand, there is nothing to show that, if I were a creative artist, I
should be a good mentor for beginners. An accomplished painter may be
the best teacher of painters; but an accomplished dramatist is scarcely
the best guide for dramatists. He cannot analyse his own practice, and
discriminate between that in it which is of universal validity, and that
which may be good for him, but would be bad for any one else. If he
happened to be a great man, he would inevitably, even if unconsciously,
seek to impose upon his disciples his individual attitude towards life;
if he were a lesser man, he would teach them only his tricks. But
dramatists do not, as a matter of fact, take pupils or write
handbooks.[2] When they expound their principles of art, it is generally
in answer to, or in anticipation of, criticism--with a view, in short,
not to helping others, but to defending themselves. If beginners, then,
are to find any systematic guidance, they must turn to the critics, not
to the dramatists; and no person of common sense holds it a reproach to
a critic to tell him that he is a "stickit" playwright.
If questions are worth discussing at all, they are worth discussing
gravely. When, in the following pages, I am found treating with all
solemnity matters of apparently trivial detail, I beg the reader to
believe that very possibly I do not in my heart overrate their
importance. One thing is certain, and must be emphasized from the
outset: namely, that if any part of the dramatist's art can be taught,
it is only a comparatively mechanical and formal part--the art of
structure. One may learn how to tell a story in good dramatic form: how
to develop and marshal it in such a way as best to seize and retain the
interest of a theatrical audience. But no teaching or study can enable a
man to choose or invent a good story, and much less to do that which
alone lends dignity to dramatic story-telling--to observe and portray
human character. This is the aim and end of all serious drama; and it
will be apt to appear as though, in the following pages, this aim and
end were ignored. In reality it is not so. If I hold comparatively
mechanical questions of pure craftsmanship to be worth discussing, it is
because I believe that only by aid of competent craftsmanship can the
greatest genius enable his creations to live and breathe upon the stage.
The profoundest insight into human nature and destiny cannot find valid
expression through the medium of the theatre without some understanding
of the peculiar art of dramatic construction. Some people are born with
such an instinct for this art, that a very little practice renders them
masters of it. Some people are born with a hollow in their cranium where
the bump of drama ought to be. But between these extremes, as I said
before, there are many people with moderately developed and cultivable
faculty; and it is these who, I trust, may find some profit in the
following discussions.[3] Let them not forget, however, that the topics
treated of are merely the indispensable rudiments of the art, and are
not for a moment to be mistaken for its ultimate and incommunicable
secrets. Beethoven could not have composed the Ninth Symphony without a
mastery of harmony and counterpoint; but there are thousands of masters
of harmony and counterpoint who could not compose the Ninth Symphony.
The art of theatrical story-telling is necessarily relative to the
audience to whom the story is to be told. One must assume an audience of
a certain status and characteristics before one can rationally discuss
the best methods of appealing to its intelligence and its sympathies.
The audience I have throughout assumed is drawn from what may be called
the ordinary educated public of London and New York. It is not an ideal
or a specially selected audience; but it is somewhat above the average
of the theatre-going public, that average being sadly pulled down by the
myriad frequenters of musical farce and absolutely worthless melodrama.
It is such an audience as assembles every night at, say, the half-dozen
best theatres of each city. A peculiarly intellectual audience it
certainly is not. I gladly admit that theatrical art owes much, in both
countries, to voluntary organizations of intelligent or would-be
intelligent[4] playgoers, who have combined to provide themselves with
forms of drama which specially interest them, and do not attract the
great public. But I am entirely convinced that the drama renounces its
chief privilege and glory when it waives its claim to be a popular art,
and is content to address itself to coteries, however "high-browed."
Shakespeare did not write for a coterie: yet he produced some works of
considerable subtlety and profundity. Moliere was popular with the
ordinary parterre of his day: yet his plays have endured for over two
centuries, and the end of their vitality does not seem to be in sight.
Ibsen did not write for a coterie, though special and regrettable
circumstances have made him, in England, something of a coterie-poet. In
Scandinavia, in Germany, even in America, he casts his spell over great
audiences, if not through long runs (which are a vice of the merely
commercial theatre), at any rate through frequently-repeated
representations. So far as I know, history records no instance of a
playwright failing to gain the ear of his contemporaries, and then being
recognized and appreciated by posterity. Alfred de Musset might,
perhaps, be cited as a case in point; but he did not write with a view
to the stage, and made no bid for contemporary popularity. As soon as it
occurred to people to produce his plays, they were found to be
delightful. Let no playwright, then, make it his boast that he cannot
disburden his soul within the three hours' limit, and cannot produce
plays intelligible or endurable to any audience but a band of adepts. A
popular audience, however, does not necessarily mean the mere riff-raff
of the theatrical public. There is a large class of playgoers, both in
England and America, which is capable of appreciating work of a high
intellectual order, if only it does not ignore the fundamental
conditions of theatrical presentation. It is an audience of this class
that I have in mind throughout the following pages; and I believe that a
playwright who despises such an audience will do so to the detriment,
not only of his popularity and profits, but of the artistic quality
of his work.
Some people may exclaim: "Why should the dramatist concern himself about
his audience? That may be all very well for the mere journeymen of the
theatre, the hacks who write to an actor-manager's order--not for the
true artist! He has a soul above all such petty considerations. Art, to
him, is simply self-expression. He writes to please himself, and has no
thought of currying favour with an audience, whether intellectual or
idiotic." To this I reply simply that to an artist of this way of
thinking I have nothing to say. He has a perfect right to express
himself in a whole literature of so-called plays, which may possibly be
studied, and even acted, by societies organized to that laudable end.
But the dramatist who declares his end to be mere self-expression
stultifies himself in that very phrase. The painter may paint, the
sculptor model, the lyric poet sing, simply to please himself,[5] but
the drama has no meaning except in relation to an audience. It is a
portrayal of life by means of a mechanism so devised as to bring it home
to a considerable number of people assembled in a given place. "The
public," it has been well said, "constitutes the theatre." The moment a
playwright confines his work within the two or three hours' limit
prescribed by Western custom for a theatrical performance, he is
currying favour with an audience. That limit is imposed simply by the
physical endurance and power of sustained attention that can be demanded
of Western human beings assembled in a theatre. Doubtless an author
could express himself more fully and more subtly if he ignored these
limitations; the moment he submits to them, he renounces the pretence
that mere self-expression is his aim. I know that there are
haughty-souls who make no such submission, and express themselves in
dramas which, so far as their proportions are concerned, might as well
be epic poems or historical romances.[6] To them, I repeat, I have
nothing to say. The one and only subject of the following discussions is
the best method of fitting a dramatic theme for representation before an
audience assembled in a theatre. But this, be it noted, does not
necessarily mean "writing down" to the audience in question. It is by
obeying, not by ignoring, the fundamental conditions of his craft that
the dramatist may hope to lead his audience upward to the highest
intellectual level which he himself can attain.
These pages, in short, are addressed to students of play-writing who
sincerely desire to do sound, artistic work under the conditions and
limitations of the actual, living playhouse. This does not mean, of
course, that they ought always to be studying "what the public wants."
The dramatist should give the public what he himself wants--but in such
form as to make it comprehensible and interesting in a theatre.
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: It is against "technic" in this sense of the term that the
hero of Mr. Howells's admirable novel, _The Story of a Play_, protests
in vigorous and memorable terms. "They talk," says Maxwell, "about a
knowledge of the stage as if it were a difficult science, instead of a
very simple piece of mechanism whose limitations and possibilities
anyone may see at a glance. All that their knowledge of it comes to is
claptrap, pure and simple.... They think that their exits and entrances
are great matters and that they must come on with such a speech, and go
off with another; but it is not of the least importance how they come or
go, if they have something interesting to say or do." Maxwell, it must
be remembered, is speaking of technic as expounded by the star actor,
who is shilly-shallying--as star actors will--over the production of his
play. He would not, in his calmer moments, deny that it is of little use
to have something interesting to say, unless you know how to say it
interestingly. Such a denial would simply be the negation of the very
idea of art.]
[Footnote 2: A dramatist of my acquaintance adds this footnote: "But, by
the Lord! They have to give advice. I believe I write more plays of
other people's than I do of my own."]
[Footnote 3: It may be hoped, too, that even the accomplished dramatist
may take some interest in considering the reasons for things which he
does, or does not do, by instinct.]
[Footnote 4: This is not a phrase of contempt. The would-be intelligent
playgoer is vastly to be preferred to the playgoer who makes a boast of
his unintelligence.]
[Footnote 5: In all the arts, however, the very idea of craftsmanship
implies some sort of external percipient, or, in other words, some sort
of an audience. In point of sheer self-expression, a child's scrabblings
with a box of crayons may deserve to rank with the most masterly canvas
of Velasquez or Vermeer. The real difference between the dramatist and
other artists, is that they can be _their own audience_, in a sense in
which he cannot.]
[Footnote 6: Let me guard against the possibility that this might be
interpreted as a sneer at _The Dynasts_--a great work by a great poet.]
_CHAPTER II_
THE CHOICE OF A THEME
The first step towards writing a play is manifestly to choose a theme.
Even this simple statement, however, requires careful examination before
we can grasp its full import. What, in the first place, do we mean by a
"theme"? And, secondly, in what sense can we, or ought we to,
"choose" one?
"Theme" may mean either of two things: either the subject of a play, or
its story. The former is, perhaps, its proper or more convenient sense.
The theme of _Romeo and Juliet_ is youthful love crossed by ancestral
hate; the theme of _Othello_ is jealousy; the theme of _Le Tartufe_ is
hypocrisy; the theme of _Caste_ is fond hearts and coronets; the theme
of _Getting Married_ is getting married; the theme of _Maternite_ is
maternity. To every play it is possible, at a pinch, to assign a theme;
but in many plays it is evident that no theme expressible in abstract
terms was present to the author's mind. Nor are these always plays of a
low class. It is only by a somewhat artificial process of abstraction
that we can formulate a theme for _As You Like It_, for _The Way of the
World_, or for _Hedda Gabler_.
The question now arises: ought a theme, in its abstract form, to be the
first germ of a play? Ought the dramatist to say, "Go to, I will write a
play on temperance, or on woman's suffrage, or on capital and labour,"
and then cast about for a story to illustrate his theme? This is a
possible, but not a promising, method of procedure. A story made to the
order of a moral concept is always apt to advertise its origin, to the
detriment of its illusive quality. If a play is to be a moral apologue
at all, it is well to say so frankly--probably in the title--and aim,
not at verisimilitude, but at neatness and appositeness in the working
out of the fable. The French _proverbe_ proceeds on this principle, and
is often very witty and charming.[1] A good example in English is _A
Pair of Spectacles_, by Mr. Sydney Grundy, founded on a play by Labiche.
In this bright little comedy every incident and situation bears upon the
general theme, and pleases us, not by its probability, but by its
ingenious appropriateness. The dramatic fable, in fact, holds very much
the same rank in drama as the narrative fable holds in literature at
large. We take pleasure in them on condition that they be witty, and
that they do not pretend to be what they are not.
A play manifestly suggested by a theme of temporary interest will often
have a great but no less temporary success. For instance, though there
was a good deal of clever character-drawing in _An Englishman's Home_,
by Major du Maurier, the theme was so evidently the source and
inspiration of the play that it will scarcely bear revival. In America,
where the theme was of no interest, the play failed.
It is possible, no doubt, to name excellent plays in which the theme, in
all probability, preceded both the story and the characters in the
author's mind. Such plays are most of M. Brieux's; such plays are Mr.
Galsworthy's _Strife_ and _Justice_. The French plays, in my judgment,
suffer artistically from the obtrusive predominance of the theme--that
is to say, the abstract element--over the human and concrete factors in
the composition. Mr. Galsworthy's more delicate and unemphatic art
eludes this danger, at any rate in _Strife_. We do not remember until
all is over that his characters represent classes, and his action is,
one might almost say, a sociological symbol. If, then, the theme does,
as a matter of fact, come first in the author's conception, he will do
well either to make it patently and confessedly dominant, as in the
_proverbe_, or to take care that, as in _Strife_, it be not suffered to
make its domination felt, except as an afterthought.[2] No outside force
should appear to control the free rhythm of the action.
The theme may sometimes be, not an idea, an abstraction or a principle,
but rather an environment, a social phenomenon of one sort or another.
The author's primary object in such a case is, not to portray any
individual character or tell any definite story, but to transfer to the
stage an animated picture of some broad aspect or phase of life, without
concentrating the interest on any one figure or group. There are
theorists who would, by definition, exclude from the domain of drama any
such cinematograph-play, as they would probably call it; but we shall
see cause, as we go on, to distrust definitions, especially when they
seek to clothe themselves with the authority of laws. Tableau-plays of
the type here in question may even claim classical precedent. What else
is Ben Jonson's _Bartholomew Fair_? What else is Schiller's
_Wallensteins Lager_? Amongst more recent plays, Hauptmann's _Die Weber_
and Gorky's _Nachtasyl_ are perhaps the best examples of the type. The
drawback of such themes is, not that they do not conform to this or that
canon of art, but that it needs an exceptional amount of knowledge and
dramaturgic skill to handle them successfully. It is far easier to tell
a story on the stage than to paint a picture, and few playwrights can
resist the temptation to foist a story upon their picture, thus marring
it by an inharmonious intrusion of melodrama or farce. This has often
been done upon deliberate theory, in the belief that no play can exist,
or can attract playgoers, without a definite and more or less exciting
plot. Thus the late James A. Herne inserted into a charming idyllic
picture of rural life, entitled _Shore Acres_, a melodramatic scene in a
lighthouse, which was hopelessly out of key with the rest of the play.
The dramatist who knows any particular phase of life so thoroughly as to
be able to transfer its characteristic incidents to the stage, may be
advised to defy both critical and managerial prejudice, and give his
tableau-play just so much of story as may naturally and inevitably fall
within its limits.