Act I
Evening of a June day. John Hathaway’s Study. Door at right and at left back. Heavy, old-fashioned library furnishings. Walls lined with shelves of books. General disorder of books to produce the effect of recent using. Large flat-topped desk with a double row of drawers stands at front, half way between center and right wall. Desk is covered with books and loose manuscript. Chair at left front. Stool in front of desk. Other chairs toward back.
When the curtain rises, John Hathaway is seated at desk working. Anne enters at right, bangs the door, and stands with back to it.
Anne. I hate Aunt Caroline. (She hurries forward to stand at opposite side of desk.) Oh, I know what you will say—just preach and preach and call me “Anne” and tell me I must ask her pardon.—Why don’t you begin?
John. (Smiling.) Now, Anne!
Anne. Yes, there’s the “Anne.” I know the rest without your going on:—“Aunt Caroline is a peculiar woman, but is most worthy. Her Puritanism keeps her from understanding your temperament, and you are too young to understand hers,—” and you’ll go on preaching and smiling in that horrid way—you always do—and you’ll make me see how wrong I’ve been and how saintly Aunt Caroline is, and at last I’ll slink out of the room like a good little pussy-cat to find Aunt Caroline and beg her pardon. But it won’t do this time, for I begged her pardon before I lost my temper so that you couldn’t send me back.—Oh, Duke, can’t we send Aunt Caroline away, and just you and me live here always together. (She swings round the desk to sit on the stool at his side, her back to him. He turns a little in his chair, letting a hand fall on her shoulder.) When Dad died, he left me with you because next to me he loved you best in all the world. Hundreds and hundreds of times he told me that.—It would have been very nice, Duke, if Dad hadn’t died, wouldn’t it?
John. Yes, Nan.
Anne. In just that one thing God has not been quite fair to me. Aunt Caroline tries so hard to make me think I am wrong about it.—I know you think so too, but you never argue about it with me. I like you for that, Duke. You see, if Dad had lived, our kingdom would have been complete. Why! a kingdom’s only half a kingdom without a king.
John. That’s true,—but there are still a few of us left. There’s the Prime Minister, and the Countess, and the Slave, every one of them loyal to the Princess. Even the War Department is loyal—in warfare. Perhaps, who knows, some day from out a great foreign land a great king may come riding, and the Princess will place him beside her on the throne—and—live happily ever afterward.
Anne. (Inattentively.) Perhaps. Duke, did you ever think that the Prime Minister was very fond of the Countess?
John. Why, I have thought so at times.
Anne. And did you ever think that perhaps the Prime Minister would like to marry the Countess?
John. Why, yes, now you mention it, that also has occurred to me.
Anne. Well, why doesn’t he?
John. Perhaps the Countess isn’t willing.
Who is this “Anne”? What is her last name? Is she the niece of “Duke”? How could we learn from the text that “Duke” is John Hathaway? It is the stage direction which gives us that information. And what are we to do with this whole Burke’s Peerage,—the Prime Minister, the Countess, the Slave? The author is depending for identification upon a list of dramatis personæ just preceding what has been quoted:
Time, present day.
Characters:
Anne Chesterfield, “The Princess.”
John Hathaway, Anne’s guardian, “The Duke.”
Caroline Hathaway, John’s aunt, “Head of the War Department.”
Doctor Stirling, a friend, “The Prime Minister.”
Katharine Bain, a friend, “The Countess.”
Tommy Bain, Katharine’s young brother, “The Slave.”
Professor Heinrich Adler, “The Foreign Ambassador.”
James, a Servant.
Cut out this list of characters; in the stage directions strike out “John Hathaway,” substituting “A man”; strike out “Anne,” substituting “A young woman.” At once it is clear that the dialogue reveals nothing about these people, except that a young woman who speaks is a niece of “Aunt Caroline.” Yet these substitutions show what the scene looks like to a man entering the theatre without a program. Whenever such substitution of a type name for that of an individual in the titles prefixed to the speeches leaves the speakers unidentified, it is time to re-phrase the material for greater clearness.
Scenery and costume, of course, may show where the opening or later action of a play takes place. If these make clear the nationality of the speakers, or, at most, the province to which they belong, this is in many instances enough for any audience. In some cases, however, the nature of the plot is so dependent on the customs of a particular community that it is necessary or wise to make the text farther particularize any placing of the play by scenery or costumes. Simple interiors, too, are not always easily identifiable as of this or that province, or even country. If province or country at all determines the action of the piece, the text should help out the setting. One reason why the plays of Synge aroused bitter opposition was that some auditors believed them representations of life anywhere in Ireland and not, as they were meant to be, pictures of the manners of Aran Islanders, a group so isolated as to retain much savagery. Also, if the text is clear as to place, suggestion may take the place of realism in the scenery, thus decreasing expense. The emphasis on place in the opening of The Rising of the Moon both permits scenery that merely suggests a quay and plants in the minds of hearers a setting essential to the whole development of the play:
Scene: Side of a quay in a seaport town. Some posts and chains. A large barrel. Enter three policemen. Moonlight.
Sergeant, who is older than the others, crosses the stage to right and looks down steps. The others put down a pastepot and unroll a bundle of placards.
Policeman B. I think this would be a good place to put up a notice. (He points to a barrel.)
Policeman X. Better ask him. (Calls to Sergeant..) Will this be a good place for a placard? (No answer.)
Policeman B. Will we put up a notice here on the barrel? (No answer.)
Sergeant. There’s a flight of steps here that leads to the water. This is a place that should be minded well. If he got down here, his friends might have a boat to meet him; they might send it in here from outside.
Policeman B. Would the barrel be a good place to put a notice up?
Sergeant. It might; you can put it there. (They paste the notice up.)
Sergeant. (Reading it.) Dark hair—dark eyes, smooth face, height five feet five—there’s not much to take hold of in that—It’s a pity I had no chance of seeing him before he broke out of jail. They say he’s a wonder, that it’s he makes all the plans for the whole organization. There isn’t another man in Ireland would have broken jail the way he did. He must have some friends among the jailers.
Policeman B. A hundred pounds reward is little enough for the Government to offer for him. You may be sure any man in the force that takes him will get promotion.
Sergeant. I’ll mind this place myself. I wouldn’t wonder at all if he comes this way. He might come slipping along there (points to side of quay) and his friends might be waiting for him there (points down steps), and once he got away it’s little chance we’d have of finding him; it’s maybe under a load of kelp he’d be in a fishing boat, and not one to help a married man that wants it to the reward.3
The period in which the play is supposed to take place, if of importance to the action, needs careful statement. Helped out by setting and costumes, the following shows that the play is taking place at the time of the French Revolution.
At rise of curtain, drums are heard beating, trumpets sounding the charge in the distance. A report of a cannon as the curtain rises.
Jennie. (R., going up to door C.) Did you hear that? It must be somewhere near the Rue d’Echelle now.
Julie. (L. crossing to R.) My! I’m frightened to death.
Marie. (Carrots—up C.) I only hope they won’t come fighting down our street.
Julie. (Kneeling.) Bless us and save us!
Jennie. (Up C.) Down our street. What should they come here for? It’s the Tuileries and the King they’re after.
(Going to window L.)
First Neighbor and Omnes. (At back.) Of course they are. That’s it.
First Woman. (Up C.) I tell you they’re at the Carrousel.
(Report of cannon.)
Marie. It will be a mercy if they don’t smash every pane of glass in the shop.
Julie. Well I shan’t forget this 10th of August in a hurry.
(At back a National Guard wounded in the leg supported by two other guards enters at L., is taken into the druggist’s shop. All the people move towards the shop.)4
Lapse of time between two acts, if important to the development of the plot, should also be clearly stated. Dramatists like to depend on the programs for such information, but they run the chance that many auditors will not see the printed note. Doubtless a program would give these words from the stage direction at the beginning of the fourth act of Hauptmann’s Lonely Lives: “Time between 4 and 5 P.M.,” but the quick passage of time is so important a fact in the development of the plot that six or seven pages later there is the following dialogue:
Braun. (Looks at telegram.) It is the six o’clock train that Mr. Vockerat is coming by? What o’clock is it now?
Mrs. Vockerat. Not half-past four yet.
Braun. (After a moment of reflection.) Has there been no change in the course of the week?
Mrs. Vockerat. (Shakes her head hopelessly.) None.
Braun. Has she given no hint of any intention to go?5
In The Galloper, by Richard Harding Davis, what the audience hears will place the play in a hotel at Athens, even if the scenery does not:
Before the curtain rises one hears a drum-and-fife corps playing a lively march, and the sound of people cheering. This comes from the rear and to the left, and continues after the curtain is up, dying away gradually as though the band, and the regiment with it, had passed and continued on up the street.
Anstruther is discovered seated on the lower right-end corner of the table, with his right foot resting on the chair at that corner. He is reading the Paris “New York Herald” and smoking a cigarette. He is a young man of good manner and soldierly appearance. He wears gray whipcord riding breeches, tan riding boots, and Norfolk jacket of rough tweed. His slouch hat, with a white puggaree wrapped round it, lies on the table beside him. Griggs stands at the edge of the French window looking off left. In his hand he holds a notebook in which he takes notes. He is supposed to be watching the soldiers who are passing. He is a pompous little man of about forty with eyeglasses. He wears a khaki uniform similar to that of an officer of the British army, with the difference that the buttons are of bone. His left chest is covered with ribbons of war medals. Hewitt, a young man with a pointed beard and moustache, stands to the left of Griggs, also looking off left. He wears a khaki coat made like a Norfolk jacket, khaki riding breeches, and canvas United States Army leggings and tan shoes. On the table are his slouch hat and the khaki-colored helmet of Griggs.
Captain O’Malley enters right. He is a dashing young Irishman, in the uniform of an officer of the Greek Army. He halts to right of Anstruther and salutes.
Capt. O’Malley. Pardon, I am Captain O’Malley of the Foreign Legion. Am I addressing one of the foreign war correspondents?
Capt. Anstruther. Yes.
Capt. O’Malley. (Showing him a visiting card.) Pardon, is this your card?
Capt. Anstruther. (Reading card.) “Mr. Kirke Warren.” No.
Capt. O’Malley. Do you know if Mr. Warren is in this hotel?
Capt. Anstruther. I couldn’t tell you. We arrived in Athens only last night.
Capt. O’Malley. (Saluting and moving off left.) I thank you.
(He exits left.)6
But the dramatist prefaced this with a careful description of the setting. What has just been quoted shows that the dramatist risked no chance that what would probably identify this setting,—“Greek letters of gilt” on the picture frames, and the distant view of the Acropolis,—might fail him. He added what has just been quoted.
This scene shows the interior of the reading room in the Hotel Angleterre at Athens. It is large, cheerful-looking, and sunny, with a high ceiling. Extending nearly across the entire width of the rear wall is a French window, which opens upon the garden of the hotel. Outside it are set plants in green tubs, and above it is stretched a striped green-and-white awning. To the reading room the principal entrance is through a wide door set well down in the left wall. It is supposed to open into the hall of the hotel. Through this door one obtains a glimpse of the hall, where steamer trunks and hatboxes are piled high upon a black-and-white tiled floor. In the right wall there is another door, also well down on the stage. It is supposed to open into a corridor of the hotel. Below it against the wall are a writing desk and chair. A similar writing desk is placed against the rear wall between the right wall and the French window. On the left of the stage, end-on to the audience, is a long library table over which is spread a dark-green baize cloth. On top of it are ranged periodicals and the illustrated papers of different countries. Chairs of bent wood are ranged around this table, one being placed at each side of the lower end. Of these two, the chair to the left of the table is not farther from the left door than five feet. The walls of the room are colored a light, cool gray in distemper, with a black oak wainscot about four feet high. On the walls are hung photographs of the Acropolis and of classic Greek statues. On the black frames holding these photographs appear the names of shopkeepers in Greek letters of gilt. The floor is covered with a gray crash. The back drop, seen through the French window, shows the garden of the hotel, beyond that the trees of a public park, and high in the air the Acropolis. The light is that of a bright morning in May.
The test in deciding whether the place and the time should be stated is not, “Has it been given in the program?” nor, “May it with ingenuity be guessed from the settings and costumes?” but, first, “Does place or time, or do both at all determine the action of the piece?” secondly, “Will any intelligent observer be vague as to place or time, as the play develops?” If the answer to either of these questions is yes, it is wisest to make these matters clear in the text.
Far more troublesome than merely identifying the characters or emphasizing the place and time of the play is showing the relations of the characters to one another. This usually requires exposition of past history which must be clearly understood if the play is to have its full emotional effect. More than one reader has been disposed to believe the theory that Macbeth, as we know it, is a cut stage version because, when Lady Macbeth first enters, she seems less prepared for and less clearly related to the other figures than is Shakespeare’s custom.
SCENE 5. Inverness. Macbeth’s castle
Enter Lady Macbeth, alone, with a letter
Lady Macbeth. (Reads.) “They met me in the day of success; and I have learn’d by the perfect’st report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burn’d in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanish’d. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the King, who all-hail’d me, ‘Thane of Cawdor’; by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referr’d me to the coming on of time, with ‘Hail, King thou shalt be!’ This I have thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promis’d thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.”
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promis’d. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou’dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, “Thus thou must do, if thou have it”;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown’d withal.
The Dumb Show, Chorus, and Soliloquy are now outworn devices for setting forth necessary initial expository facts. Today any experienced dramatist knows that such preliminary exposition demands the art which conceals art, for an audience resents a mere recital of necessary facts. Examine the first act of Schnitzler’s The Lonely Way.7 All of it is interesting for characterization and statement of facts essential to an understanding of the play, but it does not grip the attention as do the other acts where drama, not exposition, is of first consequence.
Early steps in advance on the Chorus were the butler and the maid servant, garrulously talking of what each must have known ever since he came into his position. A closely related form is unbosoming oneself to a male or female confidant.