‘The Modern Malady of Love Is Nerves.’”29
It is possible that all this may be derived from the play, but the Berlin audience which watched its first night left the theatre bewildered in more than one respect. There were a half-dozen opinions as to what this ugly story of a very weak man was meant to signify. Was it simply the tale of a weak man? Was it meant to show, as Professor Lewisohn thinks, that creation in an artist not naturally weak at first may be killed if he is pursued by women selfish in their love? Does the ending, however, show that Hanna is entirely selfish? Does the play signify that the man who chooses to follow women rather than his art is lost? Why is there so much emphasis on the awesomeness of Nature on the island? Have these conditions of Nature anything to do with Schilling’s death? If so, do they not mitigate the effect upon him of the women? Lack of well-placed emphasis made Gabriel Schilling’s Flight a failure, interesting as were the questions it raised and masterly as is much of its characterization.
Too often young dramatists forget that the beginning and the ending of acts and plays emphasize even when the author does not so intend. As in real life, it is first and final impressions, rather than intermediate, which count most. An able young dramatist complained that though he wished one of his characters to dominate Act I she certainly failed to do this. The trouble was that an attractive old gardener, the character who took the act away from the young woman, opened the play attractively characterized and closed Act I with effective speech and pantomime, when the woman was busy only with unimportant pantomime. The prominence unintentionally given to the old gardener emphasized him at the expense of the young woman.
For the value of openings in emphasizing the meaning of the whole play, see Tennyson’s Becket as originally written, and as rearranged by Sir Henry Irving.30 Tennyson’s Becket begins with Henry and the future Archbishop at chess, talking of matters in state and church.
PROLOGUE
A Castle in Normandy. Interior of the hall. Roofs of a city seen through windows. Henry and Becket at chess.
Henry. So then our good Archbishop Theobald
Lies dying.
Becket. I am grieved to know as much.
Henry. But we must have a mightier man than he
For his successor.
Becket. Have you thought of one?
Henry. A cleric lately poison’d his own mother,
And being brought before the courts of the Church,
They but degraded him. I hope they whipt him.
I would have hang’d him.
Becket. It is your move.
Henry. Well—there. (Moves.)
The Church in the pell-mell of Stephen’s time
Hath climb’d the throne and almost clutched the crown;
But by the royal customs of our realm
The Church should hold her baronies of me,
Like other lords amenable to law.
I’ll have them written down and made the law.
Becket. My liege, I move my bishop.
Henry. And if I live,
No man without my leave shall excommunicate
My tenants or my household.
Becket. Look to your king.
Henry. No man without my leave shall cross the seas
To set the Pope against me—I pray your pardon.
Becket. Well—will you move?
Henry. There. (Moves.)
Becket. Check—you move so wildly.
Henry. There then! (Moves.)
Becket. Why—there then, for you see my bishop
Hath brought your king to a standstill. You are beaten.
Henry. (Kicks over the board.) Why, there then—down go bishop and king together.
I loathe being beaten; had I fixt my fancy
Upon the game I should have beaten thee,
But that was vagabond.
Becket. Where, my liege? With Phryne,
Or Lais, or thy Rosamund, or another?
Henry. My Rosamund is no Lais, Thomas Becket;
And yet she plagues me too—no fault in her—
But that I fear the Queen would have her life.
Becket. Put her away, put her away, my liege!
Put her away into a nunnery!
Safe enough there from her to whom thou art bound
By Holy Church. And wherefore should she seek
The life of Rosamund de Clifford more
Than that of other paramours of thine?
Henry. How dost thou know I am not wedded to her?
Becket. How should I know?
Henry. That is my secret, Thomas.
Becket. State secrets should be patent to the statesman
Who serves and loves his king, and whom the king
Loves not as statesman, but true lover and friend.
Henry. Come, come, thou art but deacon, not yet bishop,
No, nor archbishop, nor my confessor yet.
I would to God thou wert, for I should find
An easy father confessor in thee.
Irving, transposing, takes us at once into the plotting of the Queen against Becket because of her hatred for Rosamund and Becket’s supposed protection of the King’s mistress. A secondary interest in Tennyson’s presentation becomes by this shifting first interest with Irving.
PROLOGUE
SCENE 1. A Castle in Normandy. Eleanor. Fitz Urse
Eleanor. Dost thou love this Becket, this son of a London merchant, that thou hast sworn a voluntary allegiance to him?
Fitz Urse. Not for my love toward him, but because he hath the love of the King. How should a baron love a beggar on horseback, with the retinue of three kings behind him, outroyaltying royalty?
Eleanor. Pride of the plebeian!
Fitz Urse. And this plebeian like to be Archbishop!
Eleanor. True, and I have an inherited loathing of these black sheep of the Papacy. Archbishop? I can see farther into man than our hot-headed Henry, and if there ever come feud between Church and Crown, and I do not charm this secret out of our loyal Thomas, I am not Eleanor.
Fitz Urse. Last night I followed a woman in the city here. Her face was veiled, but the back methought was Rosamund—his paramour, thy rival. I can feel for thee.
Eleanor. Thou feel for me!—paramour—rival! No paramour but his own wedded wife! King Louis had no paramours, and I loved him none the more. Henry had many and I loved him none the less. I would she were but his paramour, for men tire of their fancies; but I fear this one fancy hath taken root, and borne blossom too, and she, whom the King loves indeed, is a power in the State. Follow me this Rosamund day and night, whithersoever she goes; track her, if thou can’st, even into the King’s lodging, that I may (clenches her fist)—may at least have my cry against him and her,—and thou in thy way shouldst be jealous of the King, for thou in thy way didst once, what shall I call it, affect her thine own self.
Fitz Urse. Ay, but the young filly winced and whinnied and flung up her heels; and then the King came honeying about her, and this Becket, her father’s friend, like enough staved us from her.
Eleanor. Us!
Fitz Urse. Yea, by the blessed Virgin! There were more than I buzzing round the blossom—De Tracy—even that flint De Brito.
Eleanor. Carry her off among you; run in upon her and devour her, one and all of you; make her as hateful to herself and to the King as she is to me.
Fitz Urse. I and all should be glad to wreak our spite on the rose-faced minion of the King, and bring her to the level of the dust, so that the King—
Eleanor. If thou light upon her—free me from her!—let her eat it like the serpent and be driven out of her paradise!
The story of Nathan Hale might be made into a play with patriotism as its dominant idea, a close character study of Hale himself, or little more than a love story. Notice the way in which with Clyde Fitch the close of the acts steadily emphasizes the love story as the central interest. The first scene is in the school room where Hale is the teacher of Alice Adams.
(Hale goes toward Alice with his arms outstretched to embrace her; Alice goes into his arms—a long embrace and kiss; a loud tapping on a drum outside startles them.)
Hale. The Tory meeting!
Alice. Fitzroy will be back. I don’t want to see him!
Hale. Quick—we’ll go by the window! (Putting a chair under the window he jumps onto chair; then leans in the window and holds out his hands to Alice, who is on the chair.) And if tomorrow another drum makes me a soldier—?
Alice. It will make me a soldier’s sweetheart!
Hale. Come.
(She goes out of the window with his help, and with loud drum tattoo and bugle call, the stage is left empty and the curtain falls.)
The second act at Colonel Knowlton’s house closes on Hale’s decision to serve his country as a spy:
Alice. (In a whisper.) You will go?
Hale. I must.
Alice. (A wild cry.) Then I hate you!
Hale. And I love you and always will so long as a heart beats in my body. (He wishes to embrace her.)
Alice. No!
(She draws back her head, her eyes blazing, she is momentarily insane with fear and grief, anger and love. Hale bows his head and slowly goes from the room. Alice, with a faint heartbroken cry, sinks limply to the floor, her father hurrying to her as the curtain falls.)
This is the close of Act III.
Fitzroy. Look!
(And he bends Alice’s head back upon his shoulder to kiss her on the lips.)
Hale. Blackguard!
(With a blow of his right arm he knocks Cunningham on the head, who, falling, hits his head against the pillar of the porch and is stunned. Meanwhile, the moment he has hit Cunningham, Hale has sprung upon Fitzroy, and with one hand over his mouth has bent his head back with the other until he has released Alice. Hale then throws Fitzroy down and seizing Alice about the waist dashes off with her to the right, where his horse is. Fitzroy rises and runs to Cunningham, kicks him to get his gun, which has fallen under him.)
Fitzroy. Get up! Get up! You fool!
(Horse’s hoofs heard starting off.)
Third Picket’s Voice. (Off stage.) Who goes there?
Fitzroy. (Stops, looks up, and gives a triumphant cry.) Ah, the picket! They’re caught! They’re caught!
Hale. Returning with Alice Adams on private business.
Picket. The password.
Hale. “Love!”
Fitzroy. Damnation! Of course he heard! (Runs off right, yelling.) Fire on them! Fire! For God’s sake, fire!
(A shot is heard, followed by a loud defiant laugh from Hale, and echoed “Love,” as the clatter of the horse’s hoofs dies away, and the curtain falls.)
Act IV has a double ending: the closing of the love story and the execution. The chief interest thus far created for the audience could end with the parting of the lovers.
(The soldiers sing the air of what is now called “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms.” Hale stands listening for the sound of Alice’s coming. The Sentinel retires to the farther corner of the tent, and stands with arms folded, his back towards Hale. Tom comes on first, bringing Alice. As they come into Hale’s presence, Alice glides from out of Tom’s keeping, and her brother leaves the two together. They stand looking at each other a moment without moving and then both make a quick movement to meet. As their arms touch in the commencement of their embrace, they remain in that position a few moments, looking into each other’s eyes. Then they embrace, Hale clasping her tight in his arms and pressing a long kiss upon her lips. They remain a few moments in this position, silent and immovable. Then they slowly loosen their arms—though not altogether discontinuing the embrace—until they take their first position and again gaze into each other’s faces. Alice sways, about to fall, faint from the effort to control her emotions, and Hale gently leads her to the tree stump at right. He kneels beside her so that she can rest against him with her arms about his neck. After a moment, keeping her arms still tight about him, Alice makes several ineffectual efforts to speak, but her quivering lips refuse to form any words, and her breath comes with difficulty. Hale shakes his head with a sad smile, as if to say, “No, don’t try to speak. There are no words for us.” And again they embrace. At this moment, while Alice is clasped again tight in Hale’s arms, the Sentinel, who has his watch in his hand, slowly comes out from the tent. Tom also re-enters, but Alice and Hale are oblivious. Tom goes softly to them and touches Alice very gently on the arm, resting his hand there. She starts violently, with a hysterical taking-in of her breath, and an expression of fear and horror, as she knows this is the final moment of parting. Hale also starts slightly, rising, and his muscles grow rigid. He clasps and kisses her once more, but only for a second. They both are unconscious of Tom, of everything but each other. Tom takes her firmly from Hale, and leads her out, her eyes fixed upon Hale’s eyes, their arms outstretched toward each other. After a few paces she breaks forcibly away from Tom, and with a wild cry of “No! No!” locks her hands about Hale’s neck. Tom draws her away again and leads her backward from the scene, her lips dry now and her breath coming in short, loud, horror-stricken gasps. Hale holds in his hand a red rose she wore on her breast, and thinking more of her than of himself, whispers, as she goes, “Be brave! be brave!” The light is being slowly lowered, till, as Alice disappears, the stage is in total darkness.)
The second ending merely connects the play more closely with history.
Colonel Rutger’s Orchard, the next morning. The scene is an orchard whose trees are heavy with red and yellow fruit. The centre tree has a heavy dark branch jutting out, which is the gallows; from this branch all the leaves and the little branches have been chopped off; a heavy coil of rope with a noose hangs from it, and against the trunk of the tree leans a ladder. It is the moment before dawn, and slowly at the back through the trees is seen a purple streak, which changes to crimson as the sun creeps up. A dim gray haze next fills the stage, and through this gradually breaks the rising sun. The birds begin to wake, and suddenly there is heard the loud, deep-toned, single toll of a bell, followed by a roll of muffled drums in the distance. Slowly the orchard fills with murmuring, whispering people; men and women coming up through the trees make a semicircle amongst them, about the gallows tree, but at a good distance. The bell tolls at intervals, and muffled drums are heard between the twittering and happy songs of birds. There is the sound of musketry, of drums beating a funeral march, which gets nearer, and finally a company of British soldiers marches in, led by Fitzroy, Nathan Hale in their midst, walking alone, his hands tied behind his back. As he comes forward the people are absolutely silent, and a girl in the front row of the spectators falls forward in a dead faint. She is quickly carried out by two bystanders. Hale is led to the foot of the tree before the ladder. The soldiers are in double lines on either side.
Fitzroy. (To Hale.) Nathan Hale, have you anything to say? We are ready to hear your last dying speech and confession!
(Hale is standing, looking up, his lips moving slightly, as if in prayer. He remains in this position a moment, and then, with a sigh of relief and rest, looks upon the sympathetic faces of the people about him, with almost a smile on his face.)
Hale. I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country!
(Fitzroy makes a couple of steps toward him; Hale turns and places one foot on the lower rung of the ladder, as the curtain falls.)31
Watch, then, the beginning and the ending of scenes and acts, lest an unconscious and undesired emphasis result.
An important means of emphasis is contrast—in character, situation, and even dialogue. Melodrama has always rested, in large part, for its definite emotional appeals on sharply contrasted characters—the spotless hero, the double-dyed villain, the adventuress, and the heroine so innocent of the world as to provide unlimited dramatic situations. Recall the impetuous Julia and the gentle Sylvia of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. If it be said that such direct contrasting of dissimilar figures belongs more to the earlier plays of dramatists, this is not true. In The Gay Lord Quex,32 contrast of the old and the young roués, Quex and Bastling, helps to make clear and to emphasize the point of the play. The Princess and the Butterfly33 largely depends upon contrast,—among the restless women of Act I, the restless men of Act II, between the Princess and Sir George, between the love of Fay Zuliani for Sir George and that of Edward for the Princess.
Contrast in situation was a great reliance with the Elizabethans and, even when very crudely used, remains popular with the American public today. So much pleasure did the Elizabethan derive from contrasted situation that he was willing to have it worked up as a separate sub-plot, at times very slightly connected with the main plot. Take The Changeling of Middleton: the titular part, written for comic value, deals with scenes in a madhouse; the other intensely tragic plot of De Flores and Beatrice-Joanna is but slightly connected with it. Think of the grave-diggers in Hamlet, just before the burial of Ophelia, and, above all, consider in Macbeth the consummate use of a contrasting scene, in the porter at the gate just after the murder of Duncan.
It is a sense of the value of contrasting situation which produces the best dramatic irony. When in Scene 2, Act I, of Hindle Wakes, we listen to Alan Jeffcote’s father and mother planning for his marriage, the fine dramatic irony comes from the contrast we feel with the facts of his conduct, known to us from the preceding scene, which may make his marriage impossible. Dramatic irony depends on a preceding planting in the minds of the auditors of information which makes what is true contrast sharply with what the characters of the particular scene suppose to be true. Contrast, then, underlies dramatic irony. An audience, feeling the dramatic irony of a scene, is put into a state of suspense as to how and when the blow they anticipate will fall. Evidently, then, emphasis by means of contrast, when it results in dramatic irony, makes for dramatic suspense.
Contrast may be used effectively in dialogue. The modern dramatist sometimes overdoes this use. Because he has observed that the greatest suffering of the strongest natures rarely finds expression in rich or varied speech, he tries to discover words which in their feebleness, their inappositeness, or their unexpected commonplaceness, contrast sharply with what a hearer feels is the intensity of the emotion behind them. This has given us in recent drama some dialogue unnatural in its tameness. This kind of contrast, however, when handled with real understanding, is extremely effective. In the parting of Laurie and the heroine in Iris,34 the very commonplaceness of the details of which they talk shows that they do not dare to speak of what is really in their minds, and makes the best preparation for the sudden loosing of emotion by Iris in what would be ordinarily a simple request: “Close the jalousies!”
Except in our recent revival of Moralities for the delectation of moral Broadway, we are growing away dramatically from mere contrasting of types of character and from plays in which a serious and a comic plot are but loosely connected. Yet dramatists will always find contrast highly useful in emphasizing points of characterization and important values in the story. Moreover, any trained dramatist knows that when his audience has been somewhat exhausted by laughter or tears, a scene of contrasting emotional value is of the highest importance. By changing the focus of interest, it renews the power of response exhausted in the just preceding scene. As has been pointed out again and again, though it may be true that the drunken porter in Macbeth was funnier for an Elizabethan public than he is today, nevertheless his coming breaks the tension of the terrible murder scene and makes it possible even now to turn to fresh horrors with surer responsiveness. There is no space here to go into any satisfactory analysis of the basal relations between the serious and the comic, but every competent actor knows that frequently, if the full desired comic values are to appear, it is necessary to play a part, or all the parts, with great seriousness, even in a piece meant to be broadly comic for the audience. This is true not merely in some of Shaw’s plays,—Man and Superman, You Never Can Tell, etc., but in many old farces and even in burlesque. In the contrast the audience makes between the seriousness of the characters in what they do and say and the attitude the dramatist creates toward them lie the real comic values. Often it is only on the flint of the serious that one may strike the most brilliant spark of the comic.
Emphasis is needed not only to keep clear the development of the story and its thesis, if there be any, but also to determine and maintain the dramatic form in which it is cast—farce, comedy, melodrama, and tragedy. If an audience is kept long in the dark as to whether the dramatist is thinking of his material seriously or with amusement, or if they feel at the end that the story has been told with no coordinating emphasis to determine whether it is farce or comedy or tragedy, they are confused and likely to hold back part of their proper responsiveness. As has been pointed out, it is more than doubtful whether the scene of the attempted suicide in what is otherwise a genuine comedy of character, The Girl with the Green Eyes,35 did not seriously hurt the effectiveness of the play for a great many people.
Here, again, beginnings and endings are of the utmost consequence. Notice the extreme care of Maeterlinck, at the outset of Pelleas and Melisande36 to create a mood for his play. One is prepared for the tragic and the mysterious by the opening scene of the handmaidens washing the mysterious stain from the palace steps. An auditor has not heard ten speeches of Synge’s Riders to the Sea37 before he knows that the dramatist is dealing seriously with grim matters, that, in all probability, the play is a tragedy. Look at Rostand’s The Romancers.38 It is to be a graceful telling of a jest played upon two sentimental children by two fond fathers. The author must make clear early in the play that what may be tragic enough for the young people is to be fantastic comedy for any hearers. Could anything be better than the opening: these two children, on the wall between their homes, so reading Romeo and Juliet together that it is obvious that they are in love with being in love, nothing more? There is the perfect emphasis which establishes early the attitude of the dramatist toward his material, in this case making the play poetic comedy. Can any one feel much doubt what form of drama is The Importance of Being Earnest?39 The first few pages show that dialogue is to count heavily as such. Evidently the mood is comic. As evidently, there is exaggeration. Thus we move from initial farce to the more broadly farcical mourning for the death of the supposititious Earnest and to the fateful black handbag. If the ending of The Romancers be played as it was in London, with the speakers of the last lines gradually fading from sight in the dimming lights, surely that emphasis must mean to the audience that it has been seeing a fantasy.40
However, as has been said, danger lurks in these places of easy emphasis, the beginning and the ending, for at times something effective in itself swings the emphasis the wrong way. In Masks and Faces,41 two generations have shed tears over the woes of Triplet as meant for “real life,” only to be somewhat rebuffed when, just before the final curtain, all the characters step out of the play for the “Epilogue,” and so stamp it as “only a story after all.”
In brief, unless some special purpose is subserved thereby, an audience should not long be left in the dark as to the form in which the dramatist thinks he has cast his play. He who treats his material in many different moods runs the chance of confusing his hearers. Only by sure and well-placed emphasis can he keep his chosen form clear. Particularly is this true in the mixed forms, tragi-comedy and farce-comedy. Only well-placed emphasis will carry an audience through these with just the result desired by the dramatist.
How decide what to emphasize? Tom Taylor, despising the intelligence of audiences of his day, used to say, “When you have something to say to an audience, tell them you are going to say it. Tell them you ’re saying it. Tell them you’ve said it. Then, perhaps, they’ll understand it.” Truth probably lies between this and the statement of a dramatist of today, “I am re-writing a play originally composed some ten years ago. Do you know what I am doing? I am cutting and condensing, because the intervening years have taught me that I may suggest where I thought I must explain in full, and state but once what I thought I must repeat. Audiences are far quicker than ten years ago I supposed them to be.” Till the training of the dramatist gives him a kind of sixth sense which tells him what in his plot needs emphasis for his public, he must depend on the comments of really intelligent hearers to whom he reads the manuscript and, above all, on retouching his play after the first performances.
It is not enough, however, by clearness and right emphasis to maintain interest: as the play develops, the interest should if possible be increased. Either to maintain or to increase interest means that a hearer must be led on from scene to scene, act to act, absorbed while the curtain is up and, between the acts, eager for it to rise again. Such attention given a play means that it has a third essential quality, movement. The plays of tyro dramatists today are often sadly lacking in good movement.
Good movement rests, first of all, on clearness; secondly, on right emphasis; and thirdly, on something already mentioned in connection with both clearness and right emphasis,—suspense. This means a straining forward of interest, a compelling desire to know what will happen next. Whether a hearer is totally at a loss to know what will happen, but eager to ascertain; partly guesses what will take place, but deeply desires to make sure; or almost holds back so greatly does he dread an anticipated situation, he is in a state of suspense, for be it willingly or unwillingly on his part, on sweeps his interest.
There should be good movement within the scene, the act, and even the play as a whole. It is, however, easily checked. If scenes or characters not essential are allowed place within a play, it has been shown on pages 87-89 that this may interfere with either clearness or good emphasis. They will hurt the movement of the play. Closely related as a possible danger are necessary scenes not well placed. Often shifting part of a scene or act makes all the difference between sustained and interrupted suspense. For example, a young man, after some quarrelsome words, threatens to shoot his sister. As they stand facing each other, steps are heard outside. A group which enters brings about an amusing scene. Good as it is, it may kill the suspense created by those two tense figures, if it switches interest wholly or in large part from them. If it does, any effective picking up the scene between the angry brother and sister, when the visitors go out, may be impossible. On the other hand, so write the scene that the audience, never diverted in its attention to those two figures, feels that the moment the visitors leave the quarrel will be resumed with greater intensity just because of the interruption: then there will be no loss of tension. Just here lies the important point: suspense once created must never be allowed to lapse so long as to be lost. A scene for contrast or to renew the power of desired emotional response in the audience or to develop part of a correlated story may be introduced, but always what is put between something which makes the audience strain forward and its goal should leave it as eager, and preferably more eager for the solution.
A shift in order may do much to increase suspense. When Ibsen transferred Rosmer’s confession, which is very necessary to the play, from Act II to the end of Act I, he greatly added to the suspense created by the first act. To put it differently, he greatly accelerated the movement of the play. An audience, knowing that Rosmer is “an apostate from the faith of his fathers,” eagerly desires to see what will happen to him in such surroundings as those made clear in Act I. In the earlier version, a reader learns that there are mysteries which the play will probably solve, but has nothing on which to focus his attention as a compelling element of suspense.
Any one knows that when an actor fails to come on at the right moment, unless quick-witted actors invent dialogue or action, the stage “waits” for the actor. There is something which exactly corresponds to this in the text of plays. Henry Le Barren comes to call on Madge Ellsworth. The maid, after showing him into the library, goes to find her mistress. “Meanwhile Henry looks idly at the books on the table till Madge enters.” Unless Madge, perfectly sure that Henry would call at this hour, is waiting just outside the door, some action is needed on the stage to cover the time space until she can enter naturally. It is true that looking at the books fills the time for Henry, but it does not sustain for the audience interest already created in him or the story. When nothing is taking place on the stage, something is taking place in the audience which greatly concerns the dramatist: it is slipping away from him because it is losing interest. For contrast, suppose that Henry sits restlessly only a moment, then with a sigh picks up a book, tries to read, falls to dreaming, and holds the book so that we may see he is reading it upside down. He tries another book in vain. He starts three or four times, thinking that the door is about to open. He absent-mindedly examines a piece of bric-à-brac. He starts forward eagerly the moment Madge enters. Now we are interested, because he is either exhibiting emotions the cause of which we understand, emotions which lead us to expect an interesting scene between him and Madge, or his conduct sets us guessing as to what can lie ahead between the two. In the first illustration, the play lacks movement; in the second, commonplace as it is, the movement does not cease.
At times it helps suspense not only to shift the order of details but to separate two elements of suspense, treating them separately in well correlated groups. In Hamlet, Q1, the soliloquy, “To be, or not to be” precedes the meeting of Ophelia and Hamlet, part of Hamlet’s tricking of Polonius, and the coming of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The greater part of the befuddling of Polonius then follows. The players enter and plan with Hamlet the performance of The Mousetrap. Hamlet, left alone, bursts into the soliloquy, “Why what a dunghill idiot slave am I!” Q2 rearranges thus: Polonius and Hamlet; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; Polonius returning to announce the players; the planning for The Mousetrap; Hamlet left alone crying, “Oh what a rogue and peasant’s slave am I!” Here all the details bearing on the play are gathered together. Next come the King and Queen with their plot to try out Hamlet by means of Ophelia. The soliloquy, “To be, or not to be” follows this. Then Hamlet and Ophelia have the scene “To a nunnery go!” Instead of jumbling two elements of suspense,—probable results of the play planned by Hamlet and of the Ophelia-Hamlet interest,—each is given added suspense by separate treatment. In Q1, as we shift from one to the other, each weakens the other or is momentarily blocked by it. Rearranged, the very order of the details in each part makes not only for clearer but stronger suspense.42
Today a plot made up of two or three but slightly related stories is far less popular than in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Our public demands that such stories shall be so correlated within the play as to be mutually helpful. This desire results not from innate niceness of feeling for unity of design but from dislike of a distribution of interests which interferes with the suspense each story creates. Though it is, of course, possible perfectly to maintain suspense in plays of interwoven plots—the plays of Shakespeare and many writers since prove this—it is far more difficult than maintaining suspense in a play of single plot. Quite possibly this is the chief reason for the great popularity today of plays of single plot: they are both easier to follow and easier to write.
A related fault which interferes with suspense is the “stage wait” treated on page 209. As has also been pointed out, there is danger in transitional scenes meant to cover a time space or to shift the interest of an audience. If they accomplish either purpose and do not advance the plot, they really fail. Bulwer-Lytton met this difficulty in writing Money:
I think in the first 3 acts you will find little to alter. But in Act 4—the 2 scene with Lady B. & Clara—& Joke & the Tradesman don’t help on the Plot much—they were wanted, however, especially the last to give time for change of dress & smooth the lapse of the theme from money to dinner; you will see if this part requires any amendment.43
Also exposition, undoubtedly necessary but delayed too long, may so clog an act as to weaken or kill it. In a play set in what was once a fashionable dining-room, but is now the fitting-room of a dressmaker, the scene is not placed for some time. Finally, a figure entering makes clear the supposed setting, but for this the action on stage has to be broken off.
The increasing popularity of a play of three or four acts as compared with five has almost wholly done away with another destroyer of suspense—the explanatory and adjusting last act. In it, intelligent auditors who knew from the close of the fourth act how the story must end were expected to watch with interest final disposition of the characters. Dramatists of the eighties and nineties turned from this use slowly. For proof examine the last act of The Hypocrites, by H. A. Jones, in other respects a play well away from the older methods of technique. Now, both the older and the younger generation of dramatists expect to carry suspense as near the end of the play as they possibly can. Letting an audience anticipate something of the end of a play is all very well, but when it foresees just what is going to happen and has no farther interest, except to learn whether it happens exactly as anticipated, suspense and even attention cease. In that case an audience begins to gather its belongings for departure. Something held back which cannot surely be anticipated is the very basis of suspense.
It follows from what has just been said that there can never be perfect suspense when the plot ends an act or more before the final curtain. It is vain to try to start new interests in order to create fresh suspense. Unless the latter part of a play grows out of the first, at least as much as the Perdita-Florizel story grows out of that of Leontes and Hermione, there can be no good suspense. When it seems necessary to tack on new material because all suspense is ended, do not add: rewrite.
It has often been said that surprise—springing something unexpectedly upon an audience—is better than suspense. Lessing said of the comparative value of surprise and suspense:
For one instance where it is useful to conceal from the spectator an important event until it has taken place there are ten and more where interest demands the very contrary. By means of secrecy a poet effects a short surprise, but in what enduring disquietude could he have maintained us if he had made no secret about it! Whoever is struck down in a moment, I can only pity for a moment. But how if I expect the blow, how if I see the storm brewing and threatening for some time about my head or his? For my part none of the personages need know each other if only the spectator knows them all. Nay I would even maintain that the subject which requires such secrecy is a thankless subject, that the plot in which we have to make recourse to it is not as good as that in which we could have done without it. It will never give occasion for anything great. We shall be obliged to occupy ourselves with preparations that are either too dark or too clear, the whole poem becomes a collection of little artistic tricks by means of which we effect nothing more than a short surprise. If on the contrary everything that concerns the personages is known, I see in this knowledge the source of the most violent emotions. Why have certain monologues such a great effect? Because they acquaint me with the secret intentions of the speaker and this confidence at once fills me with hope or fear. If the condition of the personages is unknown, the spectator cannot interest himself more vividly in the action than the personages. But the interest would be doubled for the spectator if light is thrown on the matter, and he feels that action and speech would be quite otherwise if the personages knew one another.
Only then I shall scarcely be able to await what is to become of them when I am able to compare that which they really are with that which they do or would do.44
Look at the quotation from the First Part of Henry VI on Pp. 97-100. Talbot whispers to the Captain, and leaves us guessing what he means to do at his meeting with the Countess of Auvergne. In like manner the Countess merely refers to the plot she has laid with her Porter. We never know just what was the plan of the Countess. We get only a momentary sensation, surprise, when Talbot’s soldiers force their way in. Suppose we had been allowed to know the plans of the Countess, and they had seemed very dangerous for Talbot. Then, as she played with him, sure of her position, there would have been more suspense than in Shakespeare’s text, because an audience would have been wondering, not merely “What is the blow Talbot will strike?” but “Can any blow he will strike overcome the seemingly effective plans of the Countess?” Suppose we had been allowed to know the plans of both. Then, as we watched the Countess playing her scheme off against the plan of Talbot, of which she would be unaware, might there not easily be even more suspense? At every turn of their dialogue we should be wondering: “Why does not Talbot strike now? Can he save the situation, if he delays? With all this against him, can he save it in any case?” In the use of surprise, the dramatist depends almost entirely on his situation. Suspense permits him to elaborate his situation by means of the characters in it. In other words, surprise is situation, suspense is characterization.
On this matter recent words of William Archer seem final:
Curiosity [I said] is the accidental relish of a single night; whereas the essential and abiding pleasure of the theatre lies in foreknowledge. In relation to the characters of the drama, the audience are as gods looking before and after. Sitting in the theatre, we taste, for a moment, the glory of omniscience. With vision unsealed, we watch the gropings of purblind mortals after happiness and smile at their stumblings, their blunders, their futile quests, their misplaced exultations, their groundless panics. To keep a secret from us is to reduce us to their level, and deprive us of our clairvoyant aloofness. There may be a pleasure in that too; we may join with zest in the game of blind-man’s-buff; but the theatre is in its essence a place where we are privileged to take off the bandage we wear in daily life, and to contemplate, with laughter or with tears, the blindfold gambols of our neighbors.45
What is basal in suspense is, of course, that an audience shall feel for some person or persons of the play just the degree of sympathy the dramatist desires. Unless their sympathy is as keen as his, the scene must fall short emotionally. For instance, in a play produced some years ago author and actors expected the audience to sympathize throughout with a mother. At the climax of one of the acts she was left on-stage in an agonized state of mind because her husband, who hates her illegitimate child, has left the stage with threats to kill it. The actress wrote of the first night: “In that scene I might as well have recited the alphabet for all the audience cared for my emotion. Their sympathy made them live, not with me, but with the defenceless child who at any moment might be murdered off-stage by the cruel father.” Suspense for the audience there certainly was, but not of the kind intended. It was necessary to rewrite the scene.
Evidently, what happens off-stage may, by its greater interest for the audience, kill the effect of what is passing on-stage. What the dramatist dares not try to represent on-stage because of its mechanical difficulty or horror, he tries to carry off by vivid and even terrifying description. By making the audience see the off-stage action through the eyes of the person most affected, or by portraying vividly his emotions when another describes the action to him, dramatists endeavor to lose none of their desired suspense. The point to remember is that the moment the off-stage action becomes of more importance than the emotions caused by that action for persons on-stage, the real centre of interest has been shifted, the desired suspense is gone, and the scene must be rewritten. Suspense in a play is rightly handled, then, when it is promptly created to the extent desired by the dramatist; carries on with increasing intensity from act to act; and reaches its climax at or just before the final curtain. Climax is, therefore, an integral part of suspense. The point of greatest intensity reached in an incident, scene, act, or play is the moment of climax. Climax is not the result of theory but comes from long observation of audiences. A scene or act which breaks off or declines in interest towards its close never delights an audience as does a scene or act which closes with its strongest emotional effect. Look at the ending of The Troublesome Raigne of King John, Part I. Though King John declares himself “the joyfulst man alive,” the audience does not so sympathize with him that his delight is a fitting climax to the play. Rather do they so keenly sympathize with Prince Arthur and even the lords who have been outraged by Arthur’s proposed death that they want to know more of him and them.
Hubert. My lord, attend the happie tale I tell,
For heauens health send Sathan packing hence
That instigates your Highnes to despaire.
If Arthurs death be dismall to be heard,
Bandie the newes for rumors of vnthruth:
He liues my Lord, the sweetest youth aliue,
In health, with eyesight, not a hair amisse.
This hart tooke vigor from this froward hand,
Making it weake to execute your charge.
Iohn. What, liues he! Then sweete hope come home agen,
Chase hence despaire, the purueyor for hell.
Hye Hubert, tell these tidings to my Lords
That throb in passions for yong Arthurs death:
Hence Hubert, stay not till thou hast reueald
The wished newes of Arthurs happy health.
I go my selfe, the joyfulst man aliue
To storie out this new supposed crime. (Exeunt.)46
The author, though he got from this a suspense which carried his audience over to the performance of Part II on the next day, missed any real climax for Part I.
Inexperienced playwrights, in spite of good characterization and dialogue, frequently do not understand the value and the nature of real climax. Consequently, an audience feels that any interest it has given is cheated in the end. The following scenario, though its feebleness can hardly be traced solely to lack of climax, illustrates what is meant.
THE DÉBUTANTE