Chapter II The Essentials of Drama: Action and Emotion
What is the common aim of all dramatists? Twofold: first, as promptly as possible to win the attention of the audience; secondly, to hold that interest steady or, better, to increase it till the final curtain falls. It is the time limit to which all dramatists are subject which makes the immediate winning of attention necessary. The dramatist has no time to waste. How is he to win this attention? By what is done in the play; by characterization; by the language the people of his play speak; or by a combination of two or more of these. Today we hear much discussion whether it is what is done, i.e. action, or characterization, or dialogue which most interests a public. Which is the chief essential in good drama? History shows indisputably that the drama in its beginnings, no matter where we look, depended most on action. The earliest extant specimen of drama in England, circa 967, shows clearly the essential relations of action, characterization, and dialogue in drama at its outset. The italics in the following show the action; the roman type the dialogue.
While the third lesson is being chanted, let four brothers vest themselves, one of whom, vested in an alb, enters as if to do something, and, in an inconspicuous way, approaches the place where the sepulchre is, and there holding a palm in his hand, sits quiet. While the third respond is chanted, let the three others approach, all alike vested in copes, bearing thuribles (censers) with incense in their hands, and, with hesitating steps, in the semblance of persons seeking something, let them come before the place of the sepulchre. These things are done, indeed, in representation of the angel sitting within the tomb and of the women who came with spices to anoint the body of Jesus. When, therefore, he who is seated sees the three approaching as if wandering about and seeking something, let him begin to sing melodiously and in a voice moderately loud
Whom seek you at the sepulchre, O Christians?
When this has been sung to the end, let the three respond in unison,
Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified, O heavenly one.
Then he,
He is not here; he has risen, as was foretold.
Go ye, announcing that he has risen from the dead.
Upon the utterance of this command, let the three turn to the choir and say,
Alleluia! the Lord is risen.
This said, let him, still remaining seated, say, as if calling them back, the antiphon,
Come, and see the place where the Lord lay.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Having said this, however, let him rise and lift the veil, and show them the place empty of the cross, but the clothes, only, laid there with which the cross was wrapped. When they see this, let them set down the thuribles that they have carried within that same sepulchre, and take up the cloth and hold it up before the clergy, and, as if in testimony that the Lord has risen and is not now wrapped therein, let them sing this antiphon:
The Lord has risen from the tomb,
Who for us was crucified,
and let them lay the cloth upon the altar. The antiphon finished, let the prior, rejoicing with them in the triumph of our King, in that, death vanquished, he has risen, begin the hymn,
We praise thee, O Lord.
This begun, all the bells are rung together, at the end of which let the priest say the verse,
In thy resurrection, O Christ,
as far as this word, and let him begin Matins, saying,
O Lord, hasten to my aid!1
Obviously in this little play the directions for imitative movement fill three quarters of the space; dialogue fills one quarter; characterization, except as the accompanying music may very faintly have suggested it, there is none. Historically studied, the English drama shows that characterization appeared as an added interest when the interest of action was already well established. The value of dialogue for its own sake was recognized even later.
What is true of the English drama is of course equally true of all Continental drama which, like the English drama, had its origin in the Trope and the Miracle Play. Even, however, if we go farther back, to the origin of Greek Drama in the Ballad Dance we shall find the same results. The Ballad Dance consisted “in the combination of speech, music, and that imitative gesture which, for lack of a better word, we are obliged to call dancing. It is very important, however, to guard against modern associations with this term. Dances in which men and women joined are almost unknown to Greek antiquity, and to say of a guest at a banquet that he danced would suggest intoxication. The real dancing of the Greeks is a lost art, of which the modern ballet is a corruption, and the orator’s action a faint survival. It was an art which used bodily motion to convey thought: as in speech the tongue articulated words, so in dancing the body swayed and gesticulated into meaning.... In epic poetry, where thought takes the form of simple narrative, the speech (Greek epos) of the Ballad Dance triumphs over the other two elements. Lyric poetry consists in meditation or highly wrought description taking such forms as odes, sonnets, hymns,—poetry that lends itself to elaborate rhythms and other devices of musical art: here the music is the element of the Ballad Dance which has come to the front. And the imitative gesture has triumphed over the speech and the music in the case of the third branch of poetry; drama is thought expressed in action.”2
Imitative movement is the drama of the savage.
“An Aleut, who was armed with a bow, represented a hunter, another a bird. The former expressed by gestures how very glad he was he had found so fine a bird; nevertheless he would not kill it. The other imitated the motions of a bird seeking to escape the hunter. He at last, after a long delay, pulled his bow and shot: the bird reeled, fell, and died. The hunter danced for joy; but finally he became troubled, repented having killed so fine a bird, and lamented it. Suddenly the dead bird rose, turned into a beautiful woman, and fell into the hunter’s arms.”3
Look where we will, then,—at the beginnings of drama in Greece, in England centuries later, or among savage peoples today—the chief essential in winning and holding the attention of the spectator was imitative movement by the actors, that is, physical action. Nor, as the drama develops, does physical action cease to be central. The most elaborate of the Miracle Plays, the Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play and the Brome Abraham and Isaac4 prove this. In the former we are of course interested in the characterization of the Shepherds and Mak, but would this hold us without the stealing of the sheep and the varied action attending its concealment and discovery in the house of Mak? Undoubtedly in the Abraham and Isaac characterization counts for more, but we have the journey to the Mount, the preparations for the sacrifice, the binding of the boy’s eyes, the repeatedly upraised sword, the farewell embracings, the very dramatic coming of the Angel, and the joyful sacrifice of the sheep when the child is released. Without all this central action, the fine characterization of the play would lose its significance. In Shakespeare’s day, audiences again and again, as they watched plays of Dekker, Heywood, and many another dramatist, willingly accepted inadequate characterization and weak dialogue so long as the action was absorbing. Just this interest in, for instance, The Four Prentices, or the various Ages5 of Thomas Heywood, was burlesqued by Francis Beaumont in The Knight of the Burning Pestle. It may be urged that the plays of Racine and Corneille, as well as the Restoration Comedy in England, show characterization and dialogue predominant. It should be remembered, however, that Corneille and Racine, as well as the Restoration writers of comedy wrote primarily for the Court group and not for the public at large. Theirs was the cultivated audience of the time, proud of its special literary and dramatic standards. Around and about these dramatists were the writers of popular entertainment, which depended on action. In England, we must remember that Wycherley and Vanbrugh, who are by no means without action in their plays, belong to Restoration Comedy as much as Etherege or Congreve, and that the Heroic Drama, in which action was absolutely central, divided the favor of even the Court public with the Comedy of Manners. The fact is, the history of the Drama shows that only rarely does even a group of people for a brief time care more for plays of characterization and dialogue than for plays of action. Throughout the ages, the great public, cultivated as well as uncultivated, have cared for action first, then, as aids to a better understanding of the action of the story, for characterization and dialogue. Now, for more than a century, the play of mere action has been so popular that it has been recognized as a special form, namely, melodrama. This type of play, in which characterization and dialogue have usually been entirely subordinated to action, has been the most widely attended. Today the motion picture show has driven mere melodrama from our theatres, yet who will deny that the “movie” in its present form subordinates everything to action? Even the most ambitious specimens, such as Cabiria and The Birth of a Nation, finding their audiences restless under frequent use of the explanatory “titles” which make clear what cannot be clearly shown in action, hasten to depict some man hunt, some daring leap from a high cliff into the sea, or a wild onrush of galloping white-clad figures of the Ku Klux Klan. From the practice of centuries the feeling that action is really central in drama has become instinctive with most persons who write plays without preconceived theories. Watch a child making his first attempt at play-writing. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the play will contain little except action. There will be slight characterization, if any, and the dialogue will be mediocre at best. The young writer has depended almost entirely upon action because instinctively, when he thinks of drama, he thinks of action.
Nor, if we paused to consider, is this dependence of drama upon action surprising. “From emotions to emotions” is the formula for any good play. To paraphrase a principle of geometry, “A play is the shortest distance from emotions to emotions.” The emotions to be reached are those of the audience. The emotions conveyed are those of the people on the stage or of the dramatist as he has watched the people represented. Just herein lies the importance of action for the dramatist: it is his quickest means of arousing emotion in an audience. Which is more popular with the masses, the man of action or the thinker? The world at large believes, and rightly that, as a rule, “Actions speak louder than words.” The dramatist knows that not what a man thinks he thinks, but what at a crisis he does, instinctively, spontaneously, best shows his character. The dramatist knows, too, that though we may think, when discussing patriotism in the abstract, that we have firm ideas about it, what reveals our real beliefs is our action at a crisis in the history of our country. Many believed from the talk of German Socialists that they would not support their Government in the case of war. Their actions have shown far more clearly than their words their real beliefs. Ulster sounded as hostile as possible to England not long ago, but when the call upon her loyalty came she did not prove false. Is it any wonder, then, that popular vote has declared action the best revealer of feeling and, therefore, that the dramatist, in writing his plays, depends first of all upon action? If any one is disposed to cavil at action as popular merely with the masses and the less cultivated, let him ask himself, “What, primarily in other people interests me—what these people do or why they do it?” Even if he belong to the group, relatively very small in the mass of humanity, most interested by “Why did these people do this?” he must admit that till he knows clearly what the people did, he cannot take up the question which more interests him. For the majority of auditors, action is of first importance in drama: even for the group which cares far more for characterization and dialogue it is necessary as preparing the way for that characterization and dialogue on which they insist.
Consider for a moment the nature of the attention which a dramatist may arouse. Of course it may be only of the same sort which an audience gives a lecturer on a historical or scientific subject,—a readiness to hear and to try to understand what he has to present,—close but unemotional attention. Comparatively few people, however, are capable of sustained attention when their emotions are not called upon. How many lectures last over an hour? Is not the “popular lecturer” popular largely because he works into his lecture many anecdotes and dramatic illustrations in order to avoid or to lighten the strain of close, sustained attention? There is, undoubtedly, a public which can listen to ideas with the same keen enjoyment which most auditors feel when listening to something which stirs them emotionally, but as compared with the general public it is infinitesimal. Understanding this, the dramatist stirs the emotions of his hearers by the most concrete means at his command, his quickest communication from brain to brain,—action just for itself or illustrating character. The inferiority to action of mere exposition as a creator of interest the two following extracts show.
ACT I. SCENE 1. Britain. The garden of Cymbeline’s palace
Enter two gentlemen
1. Gent. You do not meet a man but frowns. Our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
Still seem as does the King.
2. Gent. But what’s the matter?
1. Gent. His daughter, and the heir of’s kingdom, whom
He purpos’d to his wife’s sole son—a widow
That late he married—hath referred herself
Unto a poor but worthy gentleman. She’s wedded,
Her husband banish’d, she imprison’d; all
Is outward sorrow; though I think the King
Be touched at very heart.
2. Gent. None but the King?
1. Gent. He that hath lost her too; so is the Queen,
That most desir’d the match: but not a courtier,
Although they wear their faces to the bent
Of the King’s look, hath a heart that is not
Glad at the thing they scowl at.
2. Gent. And why so?
1. Gent. He that hath miss’d the Princess is a thing
Too bad for bad report; and he that hath her—
I mean, that married her, alack, good man!
And therefore banish’d—is a creature such
As, to seek through the regions of the earth
For one his like, there would be something failing
In him that should compare. I do not think
So fair an outward, and such stuff within
Endows a man but he.
2. Gent. You speak him far.
1. Gent. I do extend him, sir, within himself,
Crush him together rather than unfold
His measure duly.
2. Gent. What’s his name and birth?
1. Gent. I cannot delve him to the root. His father
Was call’d Sicilius, who did gain his honour
Against the Romans with Cassibelan,
But had his titles by Tenantius whom
He serv’d with glory and admir’d success,
So gain’d the sur-addition Leonatus;
And hath, besides this gentleman in question,
Two other sons, who in the wars o’ the time
Died with their swords in hand; for which their father
Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow
That he quit being, and his gentle lady,
Big of this gentleman our theme, deceas’d
As he was born. The King he takes the babe
To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus,
Breeds him and makes him of his bed chamber,
Puts to him all the learnings that his time
Could make him the receiver of; which he took,
As we do air, fast as ’twas minist’red,
And in’s spring became a harvest; liv’d in court—
Which rare it is to do—most prais’d, most lov’d,
A sample to the youngest, to the more mature
A glass that feated them, and to the graver
A child that guided dotards; to his mistress,
For whom he is now banish’d,—her own price
Proclaims how she esteem’d him and his virtue;
By her election may be truly read
What kind of man he is.
2. Gent. I honour him
Even out of your report. But, pray you, tell me
Is she sole child to the King?
1. Gent. His only child.
He had two sons,—if this be worth your hearing,
Mark it—the eldest of them at three years old,
I’ the swathing-clothes the other, from their nursery
Were stolen, and to this hour no guess in knowledge
Which way they went.
2. Gent. How long is this ago?
1. Gent. Some twenty years.
2. Gent. That a King’s children should be so convey’d,
So slackly guarded and the search so slow,
That could not trace them!
1. Gent. Howso’er ’tis strange,
Or that the negligence may well be laughed at,
Yet it is true, sir.
2. Gent. I do well believe you.
1. Gent. We must forbear; here comes the gentleman,
The Queen and Princess. (Exeunt.)6
Here Shakespeare trusts mere exposition to rouse interest. His speakers merely question and answer, showing little characterization and practically no emotion. Is this extract as interesting as the following?
Fits Urse. (Catches hold of the last flying monk.) Where is the traitor Becket?
Becket. Here.
No traitor to the King, but Priest of God,
Primate of England. (Descending into the transept.)
I am he ye seek.
What would ye have of me?
Fits Urse. Your life.
De Tracy. Your life.
De Morville. Save that you will absolve the bishops.
Becket. Never,—
Except they make submission to the Church.
You had my answer to that cry before.
De Morville. Why, then you are a dead man; flee!
Becket. I will not.
I am readier to be slain than thou to slay.
Hugh, I know well that thou hast but half a heart
To bathe this sacred pavement with my blood.
God pardon thee and these, but God’s full curse
Shatter you all to pieces if ye harm
One of my flock!
Fitz Urse. Seize him and carry him!
Come with us—nay—thou art our prisoner—come!
(Fitz Urse lays hold of Archbishop’s pall.)
Becket. Down!
(Throws him headlong.)
De Morville. Ay, make him prisoner, do not harm the man.
Fitz Urse. (Advances with drawn sword.) I told thee that I should remember thee!
Becket. Profligate pander!
Fitz Urse. Do you hear that? Strike, strike.
(Strikes the Archbishop and wounds him in the forehead.)
Becket. (Covers his eyes with his hand.) I do commend my cause to God.
Fitz Urse.. Strike him, Tracy!
Rosamund. (Rushing down the steps from the choir.) No, no, no, no. Mercy, Mercy,
As you would hope for mercy.
Fitz Urse. Strike, I say.
Grim. O, God, O, noble knight, O, sacrilege!
Fitz Urse. Strike! I say.
De Tracy. There is my answer then.
(Sword falls on Grim’s arm, and glances from it, wounding Becket.)
This last to rid thee of a world of brawls!
Becket. (Falling on his knees.) Into thy hands, O Lord—into thy hands—! (Sinks prone.)
De Brito. The traitor’s dead, and will arise no more.
(De Brito, De Tracy, Fitz Urse rush out, crying “King’s men!” De Morville follows slowly. Flashes of lightning through the Cathedral. Rosamund seen kneeling at the body of Becket.)7
The physical action of this extract instantly grips attention. Interested at once by this action, shortly we rush on unthinking, but feeling more and more intensely. In this extract action is everywhere. The actionless Cymbeline is undramatic. This extract is intensely dramatic.
Just what, however, is this action which in drama is so essential? To most people it means physical or bodily action which rouses sympathy or dislike in an audience. The action of melodrama certainly exists largely for itself. We expect and get little but physical action for its own sake when a play is announced as was the well-known melodrama, A Race for Life.
As Melodramatically and Masterfully Stirring, Striking and Sensational as Phil Sheridan’s Famous Ride.
Superb, Stupendous Scenes in Sunset Regions.
Wilderness Wooings Where Wild Roses Grow.
The Lights and Shades of Rugged Border Life.
Chinese Comedy to Make Confucius Chuckle.
The Realism of the Ranch and Race Track.
The Hero Horse That Won a Human Life.
An Equine Beauty Foils a Murderous Beast.
Commingled Gleams of Gladness, Grief, and Guilt.
Dope, Dynamite and Devilish Treachery Distanced.
Continuous Climaxes That Come Like Cloudbursts.
Some plays depend almost wholly upon mere bustle and rapidly shifting movement, much of it wholly unnecessary to the plot. Large portions of many recent musical comedies illustrate this. Such unnecessary but crudely effective movement Stevenson burlesqued more than once in the stage directions of his Macaire.