The End of the Third Act14
Have you noticed that people under stress of strong emotion stop to depict their emotional condition, to analyze it, or neatly to apostrophize fate or Providence? The more real the emotion the more compact and connotative, usually, is its expression. People under high emotional strain who can tell you just what they ought to feel, or who describe elaborately what they are feeling are usually “indeed exceeding calm.” Dryden’s Lyndaraxa builded better than she knew when she said:
By my own experience I can tell
Those who love truly do not argue well.
Bulwer-Lytton was thinking of the weakness of self-descriptive woe when he wrote Macready, while composing Richelieu, “In Act 4—in my last alteration, when Richelieu, pitying Julie, says, ‘I could weep to see her thus—But’—the effect would I think be better if he felt the tears with indignation at his own weakness—thus:
‘Are these tears?
O, shame, shame, Dotage’—”
Emotion, if given free way, finds the right words by which to express itself. When a character stands outside itself, describing what it feels, the speaker is really the author in disguise, describing what he is incompetent, from lack of sympathetic power, to phrase with simple, moving accuracy. M. de Curel has described perfectly the right relation of author to character and dialogue.
During the first days of work I have a very distinct feeling of creation. Later I move on instinctively and that is much better. When the sentiments of my characters are in question I am absolutely in their skins, for my own part indifferent as to their griefs or joys. I can be moved only later in re-reading, and then this emotion seems to arise from the fact that I have to do with characters absolutely strange to me. I experience sometimes, and then personally, a feeling of irony, of flippancy, in regard to my characters who tangle themselves up and get themselves into difficulties. That transpires sometimes in the language of some other character who, at the moment, ceases to speak correctly because he speaks as I should. As a result, corrections later. At the end of a year, my play, when I re-read it, seems something completely apart from me, written by another.15
Allowing a character to express itself exactly raises inevitably the question of dialect. On the one hand it must be admitted that nothing more quickly characterizes a figure, as far as type is concerned, than to let him speak like a Yankee, a Scotchman, a Negro, etc. If the character utters phrases which an audience recognizes instantly as characteristic of his supposed type, there is special satisfaction to the audience in such recognition. On the other hand, very few audiences know any dialect thoroughly enough to permit a writer to use it with absolute accuracy. The moment dialect begins to show the need of a glossary, it is defeating its own ends. As a result a compromise has arisen, dating from the very early days of the drama—stage dialects. A character made up to represent Scotchman, Welshman, Frenchman, Negro, or Indian, speaks in a way that has become time-honored on the stage as representing this or that figure among these types. Till recently most dialect on the stage has been at best a mere popular approximation to real usage. Until within a few years the peasant dialogue of Gammer Gurton’s Needle, the famous sixteenth-century Interlude, was supposed to represent dialect of its time in the neighborhood of Cambridge, England. Recently philologists have shown that the speech of these peasants is unlike any dialect of the period of the play, and was obviously a stage convention of the time. Study the Welshmen and other dialect parts in Shakespeare, and you will reach approximately the same conclusion. With our developing sense of historical truth and of realism, we have, in recent years, been trying to make our characters speak exactly as they would in real life. The plays of the Abbey Theatre are in large part a revolt from the Irish dialogue which the plays of Dion Boucicault had practically established as true to life. Today we try not only phonetically to represent the ways in which words are spoken by the people of a particular locality, but by the use of words and phrases heard among such people to make the characterization vivid and convincing. Here, in Mr. Sheldon’s play, The Nigger, is care to reproduce phonetically the speech of negroes:
Jinny. (Wearily.) I speck yo’ right. Hev yo’ got suthin’ fo’ me t’night? Seems lak I might take it down wif me t’ de cabin.
Simms. (Grumbling.) Fo’ dat young good-fo’-nuffin hawg-grubbah t’ swallow w’en he done come home? Laws me, w’y Marse Phil ’lows his fried chicken en’ co’n-braid t’ feed dat wo’thles rap-scallion, I jes’ cain’t see! Clar out o’ heah, yo’ ern’ry yallah gal!
Jinny. (Crushingly.) Yallah gal—! Sho’! I was livin’ heah fo’ yo’ was bawn! Don’ fo’get dat, yo’ imperent, low-down li’tle niggah yo’!
Simms. (Pacifically.) Hol’ on, Jinny! I ain’t said nuffin’. Dat I ain’t! Yo’ g’ long now en’ I’ll sen’ down a gal t’ yo’ cabin wif a basket.
Jinny. (Turning away.) Yo’ sho’ will—er Marse Phil’d—
Simms. (As he goes up the steps.) En’ keep yo’ gran’chillun out dat saloom, Jinny, ef yo’ don’ want t’ see ’em cross de Jo’dan ahead o’ yo’! Dat Joe! Lawd-a-massy! De white in him ain’t done nobody no good’s fah’s dis—’Scuse me, sah!
(He stops suddenly and turns aside, bowing, on seeing Noyes and Georgie, who have opened the door and come out.)
Here is equal care to represent the speech of Southerners.
Noyes. My fathah? Yes, he gave way t’ his Comme’cial ambition by sellin’ powda an’ bullets t’ the Union—way back in ’62. That got him into a bunch o’ trouble, but it wasn’t what sta’ted the—slight fam’ly coolness!
Georgie. Wasn’t it? Why, I always hea’d—
Noyes. No, it came befo’ that. My gran’fathah an’ Phil’s—they were brothahs-in-law, you know—they began it in the fo’ties.
Georgie. Why?
Noyes. (Grimly.) I reckon the Morrows are tryin’ now t’ keep it da’k. But Lawd!—I don’t mind tellin’. It’s the old thing—both losin’ theah heads ovah the same woman.
Georgie. (Innocently.) How romantic! Phil’s gran’mothah?
Noyes. (After a pause.) No—niggah woman.
Georgie. (In a low voice, turning away.) Oh—I didn’t—realize—
Noyes. (Clearing his throat.) Phil’s gran’fathah—he won out. An’ that’s the kick that sta’ted the Noyes fam’ly a-rollin’ t’ pe’dition.
Georgie. (With difficulty.) But mos’ people are willin’ to fo’get—at least they ought to be.
Noyes. (Dryly.) Some ain’t killed ‘emselves tryin’. Howevah, on lookin’ ahead I saw Phil an’ I might be in a position t’ help each othah, so we agreed t’ sink it. I—I wish yo’ mothah would follow Phil, Miss Byrd. I ce’tainly do wish that!
Georgie. She’s old-fashioned—oh, hopelessly so!—in things the world now considers—trivial.
Noyes. (Looking at his hands.) Such as—trade?
Georgie. (Gently.) That’s one of them.16
Lady Gregory, after writing a rough draft of one of her plays, goes among the people of her community and sets them talking of the subject she is treating. Noting their racy, apt, and highly individualized phrases, she gives them to her characters in the play as she re-writes. Such intimate, loving study of dialect as Lady Gregory, Mr. Yeats, and Synge have shown has given us an accurate representation of the Irish peasant, and may ultimately drive from the English stage the conventional absurdities of the past. Dialect, then, if carefully studied, is highly desirable if two or three facts are borne in mind. First of all, it should be accurate; but secondly it must be clear or must be made clear for any audience. Unquestionably, Mr. Stanley Houghton’s memorable play Hindle Wakes had a bad title away from its birthplace,—Manchester, England. In the United States, this title is perfectly meaningless. How many in any audience in this country could be expected to know that the title means certain “autumn week-end holidays in the town of Hindle.” There could be no harm in using a different title away from the birthplace of the play. Recently, in a manuscript play, appeared a figure speaking a strange mixture of Negro and Irish dialects. He seemed to all readers a clumsy attempt by the author at a dialect part. Really, the figure was a portrait of a small political boss who, from boyhood on, had acquired in the saloons and purlieus of his district words and phrases of both the Negroes and the Irish. A little preliminary exposition at the right place cleared up this difficulty and turned what seemed inept characterization into a particularly individual figure of richly characterizing phrase. Obviously, then, dialect should, first, be written accurately. Then it should be gone over to see what in it may not be clear to most auditors. These words or phrases should be made clear because they are translated by other people on the stage or by the speaker, who himself sees or is told that some stage listener does not understand him. Only a little ingenuity is needed to do away with such vaguenesses. To substitute for such words and phrases others which, though incorrect, would be instantly understood by the audience is to botch the dialect and produce what is, after all, not different from the conventional stage dialect of the past. This raises a third point in regard to dialect, and one very frequently disregarded. Over and over again in plays using dialect certain speeches are passed over by the author in his final revision which neither phonetically nor in the words and phrases chosen comport with the context. Instantly the mood and the color of the scene are lost unless the actor supplies what the author failed to give. That is, dialect, if used, should be used steadily and consistently. The desiderata are, then, accuracy, persistent use, and clearness for the general public. Thus used, dialect is one of the chief aids to characterization.
If, in writing dialogue, a dramatist must not speak as himself but in character, must not be consciously or unconsciously literary if not in character, how may one surely choose the right words? Perhaps one or two illustrations will help here. The citation in the left-hand column from the first quarto Hamlet states the facts clearly enough, but wholly uncolored by the emotion of the speaker. In the right-hand column the passionate sympathy of Shakespeare has given him perfect understanding of Hamlet’s feeling.
| Hamlet. O fie Horatio, and if thou shouldst die, | Hamlet.. O good Horatio, what a wounded name |
| What a scandale wouldst thou leave behinde? | Things standing thus unknowne, shall I leave behind me? |
| What tongue should tell the story of our deaths, | If thou did’st ever hold me in thy hart, |
| If not from thee? O my heart sinckes Horatio, | Absent thee from felicity a while |
| Mine eyes have lost their sight, my tongue his use: | And in this harsh world drawe thy breath in paine |
| Farewell Horatio, heaven receive my soule. | To tell my story; What warlike noise is this? |
| (Hamlet dies.) | (A march a farre off.)17 |
Speaking, not as the historian, not as the observer, but as Hamlet himself, Shakespeare by his quickened feeling finds a phrasing of which we may say what Swinburne said of some of the lines of John Webster: that the character says, not what he might have said, not what we are satisfied to have him say, but what seems absolutely the only thing he could have said.
When a dramatist works as he should, the emotion of his characters gives him the right words for carrying their feelings to the audience, and every word counts. Writing to Macready of Money, Bulwer-Lytton said of his play, “At the end of Act in your closing speech, will you remember to say, you ’would’ refuse me ten pounds to spend on benevolence. Not you refuse me. The would is important.” 18
In the left-hand column the complete sympathy of Heywood with his characters makes them speak simply, out of the fullness of their emotion. In the right-hand column, Heywood’s collaborator, Rowley, lacking complete understanding of his characters, is thinking more of phrase for its own sake.
ACT I. SCENE 4. The street ACT II. SCENE 1. Hounslow
Enter Rainsford and Young Forrest, meeting Enter Rainsford and Young Forrest
Young Forrest. Pray let me speak with you.
Rainsford. With me, sir?
Young For. With you.
Rains. Say on.
Young For. Do you not know me?
Rains. Keep off, upon the peril of thy life.
Come not within my sword’s length, lest this arm
Prove fatal to thee and bereave thy life,
As it hath done thy brother’s.
Young For. Why now thou know’st me truly, by that token,
That thou hast slain my brother. Put up, put up!
So great a quarrel as a brother’s life
Must not be made a street-brawl;’tis not fit
That every prentice should, with his shop club,
Betwixt us play the sticklers. Sheathe thy sword.
Rains. Swear thou wilt act no sudden violence,
Or this sharp sword shall still be interposed
’Twixt me and thy own hatred.
Young For. Sheathe thy sword.
By my religion and that interest
I have in gentry I will not be guilty
Of any base revenge.
Rains. Say on.
Young For. Let’s walk.
Trust me. Let not thy guilty soul
Be jealous of my fury. This my hand
Is curbed and govern’d by an honest heart,
Not by just anger. I’ll not touch thee foully
For all the world. Let’s walk.
Rains. Proceed.
Young For. Sir, you did kill my brother. Had it been
In fair and even encounter, tho’ a child,
His death I had not question’d.
Rains. Is this all?
Young For. He’s gone. The law is past. Your life is clear’d;
For none of all our kindred laid against
You evidence to hang you. You’re a gentleman;
And pity ’twere a man of your descent
Should die a felon’s death. See, sir, thus far
We have demeaned fairly, like ourselves.
But, think you, though we wink at base revenge,
A brother’s death can be so soon forgot?
Our gentry baffled, and our name disgraced?
No: ‘tmust not be; I am a gentleman
Well known; and my demeanor hitherto
Hath promis’d somewhat. Should I swallow this,
The scandal would outlive me. Briefly then,
I’ll fight with you. Rains. I am loath.
Young For. Answer directly,
Whether you dare to meet me on even terms;
Or mark how I’ll proceed.
Rains. Say, I deny it.
Young For. Then I say thou’rt a villain, and I challenge thee,
Where’er I meet thee next, in field or town,
The father’s manors, or thy tenants’ grange,
Saving the church, there is no privilege
In all this land for thy despised life.
(Fortune by Land and Sea,
Act I, Scene 4.)19 Rainsford. Your resolution holds, then?
Young Forrest. Men that are easily mov’d are soon remov’d
From resolution; but when, with advice
And with foresight we purpose, our intents
Are not without considerate reasons alter’d.
Rains. Thou art resolv’d, and I prepar’d for thee.
Yet thus much know, thy state is desperate,
And thou art now in danger’s throat already
Ev’n half devour’d. If I subdue thee, know
Thou art a dead man; for this fatal steel,
That search’d thy brother’s entrails is prepar’d
To do as much to thee. If thou survivest,
And I be slain, th’art dead too, my alliance
And greatness in the world will not endure
My slaughter unavenged. Come, I am for thee.
Young For. I would my brother liv’d, that this our diff’rence
Might end in an embrace of folded love;
But ’twas Heaven’s will that for some guilt of his
He should be scourged by thee; and for the guilt
In scourging him, thou by my vengeance punish’d.
Come; I am both ways arm’d, against thy steel
If I be pierc’d by it, or ’gainst thy greatness
If mine pierce thee.
Rains. Have at thee.
(They fight and pause.)
Young For. I will not bid thee hold; but if thy breath
Be as much short as mine, look to thy weakness.
Rains. The breath thou draw’st but weakly,
Thou now shalt draw no more.
(They fight. Forrest loseth his weapon.)
Young For. That Heaven knows.
He guard my body that my spirit owes!
(Guards himself, and puts by with his hat—slips—the other, running, falls over him, and Forrest kills him.)
Good. My cousin’s fall’n—pursue the murderer.
Foster. But not too near, I pray; you see he’s armed,
And in this deep amazement may commit
Some desperate outrage.
Young For. Had I but known the terror of this deed,
I would have left it done imperfectly,
Rather than in this guilt of conscience
Labour’d so far. But I forget my safety.
The gentleman is dead. My desp’rate life
Will be o’erswayed by his allies and friends,
And I have now no safety but my flight.
And see where my pursuers come. Away!
Certain destruction hovers o’er my stay.
(Exit.)
(Fortune by Land and Sea,
Act II, Scene 1.)19
Two sets of extracts from the first and final versions of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House show the way in which perfected understanding of a character reveals the apt phrase.
| (Nora stands motionless. He goes to the door and opens it.) | (Nora stands motionless. Helmer goes to the door and opens it.) |
| The Maid. (In the Hall.) Here is a letter for you, ma’am. | Ellen. (Half-dressed in the Hall.) Here is a letter for you, ma’am. |
| Helmer. Give it here. (He seizes the letter and shuts the door.) Yes, from him. Look here. | Helmer. Give it to me. (Seizes letter and shuts the door.) Yes, from him. You shall not have it. I shall read it. |
| Nora. Read it. | Nora. Read it. |
| Helmer. I have hardly the courage. I fear the worst. We may both be lost, both you and I. Ah! I must know. (Hastily tears the letter open; reads a few lines with a cry of joy.) Nora! | Helmer. (By the lamp.) I have hardly the courage to. We may both be lost, both you and I. Ah! I must know. (Hastily tears the letter open; reads a few few lines, looks at an enclosure; a cry of joy.) Nora! |
| (Nora looks inquiringly at him.) | (Nora looks inquiringly at him.) |
| Helmer. Nora!—Oh, I must read it again. Yes, yes, it is so. You are saved, Nora, you are saved. | Helmer. Nora! Oh, I must read it again. Yes, yes, it is so. I are saved, Nora, I am saved. |
| Nora. How, saved? | Nora. And I? |
| Helmer. Look here. He sends you back your promissory note. He writes that he regrets and apologises, that a happy turn in his life—Oh, what matter what he writes. We are saved, Nora! There is nothing to witness against you. Oh, Nora, Nora.20 | Helmer. You too, of course; we are both saved, both of us. Look here, he sends you back your promissory note. He writes that he regrets and appologises; that a happy turn in his life—Oh, matter what he writes. We are saved, Nora! No one can harm you. Oh, Nora, Nora.21 |
The text of the right-hand column brings out more clearly than the original the complete but unconscious selfishness of Helmer. Ibsen, understanding that character more fully than in his first draft, makes not only the change from “You are saved, Nora” to the self-revelatory “I am saved!” but also the change to that infinitely more dramatic “And I?” which replaces Nora’s “How, saved?”
In a second set of extracts from the same scene, a firmer grasp of the characters has permitted Ibsen to replace the general and conventional in the last two speeches of the left-hand column with the more specific and characterizing lines of Helmer and the lines of Nora that are an inspiration.
| Nora.... It never for a moment occurred to me that you would think of submitting to that man’s conditions, that you would agree to direct your actions by the will of another. I was convinced that you would say to him, “Make it known to the whole world”; and that then— | Nora.... When Krogstad’s letter lay in the box, it never occurred to me that you would think of submitting to that man’s conditions. I was convinced that you would say to him, “Make it known to all the world”; and that then— |
| Helmer. Well? I should give you up to punishment and disgrace. | Helmer. Well? When I had given my own wife’s name up to disgrace and shame—? |
| Nora. No; then I firmly believed that you would come forward, take everything upon yourself, and say, “I am the guilty one”— | Nora. Then I firmly believed that you would come forward, take everything upon yourself, and say, “I am the guilty one.” |
| Helmer. Nora! | Helmer. Nora! |
| Nora. You mean I would never have accepted such a sacrifice? No, of course not. But what would my word have been in opposition to yours? I so firmly believed that you would sacrifice yourself for me—“don’t listen to her,” you would say—“she is not responsible; she is out of her senses”—you would say that it was love of you—you would move heaven and earth. I thought you would get Dr. Rank to witness that I was mad, unhinged, distracted. I so firmly believed that you would ruin yourself to save me. That is what I dreaded, and therefore I wanted to die. | Nora. You mean I would never have accepted such a sacrifice? No, certainly not. But what would my assertions have been worth in opposition to yours? That was the miracle that I hoped for and dreaded. And it was to hinder that that I wanted to die. |
| Helmer. Oh, Nora, Nora! | Helmer. I would gladly work for you day and night, Nora—bear sorrow and want for your sake—but no man sacrifices his honour, even for one he loves. |
| Nora. And how did it turn out? No thanks, no outburst of affection, not a shred of a thought of saving me.22 | Nora. Millions of women have done so.23 |
Perfect phrasing rests, then, on character thoroughly understood and complete emotional accord with the character. Short of that in dialogue, one stops at the commonplace and colorless, the personal, or the literary.
Even, however, when dialogue expounds properly and is thoroughly in character, it will fail if not fitted for the stage. John Oliver Hobbes stated a truth, if somewhat exaggeratedly, in these lines of her preface to The Ambassador:
Once I found a speech in prose—prose so subtly balanced, harmonious, and interesting that it seemed, on paper, a song: But no actor or actress, though they spoke with the voice of angels, could make it, on the stage, even tolerable.... Yet the speech is nevertheless fine stuff: it is nevertheless interesting in substance: it has imagination: it has charm. What, then, was lacking? Emotion in the tone and, on the part of the writer, consideration for the speaking voice. Stage dialogue may have or may not have many qualities, but it must be emotional. It rests primarily on feeling. Wit, philosophy, moral truths, poetic language— all these count as nothing unless there is feeling of an obvious, ordinary kind.24
When reading a play aloud, do we give all the stage directions, or, cutting out those which state how certain speeches should be read, try to give these as directed? Even when reading some story aloud, do we not often find troublesome full directions as to just how the speakers delivered their lines? If given by us, they provide an awkward standard by which to judge our reading. If we wish to suppress them, they are not, in rapid reading, always seen in time. As was pointed out very early in this book, gesture, facial expression, movement about the stage, and above all, the voice, aid the dramatist as they cannot aid the novelist. These aids and the time limits of a play have, as we shall see, very great effect on dialogue. Note in the opening of The Case of Rebellious Susan, by Henry Arthur Jones, the effects demanded from the aids just named.
ACT I. SCENE. Drawing-room at Mr. Harabin’s; an elegantly furnished room in Mayfair. At back, in centre, fireplace, with fire burning. To right of fireplace a door leading to lady Susan’s sitting-room. A door down stage left.
Enter footman left showing in Lady Darby
Lady Darby. (A lady of about fifty.) Where is Lady Susan now?
Footman. Upstairs in her sitting-room, my lady.
(Indicating the door right.)
Lady D. Where is Mr. Harabin?
Footman. Downstairs in the library, my lady.
Enter Second Footman showing in Inez, a widow of about thirty, fascinating, inscrutable
Lady D. (To First Footman.) Tell Lady Susan I wish to see her at once.
Inez. And will you say that I am here too?
(Exit First Footman at door right. Exit Second Footman at door left.)
Lady D. (Going affectionately to Inez, shaking hands very sympathetically.) My dear Mrs. Quesnel, you know?
Inez. Sue wrote me a short note saying that she had discovered that Mr. Harabin had—and that she had made up her mind to leave him.
Lady D. Yes, that’s what she wrote me. Now, my dear, you’re her oldest friend. You’ll help me to persuade her to—to look over it and hush it up.
Inez. Oh, certainly. It’s the advice everybody gives in such cases, so I suppose it must be right. What are the particulars?
Lady D. I don’t know. But with a man like Harabin—a gentleman in every sense of the word—it can’t be a very bad case.