Curtain43
Without question, then, speech in the drama may often give way in part or wholly to pantomime. The inexperienced dramatist should be constantly alert to see to what extent he can substitute it for dialogue.44
In all that has been said of pantomime, of course technical pantomime is not meant. The Commedia dell’ arte, pantomime artists like the Ravel Brothers or Mme. Pilar-Morin, have a code of gesture to symbolize fixed meanings. What is meant here is the natural human pantomime of people whose faces and bodies portray or betray their feelings.
Another word of warning in regard to pantomime. When a writer of plays once becomes well aware of the great value of pantomime, he is likely to overwork it. Assuming that the actor or actors may convey almost anything by physical movement, he trusts it too much. Let him who is for the moment under the spell of pantomime study the moving picture show. Pantomime may ordinarily convey physical action perfectly. Emotion naturally and easily expressed by action pantomime may convey, but when action for its clearness depends on knowledge of what is going on in the mind of the actor, pantomime begins to fail. Great artists like Mme. Pilar-Morin may carry us far even under these conditions, but most actors cannot. In a motion picture play like Cabiria, contrast the scenes in which the Roman and his slave flee before the crowd from part to part of the temple (mere action), or the scene of the terror of the wine merchant (in which the face and body tell the whole story) with the scene in which the nurse meets the Roman and his slave on the wall of the city and begs their aid in saving the child, or the scenes in which Sophonisba struggles with her anxieties and mad desires. The second group of pictures without the explanations thrown on the screen would have little meaning. Pantomime is safe, not when it pleases us to use pantomime rather than to write dialogue, but when our characters naturally act rather than speak, or when we can devise for them natural action as clear as speech or clearer than speech. Use pantomime, but use it cautiously. Speech is the greatest emotional weapon of the dramatist. It best reveals emotion, and best of all creates responsive emotion. However, as most inexperienced dramatists use far too many words rather than too few, the value rather than the danger of pantomime should probably be stressed here. What seems natural, what makes for illusion, is the final test.
It is this test of naturalness which has gradually excluded, except in special instances, the soliloquy and the aside. The general movement of drama in the past ten years has been toward better and better characterization in plays of all kinds. The newer melodrama and farce show us, not the mere comic puppets of the past, but people as real as the form represented—be it comedy, farce, tragedy, or melodrama—will permit. This new tendency has largely driven out the soliloquy and the aside. We should not, however, go to extremes, for occasionally we do swear under our breath or comment in asides, and as long as people do either, such people should be so represented. Moreover, we must admit that the insane, the demented, the invalid left much to himself, the hermit, whether of the woods or the hall bedroom in a city boarding house, do talk to themselves and often at great length. Neither the aside nor the soliloquy is, then, objectionable in itself. It is the use of either by persons who would probably use nothing of the sort, or their use in order to avoid exposition otherwise difficult which is to be decried. It is particularly this latter fault to which Sir Arthur Pinero calls attention when treating the faulty technique of R.L. Stevenson as a playwright:
“I will read you one of the many soliloquies—the faulty method of conducting action and revealing character by soliloquy was one from which Stevenson could never emancipate himself. It is a speech delivered by Deacon Brodie while he is making preparations for a midnight gambling excursion.
(Brodie closes, locks, and double-bolts the doors of his bedroom.)
Deacon Brodie. Now for one of the Deacon’s headaches! Rogues all, rogues all! (He goes to the clothes press and proceeds to change his coat.) On with the new coat and into the new life! Down with the Deacon and up with the robber! Eh God! How still the house is! There’s something in hypocrisy after all. If we were as good as we seem, what would the world be? The city has its vizard on and we—at night we are our naked selves. Trysts are keeping, bottles cracking, knives are stripping; and here is Deacon Brodie flaming forth the man of men he is! How still it is!—My father and Mary—Well! The day for them, the night for me; the grimy cynical night that makes all cats grey, and all honesties of one complexion. Shall a man not have half a life of his own? not eight hours out of twenty-four? Eight shall he have should he dare the pit of Tophet. Where’s the blunt? I must be cool tonight, or—steady Deacon, you must win; damn you, you must! You must win back the dowry that you’ve stolen, and marry your sister and pay your debts, and gull the world a little longer! The Deacon’s going to bed—the poor sick Deacon! Allons! Only the stars to see me! I’m a man once more till morning! [Act I, Tableau I, Scene 9.]”45
Sir Arthur knows whereof he speaks, for past-master as he has shown himself since The Second Mrs. Tanqueray in the art of giving necessary exposition and characterization without soliloquy, he was a bad offender in his early days, as the following extract from the opening of The Money Spinner shows:
(Directly Margot has disappeared, there is a knocking outside the door, right. It is repeated, then the doors slowly open and the head of Monsieur Jules Faubert appears.)
Faubert. (Who also speaks with the accent of a foreigner.) Boycott, my friend, are you at home? My friend Boycott, do you hear me? (Receiving no answer, he enters rather cautiously and looks around. He is in black, wearing a long, tightly buttoned frock coat and a tall hat. His hair is red and closely cropped. His voice is soft and his manner stealthy and mechanical.) Where is Boycott, my friend? Ah, he has not yet taken his breakfast. (He crosses over to the curtains, left, and looks through.) No one to be seen. Boycott asks me to call for him at ten o’clock in the morning, and it is now a quarter past ten by the Great Clock, and he is not visible. (Walking round the room, inspecting the objects with curiosity.) Yet he could not have left the house for I have been watching at the front door since eight o’clock. (Takes letters from top of Pianette.) Besides, here are his letters unopened. (Examines them narrowly, scrutinizing the writing, and weighing them in his hand.) One, Mr. Boycott, with the post-mark of London. Two, Monsieur Boycott with the post-mark of Rouen. Three, Madame Boycott with the post-mark of Paris. (Replacing letters.) Ah, I have not yet the pleasure of the acquaintance of Madame Boycott. Poor soul, perhaps she will know me some day. (Going over to the door, right.) Well, I shall call again after breakfast. My friend Boycott is getting very unpunctual—a bad sign—a very bad sign.46
The unnaturalness of the two foregoing illustrations needs no comment. The Elizabethan author, knowing that above all else the dramatist must make clear why his people do what they do, used soliloquy with the utmost frankness as the easiest method of exposition. Here are three specimens, one from Webster and two from Shakespeare.
Cardinal. The reason why I would not suffer these
About my brother is because at midnight
I may with better privacy convay
Julias body, to her owne lodging. O, my conscience!
I would pray now: but the divell takes away my heart
For having any confidence in praier.
About this houre I appointed Bosola
To fetch the body: when he hath serv’d my turne,
He dies. (Exit.)47
Iago. That Cassio loves her I do well believe’t;
That she loves him, ’tis apt and of great credit;
The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
And I dare think he’ll prove to Desdemona
A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;
Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
I stand accountant for as great a sin,
But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap’d into my seat; the thought whereof
Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;
And nothing can or shall content my soul
Till I am even’d with him, wife for wife;
Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
At least into a jealousy so strong
That judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do,
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,
Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb—
For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too—
Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me,
For making him egregiously an ass
And practising upon his peace and quiet
Even to madness. ’Tis here, but yet confus’d;
Knavery’s plain face is never seen till us’d. (Exit.)48
Emilia. I am glad I have found this napkin;
This was her first remembrance from the Moor.
My wayward husband hath a hundred times
Woo’d me to steal it; but she so loves the token,
For he conjur’d her she should ever keep it,
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to. I’ll have the work ta’en out,
And give ’t Iago. What he will do with it
Heaven knows, not I;
I nothing but to please his fantasy.49
Echegaray’s The Great Galeoto (1881), though a part of the newer movement in the drama, shows soliloquy.
SCENE. Madrid of our day.
PROLOGUE
A study; to the left a balcony; on the right a door; in the middle a table strewn with papers and books, and a lighted lamp upon it. Towards the right a sofa. Night.