One-Act Plays

"The pylons, flats, and stairs, and such added pieces as the arch and window, were painted in broken color...[13] so that the surfaces would take on any desired color under the proper lighting."[14] The economy of this method is ill.u.s.trated by the fact that in one season nineteen plays were given in the Arts and Crafts Theatre at Detroit, and the settings for eleven of these were merely rearrangements of the permanent setting. This kind of setting is sometimes called "plastic"--a term which refers to the fact that the separate units are in the round, and not flat. The effect secured in settings representing outdoor scenes was made possible only by the use of a plaster horizon of the general type described in connection with the exhibition of the Stage Society.

[Footnote 13: See p. x.x.xiii.]

[Footnote 14: Sheldon Cheney, _The Art Theatre_, New York, 1917, pp. 167-168.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Good Gracious Annabelle._ A corridor in a hotel.

Design by Robert Edmond Jones. A typical example of a more or less abstract rendering of a literal scene. It was designed primarily with the idea of giving as many different exits and entrances as possible in order that the action of the drama might be swift and varied.]

Robert Edmond Jones and Sam Hume are two of an increasingly large number of artists in America, among whom should be mentioned Norman-bel Geddes, Maurice Browne, and Lee Simonson, who are experimenting with design, color, and light. Underlying the work of all of these is the belief that the whole production, the play, the acting, the lighting, and the setting, should be unified by some one dominating mood. In the work of these new artists, there is no place for the old-fas.h.i.+oned painted back drop, the use of which emphasizes the disparity between the painted and the actual perspective, though their backgrounds are by no means necessarily either screens or draperies. Another new style of background is the skeleton setting, a permanent structural foundation erected on the stage, which through the addition of draperies and movable properties, or the variation of lights, or the manipulation of screens, may serve for all the scenes of a play. A permanent structure of this sort, representing the Tower of London, was used by Robert Edmond Jones in a recent production of _Richard III_ in New York, at the Plymouth Theatre. When Jacques Copeau conducted the Theatre du Vieux Colombier in New York he had a permanent structure built on the stage of the Garrick Theatre, that he used for all the plays he produced; at times the upper half of the stage was masked, at times the recess back of the two central columns was used. The aspect of the stage was often completely changed by the addition of tapestries, stairs, panels, screens, and furniture.

In the description of the equipment of the Detroit Theatre of Arts and Crafts, reference has been made to a method of painting the plastic units in broken color. This is so important a principle that it should be more generally understood by those who are interested in the theatre. The principle was put into operation by the Viennese designer, Joseph Urban. In practice it means that a canvas painted with red and with green spots upon which a red light is played, throws up only the red spots blended so as to produce a red surface, and that the same canvas under a green light shows a green surface; and, if both kinds of lights are used, then both the green and red spots are brought out, according to the proportion of the mixture of green and red in the light.

Color is being used now not only for decorative purposes, but also symbolically. The decorative use of color on the stage is, obviously, like the decorative use of color in the design of textiles, or stained gla.s.s, or posters. The symbolic use of color is less easy to interpret, but it is plain that in most people's minds red is connected with excitement and frenzy, and blues and grays, with an atmosphere of mystery. This is a very bald suggestion of some of the very subtle things that have been done with color on the modern stage.

The new methods of stage lighting make possible all kinds of color combinations and effects. The use of the plaster horizon (or of the cyclorama, a cheaper subst.i.tute, usually a straight semi-circular curtain enclosing the stage, made of either white or light blue cloth), combined with high-powered lights set at various angles on the stage, makes outdoor effects possible, the beauty of which is new to the theatre.[15] Nowadays footlights are not invariably discarded, but where they are used they are wired so that groups of them can be lighted when other sections are dimmed or darkened. When the setting shows an interior scene with a window, though the scene may be lighted from all sides, the window seems to be the source of all light. A good deal of the lighting on the stage is what is known in the interior decoration of houses as indirect lighting; colored lights are produced most simply by the interposition between the source of light and the stage of transparent colored slides, gelatine or gla.s.s.

[Footnote 15: For a description of modern lighting equipment for a Little Theatre compare the section on the Theatre in the School in this introduction.]

In any production that is made under the influence of the new stagecraft, the costumes, like the setting of the play, are considered in connection with the resources of lighting. The costumes, whether historically correct or historically suggestive, whether of a period or conventionalized, are conceived in their three-fold relation to the characters of the play, the background, and the scheme of lights, by the designer or the director under whose general supervision the play is staged.

In general, American audiences are hardly conscious of the existence of these reforms. Here and there, it is true, the manager of a commercial theatre or an opera house has called in an artist to supervise his productions and has thus given publicity to the new way of making the arts of the theatre work together. Certain Little Theatres, also, have educated their followers in the significance of the new use of light and design to represent the mood of a play. The demands that the new method makes on craftsmans.h.i.+p have also commended it to students in schools and colleges interested in play production.

Both the Little Theatres and the school theatres are doing a real service when they educate their communities in these new arts, for not only will this education increase the capacity of these particular audiences to enjoy the good things of the theatre, but the influence of these groups

PLAYMAKING

Shortly before the death of William Dean Howells, he related the experience that he had had of being circularized by a correspondence school that offered to teach him the art of writing fiction in a phenomenally short time at a ridiculously low rate. In this instance, there was something wrong with the mailing list, but the fact remains that in universities successful courses in writing short-stories and plays are given and the best of these courses actually have turned out writers who achieve various degrees of success financially and artistically It is plain that a brief treatise like the present one makes no such pretensions; it means merely to suggest some of the most obvious points of departure for students in the drama who wish to exercise themselves in the composition of the one-act play, much as a student of poetry will try his hand at a _ballade_ or a sonnet without taking himself or his metrical exercises too seriously.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Courtesy of Theatre Arts Magazine_

_The Seven Princesses._ Design by Robert Edmond Jones. An example of the attempt to present the essential significant structure of a setting in the simplest way conceivable and by so doing to stimulate the imagination of the spectator to create for itself the imaginative environment of the play.]

In the famous Perse School in Cambridge, England, the boys begin at the age of twelve to practise playmaking as an aid to the fuller understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic workmans.h.i.+p, and this work is developed throughout the rest of the course. The boys, having learned that Shakespeare himself used stories that he found ready to hand, discover in their own reading a story that will lend itself to dramatization. The story is told and retold from every angle. The cla.s.s is then divided up into committees to every one of which is entrusted some part of the dramatization. One little committee busies itself with the setting, another with the structure, another with the comic characters, another with the songs that are interspersed and so on. These committees prepare rough notes to be presented in cla.s.s.

These notes may propose an outline of successive scenes, present the part of some princ.i.p.al character, or the "business" (ill.u.s.trative action) of some minor part. Lessons of this sort are followed by composition rehearsals, where the dramatic and literary value of the proposed plot, characterization, pantomime, and dialogue are tested, and subjected to the criticism of teacher and boys. In the next lessons, the teacher brings to bear on the special problems on which the boys are working all the criticism that his wider range of reading and experience can suggest. In the light of his suggestions the various points are debated and the boys then proceed to careful fas.h.i.+oning, shaping, and writing. A rehearsal of the nearly finished product is held, followed by a final revision of the text. The work then goes forward to a public performance given with all due ceremony.

In the higher cla.s.ses playmaking is taught more especially in connection with writing and the boys are trained to imitate the style of various dramatists. Synge was used as a model at one time for, as one of the masters of the school explained: "The style of Synge is easy to copy because it is so largely composed of a certain phraseology. The same words, phrases, and turns of sentence occur again and again. Here are a few taken at random; the reader will find them in a context on almost any page of the plays: _It's myself_ -- _Is it me fight him?_ -- _I'm thinking_ -- _It's a poor_ (_fine, great, hard_, etc.) _thing_ -- _A little path I have_ -- _Let you come_ -- _G.o.d help us all_ -- _Till Tuesday was a week_ -- _The end of time_ -- _The dawn of day_ -- _Let on_ -- _Kindly_ -- _Now_, as in _Walk out now_ -- _Surely_ -- _Maybe_ -- _Itself_ -- _At all_ -- _Afeard_ -- _Destroyed_ -- _It curse_. Synge is also mighty fond of the words _ditch_ and _ewe_. And there are certain forms of rhythm about Synge's prose which are used with equal frequency, and are quick and easy to catch. So far from this imitation of style being an artificial method, the fact is that once a boy of sixteen or over has read a play or two of Synge's, if he has any power of style in him, it will be all but impossible to stop him writing like Synge for a few weeks." Learning playwriting from models recalls the method of Benjamin Franklin and Robert Louis Stevenson who in their youth wrote slavish imitations of the great masters in order to form their own prose style. Of course, it is not claimed that this work at the Perse School makes playwrights, only that it gives the boys a deeper appreciation of dramatic workmans.h.i.+p and furnishes a new kind of intellectual game to add to the joy of school life.

The one-act plays contained in this collection are, as has been suggested in what has been said about their construction, ill.u.s.trative of various kinds of workmans.h.i.+p. Certain of them are excellent models for those who are experimenting with playwriting. The one-act play, not nearly so difficult a form as the full-length play, offers undergraduates in school and college and inexperienced writers generally unlimited scope for experiment.

The testimony of Lord Dunsany is to the effect that his play is made when he has discovered a motive. Asked whether he always began with a motive, "'Not always,' he said; 'I begin with anything or next to nothing. Then suddenly, I get started, and go through in a hurry. The main point is not to interrupt a mood. Writing is an easy thing when one is going strong and going fast; it becomes a hard thing only when the onward rush is impeded. Most of my short plays have been written in a sitting or two.'"[16] This pa.s.sage is quoted because insight into the practice of professional writers is always helpful to amateurs. Dunsany uses "motive," it seems, as a convenient term for denoting the idea, the character, the incident or the mood that impels the dramatist to start writing a play. Such material is to be found everywhere. Many professional writers acc.u.mulate vast stores of such themes against the day when they may have the necessary leisure, energy, and insight to develop them.

[Footnote 16: Clayton Hamilton, _Seen on the Stage_, New York, 1920, p. 239.]

It has been pointed out that there are only thirty-six possible dramatic situations in any case, and that no matter how the plot shapes itself, it is bound to cla.s.sify itself somehow or other as one of the inescapable thirty-six. There is comfort also in the suggestion that Shakespeare drew practically all the dramatic material that he used so transcendently direct from the familiar and accessible narrative stores of his day. The young or inexperienced playwright need have no hesitation, then, in turning to such sources as the Greek myths for inspiration. Quite recently a highly successful one-act play of Phillip Moeller's proved that Helen of Troy is as eternally interesting as she is perennially beautiful. Maurice Baring draws on the old Greek stories, too, for several of his _Diminutive Dramas_.

The Bible has proved dramatically suggestive to Lord Dunsany and to Stephen Phillips. The old ballads of _Fair Annie_ and _The Wife of Usher's Well_ have been found dramatically available. The myths of the old Norse G.o.ds, used by Richard Wagner for his music dramas, contain much unmined dramatic gold. John Masefield and Sigurjonsson have converted Saga material to the uses of the drama. In old English literature, in _Widsith_, in the _Battle of Brunanburh_, the seeking dramatist may find. The romances of the Middle Ages, the fairy lore of all peoples, and the old Hindu animal fables are fertile in suggestion to the intending dramatist. What a wonderful one-act play, steeped in the mellow atmosphere of the Renaissance in Italy, might be made out of Browning's _My Last d.u.c.h.ess!_ At least one new literary precedent has recently been created by the author who wrote a sequel to _Dombey and Son_. Certainly many famous novels and plays may be conceived as calling out for similar treatment at the hands of the experimental playwright. Famous literary and historic characters offer themselves as promising dramatic material. When Robert Emmons Rogers, author of the well-known play, _Behind a Watteau Picture_, was a soph.o.m.ore at Harvard, he wrote the following charming little play on Shakespeare which is reprinted here, with the author's permission, as a pleasing example of a promising piece of apprentice work:[17]

[Footnote 17: Robert Emmons Rogers, President of the Boston Drama League and a.s.sistant Professor, specializing in modern literature and drama in the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey, in 1888. He writes that his Anne Hathaway "was a particularly wild idealization based on Miss Adams as Peter Pan," and that even at eighteen he knew that his portrait of the girl, who was to be Shakespeare's wife, was not historically correct.

Permission to perform the play must be secured from the author.]

THE BOY WILL

_Within the White Luces Inn on a late afternoon in spring, 1582. The room is of heavy-beamed dark oak, stained by age and smoke, with a great, hooded fireplace on the left. At the back is a door with the upper half thrown back, and two wide windows through whose open lattices, overgrown with columbine, one can see the fresh country side in the setting sun. Under them are broad window seats. At the right, a door and a tall dresser filled with pewter plates and tankards. A couple of chairs, a stool and a low table stand about. ANNE, a slim girl of sixteen, is mending the fire. MASTER GEORGE PEELE, a bold and comely young man, in worn riding dress and spattered boots, sprawls against the disordered table. GILES, a plump and peevish old rogue in tapster's cap and ap.r.o.n, stands by the door looking out._

PEELE [_rousing himself_]. Giles! Gi-les!

GILES [_hurries to him_]. What more, zur? Wilt ha' the pastry or--?

PEELE. Another quart of sack.

GILES. Yus, zur! Anne, bist asleep? [_The girl rises slowly._]

ANNE [_takes the tankard_]. He hath had three a'ready.

PEELE [_cheerfully_]. And shall have three more so I will. This player's life of mine is a weary one.

ANNE [_pertly_]. And a thirsty one, too, methinks.

GILES [_scandalized_]. Come, wench! Ha' done gawking about, and haste!

[_ANNE goes at right._] 'Er be a forrard gel, zur, though hendy. I be glad 'er's none o' mine, but my brother's in Shottery. He canna say I love 'is way o' making wenches so saucy.

PEELE. A pox on you! The best-spirited maid I ha' seen in Warwicks.h.i.+re, I say. Forward? Man alive, wouldst have her like your blowsy wenches here, that lie i' the sun all day? I have seen no one so comely since I left London.

GILES [_feebly_]. But 'ere, zur, in Stratford--

PEELE [_hotly_]. Stratford? I doubt if G.o.d made Stratford! Another day here and I should die in torment. Your gra.s.s lanes, your rubbly houses, fat burgesses, old women, your young clouter-heads who have no care for a bravely acted stage-play. [_Bitingly._] "Can any good come out of Stratford?"

GILES. Noa, Maister Peele! Others ha' spoke more fairly--

PEELE [_impatiently_]. My sack, man! Is the girl a-brewing it?

GILES. Anne! Anne! (I'll learn she to mess about.) Anne!

ANNE [_hurries in and serves PEELE_]. I heard you.

GILES. Then whoi cunst thee not bustle? Be I to lose my loongs over 'ee?

ANNE [_simply_]. Mistress Shakespeare called me to the b.u.t.t'ry door.

Will hath not been home all day, and she is fair anxious. She bade me send him home once I saw him.

PEELE [_drinking noisily_]. Who is it? [_ANNE is clearing the table._]

GILES [_shortly_]. Poor John Shakespeare's son Will.

PEELE. A Stratford lad? A straw-headed beater of clods!

GILES. Nay, zur. A wild young un, as 'ull do noa honest work, but dreams the day long, or poaches the graat woods wi' young loons o'

like stomach.