[24] Not translated. Edition in French, P. V. Stock, Paris.
[25] Foreword to _The House of Usna_. Fiona Macleod. Published by Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine, 1903.
[26] _Some Platitudes Concerning Drama._ John Galsworthy. _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1909.
[27] _Shakespeare Library_, vol. I, pp. 387-412. Ed. W. C. Hazlitt.
[28] _Hamburg Dramaturgy_, p. 279. Lessing. Bohn ed.
[29] _The United States of Playwrights_, Henry Savage. _The Bookman_, September, 1909.
[30] _De la Poésie Dramatique._ Diderot. _Oeuvres_, vol. VII, p. 321. Garnier Frères, Paris.
[31] _Sardou and the Sardou Plays_, p. 125. J. A. Hart. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.
FROM SUBJECT THROUGH STORY TO PLOT. CLEARNESS THROUGH WISE SELECTION
Dumas the younger, at twenty, wishing to write his first play, asked his father for the secret of a successful play. That man of many successful novels and plays replied: "It's very simple: First Act, clear; Third Act, short; and everywhere, interest." Though play-writing is not always so easy a matter as when a man of genius like Dumas the elder wrote the relatively simple romantic dramas of his day, he emphasized one of the fundamentals of drama when he called for clearness in the first act. He might well have called for it everywhere. First of all, a dramatist who has found his point of departure must know just what it means to him, what he wants to do with it. Is he merely telling a story for its own sake, satisfied if the incidents be increasingly interesting till the final curtain falls? Is he writing his play, above all, for one special scene in it, as was Mr. H. A. Jones, in _Mrs. Dane's Defence_,[1] in its third act? Does he merely wish to set people thinking about conditions of today, to write a drama of ideas, like Mr. Galsworthy in _The Pigeon_,[2] or M. Paul Loyson, in _The Apostle_?[3] Has he, like Brieux in _Damaged Goods_[4] or _The Cradle_,[5] an idea he wishes to convey, and so must write a problem play? Is his setting significant for one scene only or has it symbolic values for the whole play? As Dumas the younger well said, "How can you tell what road to take unless you know where you are going?"[6]
The trouble with most would-be dramatists is that they make too much of the mere act of writing, too little of the thinking preliminary to composition and accompanying it. With the point of departure clearly in mind, seeing some characters who immediately connect themselves with the subject, forecasting some scenes and a few bits of dialogue, they rush to their desks before they see with equal clearness, we will not say the plot but even the story necessary for the proposed play. What is the result? "They have a general view of their subject, they know approximately the situations, they have sketched out the characters, and when they have said to themselves, 'This mother will be a coquette, this father will be stern, this lover a libertine, this young girl impressionable and tender,' the fury of making their scenes seizes them. They write, they write, they come upon ideas, fine, delicate, and even strong; they have charming details ready to hand: but when they have worked much and come to plotting, for always one must come to that, they try to find a place for this charming bit; they can never make up their minds to put aside this delicate or strong idea, and they will do exactly the opposite of what they should,--make the plot for the sake of the scenes when the scenes should grow out of the plot. Consequently the dialogue will be constrained in movement and much trouble and time will be lost."[7]