bring about a
factitious "happy ending." With the relentless, mighty arms of
England engaged in hunting the defeated Highlanders after the
Battle of Culloden, a play like "Campbell of Kilmhor," in which we
sympathize with the ill-fated Stewarts, cannot end happily. If
they had yielded under pressure and betrayed their comrades, we
might have pitied them, but we could not admire their action, and
there would have been no strong conclusion. In "Riders to the
Sea," where the characters are compelled by bitter poverty to face
the relentless forces of storm and sea, and in "The Biding to
Lithend," we expect a tragic end almost from the first lines of
the play. We recognize this same dramatic tensity of hopeless
conflict in many stories as well as plays; it is most powerful in
three or four novels by George Eliot, George Meredith, and Thomas
Hardy.

One of the best ways to understand these as real stage plays is
through some sort of dramatization. This does not mean, however,
that they need be produced with elaborate scenery and costumes,
memorizing, and rehearsal; often the best understanding may be
secured by quite informal reading in the class, with perhaps a hat
and cloak and a lath sword or two for properties. With simply a
clear space in the classroom for a stage, you and your
imaginations can give all the performance necessary for realizing
these plays very well indeed. But, of course, you must clearly
understand the lines and the play as a whole before you try to
take a part, so that you can read simply and naturally, as you
think the people in the story probably spoke. Some questions for
discussion in the appendix may help you in talking the plays over
in class or in reading them for yourself before you try to take a
part. You will find it sometimes helps, also, to make a diagram or
a colored sketch of the scene as the author describes it, or even
a small model of the stage for a "dramatic museum" for your
school. If you have not tried this, you do not know how much it
helps in seeing plays of other times, like Shakespeare's or
Moliere's; and it is useful also for modern dramas. Such small
stages can be used for puppet theatres as well. "The Knave of
Hearts" is intended as a marionette play, and other
dramas--Maeterlinck's and even Shakespeare's--have been given in
this way with very interesting effects.

If you bring these plays to a performance for others outside your
own class, you will find that the simples