rio
to the formal learning of parts falls within the historical period of
the German stage. It seems probable that the romantic playwrights of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both in England and in Spain, may
have adopted a method not unlike that of the drama of improvisation,
that is to say, they may have drawn out a scheme of entrances and exits,
and then let their characters discourse (on paper) as their fancy
prompted. So, at least, the copious fluency of their dialogue seems to
suggest. But the typical modern play is a much more close-knit organism,
in which every word has to be weighed far more carefully than it was by
playwrights who stood near to the days of improvisation, and could
indulge in "the large utterance of the early gods." Consequently it
would seem that, until a play has been thought out very clearly and in
great detail, any scheme of entrances and exits ought to be merely
provisional and subject to indefinite modification. A modern play is not
a framework of story loosely draped in a more or less gorgeous robe of
language. There is, or ought to be, a close interdependence between
action, character and dialogue, which forbids a playwright to tie his
hands very far in advance.

As a rule, then, it would seem to be an unfavourable sign when a drama
presents itself at an early stage with a fixed and unalterable outline.
The result may be a powerful, logical, well-knit piece of work; but the
breath of life will scarcely be in it. Room should be left as long as
possible for unexpected developments of character. If your characters
are innocent of unexpected developments, the less characters they.[2]
Not that I, personally, have any faith in those writers of fiction, be
they playwrights or novelists, who contend that they do not speak
through the mouths of their personages, but rather let their personages
speak through them. "I do not invent or create" I have heard an eminent
novelist say: "I simply record; my characters speak and act, and I write
down their sayings and doings." This author may be a fine psychologist
for purposes of fiction, but I question his insight into his own mental
processes. The apparent spontaneity of a character's proceedings is a
pure illusion. It means no more than that the imagination, once set in
motion along a given line, moves along that line with an ease and
freedom which seems to its possessor preternatural and almost
uncanny.[3]

Most authors, however, who have