FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   >>  
s against each other or against circumstances; events are so tangled that they can be no further involved and something must happen in the way of cutting the knot; the fates of the persons are so implicated that their lives must be either saved or destroyed, in order to break the deadlock. Thus along with the clash goes a crisis presented in a breathless climactic effect which is the central and imperative scene of the piece, the backbone of every good play. If this obligatory scene be absent, you may at once suspect the dramatist; whatever his other virtues (fine dialogue, excellent characterization, or still other merits), it is probable he is not one genuinely called to tell a story in the manner of drama within stage limitations. It is sometimes said that a play is written backward. The remark has in mind this fundamental fact of the climax; all that goes before leads up to it, is preparation for it, and might conceivably be written after the obligatory scene has been conceived and shaped; all that comes after it is an attempt to retire gracefully from the great moment, rounding it out, showing its results, and conducting the spectator back to the common light of day in such a way as not to be dull, or conventional or anti-climactic. What follows this inevitable scene is (however disguised) at bottom a sort of bridge conveying the auditor from the supreme pleasure of the theater back to the rather humdrum experience of actual life; it is an experiment in gradation. And the prepared play-goer will deny the coveted award of _well done_ to any play, albeit from famous hands and by no means wanting in good qualities, which nevertheless fails in this prime requisite of good drama: the central, dynamic scene illuminating all that goes before and follows after, without which the play, after all, has no right to existence. With the coming of the modern psychologic school of which Galsworthy, Barker and Bennett are exemplars, there is a distinct tendency to minimize or even to eliminate this obligatory scene; an effort which should be carefully watched and remonstrated against; since it is the laying of an axe at the roots of dramatic writing. It may be confessed that in some instances the results of this violation of a cardinal principle are so charming as to blind the onlooker perhaps to the danger; as in the case of _Milestones_ by Messrs. Bennett and Knoblauch, or _The Pigeon_ by Galsworthy, or Louis Parker's Georgi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77  
78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   >>  



Top keywords:
obligatory
 

Galsworthy

 

climactic

 

central

 
Bennett
 

results

 
written
 

coveted

 
wanting
 
albeit

famous

 

bottom

 

bridge

 

conveying

 

auditor

 
disguised
 
conventional
 

inevitable

 

supreme

 
pleasure

gradation

 

prepared

 

experiment

 

qualities

 

theater

 

humdrum

 

experience

 

actual

 
Barker
 
instances

violation

 
cardinal
 

principle

 

confessed

 

writing

 

laying

 

dramatic

 
charming
 

Pigeon

 
Knoblauch

Parker

 

Georgi

 

Messrs

 
Milestones
 
onlooker
 

danger

 

remonstrated

 

existence

 

coming

 

modern