The Art of Dramatic Writing - Its Basis in The Creative Interpretation of Human Motives - Lajos Egri
The Art of Dramatic Writing - Its Basis in The Creative Interpretation of Human Motives - Lajos Egri
DRAMATIC WRITING
Its Basis
in the Creative
Interpretation
of Human Motives
BY
LAJOS EGRI
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
GILBERT MILLER
A TOUCHSTONE BOOK
Published by Simon & Schuster
ROCKEFELLER CENTER
1230 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10020
TOUCHSTONE AND COLOPHON ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS
OF SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC.
Originally published by Simon and Schuster in 1942 as How to Write a Play;'
revised and published in 1946 as The Art of Dramatic Writing. This is a newly
revised edition of that book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks are due to: Coward-McCann, Inc., for permission to quote
from Moses L. Malevinsky's The Science of Playwriting. Covici-Friede,
Inc., for permission to quote from Stevedore by Paul Peters and George
Sklar. Dr. Milisaw Demerec for permission to quote from his speech on
Heredity, delivered before the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, on December 30,1938. Dodd, Mead 8c Company, Inc., for
permission to quote from William Archer's Play-Making, A Manual of
Craftsmanship. Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., for permission to quote from
Dubose Heyward's Brass Ankle, copyrighted by the author in 1931. Edna
Fcrber and George S. Kaufman for permission to quote from their play.
Dinner at Eight, published by Doubleday Doran 8c Company, Inc. Inter-
national Publishers Co., Inc., for their permission to quote from V. Ado-
ratsky's Dialectics. Little, Brown 8c Company for their permission to quote
from Percival Wilde's Craftsmanship. The Macmillan Company for their
permission to quote from Lorande L. Woodruff's Animal Biology. The
New York Times for their permission to quote from Robert van Gelder's
interview with Lillian Hellman, April si, 1941. G. P. Putnam's Sons for
permission to quote from John Howard Lawson's The Theory and
Technique of Playwriting, copyright, 1936; and for their permission and
the author's, Albert Maltz, to quote from his play, The Black Pit. Eugene
O'Neill and his publishers, Random House, Inc., for their permission to
quote from his play, Mourning Becomes Electro. Random House, Inc.,
for their permission to quote from Irwin Shaw's play. Bury the Dead:
Charles Scribner's Sons for their permission to quote from Robert Sher-
wood's play. Idiot's Delight. John C. Wilson for permission to quote from
Noel Coward's plays. Design for Living, copyright, 1933, and published
by Doubleday Doran & Company; and Hay Fever, copyright, 1925.
Dwight Deere Wiman and die New York Herald Tribune for their
permission to quote from Mr. Wiman's article, "Advice: Producer to
Playwright," April 6, 1941.
ISBN 0-671-21338-6
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
45 47 49 50 48 46
TO
MY WIFE, ILONA
INTRODUCTION
Here is the first book I have come across that can tell why a
play is bad long before you have signed contracts with highly
paid actors and commissioned various members of seven
unions to proceed with the construction of a production that
will cost as much as a Long Island mansion.
'Mr. Egri writes with the solidity, the authority, the ease
that, it seems to me, comes only from knowing more than one
profession. He writes with the sort of hard, shining clarity that
comes of surefootedness in all the nooks and crannies, all the
mountains and valleys of life itself. This man, you feel, has
been around a long time and in many places. He has under-
stood much and learned more than most. Mr. Egri writes like
a very wise man.
The best of the many things I can say for The Art of Dra-
matic Writing is that from now on the average person, includ-
ing myself, will have no excuse for inarticulateness. Once you
read Mr. Egri's book you will know why any novel, any movie,
any play, any short story was boring, or, more important, why
it was exciting.
I feel that this book will greatly influence the American
theater and the public as well.
GILBERT MILLER
• •
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION vi
FOREWORD x
PREFACE xiii
I PREMISE 1
II CHARACTER 32
1. The Bone Structure 32
2. Environment 43
3. The Dialectical Approach 49
4. Character Growth 59
5. Strength of Will in a Character 77
6. Plot or Character—Which? 86
7. Characters Plotting Their Own Play 100
8. Pivotal Character 106
9. The Antagonist 113
10. Orchestration 114
11. Unity of Opposites 118
III CONFLICT 125
1. Origin of Action 125
2. Cause and Effect 126
3. Static 136
4. Jumping 146
viii
CONTENTS ix
5. Rising . 162
6. Movement 171
7. Foreshadowing Conflict 178
8. Point of Attack 182
g. Transition 192
10. Crisis, Climax, Resolution 218
IV GENERAL 230
1. Obligatory Scene 230
2. Exposition 234
3. Dialogue 238
4. Experimentation 245
5. The Timeliness of a Play 248
6. Entrances and Exits 251
7. Why Are Some Bad Plays Successful? 253
8. Melodrama 255
9. On Genius 256
10. What Is Art?—A Dialogue 259
11. When You Write a Play 262
12. How to Get Ideas 265
13. Writing for Television 274
14. Conclusion 278
APPENDIX A. Plays Analyzed 279
APPENDIX B. How to Market Your Play 294
APPENDIX C. Long Runs on Broadway 298
INDEX 303
FOREWORD
who are forgotten. I feel death is a small price to pay for im-
mortality!"
* * %
Immortality!
Yes, we all crave attention. We want to be important, im-
mortal. We want to do things that will make people exclaim,
"Isn't he wonderful?"
If we can't create something useful or beautiful . . . we
shall certainly create something else: trouble, for instance.
Just think of your aunt Helen, the family gossip. (We all
have one.) She causes hard feelings, suspicion, and subsequent
arguments. Why does she do it? She wants to be important,
of course, and if she can achieve this only by means of gossip
or lying, she will not, for one moment, hesitate to gossip or lie.
The urge to be outstanding is a fundamental necessity in our
lives. All of us, at all times, crave attention. Self-consciousness,
even reclusiveness, springs from the desire to be important.
If failure arouses compassion or pity, then failure might be-
come an end in itself.
Take your brother-in-law Joe. He's always running after
women. Why? He's a good provider, a good father, and
strangely enough, a good husband. But there is something
missing in his life. He is not important enough to himself,
to his family, and to the world. His affairs have become the
focal point of his existence. Each new conquest makes him
feel more important; he feels he has accomplished something.
Joe would be surprised to learn that his craving for women
is a substitute for the creation of something more significant.
THIS book was written not only for authors and playwrights,
but for the general public. If the reading public understands
the mechanism of writing, if that public becomes aware of the
hardships, the tremendous effort that goes into any and all
literary work, appreciation will become more spontaneous.
The reader will find at the end of this book synopses of
plays, analyzed according to dialectics. We hope these will
add to the reader's understanding of novels and short stories
in general, and of plays and movies in particular.
We shall discuss plays in this book without acclaiming or
dismissing each one in its entirety. When we quote passages
to illustrate a point, we are not necessarily approving the
whole play.
We deal with both modern and classical plays. There is
an emphasis on the classics because most modern plays are
too soon forgotten. Most intelligent people are familiar with
the classics and they are always available for study.
We have based our theory on the eternally changing "char-
acter" who forever reacts, almost violently, to constantly
changing internal and external stimuli.
What is the fundamental make-up of a human being, any
human being- -perhaps you, who are reading these very lines?
This question must be answered before we can settle down
to discuss "point of attack," "orchestration," and the rest. We
must know more about the biology of the subject that we see
later, in movement.
We begin with a dissection of "premise," "character," and
xiii
xiv PREFACE
Not for a moment do we believe that this book has said the
last word on playwriting. On the contrary. Breaking a new
road, one makes many mistakes and sometimes becomes in-
articulate. Those coming after us will dig deeper and bring
this dialectical approach to writing to a more crystallized form
than we ever hope to do. This book, using a dialectical ap-
proach, is itself subject to the laws of dialectics. The theory
advanced here is a thesis. Its contradiction will be the antithe-
sis. From the two will be formed a synthesis, uniting both the
thesis and antithesis. This is the road to truth.
I
PREMISE
This play obviously deals with love. But there are many
kinds of love. No doubt this was a great love, since the two
lovers not only defied family tradition and hate, but threw
away life to unite in death. The premise, then, as we see it is:
"Great love defies even death."
King Lear
The King's trust in his two daughters is grievously mis-
placed. They strip him of all his authority, degrade him, and
he dies insane, a broken, humiliated old man.
What can be the premise of this play? The question is, what
is the motivating force? No doubt it is ambition. What kind
of ambition? Ruthless, since it is drenched in blood. Mac-
beth's downfall was foreshadowed in the very method by
which he achieved his ambition. So, as we see, the premise for
Macbeth is: "Ruthless ambition leads to its own destruction."
Othello
Othello finds Desdemona's handkerchief in Cassio's lodg-
ing. It had been taken there by Iago for the very purpose of
making him jealous. Othello therefore kills Desdemona and
plunges a dagger into his own heart.
Ghosts, BY IBSEN
The basic idea is heredity. The play grew out of a Biblical
quotation which is the premise: "The sins of the fathers are
visited on the children." Every word uttered, every move
made, every conflict in the play, comes about because of this
premise.
loses more in the end than he gains. We now have the prem-
ise for our play: "Frugality leads to waste."
The above premise—for that matter, every good premise
—is composed of three parts, each of which is essential to a
good play. Let us examine "Frugality leads to waste." The
first part of this premise suggests character—a frugal charac-
ter. The second part, "leads to" suggests conflict, and the third
part, "waste/' suggests the end of the play.
Let us see if this is so. "Frugality leads to waste." The prem-
ise suggests a frugal person who, in his eagerness to save his
money, refuses to pay his taxes. This act necessarily evokes a
counteraction—conflict—from the state, and the frugal per-
son is forced to pay triple the original amount.
"Frugality/' then, suggests character; "leads to" suggests
conflict; "waste" suggests the end of the play.
A good premise is a thumbnail synopsis of your play.
Here are a few other premises:
Bitterness leads to false gaiety.
Foolish generosity leads to poverty.
Honesty defeats duplicity.
Heedlessness destroys friendship.
Ill-temper leads to isolation.
Materialism conquers mysticism.
Prudishness leads to frustration.
Bragging leads to humiliation.
Confusion leads to frustration.
Craftiness digs its own grave.
Dishonesty leads to exposure.
Dissipation leads to self-destruction.
Egotism leads to loss of friends.
Extravagance leads to destitution.
Fickleness leads to loss of self-esteem.
an active premise, so that when you ask what love will defy,
it is possible to answer "death," categorically. As a result,
you not only know how far your lovers are willing to go; you
also have an inkling as to the kind of characters they are, the
characters they must be to carry the premise to its logical
conclusion.
Can this girl be silly, unemotional, scheming? Hardly. Can
the boy, or man, be superficial, flighty? Hardly—unless they
are shallow only until they meet. Then the battle would be-
gin, first, against the trivial lives they had been living, then
against their families, religions, and all the other motivating
factors aligned against them. As they go along they will grow
in stature, strength, determination, and, at the end, despite
even death—in death—they will be united.
If you have a clear-cut premise, almost automatically a
synopsis unrolls itself. You elaborate on it, providing the mi-
nute details, the personal touches.
We are taking it for granted that if you choose the above
premise," Great love defies even death," you believe in it.
You should believe in it, since you are to prove it. You
must show conclusively that life is worthless without the
loved one. And if you do not sincerely believe that this is so,
you will have a very hard time trying to provide the emo-
tional intensity of Nora, in A Doll's House, or of Juliet, in
Romeo and Juliet.
Did Shakespeare, Moliere, and Ibsen believe in their own
premises? Almost certainly. But if they did not, their genius
was strong enough to feel what they described, to relive their
heroes' lives so intensely that they convinced the audience
of their sincerity.
You, however, should not write anything you do not be-
lieve. The premise should be a conviction of your own, so
that you may prove it wholeheartedly. Perhaps it is a prepos-
terous premise to me—it must not be so to you.
Although you should never mention your premise in the
l6 PREMISE
dialogue of your play, the audience must know what the mes-
sage is. And whatever it is, you must prove it.
We have seen how an idea—the usual preliminary to a
play—may come to you at any time. And we have seen why
it must be turned into a premise. The process of changing
an idea into a premise is not a difficult one. You can start to
write your play any way—even haphazardly—if, at the end, all
the necessary parts are in place.
It may be that the story is complete in your mind, but you
still have no premise. Can you proceed to write your play?
You had better not, however finished it seems to you. If jeal-
ousy predicated the sad ending, obviously you might have
written a play about jealousy. But have you considered where
this jealousy sprang from? Was the woman flirtatious? The
man inferior? Did a friend of the family force his attentions
upon the woman? Was she bored with her husband? Did the
husband have mistresses? Did she sell herself to help out her
sick husband? Was it just a misunderstanding? And so forth.
Every one of these possibilities needs a different premise.
For instance: "Promiscuity during marriage leads to jealousy
and murder/' If you take this as your premise, you'll know
what caused jealousy in this particular instance, and that it
leads the promiscuous person to kill or be killed. The prem-
ise will suggest the one and only road that you must take.
Many premises can deal with jealousy, but in your case there
will be only one motivating power which will drive your play
to its inevitable conclusion. A promiscuous person will act
differently from one who is not promiscuous, or from a woman
who sells herself to help keep her husband alive. Although
you may have the story set in your mind or even on paper,
you cannot necessarily dispense with a clear-cut premise.
It is idiotic to go about hunting for a premise, since, as we
have pointed out, it should be a conviction of yours. You
know what your own convictions are. Look them over. Per-
PREMISE 17
were not alive. How could they be? They do not know, for
instance, why they should commit a perfect crime. Their only
reason is your command, and as a result all their performance
and all their dialogue are artificial. No one believes what they
do or say.
You may not believe it, but the characters in a play are sup-
posed to be real people. They are supposed to do things for
reasons of their own. If a man is going to commit the perfect
crime, he must have a deep-rooted motivation for doing so.
Crime is not an end in itself. Even those who commit crime
through madness have a reason. Why are they mad? What
motivated their sadism, their lust, their hate? The reasons
behind the events are what interest us. The daily papers are
full of reports of murder, arson, rape. After a while we are
honestly nauseated with them. Why should we go to the the-
ater to see them, if not to find out why they were done?
A young girl murders her mother. Horrible. But why? What
were the steps that led to the murder? The more the dram-
atist reveals, the better the play. The more you can reveal of
the environment, the physiology and the psychology of the
murderer, and his or her personal premise, the more success-
ful you will be.
Everything in existence is closely related to everything
else. You cannot treat any subject as though it were isolated
from the rest of life.
If the reader accepts our reasoning, he will drop the idea
of writing a play about how someone committed a perfect
crime, and turn to why someone did.
Let us go through the steps of planning a crime play, seeing
how the various elements fit together.
What shall the crime be? Embezzlement, blackmail, theft,
murder? Let us choose murder, and get on to the criminal.
Why would he kill? For lust? Money? Revenge? Ambition?
To right a wrong? There are so many types of murder that
we must answer this question at once. Suppose we choose am-
PREMISE 19
bition as the motive behind the murder and see where it leads
us.
The murderer must reach a position where someone stands
in his way. He will try everything to influence the man who
stands in his path, he will do anything to win his favor. Per-
haps the men become friends, and the murder is averted. But
no—the prospective victim must be adamant, else there will
be no murder—and no play. But why should he be adamant?
We don't know, because we don't know our premise.
We might stop here for a moment and see how the play
would turn out if we continued without a premise. But that
is unnecessary. Just a glance at what we have to work with
will indicate how flimsy the structure is. A man is going to
kill another man who thwarts his ambition. That has been
the idea behind hundreds of plays, but it is far too weak to
serve as the basis for a synopsis. Let us look more deeply into
the elements we have here and find an active premise.
The murderer will kill to win his goal. He's not a fine type
of man, certainly. Murder is a high price to pay for one's am-
bition, and it takes a ruthless man to— That's itl Our killer
is ruthless—blind to everything but his selfish ends.
He's a dangerous man, of no benefit to society. Suppose he
succeeds in escaping the consequences of his crime? Suppose
he attains a position of responsibility? Think of the harm he
might dol Why, he might continue his ruthless path indefi-
nitely, never knowing anything but success! But could he? Is
it possible for a man of ruthless ambition to succeed com-
pletely? It is not. Ruthlessness, like hate, carries the seeds of
its own destruction. SplendidI Then we have the premise:
"Ruthless ambition leads to its own destruction."
We know now that our killer will commit a murder as per-
fect as possible, but that he will be destroyed at the end by
his ambition. It opens up unlimited possibilities.
We know our ruthless killer. There is more to know, of
course. The understanding of a character is not as simple as
20 PREMISE
You must decide just how you are going to treat your
premise. Will you indict society? Will you show poverty and
a way out of poverty? Kingsley decided to show poverty only
and let the audience draw its own conclusions. If you wish to
add anything to what Kingsley said, make a subpremise which
will enlarge the original one. Enlarge it again, if necessary,
so that it will fit your case perfectly. If in the process you find
your premise untenable because you have changed your mind
as to what you wished to say, formulate a new premise and
discard the old,
"2s society responsible for poverty?" Whichever side you
PREMISE 23
take, you must prove it. Of course, this play will differ from
Kingsley's. You can formulate any number of premises—
"poverty," "love," "hate"—choosing the one that satisfies
you most.
You can arrive at your premise in any one of a great many
ways. You may start with an idea which you at once convert
to a premise, or you may develop a situation first and see that
it has potentialities which need only the right premise to give
them meaning and suggest an end.
Emotion can dictate many premises, but you must elab-
orate them before they can express the dramatist's idea. Test
this with an emotion: jealousy. Jealousy feeds on the sen-
sations generated by an inferiority complex. Jealousy, as such,
cannot be a premise, because it designates no goal for the
characters. Would it be better if we put it thus: "Jealousy
destroys"? No, although we now know what action it takes.
Let us go further: "Jealousy destroys itself." Now there is a
goal. We know, and the dramatist knows, that the play will
continue until jealousy has destroyed itself. The author may
build on it as he chooses, saying, perhaps, "Jealousy destroys
not only itself but the object of its love."
We hope the reader recognizes the difference between' the
last two premises. The variations are endless, and with each
new variation the premise of the play is changed. But when-
ever you change your premise, you will have to go back to
the beginning and rewrite your synopsis in terms of the new
premise. If you start out with one premise and switch to an-
other, the play will suffer. No one can build a play on two
premises, or a house on two foundations.
ods, and with the help of Orgon, his intended victim, is dig-
ging a pit for Orgon. Will he fall into it? We don't know yet.
But our interest is aroused. Let us see whether Orgon's faith
in Tartuffe is as firm as his mother wants us to believe.
Orgon has just arrived home from a three-day journey. He
meets his second wife's brother, Cl£ante.
CL£ANTE: I heard you were expected shortly, and waited in the
hope of seeing you.
ORGON: That was kind. But you must pardon me if, before we
talk, I ask a question or two of Dorine here. [To Dorine] Has
all gone well during my absence?
DORINE: Not altogether. Monsieur. Madame was taken with the
fever the day before yesterday and suffered terribly from pains
in her head.
ORGON: Did she so? And Tartuffe?
DORINE: Oh, he's prodigiously well—bursting with health.
ORGON: Poor dear fellow!
DORINE: At supper that evening Madame was so ill that she could
not touch a morsel.
ORGON: Ah—and Tartuffe?
DORINE: He could manage no more than a brace of partridges' and
half a hashed leg of mutton.
ORGON: Poor dear fellow!
DORINE: Madame could get no sleep all that night, and we had to
sit up with her till daybreak.
ORGON: Indeed. And Tartuffe?
DORINE: Oh, he went straight from the table to his bed, where, to
judge by the sounds, he slept on sweetly till the morning was
well advanced.
ORGON: Poor dear fellow!
DORINE: But at last we persuaded Madame to let herself be bled,
which gave her relief at once.
ORGON: Good! And Tartuffe?
DORINE: He bore up bravely, and at breakfast next morning drank
four cups of red wine to replace what Madame had lost.
ORGON: Poor dear fellow!
DORINE: SO all is now well with both of them, Monsieur, and, with
PREMISE 27
your leave, I will now go and let Madame know you are re-
turned.
ORGON: DO SO, Dorine.
DORINE: [AS she reaches
arch at back] I will not fail to tell her how
concerned you were to hear of her illness. Monsieur. [She goes
off]
ORGON: [TO CUante] I could almost think she meant some im-
pertinence by that. ,
CLiANTE: And if she did, my dear Orgon, is there not some excuse
for her? Great heavens, man, how can you be so infatuated with
this Tartuffe? What do you see in him that makes you indif-
ferent to all others?
ers too, but they translate their dreams into reality. Nikola
Tesla, for instance, was the greatest electrical wizard who ever
lived. He was a great dreamer, but he was a great doer too.
Mathilda was a good-natured but idle dreamer. Her dreams
led her exactly nowhere, until tragedy befell her.
We must examine her character. She lived in imaginary
luxury in a fairy castle where she was a queen. Naturally she
had a great deal of pride and couldn't humiliate herself by
admitting to her friend that she was unable to afford the price
of the lost necklace. Death was preferable to that. She had to
buy a new necklace even though she and her husband had to
work the rest of their lives for it. They did. She became a
drudge because of her vanity and false pride; inherent char-
acteristics which were the result of her daydreaming. Her
husband worked along with her because of his love for her.
The premise: "Escape from reality leads to a day of reckon-
ing-
Let us find the premise in A Lion Is in the Streetj a novel
by Adria Locke Langley.
Even in early youth Hank Martin was determined to be the
greatest of men. He peddled pins, ribbons, cosmetics, with the
idea of ingratiating himself with people to use them later on.
He did use them; so well that he became governor of his state.
Then he plundered the people until the multitude rose up
against him. He died a violent death.
Obviously the premise of this novel is: "Ruthless ambition
leads to its own destruction"
Now for Pride of the Marines, a motion picture from a
story by Albert Maltz.
This is the story of Al Schmid, wounded marine who be-
came blind in the war. At the rehabilitation hospital they
cannot induce him to go home to his fiancee. He feels that he is
useless to her now. He was brought home by a ruse; his sweet-
heart convinces him that she still wants him and that, al-
I though blind he can still hold a job. He gets a job and they
PREMISE 29
ill
iiii
PREMISE 31
What did Ibsen see? What did he mean when he said, "I
have grasped the leading points of their characters and their
THE BONE STRUCTURE 33
PHYSIOLOGY
i . Sex
a. Age
3. Height and weight
4. Color of hair, eyes, skin
5. Posture
6. Appearance: good-looking, over- or underweight, clean,
neat, pleasant, untidy. Shape of head, face, limbs.
7. Defects: deformities, abnormalities, birthmarks. Diseases.
8. Heredity
SOCIOLOGY
2. Environment
When a friend invites you to a party, and after a moment's
hesitation you reply, "All right, I'll be there," you are making
an unassuming statement. But that statement is the result of
a complicated mental process.
Your acceptance of the invitation may have sprung from
loneliness, from a desire to avoid a dull evening, from excess
physical energy, from desperation. You may have felt that
mingling with people would bring forgetfulness of a problem,
or new hope, or inspiration. The truth, however, is that even
such a simple matter as saying "yes" or "no" is the product of
elaborate reviewing, reshifting, revaluating of fancied or real,
mental or physical, economic or sociological conditions
around us.
Words have a complex structure. We use them glibly, with-
out realizing that they too are compounds of many elements.
Let us vivisect the word "happiness," for instance. Let us try
to discover what elements go into the making of complete hap-
piness.
Can a person be "happy" i£ he has everything but health?
Obviously not, since we refer to utter happiness, happiness
without reservations. So health must be put down as a neces-
sary element for "happiness."
Can a person be "happy" with nothing but health? Hardly.
One may feel joy, exuberance, freedom, but not happiness.
Remember that we are speaking of happiness in its purest
form. When you exclaim, "Boy, how happy I am!" upon re-
ceiving a long-desired gift, what you are experiencing is not
happiness. It is joy, fulfillment, surprise, but not happiness.
44 CHARACTER
Then we are not daring too much if we say that a man needs,
besides health, a job in which he can make a comfortable
living. We shall take it for granted that the man is not abused
on his job, for that would negate the possibility of his being
happy. The ingredients for happiness, so far, are health and
a satisfactory position.
But can a man be happy who possesses both of these and
no warm, human affection? There need be little argument on
this point. A man needs someone whom he can love and who
loves him in return. So let us add love to the other require-
ments.
Would you be happy if your position, although satisfac-
tory, held no chance for advancement? Would a good job,
health, and love suffice, if the future held for you no hope of
development, of improvement? We don't think so. Perhaps
your position will never change, but you can be happy in the
hope that it will. Let us therefore add hope to our list of in-
gredients.
Our recipe now reads: health, a satisfactory position, love,
and hope equal happiness. Further subdivisions might be
made, but the four main ingredients are enough to prove that
a word is the product of many elements. Of course, the mean-
ing of the word "happiness" will go through innumerable
metamorphoses, according to the place, climate, conditions,
under which it is used.
Protoplasm is one of the simplest of living substances, yet
it contains carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, phos-
phorus, chlorine, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium,
iron. Simple protoplasm, in other words, contains the same
elements as complex man.
We referred to protoplasm as "simple," in comparing it
with man. Yet protoplasm is complex, compared with inan-
imate things. It occupies both a high and a low place on the
scale of complexity. Contradictory? No more so than anything
ENVIRONMENT 45
a boomerang in the end, and may even destroy his own liveli-
hood. With the reduction of purchasing power, which he has
caused, his business may be one of the first to suffer.
Our man will suffer even if he knows what it is all about
and does not cut wages. He will be caught in the reaction to
his fellow employers' wage cutting. Changing conditions will
mold him, whether or not he wants to be molded, and they
will affect his family with him. He can't give tnem as much
money as he did, because the source of easy money has dried
up. This will precipitate some dissension among the members
of the family and may even cause an eventual split.
A war in Europe or China, a strike in San Francisco,
Hitler's attack on the democracies, will affect us as surely as
if we had been at the scene. Every human event comes home,
at long last, to roost. We find to our sorrow, perhaps, that
even seemingly unrelated things are very much related to
each other—and to us.
There is no escape—for our drygoods merchant or any-
one else.
Banks and governments are as subject to change as the rest
of us. We saw this in the 1929 depression. Countless millions
of dollars were lost. After the First World War, government
after government toppled, and new governments or new sys-
tems took their places. Your money, your investments, were
swept away overnight, and your security with them. You, as an
individual, are only as secure as the rest of the world is under
prevailing circumstances.
A character, then, is the sum total of his physical make-up
and the influences his environment exerts upon him. Look
at the flowers. It makes a great difference in their develop-
ment if they receive the morning sun, the midday sun, or the
afternoon sun.
OUT minds, no less than our bodies, respond to external
influences. Early memories are so deep-rooted that we are
often unconscious of them. We can make determined efforts
48 CHARACTER
their budding romance, they may marry and live happily ever
after. But suppose that when this same young couple reaches
the stage of attachment, a malignant gossiper informs the
young man that the lady in question had an affair before she
knew him. If the young man had a bad experience before, he
will shy away from the young woman. From attachment he
will change to coolness, from coolness to malice, from malice
to antipathy. If the girl is defiant and not sorry for the past,
antipathy might ripen into bitterness, and bitterness to detes-
tation. On the other hand, if the mother of the same young
man had an experience like this young lady's, and became a
better wife and mother in consequence, then the young man's
attachment might grow into love much more quickly than
otherwise.
This simple love affair is subject to any number of varia-
tions. Too much or too little money will influence its course.
A steady or insecure job will do the same. Health or sickness
may speed up or slow down love's consummation. The finan-
cial and social status of either family may affect the courtship
for better or worse. Heredity may upset the applecart.
Every human being is in a state of constant fluctuation and
change. Nothing is static in nature, least of all man.
As we pointed out before, a character is the sum total of
his physical make-up and the influences his environment ex-
erts upon him at that particular moment.
Why does the man you befriend turn against you? Why
does son turn against father, daughter against mother?
A boy runs away from home because his mother insists that
he sweep their dingy, two-room apartment. He hates sweep-
ing. But he is quite content with a job as assistant janitor in
a big house—his main function being to sweep the halls and
street. Why?
A twelve-year-old girl marries a fifty-year-old man—and is
sincerely happy. A thief becomes a worthy citizen, a wealthy
gentleman becomes a thief. The daughter of a respectable
and religious family crashes into the underworld and prosti-
tution. Why?
On the surface, these examples are part of a riddle, part
of the so-called "mystery of life." But they can be explained,
dialectically. It is a Herculean task, but not an impossible
one if we remember that without contradiction there would
be no motion and no life. Without contradiction there would
be no universe. Stars, moon, earth would not exist—nor would
we. Hegel said: •
It is only because a thing contains a contradiction within itself
that it moves and acquires impulse and activity. That is the process
of all motion and all development.
Adoratsky, in his Dialectics, writes:
The general laws of dialectics are universal: they are to be found
in the movement and development of the immeasurable, vast,
luminous nebulae from which in the spaces of the universe the
stellar systems are formed . . . in the internal structure of mole-
cules and atoms and in the movement of electrons and protons.
Zeno, in the fifth century B.C., was father of dialectics. Ado-
ratsky quotes Zeno's demonstrations:
An arrow, in the course of its flight, is bound to be at some definite
point of its path and occupy some definite place. If that be so, then
• The Science of Logic.
52 CHARACTER
Skin: Fair.
Posture: Straight.
Appearance: Attractive.
Neat: Yes, very.
Health: She had an appendix operation when she was fifteen.
She is susceptible to colds, and the whole family is mor-
bidly afraid that she will become tubercular. She is seem-
ingly unconcerned, but actually she is convinced that
she will die young, and wishes to enjoy life while she can.
Birthmarks: None.
Abnormalities: None, if we overlook her hypersensitivity.
Heredity: A weak constitution, from her mother.
SOCIOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
Sex life: She had an affair with Jimmy, a club member. Her
fears that some dire fate would overtake her proved
groundless. Now she does not go with him, because he
flatly refused to marry her when she thought herself in
trouble. She was not very much disappointed at his re-
fusal, since her favorite plan is to go to New York and be
a chorus girl. Dancing before an admiring public is the
apex of her dreams.
Morality: "There is nothing wrong with any sexual relation-
ship if you can take care of yourself."
Ambition: Dancing in New York. For over a year she has been
putting aside her pin money. If everything else fails, she
will run away. She's glad Jimmy refused to marry her.
She can't picture herself as a domesticated wife whose
main function is childbearing. She feels that Plainsville
would be a terrible place to die in and is unspeakable for
living purposes. She was born in the town and knows
every stone in it. She feels that even if she fails as a dancer,
just being out of Plainsville will make her happy.
Frustration: She has had no dancing lessons. There is no studio
in town, and to have sent her to another town would have
entailed more expense than her father could meet. She
has worn a tragic halo about her head and let the family
know that she is sacrificing her life for their good.
Temperament: Quick-tempered. The slightest provocation
will send her into a rage. She is vengeful and boasting.
But when her mother was ill, she astounded the town by
her devotion. She insisted on being with her until she had
completely recovered. When Irene was fourteen, her ca-
nary died, and she was inconsolable for weeks.
Attitude: Militant.
Complexes: Superiority complex.
Superstitions: Number thirteen. If something unpleasant hap-
THE DIALECTICAL APPROACH 57
glad to get what Irene got from life. She would never think
of running away; ergo, Irene had to be intolerant. Irene is
shallow. Another girl might be intelligent, studious, under-
standing, sympathetic—she would overlook her mother's ob-
vious shortcomings, would help her, correct her tactfully. She
would not have to run away.
Irene is vain. She receives too much praise, she thinks she
can sing and dance much better than she actually can. She's
not afraid to run away because she believes New York is wait-
ing for her with open arms. Irene must be vain.
Irene is fully developed. She was admired, courted. She had
sexual experience without a dreadful aftermath. Therefore,
it is not unnatural for her to turn to prostitution when no
other course lies open. It was an easier way out of her eco-
nomic difficulties than suicide. Why didn't she go home? Her
boasting in the past, her intolerance toward those at home,
exclude this solution. That is why she must be intolerant and
why she must boast.
But why should she turn to prostitution? Because you are
forced by your premise to find a girl who will turn to prostitu-
tion in lack of other means of support. Irene is such a girl.
Of course, Irene might get a job as a servant or a salesgirl,
hold it for a while, and then lose it because of her inherent
unfitness for such work. It is even up to you, as the playwright,
to make her try every possible means of avoiding prostitution.
But she must fail: not because the dramatist wants her to, but
because her make-up is such that she cannot make good re-
gardless of the opportunities presented. If she does succeed
in avoiding her fate, the dramatist must find another girl
whose qualifications are such that she fulfills the original
premise. Remember that the girl has her own standards, and
you cannot judge her with yours. If she had your searching
mind she would never have found herself in such a predica-
ment. But she is vain, superficial, boastful. She's ashamed to
admit defeat. She comes from a small town, where everyone
CHARACTER GROWTH 59
4. Character Growth
The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that
. it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The
60 CHARACTER
systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human
nature, and not its growth and development.
—OSCAR WILDE, Soul of Man under Socialism
Look at any truly great play, and you will see the same
point illustrated. Moliere's Tartuffe, Shakespeare's Merchant
of Venice, and Hamlet, Euripides' Medea, all build upon the
constant change and development of character under the im-
pact of conflict.
Othello starts with love, ends with jealousy, murder, and
suicide.
The Bear starts with animosity, ends with love.
Hedda Gabler starts with egotism, ends with suicide.
62 CHARACTER
The soil above the seed is hard to push through, but this
very handicap, this resistance to the soil, forces the young
sprout to gather strength for the battle. Where shall it get
this additional strength? Instead of fighting ineffectively
against the topsoil, the seed sends out delicate roots to gather
more nourishment. Thus the sprout at last penetrates the
hard soil and wins through to the sun.
According to science, a single thistle needs ten thousand
inches of root to support a thirty- or forty-inch stem. You can
guess how many thousands of facts a dramatist must unearth
to support a single character.
By way of parable, let a man represent the soil; in his mind
we shall plant a seed of coming conflict: ambition, perhaps.
The seed grows in him, though he may wish to squelch it. But
forces within and without the man exert greater and greater
pressure, until this seed of conflict is strong enough to burst
through his stubborn head. He has made a decision, and now
he will act upon it.
The contradictions within a man and the contradictions
around him create a decision and a conflict. These in turn
force him into a new decision and a new conflict.
Many kinds of pressures are required before a human being
can make a single decision, but the three main groups are
the physiological, the sociological, and the psychological.
From these three forces you can make innumerable combina-
tions.
If you plant an acorn, you reasonably expect an oak sap-
ling, and eventually an oak tree. Human character is the same.
A certain type of character will develop on his own line to
fruition. Only in bad writing does a man change without re-
gard to his characteristics. When we plant an acorn we would
be justified in expecting an oak tree and shocked (at the very
least) if it turned out to be an apple tree.
Every character a dramatist presents must have within it
the seeds of its future development. There must be the seed,
66 CHARACTER
She has been trying to save every penny to pay off her secret
debt—yet still she is generous. Meanwhile she is eating maca-
roons, which she is not supposed to have. They are not good
for her, and she has promised Helmer that she will not eat
sweets. So the first sentence she says shows us that she is not
close with money, and the first thing she does shows her break-
ing a promise. She is childlike.
Helmer enters:
HELMER: Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again?
NORA: Yes, but Torvald, we may be a wee bit more reckless now,
mayn't we?
J
CHARACTER GROWTH 67
today, and you spent it all in the Christmas week, and then on
New Year's Eve a slate fell on my head and killed me, and . . .
The two characters have been sharply drawn. They are fac-
ing each other—clashing already. No blood has been drawn
yet, but it inevitably will come.
(Loving her as he does, Helmer now shifts the responsibility
to her father.)
HELMER: You're an odd little soul. Very like your father. You al-
ways find some new way of wheedling money out of me, and, as
soon as you have got it, it seems to melt in your hands. . . •
Still, one must take you as you are. It is in the blood; for indeed
it is true that you can inherit these things, Nora.
CHARACTER GROWTH 73
^
74 CHARACTER
II
Every good play grows from pole to pole.
Let us examine an old motion picture and see whether or
not this is true.
"Professor Mamlock"
(He will go from Isolation, Pole 1, to Collective Action,
Pole II)
STEP i. Isolation. He was unconcerned under the Nazi
tyranny. He was an outstanding personality; he felt above
politics. He never dreamed that anyone could harm him,
although he saw terror all around.
STEP 2. Nazi power reaches into his own class and tortures
his colleagues. He starts to worry. But he still doesn't be-
lieve that anything can happen to him. He sends away
friends who beg him to escape.
STEP 3. At last, he senses that a tragic fate might smash him,
as it did others. He calls his friends, and rationalizes that
he had been justified in being an isolationist. He still is
not ready to give up the ship.
CHARACTER
LOVE TO HATRED
Before curtain Curtain
1. Possessive love 5. Suspicion
2. Disappointment 6. Testing
3. Doubt 7. Hurt
4. Questioning 8. Realization
9. Bitterness
10. Reevaluation and failure
to adjust
11. Anger
12. Fury (at self)
13. Fury (at object)
14. Hate
LAVINIA: [With cold fury] Don't touch me! Don't you dare! You
liar! You—! [Then, as he starts back in confusion, she seizes this
opportunity to follow Seth's (the servant's) advice—staring at
him with deliberately insulting scorn] But I suppose it would be
foolish to expect anything but cheap romantic lies from the son
of a low Canuck nurse girl.
BRANT: [Stunned] What's that? [Then, rage at the insult to his
mother overcoming all prudence, springs to his feet threaten-
ingly] Belay, damn you!—or I'll forget you're a woman. No
Mannon can insult her while I—
LAVINIA: [Appalled now she knows the truth] So it is true—you are
her sonl Oh!
BRANT: [Fighting to control himself—with harsh defiance] And
what if I am? I'm proud to be! My only shame is my dirty Man-
non blood! So that's why you couldn't stand my touching you
just now, is it? You're too good for the son of a servant, eh? By
God, you were glad enough before—!
These characters are vital, full of fight, and they will easily
carry the play to a crescendo. Brant has been planning his
revenge for a long time, and now, when it is almost within
his grasp, he is thwarted. At this point the conflict ripens
into a crisis. We are really eager to know what he is going to
do when he is unmasked. Unfortunately, O'Neill bungles and
distorts his characters in this play—but more about this in our
analysis of plays.
6. Plot or Character—Which?
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discov-
ered. —EMERSON
Despite the frequent quotations from Aristotle, and the
work done by Freud on one of the three elements of a
human being, character has not been given the penetrat-
PLOT OR CHARACTER—WHICH? 87
ing analysis which scientists give the atom or the cosmic ray.
William Archer, in his Playmaking, a Manual of Crafts-
manship, says:
. . . To reproduce character can neither be acquired nor regu-
lated by theoretical recommendations.
We readily agree that "theoretical recommendations" are
of no use to anyone—but what of concrete recommendation?
While it is true that the seemingly inanimate objects are
easier to examine, the involved, ever-moving character of
man must also be analyzed—and the task is organized, made
simpler, by recommendations.
Specific directions for character-drawing would be like rules for
becoming six feet high. Either you have it in you, or you have it
not,
says Mr. Archer. This is a sweeping, and unscientific, state-
ment. And it has a familiar ring. It is, in essence, the answer
that was given to Leeuwenhoek, inventor of the microscope;
to Galileo, who was almost burned as a heretic when he said
the earth moved. Fulton's steamboat was received with de-
rision. "It won't move!" the crowds shouted, and when it did
move they cried, "It won't stop!"
Yet today cosmic rays are made to photograph and meas-
ure themselves.
"Either you have it in you, or you have it not," says Mr.
Archer, thus admitting that one man has the ability to draw
character, to peneterate the impenetrable, whereas another
has not. But if one man can do it, and if we know how he
did it, can we not learn from him? One man does it by ob-
servation. He is privileged to see things which others pass
by. Is it that these less fortunate men cannot see the obvious?
Perhaps. When we read a bad play carefully, we are struck
by the author's ignorance of his characters; and when we
read a good play carefully, we are struck by the wealth of
information the writer displays. Then why may we not sug-
88 CHARACTER
We can study the form, the outwardness of a play, but the inward-
ness, the soul, eludes our grasp.
Every organic being is at each moment both the same and not the
same; at each moment it is assimilating matter drawn from without
and excreting other matter; every moment the cells of its body are
dying and new ones are being formed; in fact, within a longer or
shorter period the matter of its body is completely removed and is
replaced by other atoms of matter, so that every organic thing is at
all times itself and yet something other than itself.
A character thus has the capacity to completely reverse himself
under internal and external stimulus. Like every other organic
being, he changes continuously.
Action ought to exist for the sake of character: when the relation-
ship is reversed the play may be an ingenious toy, but scarcely a
vital work of art.
. . . . one stroke
Of my good staff sufficed to fling him clean
Out of the chariot seat and laid him prone.
The incident shows that the attack on Laius and his es-
corts was motivated. They were rude, Oedipus was in a bad
mood, and hot-tempered besides, and he acted according to
his character. Apollo is certainly secondary here. Again, you
may say that Oedipus is still carrying out the desire of the
Fates—when he is only proving the premise.
Once in Thebes, Oedipus answers the riddle of the Sphinx,
at which thousands had failed. The Sphinx would ask those
who entered or left the city: what was it which in the morning
walks on four legs, at midday on two, in the evening on three?
Oedipus answered: man, proving himself the wisest among
them. The Sphinx departed in shame, and the Thebans, in
joy at the end of their bondage, elected him their king.
So we know that Oedipus was brave, impulsive, wise—and
by way of further proof, Sophocles tells us that the Thebans
PLOT OR CHARACTER—WHICH? 99
will forge her father's signature. She's elated, once she has
found this only way out. The idea is so perfect that she bub-
bles with joy. She not only has a way of getting the money,
but of concealing from Helmer the manner in which it will
be obtained. She will tell him that her father left it to her,
and he will not be able to refuse it. It will be his.
She goes through with it, receives the money, and is su-
premely happy.
There is one hitch in the scheme. The money-lender knows
the family—he works in the same bank as Helmer. He has
known all along that the signature was forged, but the forgery
is worth more to him than the best guarantee or deposition.
If Nora cannot pay it (live up to it) Helmer will do so a
thousandfold. That's why he is Helmer. With his respecta-
bility at stake, his position to be considered, he would do
anything. The money-lender is safe.
If you read over the character sketches of Nora and Hel-
mer, you will see that their characters made the story possible.
8. Pivotal Character
The pivotal character is the protagonist. According to
Webster's dictionary, the protagonist is—"one who takes the
lead in any movement or cause."
Anyone who opposes the protagonist is an opponent or
antagonist.
You might say: "Suppose Othello had given Iago the office
he so passionately coveted?"
In that case there would not have been a play.
There must always be something a person wants more than
anything else in life if he is to be a good pivotal character;
revenge, honor, ambition, etc.
A good pivotal character must have something very vital
at stake.
Not everyone can be a pivotal character.
A man whose fear is greater than his desire, or a man who
has no great, all-consuming passion, or one who has patience
and does not oppose, cannot be a pivotal character.
By the way, there are two types of patience; positive and
negative.
Hamlet had no patience to endure (negative), but he did
have patience to persevere (positive). Jeeter Lester, in To-
bacco Road, had the kind of patience that made you marvel
at human endurance. The patience of a martyr, despite tor-
ture, is a powerful force that we can use in a play or in any
other type of writing.
There is a positive kind of patience which is relentless,
death defying. Then there is a negative patience which has
no resilience, no inner strength to endure hardship.
A pivotal character is necessarily aggressive, uncompromis-
ing, even ruthless.
Even though Jeeter Lester appears to be a "negative" char-
acter, he is nevertheless as provocative as the "aggressive"
Iago. Both of them are pivotal characters.
We might as well clarify just what we mean when we say
"negative" and "positive" (aggressive) pivotal characters.
Everybody understands what an aggressive character is, but
we must explain the "negative" one. To withstand hunger,
torture, physical and mental suffering for an ideal, whether
real or fancied, is strength in Homeric proportions. This neg-
ative strength is really aggressive in the sense that it provokes
108 CHARACTER
masses who are willing to fight and die for their liberty.
He is not alone. He is not fighting because he wants to
fight. Necessity forces a liberty loving person to try to de-
stroy his oppressor or die, rather than submit to slavery.
If a pivotal character has no inner or outer necessity to
fight, except his own caprice as a motive, there is the danger
that any minute he might stop being a driving force, thus
betraying the premise, and with it, the play.
QUESTION: What about the people who want to write, act, sing,
paint? Would you call this inner urge for self-expression a
caprice?
ANSWER: With ninety-nine per cent of them it might be a ca-
price.
QUESTION: Why ninety-nine per cent?
ANSWER: Because ninety-nine per cent usually give up before
they have a chance to achieve anything. They have no per-
severence, no stamina, no physical or mental strength. Al-
though there are people who have both physical and mental
strength, the inner urge to create is not strong enough.
QUESTION: IS it possible for an element like cold, heat, fire,
water, to be a pivotal character?
ANSWER: NO. These elements were the absolute rulers on
earth when man ambled along from the darkness of his
primitive existence. It was the eternal status quo, a state of
affairs which had existed unquestioned, unchallenged, for
billions of years. The protozoa, pleuroccocus, bacteria,
amoeba, did nothing to counteract the existing order. Man
did. Man started the conflict. Man became the pivotal char-
acter in the drama of existence. He has not only harnessed
the elements but is on the verge of conquering disease with
the new drugs which are constantly being discovered.
Man's aggressiveness against the elements is not depend-
ent upon a whim. It arises out of dire necessity and is im-
plemented by intelligence. This necessity and intelligence
forced him to split the atom and create that frightfully
112 CHARACTER
9. The Antagonist
Anyone who opposes a pivotal character necessarily be-
comes the opponent or antagonist. The antagonist is the one
who holds back the ruthlessly onrushing protagonist. He is
the one against whom the ruthless character exerts all his
strength, all his cunning, all the resources of his inventive
power.
If for any good reason the antagonist cannot put up a pro-
tracted fight, you might as well look for another character
who will.
The antagonist in any play is necessarily as strong and, in
time, as ruthless as the pivotal character. A fight is interesting
only if the fighters are evenly matched. Helmer, in Doll's
House, is the antagonist against Krogstad. The protagonist
and the antagonist must be dangerous foes to each other. Both
of them are ruthless. The mother in The Silver Cord finds a
worthy opponent in the women her sons brought home. Iago,
in Othello, is the ruthless, conniving protagonist. Othello is
the antagonist. Othello's authority and power are so great
that Iago cannot show his hand openly—but he courts great
danger anyway, nay, his very life is in danger. Othello, then,
is a worthy antagonist. The same is the case in Hamlet.
Let me now repeat it again: the antagonist must be as strong
as the protagonist. The wills of conflicting personalities must
clash.
If a big brute manhandles a little fellow, we turn against
him, but this does not mean that we shall wait with bated
breath to see the outcome of this uneven encounter. We know
it beforehand.
A novel, play, or any type of writing, really is a crisis from
beginning to end growing to its necessary conclusion.
114 CHARACTER
10. Orchestration
When you are ready to select characters for your play, be
careful to orchestrate them right. If all the characters are
the same type—for instance, if all of them are bullies—it will
be like an orchestra of nothing but drums.
In King Lear, Cordelia is gentle, loving, faithful; Goneril
and Regan, the older daughters, are cold, heartless, and de-
ceitful plotters. The King himself is rash, headstrong, and
given to unreasoning anger.
Good orchestration is one of the reasons for rising conflict
in any play.
It is possible to choose two liars, two prostitutes, two thieves,
for one play, but necessarily they will be different in temper,
philosophy, and speech. One thief might be considerate, the
other ruthless; one could be a coward, the other fearless; one
might respect womanhood, the other might despise women.
If both have the same temperament, the same outlook on life,
there will be no conflict—and no play.
When Ibsen selected Nora and Helmer for A Doll's House,
it was inevitable that he should choose a married couple, since
the premise dealt with married life. This phase of selection is
obvious to everyone.
The difficulty starts when the dramatist chooses people
of the same type and tries to generate conflict between
them.
ORCHESTRATION 115
We are thinking of Maltz' Black Pit, in which Joe and Iola are
very much alike. They are both loving and considerate. They
have the same ideals and desires and fears. No wonder, then,
that Joe makes his fatal decision almost without conflict.
Nora and Helmer love each other, too. But Helmer is dom-
ineering where Nora is obedient, scrupulously accurate and
truthful where Nora lies and cheats as a child would. Helmer
is responsible for everything he does; Nora is careless. Nora
is everything Helmer is not; they are perfectly orchestrated.
Suppose that Helmer had been married to Mrs. Linde. She
is mentally mature, aware of Helmer's world and standards.
She and Helmer might have quarreled, but they would never
have created the great conflict which comes of the contrast
between Nora and Helmer. A woman like Mrs. Linde would
scarcely have committed the forgery, but if she had done so,
she would have been aware of the seriousness of her deed.
Just as Mrs. Linde is different from Nora, Krogstad is differ-
ent from Helmer. And Dr. Rank is different from all of them.
Together, these contrasting characters are instruments which
work together to give a well-orchestrated composition.
Orchestration demands well-defined and uncompromising
characters in opposition, moving from one pole toward an-
other through conflict. When we say "uncompromising," we
think of Hamlet, who goes after his objective—to ferret out
his father's murderer—as a bloodhound follows his quarry.
We think of Helmer, whose rigid principle of civic pride
causes the drama. We think of Orgon, in Tartuffe, who in his
religious fanaticism deeds his fortune to a villain and willingly
exposes his young wife to his advances.
Whenever you see a play, try to find out how the forces are
lined up. The forces may be groups, as well as individuals;
Fascism vs. democracy, freedom vs. slavery, religion vs. athe-
ism. Not all religious persons who fight atheism are the same.
The divergencies between their characters can be as wide as
between heaven and purgatory.
116 CHARACTER
unreliable
untrustworthy
a liar
a thief
a racketeer
a rapist
a killer?
We have to know exactly in what category every character
belongs. As the author, you have to know every character's
exact status, because you will orchestrate him with his qp-
posites. Different orchestration is necessary for different move-
ments. But there must be orchestration—well-defined, strong,
uncompromising characters in conflict commensurate to the
movement of the play.
If, for instance, the movement was
from
indifference
to
boredom
to
impatience
to
irritation
to
annoyance
to
anger
your characters could not be black and white. They would
be light gray against dark gray, perhaps—but they would be
orchestrated.
If your characters are correctly orchestrated, as are those
in A Doll's House or Tartuffe or Hamlet, their speech will
necessarily be contrasted also. For instance, if one of your
characters is virginal and the other a rake, their dialogue will
Il8 CHARACTER
Like the germ and the corpuscle, the unity could be broken
and the play ended only by the "death" of some dominant
quality in one of the characters—Nora's docility, in the play.
Naturally, death in the theater need not apply to the death of
a human being. The severing of the unity between Nora and
Helmer was a very painful thing, not at all easy. The closer
the unity, the more difficult the breaking. And this unity, de-
spite the qualitative change that has taken place in it, still af-
fects the characters it has bound. In Idiot's Delight, the char-
acters had nothing to bind them to each other. If one person
was disagreeable he could leave.
In Journey's End, on the other hand, the ironclad unity of
the soldiers was established beyond doubt. We were convinced
that they had to stay in the trenches, perhaps die there, al-
though they wished to be thousands of miles away. Some
drank to keep up the courage that would enable them to do
what was expected of them. Let us analyze their situation.
These men lived in a society in which certain contradictions
culminated in war. The men did not wish to fight, having no
interests to safeguard, but they were sent to kill because they
were subject to the desires of those who decided to solve their
economic problem with war. Moreover, these young men had
been taught since childhood that to die for one's country is
heroic. They are torn between conflicting emotions: to escape
and live will mean being stamped as a coward and despised;
to stay will mean distinction—and death. Between these de-
sires lies drama. The play is a good example of the unity of
opposites.
In nature nothing is ever "destroyed" or "dead." It is trans-
formed into another shape, substance, or element. Nora's love
for Helmer was transformed into liberation and thirst for
more knowledge. His smugness was transformed into a search
for the truth about himself and his relation to society. A lost
equilibrium tries to find a new equilibrium for itself.
Take the case of Jack the Ripper. This man, who killed so
UNITY OF OPPOSITES 121
your wife. You try to chase the darned animal away, but the
dog refuses to be chased. He escorts you to the subway again,
but now you are sure that you will stumble into him when
you come back in the evening.
All day long you think of the dog and your wife. He is
frozen to death by now, you think. You decide you have to
do something about it, and can hardly wait to go home.
When you arrive home, there is no dog, and instead of go-
ing home, you start to look for him. But there is no sign of
the animal. You are terribly disappointed. You wanted to
bring him up again into your house and defy your wife. If
she wants to leave you on account of the dog, let her—she
never loved you, anyway.
You go up, bitterness in your heart, and you are confronted
with the strangest spectacle you ever saw. You see the little
stray dog sitting on your best armchair, washed, combed; and
before him kneels your wife, talking baby talk to him.
The dog is the pivotal character in this case. His determina-
tion changed two human beings. One equilibrium was lost,
but another was found. Even if your wife would not have
taken the dog in, the old relationship would have been broken
just the same.
The real unity of opposites can be broken only if a trait
or dominant quality in one or more characters is fundamen-
tally changed. In a real unity of opposites, compromise is im-
possible.
After you have found your premise, you had better find
out immediately—testing if necessary—whether the char-
acters have the unity of opposites between them. If they do
not have this strong, unbreakable bond between them, your
conflict will never rise to a climax.
Ill
CONFLICT
1. Origin of Action
T H E blowing of the wind is action, even if it is only a breeze.
And rain is action, even to its name. The verb and the noun
are one.
Our ancestor, the cave man, killed that he might eat—
that was certainly action.
The walking of a man is action, the flight of a bird, the
burning of a house, the reading of a book. Every manifesta-
tion of life is "action."
Can we, then, treat action as an independent phenomenon?
Let's look at wind. What we call wind is the mass contrac-
tion and expansion of the invisible ocean of air which sur-
rounds us. Cold and heat create this movement called "wind."
It is the result of varied contributing factors which make ac-
tion possible. Wind, inactive, alone, is impossible.
Rain is the product of the sun and other factors. Without
them there would be no rain.
The cave man killed. Killing is an action, but behind it
there is a man who lives under conditions which force him to
kill: for food, self-defense, or glory. Killing, although an
"action," is only the result of important factors.
There is no action under the sun which is the origin and
the result in one. Everything results from something else;
action cannot come of itself.
Let us look further for the origin of action.
126 CONFLICT
J
CAUSE AND EFFECT 129
such an extent that this system is not able to function and the
organism does not survive. Moreover, numerous cases of inter-
action between genes are on record where a change in one gene
affects the functioning of another seemingly unrelated gene. Con-
sidering all the evidence, it seems apparent that the activity of a
gene is determined by three internal factors: (1) the chemical con-
stitution of the gene itself, (2) the genetic constitution of the gene
system in which it acts, and (3) by the position of the gene in the
gene system. These three internal factors, together with the exter-
nal factors forming the environment, determine the phenotype (to-
tality of inheritable characteristics) of the organism.
A gene, therefore, should be considered as a unit part of a well-
organized system and a chromosome a higher step in that organiza-
tion. In that sense genes as individual units with fixed properties
do not exist, but their existence as component units of a larger
system, with properties partially determined by that system, cannot
be denied.
Just as a gene is a unit, but part of a well-organized society
of genes, a human being is a unit, part of a well-organized
society of human beings. Whatever change comes over the
society will affect him; whatever happens to him will affect
the society.
You can find conflict all around you. Watch the members
of your family, your friends, your relatives, your acquaint-
ances, your business associates, and see if you can discover
one of the following traits: affection, abusiveness, arrogance,
avarice, accuracy, awkwardness, brazenness, bragging, crafti-
ness, confusion, cunning, conceit, contemptuousness, clever-
ness, clumsiness, curiosity, cowardice, cruelty, dignity, dis-
honesty, dissipation, envy, eagerness, egotism, extravagance,
fickleness, fidelity, frugality, gaiety, garrulity, gallantry, gen-
erosity, honesty, hesitance, hysteria, heedlessness, ill-temper,
idealism, impulsiveness, indolence, impotence, impudence,
kindness, loyalty, lucidity, morbidity, maliciousness, mys-
ticism, modesty, obstinacy, prudishness, placidity, patience,
CAUSE AND EFFECT 131
LARRY: I always swore I'd marry a lady. I ain't got no kick comin'.
LARRY: . . . and I owe it all to you. I never had any ambition until
I married you.
AGNES [a neighbor]: Lee [her husband] says you've got the case on
the Jackson children all ready for the Superintendent of Educa-
tion. I've had a lot to do with that, you know. If I hadn't kept
after him he never would have stirred himself. I say, if he ex-
pects me to give him children, he's got to see that they can go to
school without havin' to sit by people we all know's got nigger
blood.
LARRY [in a tired voice]: Yes, Agnes, we know you had a lot to do
with it.
This dialogue indicates the town's anti-Negro sentiment
which forces Larry to take an anti-Negro stand, too. It also
shows that he is the leader, and we know he wishes to remain
the leader for the love of Ruth. So he runs and barks with the
pack, aggravating, building, strengthening the coming con-
flict which will crush him.
So it seems that conflict does spring from character after
all, and that if we wish to know the structure of conflict, we
must first know character. But since character is influenced
by environment, we must know that, too. It might seem that
conflict springs spontaneously from one single cause, but this
is not true. A complexity of many reasons makes one soliury
conflict.
5. Static
Characters who cannot make a decision in a play are re-
sponsible for static conflict—or, rather, let us blame the dram-
atist who chooses the characters. You cannot expect a rising
conflict from a man who wants nothing or does not know what
he wants.
Static means not moving, not exerting force of any kind.
Since we intend to go into a detailed analysis of what makes
dramatic action static, we must point out right here that even
the most static conflict has movement of some kind. Nothing
in nature is absolutely static. An inanimate object is full of
STATIC 137
If there are eight steps between these two poles, then they
started at the first, stayed on it for two and one-half acts, leaped
over the intervening second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth
steps as if they had never existed, and started to move again
from the seventh to the eighth step during the last part of the
play.
Characters wander in and out with no particular motiva-
tion. They enter, introduce themselves, and leave because
the author wishes to introduce someone else. They re-enter
for some artificial reason, tell what they think and how they
feel, and wander out again so that the next batch may come
on.
One thing on which we hope our critics will agree with
us is that a play should have conflict. Idiot's Delight has it
only in rare spots. Characters, instead of engaging in conflict,
tell us about themselves, which is contrary to all standards
of drama. What a pity that Harry, jovial and good-natured,
and Irene, with a colorful background, were not used more
advantageously. Here are a few, typical excerpts:
We are in the cocktail lounge of the Hotel Monte Gabriele.
A war is expected at any moment. The borders have been
closed, and the guests cannot leave. We turn to page six and
read:
DON: It's lovely there, too.
CHERRY: But I hear it has become too crowded there now. I—my
wife and I hoped it would be quieter here.
DON: Well, at the moment—it is rather quiet here. [No conflict.]
Now we turn to page thirty-two. People are still wander-
ing in and out, aimlessly. Quillery enters, sits down. Five of-
ficers come in and talk in Italian. Harry comes in and talks
to the Doctor about nothing in particular. The Doctor leaves,
and Harry talks to Quillery. After a moment or so the latter,
without apparent cause, addresses Harry as "Comrade." The
author says, when Quillery comes in, "an extreme radical-
STATIC 141
will come again the light of truth! [He turns to Shirley.] Come
on, honey—let's dance. [They dance.]
Curtain
We rub our eyes, but this remains the end of the first act.
Should any young playwright dare to submit a play such as
this to any manager, he would risk being thrown out on his
ear. The audience must share Harry's optimism if it is to
overcome such a dose of hopelessness.
Sherwood must have seen or read Journey's End, in which
soldiers in the front-line trenches go to pieces in the nerve-
racking wait before they go over the top. The people in
Idiot's Delight are also waiting for war, but there is a dif-
ference. In Journey's End we have characters, flesh-and-blood
people, whom we know. They are striving to keep up their
courage. We feel, we know, the "Big Push" may come any
minute, and they have no choice but to face it and die. In
Idiot's Delight the characters are not in immediate danger.
There is no doubt that Sherwood had the best of intentions
when he wrote the play, but good intentions are not enough.
The greatest dramatic moment of Idiot's Delight is in the
second act. It is worth while to glance at it. Quillery heard
from a mechanic, who may have been wrong, that the Italians
have bombarded Paris. He goes berserk. He shouts.
QUILLERY: England and France are fighting for the hopes of man-
kind!
HARRY: A minute ago, England was a butcher in a dress suit. Now
we're allies!
QUILLERY: We stand together. We stand together, forever! [Turns
to officers.]
QUILLERY: I say God damn you. God damn the villains that sent
you on this errand of death.
CAPTAIN: If you don't close your mouth, Frenchman, we shall be
forced to arrest you.
HARRY: It's all right, Captain. Mr. Quillery is for peace. He's going
back to France to stop the war.
JILLERY [to Harry]: You're not authorized to speak for me. I'm
competent to say what I feel, and what I say is "Down with
Fascism! Abaso Fascismo!"
^
146 CONFLICT
4. Jumping
One of the chief dangers in any jumping conflict is that
the author believes the conflict is rising smoothly. He resents
any critic who insists that the conflict jumps. What are the
danger signals which an author can look for? How can he tell
when he is going in the wrong direction? Here are a few
pointers:
No honest man will become a thief overnight; no thief will
become honest in the same period of time. No sane woman
will leave her husband on the spur of the moment, without
previous motivation. No burglar contemplates a robbery and
carries it out at the same time. No violent physical act was
ever carried out without mental preparation. No shipwreck
has ever occurred without a sound reason. Some essential part
of the ship may be missing; the captain may be overworked
or inexperienced or ill. Even when a ship collides with an
iceberg, human negligence is involved. Read Good Hope by
Heijermans, and see how a ship thus goes under and human
tragedy reaches a new height.
If you want to avoid jumping or static conflicts, you might
JUMPING 147
NORA: As I am now, I am no wife for you. [She takes cloak and hat
and a small bag.]
HELMER: Nora, not nowl Wait till tomorrow.
NORA [putting on her cloak]: I cannot spend the night in a strange
man's room.
HELMER: All overt All over! Nora, shall you never think of me
again?
NORA: I know I shall often think of you and the children and this
house. Good-by. [She goes out through the hall.]
HELMER [sinks down on a chair at the door and buries his face in
his hands]: Noral Norat [looks round and rises] Empty. She's
gone. [The sound of a door shutting is heard from below.]
The End
whelm me. / have forgiven you, Nora; I swear to you that I have
forgiven you.
NORA: Thank you for your forgiveness. [She goes out through the
door to the right.]
HELMER: NO, don't go— [Looks in.] What are you doing in there?
NORA: [from within] Taking off my fancy dress.
HELMER: [standing at the open door] Yes, do. Try and calm your-
self, and make your mind easy again, my frightened little singing
bird. Be at rest, and feel secure; I have broad wings to shelter
you under. [Walks up and down by the door.] How warm and
cozy our home is, Nora. Here is the shelter for you; here I will
protect you like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk's
daws; I will bring peace to your poor beating heart. It will come,
little by little, Nora, believe me. Tomorrow morning you will
look upon it all quite differently; soon everything will be just
as it was before. Very soon you won't need me to assure you that
I have forgiven you; you will yourself feel the certainty that I
have done so. Can you suppose I should ever think of such a
thing as repudiating you, or even reproaching you? You have no
idea what a true man's heart is like, Nora. There is something
so indescribably sweet and satisfying, to a man, in the knowledge
that he has forgiven his wife—forgiven her freely, and with all
his heart. It seems as if that had made her, as it were, doubly his
own; he has given her a new life, so to speak; and she has, in a
way, become both wife and child to him. So you shall be for me
after this, my little scared, helpless darling. Have no anxiety
about anything, Nora; only be frank and open with me, and I
will serve as will and conscience both to you— What is this? Not
gone to bed? Have you changed your things?
NORA: [in everyday dress] Yes, Torvald, / have changed my things
now.
HELMER: But what for?—so late as this.
NORA: I shall not sleep tonight.
HELMER: But, my dear Nora—
NORA: [looking at her watch] It is not so very late. Sit down here,
Torvald. You and I have much to say to one another. [She sits
down at one side of the table.]
HELMER: Nora—what is this—this cold, set face?
JUMPING 155
NORA: Sit down. It will take some time; I have a lot to talk over with
you.
HELMER: [sits down at the opposite side of the table.] You alarm
me, Nora!—and I don't understand you.
NORA: NO, that is just it. You don't understand me, and I have
never understood you either—before tonight. No, you mustn't
interrupt me. You must simply listen to what I say. Torvald, this
is a settling of accounts.
HELMER: What do you mean by that?
NORA: [after a short silence] Isn't there one thing that strikes you
as strange in our sitting here like this?
HELMER: What is that?
NORA: We have been married now eight years. Does it not occur
to you that this is the first time we two, you and I, husband and
wife, have had a serious conversation?
HELMER: What do you mean by serious?
NORA: In all these eight years—longer than that—from the very
beginning of our acquaintance, we have never exchanged a word
on any serious subject.
HELMER: Was it likely that I would be continually and forever
telling you about worries that you could not help me to bear?
NORA: I am not speaking about business matters. I say that we have
never sat down in earnest together to try and get at the bottom
of anything.
HELMER: But, dearest Nora, would it have been any good to you?
NORA: That is just it; you have never understood me. I have been
greatly wronged, Torvald—first by Papa and then by you.
HELMER: What! by us two—by us two, who have loved you better
than anyone else in the world?
NORA: [shaking her head] You have never loved me. You have only
thought it pleasant to be in love with me.
HELMER: Nora, what do I hear you saying?
NORA: It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with Papa,
he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same
opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, be-
cause he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child,
and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And
when I came to live with you—
156 CONFLICT
HELMER: Can you not understand your place in your own home?
Have you not a reliable guide in such matters as that—have you
no religion?
NORA: I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is.
HELMER: What are you saying?
NORA: I know nothing but what the clergyman said, when I went
to be confirmed. He told me that religion was this, and that, and
the other. When I am away from all this, and am alone, I will
look into that matter too. I will see if what the clergyman said
is true, or, at all events, if it is true for me.
HELMER: This is unheard of in a girl of your agel But if religion
cannot lead you aright, let me try and waken your conscience.
I suppose you have some moral sense? Or—answer me—am I to
think you have none?
NORA: I assure you, Torvald, that is not an easy question to answer.
I really don't know. The thing perplexes me altogether. I only
know that you and I look at it in quite a different light. I am
learning, too, that the law is quite another thing from what I sup-
posed; but I find it impossible to convince myself that the law is
right. According to it a woman has no right to spare her old dy-
ing father, or to save her husband's life. I can't believe that.
HELMER: YOU talk like a child. You don't understand the conditions
of the world in which you live.
NORA: N O , I don't. But now I am going to try. I am going to see
if I can make out who is right, the world or I.
HELMER: YOU are ill, Nora; you are delirious; I almost think you
are out of your mind.
NORA: I have never felt my mind so clear and certain as tonight.
HELMER: And is it with a clear and certain mind that you forsake
your husband and your children?
NORA: Yes, it is.
HELMER: Then there is only one possible explanation.
NORA: What is that?
HELMER: YOU do not love me any more.
NORA: NO, that is just it.
HELMER: Nora!—and you can say that?
NORA: It gives me great pain, Torvald, for you have always been
so kind to me, but I cannot help it. I do not love you any more.
JUMPING 159
HELMER: [regaining his composure] Is that a clear and certain con-
viction too?
NORA: Yes, absolutely clear and certain. That is the reason why I
will not stay here any longer.
HELMER: And can you tell me what I have done to forfeit your love?
NORA: Yes, indeed I can. It was tonight, when the wonderful thing
did not happen; then I saw you were not the man I had thought
you.
HELMER: Explain yourself better—I don't understand you.
NORA: I have waited so patiently for eight years; for goodness
knows, I knew very well that wonderful things don't happen
every day. Then this horrible misfortune came upon me; and
then I felt quite certain that the wonderful thing was going to
happen at last. When Krogstad's letter was lying out there, never
for a moment did I imagine that you would consent to accept
this man's conditions. I was so absolutely certain that you would
say to him: publish the thing to the whole world. And when that
was done—
HELMER: Yes, what then—when I had exposed my wife to shame
and disgrace?
NORA: When that was done, I was so absolutely certain, you would
come forward and take everything upon yourself, and say: I am
the guilty one.
HELMER: Nora—!
NORA: YOU mean that I would never have accepted such a sacrifice
on your part? No, of course not. But what would my assurances
have been worth against yours? That is the wonderful thing
which I hoped for and feared; and it was to prevent that that I
wanted to kill myself.
HELMER: I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora—bear
sorrow and want for your sake. But no one would sacrifice his
honor for the one he loves.
NORA: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.
HELMER: Oh, you think and talk like a heedless child.
NORA: Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could
bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over—and it was not
fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you
—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned
160 CONFLICT
5. Rising
embroidered these for me. Oh, you can't think of how many
associations cling to them.
HEDDA: [at the table] Scarcely for me.
MISS T.: Of course not for Hedda, George.
TESMAN: Well, but now that she belongs to the family, I thought—
HEDDA: [interrupting] We shall never get on with this servant, Tes-
man. [The servant has practically mothered Tesman.]
MISS T.: Not get on with Bertha?
TESMAN: Why, dear, what puts that in your head, eh?
HEDDA: [pointing] Look there! She has left her bonnet lying about
on a chair.
TESMAN: [In consternation, drops the slippers on the floor.] Why,
Hedda—
HEDDA: Just fancy, if anyone should come in and see it.
TESMAN: But Hedda—that's Aunt Julia's bonnetl
HEDDA: IS it!
MISS T.: [taking up the bonnet] Yes, indeed it's mine. And, what's
more, it's not old, Madame Hedda.
HEDDA: I really did not look closely at it, Miss Tesman.
MISS T.: [tying on the bonnet] Let me tell you, it's the first time I
have worn it—the very first time.
TESMAN: And a very nice bonnet it is too—quite a beauty.
MISS T.: Oh, it's no such great thing, George. [Looks around her.]
My parasol—? Oh, here. [Takes it.] For this is mine, too—[mut-
ters]—not Bertha's.
TESMAN: A new bonnet and new parasol! Only think, Hedda!
HEDDA: Very handsome indeed.
TESMAN: Yes, isn't it, eh? But, Aunty, take a good look at Hedda
before you go. See how handsome she is!
MISS T.: Oh, my dear boy, there's nothing new in that. Hedda was
always lovely. [She moves away.]
TESMAN: [following] Yes, but have you noticed what splendid con-
dition she is in? How she has filled out on the journey?
HEDDA: [crossing room] Oh, do be quiet!
author needs two and one-half acts to bring his two main
characters together to defy a hostile world in the closing
scene of the play.
Why does the conflict rise in Hedda Gabler? First of all,
there is unity of opposites; then the characters are well-
rounded persons with strong convictions. Hedda despises
Tesman and everything he stands for. She is unrelenting.
She married him for convenience and uses him to attain a
higher place in society. Can she corrupt him—the soul of
purity and scrupulous honesty?
No playwright can line up such people—all of them so
utterly different—without a well-defined premise.
Tension can be achieved through uncompromising char-
acters in a death struggle. The premise should show the goal,
and the characters should be driven to this goal, as Fate did
in the Greek drama.
In Tartuffe, the rising conflict is attributable to Orgon,
the pivotal character, who forces the conflict. He is uncom-
promising. To start with, he declares:
He [Tartuffe] detached my soul from these and taught me to set
my heart on nothing that is here below. And now, were I to see my
mother, wife, or children die, I should do so without so much as a
pang.
Any man who can make such statements will create con-
flict—and he does.
As Helmer's belief in scrupulous honesty and civic pride
precipitated his drama, Orgon's rabid intolerance brought
on himself all the mishaps that befell him. We want to em-
phasize the "rabid intolerance." Iago in Othello is relentless.
Hamlet's bulldog tenacity drives him on to the bitter end.
Oedipus' deep-rooted desire to find the murderer of the king
brought tragedy upon himself. Such iron-willed characters,
driven by a well-understood and clearly defined premise, can-
not help but lift the play to the highest pitch.
RISING 105
6. Movement
It is simple enough to recognize a storm as a conflict, yet
what we experience and call "storm," or "tornado," is ac-
tually a climax, the result of hundreds and thousands of small
conflicts, each bigger and more dangerous than the last, until
they arrive at the crisis—the lull before the storm. In that
last moment the decision is made, and the storm either moves
on or breaks in all its fury.
When we think of any manifestation of nature, we are
likely to think of it as having only one possible cause. We
say that a storm starts in such and such a way, forgetting
that each storm has a different background, although the re-
sults are essentially the same, just as each death arises from
different conditions, although, in essence, death is death.
Every conflict consists of attack and counterattack, yet every
conflict differs from every other conflict. There are small,
almost inperceptible movements in every conflict—transi-
tions—which determine the type of rising conflict you will
employ. These transitions, in their turn, are determined by
the individual characters. If a character is a slow thinker, or
sluggish, his transition will affect the conflict by its resultant
sluggishness; and since no two individuals ever think exactly
alike, no two transitions, and no two conflicts, will ever be
identical.
Let us watch Nora and Helmer for a while. Let us see the
motivation that they themselves do not know. Why does Nora
assent when that clinches Helmer's argument against her?
What goes into a simple sentence?
172 CONFLICT
7. Foreshadowing Conflict
If you feel that you must read your script to a relative or
friend, do so. But don't ask him to comment on it. He may
know infinitely less than you do and is likely to do more harm
than good. He does not have the qualifications needed to give
expert advice, and you will be forcing him into an unfortunate
and painful position.
If you must read your work to someone, ask that person
to tell you the moment he begins to feel tired or bored. It
denotes lack of conflict; lack of conflict is a dead give-away
that your characters are badly orchestrated. They are not
militant; they do not have unity of opposites, and there is
no uncompromising pivotal character in your composition.
If all these are missing, then you have no unified work,—just
an accumulation of words.
You may argue that your audience is not on the high in-
tellectual level that your writing demands for intelligent ap-
preciation. What then? Will the above statement still stand?
Yes, it still stands because the more intelligent the person
the quicker he will be bored, if he can't detect a foreshadow-
ing conflict from the very beginning.
Conflict is the heartbeat of all writing. No conflict ever
existed without first foreshadowing itself. Conflict is that
titanic atomic energy whereby one explosion creates a chain
of explosions.
J
FORESHADOWING CONFLICT 179
the ring, the expectation runs high. The same thing goes for
the stage.
This is true, you admit, but how can you line up strong
uncompromising characters on the stage, foreshadowing con-
flict at the very beginning of a play or story?
We think this is the easiest job a writer has to face. Take
Helmer in A Doll's House, for instance. His uncompromising
attitude toward the slightest delinquency foreshadows trou-
ble with the certainty of death. What will he do when he
discovers that Nora forged a signature on his behalf? Will
he relent? We don't know. One thing is certain; there will
be trouble. Any uncompromising character could create the
same expectancy.
The six dead soldiers in Bury the Dead protest against in-
justice. .Their very act foreshadows conflict. (They are un-
compromising.)
Foreshadowing conflict is really tension in theatrical par-
lance.
The public generally calls psychology "common sense,"
or "horse sense." Any author who underestimates the "horse
sense" of his audience, will face a rude awakening.
A man who never heard of Freud will pass judgment on
your play while sitting alongside of a trained critic. If your
play lacks conflict no subterfuge or slick dialogue will in-
fluence this primitive member of your audience. He knows
the play is bad. How? He was bored. His horse sense, his in-
born quality to differentiate between good and bad, told him
so. He fell asleep, didn't he? This is a sure sign the play is
bad as far as he is concerned. To us his reaction means the
play lacked conflict, or even the foreshadowing of conflict.
People distrust strangers. Only in conflict can you "prove"
yourself. In conflict your true self is revealed. On the stage,
as well as in life, every one is a stranger who does not first
"prove" himself. A person who stands by you in adversity
is a proven person. No, you cannot fool the audience. Even
FORESHADOWING CONFLICT »8l
8. Point of Attack
When should the curtain rise? What is point of attack?
When the curtain goes up, the audience wishes to know as
soon as possible who these people on the stage are, what they
want, why they are there. What is the relationship between
them? But the characters in some plays prattle a long time be-
fore we are given a chance to know who they are and what they
want.
In George and Margaret, a mediocre play of the '30's, the
author spends 40 pages introducing us to the family. Then we
have a hint on page 46 that one of the sons was seen going
into the maid's room. The subject is then dropped. The
family life moves in a well-oiled groove. Everyone is a little
touched in the head. No one gives a hoot about anybody else,
and on page 82, at last, we find out definitely that one of the
sons was in the maid's room. Nothing serious, you know—
just a casual affair.
Although the characters are well drawn—like good char-
coal drawings—we wondered why they were on the stage.
What did they hope to accomplish? The play is a slightly
exaggerated but meticulously drawn portrait of the family
in repose. The author knows how to draw, but lacks even an
elementary knowledge of composition.
It is pointless to write about a person who doesn't know
what he wants, or wants something only halfheartedly. Even
if a person knows what he wants, but has no internal and
POINT OF ATTACK 183
ANSWER: Right.
QUESTION: The point of attack must be a point of decision
or preparation for a decision.
ANSWER: Yes.
QUESTION: Good orchestration and unity of opposites ensure
conflict; the point of attack starts conflict. Right?
ANSWER: Yes, go on.
QUESTION: DO you think conflict is the most vital part of a
play?
ANSWER: We think that no character can reveal himself with-
out conflict—and no conflict matters without character.
There is conflict simply in the choice of characters in
Othello. A Moor wishes to wed the daughter of a patrician
senator. Yet it would be pointless for Shakespeare to begin
with an account of identities, as Sherwood does in Idiot's
Delight, for instance. We shall learn who Othello and
Desdemona are from their courtship. Their dialogue will
tell us their backgrounds and their characters. So Shake-
speare begins with Iago, from whose character conflict
stems. In one brief scene we learn that he hates Othello,
we learn what Othello's position is and that Othello and
Desdemona have eloped. We begin, in other words, with
the knowledge of the great love between Othello and
Desdemona, with an inkling of the obstacles that love has
faced, and with a realization of Iago's intention to tear
down Othello's happiness and position. If a man contem-
plates murder, he is not particularly interesting. But if he
plots with others or alone, and decides to commit the mur-
der, the play is started. If a man tells a woman he loves her,
they can continue in that vein for hours and days. But if
he says "Let's elope," it may be the beginning of a play.
The one sentence suggests many things. Why should they
elope? If she answers, "But what about your wife?" we
have the key to the situation. If the man has the strength
POINT OF ATTACK 187
A play should start with the first line uttered. The char-
acters involved will expose their natures in the course of
conflict. It is bad playwriting first to marshal your evidences,
drawing in the background, creating an atmosphere, before
you begin the conflict. Whatever your premise, whatever
the make-up of your characters, the first line spoken should
start the conflict and the inevitable drive toward the prov-
ing of the premise.
home, with the boy waiting for the father? The boy is
desperate, and reminds the girl what he swore to before
the curtain went up.
QUESTION: What did he swear to?
ANSWER: That he would kill himself if her father disapproved
of him, and his death would be on her conscience.
QUESTION: And then what?
ANSWER: YOU can follow your synopsis. The father is a famous
wit and very shrewd. He puts the boy through the third
degree. We know now the boy is so desperate that he is
ready to throw away his life if he fails. His very life is at
stake, and certainly this will be a turning point in his life.
Everything the father or the boy say becomes important.
After all, the boy will fight for his life and might do the
unexpected. His shyness might vanish in the face of danger,
and he might attack and confound the father. The girl is
impressed and defies her father.
QUESTION: But can't he do this without threatening to kill
himself?
ANSWER: Yes, but if I remember correctly, you were complain-
ing before that your play had no tension.
QUESTION: True.
ANSWER: It had no tension because there was nothing im-
portant at stake. The point of attack was wrong. There
are thousands of youngsters in the same predicament. Some
of them forget their infatuation after a while and others
seemingly consent to the wishes of their elders while see-
ing each other on the sly. In either case no serious thing
is at stake. They are not ready to have a play written about
them. Your lovers, on the other hand, are deadly serious.
The boy, at least, has reached a turning point in his life.
He puts everything on one card. He is worth while writing
about.
Even if your premise is good, the characters well or-
chestrated, without the right point of attack, the play will
190 CONFLICT
death, went to the home o£ the Capulets and saw Juliet, the
play really began.
Ghosts did not start when Mrs. Alving left her husband
and went to Manders, offering herself to him and imploring
help; nor when Regina's mother became pregnant through
Captain Alving. The play did not start when Captain Alving
died. It really started when Oswald came home, broken in
body and spirit, and the ghost of his father started to haunt
them again.
An author must find a character who wants something so
desperately that he can't wait any longer. His needs are im-
mediate.
Why? You have your story or play the moment you can
answer authoritatively why this man must do something so
urgently and immediately. Whatever it is, the motivation
must have grown out of what happened before the story
started. In fact, your story is possible only because it grew out
of the very thing that happened before.
It is imperative that your story starts in the middle, and
not under any circumstances, at the beginning.
192 CONFLICT
9. Transition
Two or three billion years ago, the earth was a ball of fire,
revolving around its own axis. It took millions of years to
cool under the constant downpour of rain. The process was
slow, imperceptible, but the gradual change—transition—
came to pass, the crust of the earth hardened; great cata-
clysms pushed up hills, created valleys and ravines through
which rivers could flow. Then came the unicellular forms
of life, and the globe began to swarm with living things.
Near the botton of the scale of life are the plants called
thallogens, which lack proper stems and leaves. After these
come the acrogens, or flowerless plants, such as the ferns which
possess stems and leaves. Farther up are the flowering plants,
then the polycotyledonous trees, and then what are known
as our "forest trees" and fruit-bearing trees.
Nature never jumps. She works in a leisurely manner, ex-
perimenting continuously. The same natural transition can
be seen in mammals.
The gap between terrestrial and aquatic mammals is bridged by
the muskrat, beavers, otters and seals, which are more or less
equally at home on land and in water,
says Woodruff in Animal Biology.
There are connecting links between the fish and the mam-
mal; between the bird and the mammal; between the cave
man and man today. The gradual change, transition, works
everywhere, silently building storms and destroying solar sys-
tems. It helps the human embryo to become an infant, an
adolescent, a young man, a middle-aged man, an old man.
TRANSITION 193
friendship—disappointment
disappointment—annoyance
annoyance—irritation
irritation—anger
anger—assault
assault—threat (to greater harm)
threat—premeditation
premeditation—murder.
Between "friendship" and "disappointment," for instance,
as between the others, there are still other smaller poles with
their own transitions.
If your play will go from love to hate, you have to find all
the steps leading up to hate.
If you try to leap from "friendship" to "anger," you neces-
sarily leave out "disappointment" and "annoyance." This is
a jump, because you left out two steps which belong to the
dramatic construction as your lungs or liver belong to your
body.
Here is a scene from Ghosts where transition is handled in
a masterly fashion. Manders, the priest, is greatly incensed
against Engstrand, the lovable but incurable liar. Manders
feels that he must even his score, once and for all, with this
man who has misused his credulity.
The probable transitions will be:
anger—repudiation
or
anger—forgiveness.
Knowing Manders' character, one knows that he will for-
give. Watch the natural, smooth transition in this small con-
flict:
ENGSTRAND: [Appears in the doorway] I humbly beg pardon, but—
MANDERS: Ahal Hml—
MRS. ALVING: Oh, it's you, Engstrand!
ENGSTRAND: There were none of the maids about, so I took the
great liberty of knocking.
TRANSITION 195
MRS. ALVING: That's all right. Come in. Do you want to speak to
me?
ENGSTRAND: [Coming in] No, thank you very much, ma'am. It was
Mr. Manders I wanted to speak to for a moment.
MANDERS: [Stopping in front of him] Well, may I ask what it is you
want?
ENGSTRAND: It's this way, Mr. Manders. We are being paid off now.
And many thanks to you, Mrs. Alving. And now the work is
quite finished, I thought it would be so nice and suitable if all
of us, who have worked so honestly together all this time, were
to finish up with a few prayers this evening.
(Mrs. Alving knows too well his true color. She knows he is
lying.)
MANDERS: And all these years you have been hiding the truth from
me—from me, who have had such complete and absolute faith
in you.
ENGSTRAND: I am sorry to say I have, sir.
MANDERS: Did I deserve that from you, Engstrand? Haven't I been
always ready to help you in word and deed as far as it lay in my
power? Answer mel Is it not so?
ENGSTRAND: Indeed there's many a time I should have been very
badly off without you, sir.
MANDERS: And this is the way you repay me—by causing me to
make false entries in the church registers, and afterwards keep-
ing back from me for years the information which you owed it
both to me and to your sense of the truth to divulge. Your con-
duct has been absolutely inexcusable, Engstrand, and from to-
day everything is at an end between us.
ENGSTRAND: [With a sigh] Yes, I can see that's what it means.
MANDERS: Yes, because how can you possibly justify what you did?
ENGSTRAND: Was the poor girl to go and increase her load of shame
by talking about it? Just suppose, sir, for a moment, that your
reverence was in the same predicament as my poor Joanna—
MANDERS: II
ENGSTRAND: At the time when Joanna had her misfortune with this
Englishman—or maybe he was an American or a Russian, as they
call 'em— [He was not aware that the man was Captain Alving.]
Well, sir, then she came to town. Poor thing, she had refused
me once or twice before; she only had eyes for good-looking men
in those days, and I had this crooked leg then. Your reverence
will remember how I had ventured up into a dancing saloon
where seafaring men were reveling in drunkenness and intoxi-
cation, as they say. And when I tried to exhort them to turn from
their evil ways—
MRS. ALVING: Ahem!
ENGSTRAND:I don't want to claim credit for it, your reverence. But
what I wanted to tell you was that she came there and confided
in me with tears and gnashing of teeth. I can tell you, sir, it
went to my heart to hear her.
MANDERS: Did it indeed, Engstrand? Well, what then?
L
204 CONFLICT
DAMIS: Mistaken! I have heard every word that was spoken, and
so shall my father. Thank heaven I am at last able to open his
eyes and make him see how vile a traitor and hypocrite he has
been harboring!
TARTUFFE: YOU do me wrong, dear young friend, you do indeed!
ment kills all her caution] That poor mealy-faced thing, with
her flat chest, that never had the guts to talk up to youl
PACKARD: [Still willing to call it quits. His transition toward anger
is sluggish, has to be fed] Shut up, I tell youl
JUTTY: [Doing the feeding] Washing your greasy overalls, cooking
and slaving for you in some lousy mining shack I No wonder she
died!
PACKARD: [Becomes violently angry—a jump] God damn you!
KITTY: [Gesticulating with the hairbrush] Well, you're not going
to get me that way I You're not going to step on my face to get
where you want to go—you big windbag! [Turns away from him,
drops her hairbrush among the bottles and jars on the dressing
table.]
PACKARD: Why you cheap little piece of scum! I've got a good no-
tion to drop you right back where I picked you up, in the check-
room of the Hottentot Club, or whatever the dirty joint was.
KITTY: Oh, no you won't! [The upward movement is swift. Shortly
the transition will be complete.]
PACKARD: And then you can go home and live with your sweet-
smelling family, back of the railroad tracks in Passaic. That
drunken bum father and your jail-bird brother that I'm always
coming through for. The next time he can go to the pen, and
I'll see that he gets there.
KITTY: You'll be there ahead of him—you big crook!
PACKARD: And get this! If that sniveling, money-grubbing mother
of yours comes whining around my office once more, I'm going
to give orders to have her thrown the hell out of there and right
down sixty flights of stairs, so help me God! [Tina has entered
as Dan is almost at the end of this speech. In her hand is Kitty's
evening bag, jeweled and metallic, and containing Kitty's pow-
der compact, lipstick, cigarette case, and so forth. Finding her-
self in the midst of a storm, she hesitates briefly. Dan, on his last
word, and coincident with Tina's entrance, snatches the bag
from Tina's hand, dashes it to the floor, gives Tina a shove that
sends her spinning out of the room.]
KITTY: [The transition is complete. Her first real resentment. From
here she must move more quickly, her transition reaching a still
higher note.] You pick that up! [For answer, Dan gives the bag
208 CONFLICT
Well, you aren't! Seel There's somebody that just knowing him
has made me realize what a stufied shirt you are! [Transition
completed again—climax.]
PACKARD: [In an upward swing—counterattacks] Why you—you—
KITTY: [Helping him—she wants to see him furious. They are mov-
ing toward new transition and new conflict on a higher plane]
You don't like that, do you, Mr. Cabinet Memberl
PACKARD: [Still dazed. Transition from the impact to realization
not yet completed] Do you mean to tell me that you've been put-
ting it over on me with some other man I
KITTY: [She is in for it now. Means to go through with it] Yesl And
what're you going to do about it! You big gasbag!
PACKARD: [Drawing the full breath of the outraged male] Who is it?
KITTY: [A purr of malice] Don't you wish you knew!
PACKARD: [Seizes her wrist. Kitty screams] Tell me who it is!
KITTY: I won't.
PACKARD: Tell me or I'll break every bone in your body!
KITTY: I won't! You can kill me and I won't!
PACKARD: I'll find out, I'll— [Drops her wrist] Tina! Tina!
KITTY: She don't know. [There is a moment during which the two
stand silent, waiting for the appearance of Tina. There comes
slowly into the door, and a step or two into the room, a Tina,
who, in spite of the expression of wondering innocence on her
face, has clearly been eavesdropping. She comes forward so that
she stands between the two silent figures.]
PACKARD: Who's been coming to this house?
TINA: Huh? [In the following, transition runs smoothly to form.]
KITTY: YOU don't know, do you, Tina?
PACKARD: Shut your face, you slut! [Turns again to Tina.] You
know, and you're going to tell. What man's been coming to this
house?
TINA: [A frantic shake of the head] I ain't seen nobody.
PACKARD: [Grasps her shoulder. Gives her a little shake] Yes you
have. Come on, who's been here? Who was here last week? Who
was here when I went to Washington?
TINA: Nobody—nobody—only the doctor.
PACKARD: No, no, I don't mean that. What man's been coming here
behind my back?
21O CONFLICT
This scene starts with irritation and ends with rage. In be-
tween the steps lead up from the first to the last.
2
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. This
is the perfect rising conflict. The jumping conflict is erratic:
one, two—five, six—nine, ten.
In life there is no such thing as a jumping conflict. "Jump-
ing to a conclusion" indicates an acceleration rather than a
break in the mental processes.
Here is the opening scene from Stevedore, by Peters and
Sklar. It is a short scene, but there is a jump in it. Try to find it.
FLORRIE: Gee, Bill, what's happened to us? Why do we have to
fight all the time? We never used to be like this. [She puts her
hand on his arm.]
BILL: [Throwing her hand off] Aw lay off, lay offl
FLORRIE: YOU pigl [She begins to weep.]
BILL: You're all alike, you little married sluts; you never know
when to quit.
FLORRIE: [She slaps his face.] Don't you talk to me like that.
BILL: All right. All right. That suits me. Only we're through now
and don't you forget it. I don't want to see you any more and
I don't want you to come down to the office any more. Go back
to that sap husband of yours and try loving him for a change. He
sure needs it. [He turns to go.]
FLORRIE: NOW you wait a minute, Bill Larkin.
BILL: Oh, shut upl And don't you go calling me up with this line
of yours about something important to tell me, either.
FLORRIE: I've got something important to tell you right now. I
wrote those letters to Helen, if you want to know,. And that isn't
all, either. I'm going to fix you. Just you wait and see. I'll go to
Helen and tell her just what kind of a pig she's going to marry.
You can't treat me like that and get away with it. Maybe that
stuff worked with your other women, but you picked the wrong
number this time, dearie. You're not through with me; oh, no,
you're not. Not by a hell of a ways.
BILL: YOU God damned— [The man seizes her by the throat in
rage. She bangs his face and shrieks. Now he beats her up in a
214 CONFLICT
blind fury. She shrieks louder and falls to the ground. Doors
slam, voices are heard. Bill runs away.]
FREODIE: [Offstage] Florrie, was that you? Florriel Where are you?
Now go back to where Bill said, "Oh, shut upl" and read
Florrie's speech. She announces that she has written certain
letters to the girl Bill wishes to marry, and we expect him to
be enraged. But she continues with a fairly long speech, and
he does nothing. This is static. The only vital line in the
speech is the opening sentence, and it arouses no reaction.
What does arouse him is so trivial that his reaction is a jump-
ing conflict.
The authors subconsciously felt the need for transi-
tion, but, not understanding the principle, they reversed
the process. Thereby they created a static conflict, followed
by a jumping one—signs of character trouble. From his warn-
ing, "Oh, shut upl" to the end of Florrie's speech, Bill's men-
tal processes are blank, so far as the audience is concerned. If
she had begun: "You can't treat me like that and get away
with it," Bill would have had a chance to react with some
counterthreat. Then she would continue: "Maybe that stuff
worked with your other women, but you picked the wrong
number this time, dearie!" Bill's impatience and rising tem-
per would have caused her to hurry on to: "I'll go to Helen
and tell her just what kind of a pig she's going to marry." This
is Bill's chance to threaten to beat her if she approaches Helen,
and the attack which causes her to speak her big line: "I wrote
those letters to Helen, if you want to know." In a completely
comprehensible rage, he gives her a beating.
In this way we could have witnessed the transition from
irritation to rage. As the scene stands now, the strongest line
ushers in a long-winded tirade. Bill is forced to stand there,
glaring at her—static—then start to choke her suddenly—
jump—after a pale and inconsequential line.
Now read a scene from Black Pit, by Maltz, and try to dis-
cover another jumping conflict—lack of transition. This is a
TRANSITION 215
much more serious defect than the one just discussed, because
here the foundation is laid for the future conduct of the char-
acter.
KROGSTAD: Oh, you can't frighten me. A fine, spoilt lady like you—
NORA: You will see; you will see.
KROGSTAD: Under the ice, perhaps? Down into the cold, black
water? And then, in the spring, to float up to the surface, all
horrible and unrecognizable, with your hair fallen out—
NORA: YOU can't frighten me.
KROGSTAD: Nor you me. People don't do such things, Mrs. Helmer.
Besides, what use would it be? I should have him completely in
my power all the same.
NORA: Afterwards? When I am no longer—
KROGSTAD: Have you forgotten that it is I who have the keeping of
your reputation? [Nora stands speechlessly looking at him.]
Well, now, I have warned you. Do not do anything foolish.
When Helmer has had my letter, I shall expect a message from
him. And be sure you remember that it is your husband him-
self who has forced me into such ways as this again. I will never
forgive him for that. Good-by, Mrs. Helmer. [Exit through the
hall.]
NORA: [Goes to the hall door, opens it slightly, and listens.] He is
going. He is not putting the letter in the box. Oh, no, no! that's
impossible! [Opens the door by degrees.] What is that? He is
standing outside. He is not going downstairs. Is he hesitating?
Can he—? [A letter drops into the box, then Krogstad's footsteps
are heard, till they die away as he goes downstairs. Nora utters
a stifled cry, and runs across the room to the table by the sofa. A
short pause.]
[Climax.]
NORA: In the letterbox. [Steals across to the hall door.] There it
lies—Torvald, Torvald, there is no hope for us now! [Resolu-
tion. Resignation—but since there is no absolute resignation
while there is life, she will try again.]
T h e precise moment of climax came when Krogstad
apped the letter into the mailbox.
Death is a climax. Before death is crisis, when there is hope
—however slim it is. Between these two poles, transition. A
turn for the worse in the patient's condition or an improve-
ment will fill that space.
224 CONFLICT
leave. Watch closely the lines from the opening until he di-
vulges his desire to take her home. From there, trace the move-
ment until Regina becomes indignant, remembering the
names he used to call her; from there until he tells her his
plan for a "high-class eating place"; and from there, to the
point where he advises her to take money from the sailors as
her mother did. Crisis set in right after his advice, and the
climax follows rapidly.
GENERAL
1. Obligatory Scene
2. Exposition
There is a mistaken idea that exposition is another name
for the beginning of a play. Textbook writers tell us that we
must establish mood, atmosphere, background, before our ac-
tion begins. They tell us how characters should make their
entrances, what they should say, how they should behave to
impress and hold the audience. And while all this seems very
helpful at first, it leads to confusion.
What does Webster's say?
Exposition: a setting forth of the meaning or purpose of a writing;
designed to carry information.
And March's Thesaurus?
Exposition: the act of exposing.
Now then, what do we want to expose? The premise? The
atmosphere? The character's background? The plot? The
EXPOSITION 235
scenery? The mood? The answer is, we must expose all these
at once.
If we choose only "atmosphere," the question arises almost
immediately: who lives in this atmosphere? If we answer: a
lawyer from New York, we are a step nearer to establishing
the atmosphere.
If we pursue the question further, and ask what kind of
man this lawyer is, we shall learn that he is a man of in-
tegrity, uncompromising, and a failure. We shall learn that
his father was a tailor who lived in poverty so that his son
might become a professional man. Without once mentioning
"atmosphere" in the questions we ask ourselves, and the an-
swers we give, we shall be on the way to establishing it. If
we become still more inquisitive about this lawyer, we shall
find out everything about him: his friends, ambitions, station
in life, immediate premise, and mood at the time.
The more we know about the man, the more we shall know
about the mood, locale, atmosphere, background, and plot.
It would seem, then, that what we want to expose is the
character of whom we are writing. We want the audience to
know his goal, since through knowing what he wants they
,will know a lot about what he is. We need not expose the
mood, or any of the other stock subjects. They are an integral
part of the whole play; they are established when the charac-
ter tries to prove his premise.
"Exposition" itself is part of the whole play, and not sim-
ply a fixture to be used at the beginning and then discarded.
Yet textbooks on writing deal with exposition as if it were a
separate element in dramatic construction.
Moreover, "exposition" should proceed constantly, with-
out interruption, to the very end of the play.
In the beginning of A Doll's House Nora exposes herself
through conflict as a naive, spoiled child who doesn't know
much about the outside world. Ibsen achieves this without
having a servant tell the new butler who their masters are
236 GENERAL
Make this advice specific and you have something like this:
"In your play about starving share-croppers, be sure not to
have them wear full-dress. It is better to put them in rags and
show them in their tumbledown shacks to establish atmos-
phere. Insist that the costume designer avoid the use of dia-
monds, lest it give the impression of wealth and thus confuse
the audience."
Mr. Wilde continues with this crowning piece of advice:
But if you read any good play, you will notice that the
exposition is uninterrupted, continuous to the drop of the
last curtain. Moreover, by action he means conflict.
Whatever a character does, or does not do, whatever he says
or does not say, reveals him. If he decides to conceal his iden-
tity, if he lies or tells the truth, if he steals or does not steal,
he is forever revealing himself. The moment you stop exposi-
tion in any part of a play, the character stops growing, and,
with it, the play.
"Exposition," as the word is generally used, is misleading.
If our great writers had taken the advice of the "authorities,"
and confined exposition to the opening of the play, or to odd
spots between action, the greatest characters would have died
stillborn. Helmer's big exposition scene comes at the end of
the play—and could not have come anywhere else. Mrs. Al-
.ving kills her son at the end of Ghosts because we have seen
her growth through uninterrupted exposition. Nor does it
end there. Mrs. Alving could go on for the rest of her life, ex-
posing herself constantly, as everyone does.
What most teachers call exposition, we prefer to call "point
of attack."
3. Dialogue
Students in my playwriting class submitted papers on "Dia-
logue." Miss Jeanne Michael wrote one which was so clear cut,
terse, and to the point that we feel we must quote from it.
Here it is:
ing the rigors of the chain gang. Yet the play is a most fierce
indictment of this portion of the United States' penal code.
You need not make a speech to make a protest.
Make clever language truly part of the play. Remember
that your drama is not a vaudeville skit. "Gags" for their own
sake ruin continuity. Only complete compatibility with the
speaker can justify them, and they must fulfill some function
besides "getting a laugh." The Shakespeare of The Comedy
of Errors has the Dromios speak mainly in very bad puns, add-
ing nothing to the play. But in Othello he has learned to use
wordplay as an integral part of the whole. "Put out the light,
and then put out the light," Othello says before the murder,
thus suggesting both the events and his reaction to them.
A play of the 30's called Kids Learn Fast is dotted with ap-
plied humor. Mr. Shifrin has certain things to say which he
says in his own words, put into the mouths of babes. "The
sheriff always comes the day after the lynching"; "Mississippi,
Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, it makes no difference, it's al-
ways the nigger what's chased and everything." These are not
the natural language of the children he has sketched.
We have discussed so far the dialectics of dialogue in that
it grows from character and conflict which must be dialecti-
cal to exist. But dialogue must also be dialectical in itself, in
the small degree to which it can be divorced from its mates.
It must work within itself on the principle of slowly rising
conflict. When you name several things you save the most
impressive for last. "The Mayor," you say, "was there, and the
Governor—and the President!" Even the voice recognizes
growth: one, two, THREE, we say; not ONE, two, three.
There is that classic reversal which warns against murder
since it may lead to drinking, which in turn may lead to
smoking, which may lead to nonobservance of the Sabbath,
etc. This is good humor, but bad drama.
One of the finest examples of dialectical growth in dialogue
DIALOGUE 243
*
244 GENERAL
4. Experimentation
QUESTION: I don't see how anyone can experiment, with the
rigid rules you lay down. According to your warning, if
an unfortunate playwright omits any one of the ingredi-
ents you say a play must contain, the consequences will be
dire. Don't you know that man makes rules just to break
them—and that he often gets away with it?
INSWER: Yes, we know. You can do almost anything with
this approach—experiment to your heart's content; just
as a man can go under water, fly, live in the arctics or the
tropics. But he cannot live without his heart or lungs, and
you cannot write a good play without the basic ingredients.
Shakespeare was one of the most daring experimenters of
his day. To break any one of Aristotle's three unities was
a major crime, yet Shakespeare broke all three: the unities
of time, place, and action. Every great writer, painter, musi-
cian, has broken some ironclad rule which was held sacred.
QUESTION: YOU are strengthening my argument.
ANSWER: Then examine the work of these men. You'll find
character development through conflict. They broke all
rules—save the fundamental ones. They built on character.
A three-dimensional character is the foundation of all good
plays. You'll see perpetual transition in their work. And
above all, you'll find direction: a clear-cut premise. Further-
246 GENERAL
more, if you know what to look for, you'll find sharp or-
chestration as well. They were dialectical, without know-
ing it.
There are no two men who talk alike, think alike, speak
alike. And there are no two men who write alike. You are
very wrong if you imagine that the dialectical approach
tries to force every man's play into the same mold. On the
contrary, we ask you not to confuse originality with trick-
ery. Do not look for special effects, surprises, atmosphere,
mood, without knowing that all of them, and more, are in
the character. Experiment as you choose—but within the
laws of nature. Anything can be created within these laws.
It is interesting to know that stars are born as men are:
the attraction of opposites brings forth a nebulous form
of matter which will evolve if conditions are favorable.
Transition is prevalent there, too. Every nebula, every
star, every sun, is different, but their composition of ele-
ments is the same. Stars are as dependent upon each other
as humans. If their relationship were not fixed, they would
collide almost instantaneously, destroying each other. The
stars have vagabonds, too—comets, but they are controlled
by the same laws. Now, since everything is dependent upon
everything else, characters are also dependent upon each
other. They must have certain basic elements in common
—the three dimensions. Beyond that, you can experiment
as you choose. You can emphasize one trait above another;
you can enlarge details; you can deal with the subconscious;
you can try a variety of effects in form. You can do anything
conceivable, as long as you represent character.
QUESTION: HOW would you classify William Saroyan's My
Heart's in the Highlands?
ANSWER: AS an experiment, of course.
QUESTION: DO you think it is a good play?
ANSWER: NO. It is divorced from life. The characters live in
a vacuum.
EXPERIMENTATION 247
8. Melodrama
Now for a word about the difference between drama and
melodrama. In a melodrama the transition is faulty or en-
tirely lacking. Conflict is overemphasized. The characters
move with lightning speed from one emotional peak to an-
other—the result of their one-dimensionality. The ruthless
killer, pursued by the police, suddenly stops to help a blind
man cross the street. This is phony on the surface. It is un-
likely that a man running for his life would even see the
blind man, let alone help him. And, certainly, a ruthless
killer would be more likely to shoot the blind man for
getting in his way than to make kindly gestures toward him.
Transition must be present to make even a three-dimensional
character believable. The lack of transition produces melo-
drama.
256 GENERAL
9. On Genius
Let us examine the definition of genius:
Genius is a transcendent capacity for taking trouble first of all.
—Frederick the Great by THOMAS CARLYLE
We agree.
more than any other. Given all we need to further our knowl-
edge, we are likely to make great strides; forced to do some-
thing else, we become disgruntled, discouraged, and end in
failure.
We call an apple tree an apple tree before it bears fruit.
But isn't it different with genius? May it not be said that a
genius is a man who has accomplished something, and not
a man who has almost accomplished something, or who
wanted to accomplish something and has been thwarted in
some way?
Not if the quotations above make sense. Not one speaks
of accomplishment. They merely try to analyze the material
of which genius is made. Success is a happy combination of
circumstances which help a genius to expand, to produce the
thing for which he has infinite capacity. That is the meaning
of the quotation from Havelock Ellis. Nor is there anything
wrong with Osias L. Schwarz' observation that "a genius
draws a maximum of conclusions from a minimum of obser-
vations." But does this hold true only if the genius happens
to succeed? Does an apple seed cease to be an apple seed if
it is carried to the heart of the city and deposited on hard
asphalt, to be crushed by heavy wheels? No, it remains an
apple seed anywhere, although it is denied the chance to
fulfill its destiny.
A fish lays millions of eggs, of which only one in a thousand
live. Out of those hatched, only a few reach maturity. Yet
every single egg was a bona fide fish egg, having all the at-
tributes necessary for the development of a fish. They were
eaten by other fishes, and those eggs which survived owe
nothing to their clever insight. Ellis is right: "Genius is the
happy result of a combination of many circumstances." Sur-
vival is one of these, inheritance another. Freedom from pov-
erty is a third, although many of the known geniuses which
mankind has produced came from the lower reaches of society,
fighting every inch of the way toward the sun. Poverty could
WHAT IS ART?—A DIALOGUE 259
not keep down these few but it does keep down thousands of
others who would have succeeded had "the happy result of
a combination of many circumstances" favored them.
As for all the braggarts who run around, beating their
collective chests and claiming to be geniuses, we cannot dis-
miss them out of hand. They are offensive, but some of them
may be the genuine article.
It is said that all murderers claim innocence, insist that
they were railroaded. Criminal history teaches us that some
of them really were innocent, despite the derisive laughter
of those who "knew better."
Yet we must not forget one important attribute of the
genius: an infinite capacity for taking pains in the field
where his interest lies. The majority of braggarts spend too
much time boasting to have much left for painstaking work.
We cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that, although
geniuses are equipped with uncommon powers of mental
absorption in their particular field, many of them are never
given the chance to approach the thing in which they are
interested. Remember that most geniuses are one-sided, and
you will see that in an alien atmosphere they have no chance
to develop.
A fish out of water is a dead fish, and a genius kept from
his art is often a simpleton.
but the essence of life. When you take a basic emotion, you
might as well emphasize that emotion or trait.
If you write about love, you should write about great love.
If you write about ambition, it should be ruthless ambition.
If you choose affection, it should be possessive affection. They
generate conflict.
Let us take the simple noun "affection." Affection was the
motivating emotion in The Silver Cord. This is not an ordi-
nary affection or love. It is a selfish, over-possessive love of a
mother for her sons.
It is not enough, of course, to know that a person is pos-
sessive; you must know why. Generally, insecurity and the
desire to be important are the fundamental reasons for all ex-
aggerated traits. The mother wanted to be the center of in-
terest, instead of permitting the women her sons brought
home to have their natural importance.
Affection is a basic human need, but affection, overdone,
can be crushing. If you wish to escape from excessive affection,
you find it almost impossible. After all, what can you do about
a person who loves you? If you are a decent fellow you are
bound hand and foot to the one who loves you, although you
may wish to be a million miles away.
Drama must not only entertain but teach as well. The
dramatist interprets man to man. When you see a character
on the stage causing unhappiness, you might recognize your-
self in the same act.
Let us go back to page 130 and take the word abusive.
There are people who start things and never finish them.
There are the eternal procrastinators, who will always do the
thing tomorrow. There are the impulsive, who act first and
think later. There are, in fact, thousands of human traits,
emotions, qualities which can create characters for a play, a
novel, or a story.
You can take an honest-to-goodness person, a real individ-
ual, but with one of these traits exaggerated. You will have
so many characters for plays or novels that it would take more
than a lifetime to write half of them.
Every word on page 130 represents a character. Let us see
again: Clumsy: You needn't take a stock character, a "dolt."
Take a woman who is beautiful and clever, but clumsy.
Anybody who overdoes something is good material for a
story. Remember: Your characters must be militant. A mili-
tant person is bound to expose himself through conflict. The
secret of happiness is the understanding that no one is perfect;
we must always realize that there is room for improvement
for all of us.
You must feel your story deeply—in fact, it should be a
conviction of yours. You must never be afraid of conflict in
your writing, because if you do, you will have a dull and static
piece of work in whatever form you happen to use.
Even a good idea at best is only an idea. What is an idea
anyway? A seed. Nothing more, nothing less. It's up to you to
do something with it. Any idea without three-dimensional
characters isn't worth a plugged nickel.
Allegory or any imaginative conceptions are good only if
they represent human aspirations.
To get an idea for any type of writing is the easiest thing.
Look around you and be observant. Be observant and you will
be forced to admit that the world is an inexhaustible pastry
shop and you are permitted to choose from the delicacies the
tastiest bits for yourself.
Here are a few characters you might try your strength on. I
HOW TO GET IDEAS 269
tried to find out what goes into a character. The following are
types. You should make living people out of them.
Persuasiveness
Observation
Intellect
Talent
A good psychologist
Ill-Temper suggests:
Inconsiderate
Irascible
Nervous
Lacking in understanding
Impatient
Frustrated
Hating
Sick
Self-willed
Spoiled
Quick-witted
Anti-Social suggests:
Cruel
Rapacious
Inhibited
Inhuman
Ruthless
Anything which hurts mankind
Bigoted
Perverse
HOW TO GET IDEAS 271
Self-Righteousness suggests:
Hypercritical
Bigoted
Fearful
Insecure
Inferiority complex
Domineering
Egotistical
Selfishness
Gossipy
Fighter
Mistrustfulness suggests:
Insecurity
Guilt complex
Skepticism
Sneakiness
Vanity
Cowardly
Unhappy
No power of evaluation
Inferiority complex
Bigotry suggests:
Narrow, judging others according to a single set of standards
Conformist, righteous, unimaginative
Cold anger
272 GENERAL
Propriety
Inflexibility
Reactionary
Formal
Courteous
Polite
Zealot (A zealot is bigoted, but a bigot is not necessarily a zealot
yet.)
Guilt complex
A Cad suggests:
Egotist
Unscrupulous
Selfishness
Envy
Insecurity
Vanity
Fickle
Loneliness
Inferiority complex
Lacks ability to do something creative
Ambition suggests:
Rebellion against the status quo
Desire for recognition
Desire to justify existence
Dissatisfaction
Craving for change
Craving for fame
Escape from frustration
Craving for power
Jealousy
Control
Desire to entertain
Self-fulfillment
HOW TO GET IDEAS 273
Ruthlessness
Desire to be secure
There are times when the most normal people feel that the
most dreadful revenge is an absolute necessity. A writer is
supposed to catch people in crises. Unfortunately, in a crisis,
no one behaves normally. If you ever went through a cataclysm,
you will understand not only the mental state of your
characters in crises, but the motivation, the tortuous road
your people wandered down to their sad or triumphant
destination.
When we read in a story or see on the stage, cruelty, vio-
lence, abuse, and all the passion that will transform men into
beasts, we really see ourselves as we were, perhaps only for
moments, sometime in our lives.
No doubt about it, there were ruthless characters through-
out history, and they were the ones who influenced, for better
or for worse, the destiny of man.
Let me emphasize it once more—it is worth your while to
274 GENERAL
THE ANNIVERSARY
A Play for Television
by
EVELYN CORNELL
and
JOHN T. CHAPMAN
CHARACTERS:
Katharine McCloud
Alan McCloud
Charlie Dean
Mrs. Bryce
Josef Kucharski
The Prosecuting Attorney
The Judge
A Delivery Boy
SCENE:
The McClouds' renovated farmhouse in Connecticut. The
front door has a heavy glass panel and opens into a wide
central hallway which has double doors leading at the left
into a dining room and other doors at the right leading into
the living room. Stairs in the hall lead to the second floor. A
door to the kitchen is in the dining room. The bedroom and
the courtroom may be small insets.
It is an early spring day.
[Mrs. Bryce enters dining room from kitchen, carrying
coffee service which she takes to sideboard. She is fortyish,
typically rural New England. At a sound in hall she turns to
double doors as Alan McCloud enters, tossing hat, topcoat
and briefcase onto chair. He is about 35, thin and harassed—
looking decidedly irritable at the moment.]
276 GENERAL
GLOSSARY OF TV TERMS
14. Conclusion
If you cannot differentiate between fragrances, you cannot
be a perfume maker; if you have no legs, you cannot be a
runner. If you are tone-deaf, you cannot be a musician.
To become a playwright you should be a man with im-
agination and common sense, to begin with. You must be
observant. You must never be satisfied with superficial knowl-
edge. You must have patience to search for causes. You must
have a sense of balance and good taste. You should know
economy, psychology, physiology, sociology. You can learn
these things with patience and hard work—and if you do not
learn them, no approach will make a good playwright of you.
We are often astonished at how glibly people decide to be
writers or playwrights. It takes about three years of appren-
ticeship to make a good shoemaker; the same is true of carpen-
try or any other skill. Why should playwriting—one of the
hardest professions in the world—be acquired overnight,
without serious study? The dialectical approach will help
those who have prepared for this work. It will also help the
beginner by giving him a clear picture of the obstacles in his
path and of the road he must travel if he is to achieve his
ambitions.
APPENDIX A
PLAYS ANALYZED
1. Tartuffe
A Comedy in Three Acts
by
Molière
SYNOPSIS
TARTUFFE is a penniless scoundrel who, under the guise of
fervent religiousness, endears himself to Orgon, a wealthy ex-
officer of the King's Guard.
Once established in Orgon's home, Tartuffe proceeds to
reshape the family, endeavoring to lead them from their so-
cial life to a puritan one. His designs are really on Orgon's
lovely young wife. He induces Orgon to make his daughter
Mariane break her engagement with her beloved Valere,
saying she needs a pious man to lead her on to a pure life.
This infuriates Damis, Orgon's son, who is in love with
Valere's sister.
Damis catches Tartuffe making advances to his stepmother.
He tells his father in front of Tartuffe, but his father does not
believe him. Orgon insists that Damis apologize to Tartuffe.
Damis refuses, and his father, enraged, disowns him.
In the midst of this family turmoil, Orgon entrusts Tar-
tuffe with a box containing important information given
him by an exiled friend. The revealing of this information
means treason for Orgon and probably death to his friend.
Orgon believes so implicitly in Tartuffe's honesty and
*79
28o APPENDIX A
ANALYSIS
Premise
He who digs a pit for others falls into it himself.
Pivotal Character
Tartuffe forces the conflict.
Characters
Orgon is wealthy, an ex-officer, dominating, stupid, blindly
trusting, religious—but why? We never find out.
Tartuffe is a finely drawn character, suave, soft-spoken, a
clever psychologist. Yet we see only two sides of him—physical
and psychological. His background remains a blank. We
would like to know how he came to pursue a life of chicanery,
possessing, as he does, many abilities. Not knowing his back-
ground, we see the results, but not the causes which make him
what he is.
Elmire is a good stepmother and wife. She is much younger
PLAYS ANALYZED 28l
than her husband. Did she marry him for love, money, or
both? What makes her such a model wife when she is sadly
neglected by Orgon whose every thought is for Tartuffe?
Damis, the son, is lively and headstrong. We look to him
to help the situation. He succeeds only in angering his father
and being ordered from the house. He goes, leaving behind
a man who he knows will play havoc with his family. He
returns when bidden, and all is forgiven. He does not
grow.
Mariane, the daughter, is a weak young girl, too spineless
even to fight for the man she loves. Although in that era,
strict obedience to parental wishes was the rule, at least she
could have put up a violent protest for her love. When con-
fronted with her father's wishes, she remains dumb and re-
monstrates but weakly. She has to be pushed by her servant,
first to make up with her sweetheart, second, to defy her father
quietly; and we have little confidence in her. She is completely
static, prompted by her maid.
Cleante, Elmire's brother, contributes nothing to the play.
He merely tries to dissuade Orgon from his blind trust, as
everyone does. He goes out in the first act, having accom-
plished nothing, returns to persuade Tartuffe to make Orgon
forgive his son. He does not succeed, and we see him again
in the third act, for some additional dialogue. He does not
help the conflict.
Mme Pernelle, Orgon's mother, is used for exposition at
the opening of the play, returns at the end for a bit of comedy;
contributes nothing.
Valere, we see as Mariane's sweetheart, and he, at least, is
determined that she will marry no one but himself. He would
not be needed had Mariane the strength of character to fight
for her love. She has not, so Valere is necessary to the play to
fight for her. As an extra bit to prove how blind Orgon's
trust was, he shows he is a true friend when he offers to help
Orgon escape the police. By this time, however, Orgon realizes
282 APPENDIX A
Unity of Opposites
This is the strong bond which keeps the play together.
The love affairs of Mariane and Damis are vital to them. The
wish of the whole family to continue life undisturbed by
Tartuffe's interference keeps each from leaving the scene.
Of course, Elmire can leave her husband, and we don't see
why she doesn't because we know so little about her, but
possibly love or money holds her. We assume that one or
both are the reason.
Point of Attack
The crisis comes in the middle of the first act when Or-
gon decides to break his daughter's engagement to Valere
and marry her to Tartuffe. The first half of the act is pure
exposition, therefore the proper point of attack should have
been Orgon's decision, when something would have been at
stake.
PLAYS ANALYZED 283
Conflict
The first half of the first act is static. After that, the play
moves toward the crisis and climax, coming in waves, but
the conflicts are not powerful enough, because the opposition
to Orgon by his family is in protest, rather than open defiance.
Transition
In the case of Orgon and Tartuffe, the transitions are
good. In Act Two, Tartuffe deftly goes from piousness to
an open declaration of his love and desire for Elmire, still
attempting to cloak his passion in the light of a heavenly
emotion.
Orgon gradually goes deeper and deeper in his blindness
regarding Tartuffe.
Throughout the play, barring a few exceptions, transi-
tions are excellently handled.
Growth
Tartuffe goes from deception to humiliation. Orgon, from
trust to disillusionment.
The rest of the family do not grow. They start by hating
Tartuffe and end still hating him. The only growth is in
Elmire, the young wife. She goes from passiveness to the
actual action of tricking Tartuffe. Yet in emotion she re-
mains the same. We would expect her to grow in stature in
the eyes of her husband, or else to change from an obedient
to an independent wife. She does not.
Crisis
When Elmire induces Orgon to hide while she plans to
expose Tartuffe.
Climax
Tartuffe is exposed. He orders Orgon and family to move.
284 APPENDIX A
Resolution
At the end, Tartuffe, on the verge of a perfect triumph,
is recognized by the king as a rogue who, under an assumed
name, had committed a series of crimes in Lyons, and Tar-
tuffe is arrested.
The premise is: "He who digs a pit for others falls into
it himself." The king's interference was a weak device to
prove the premise.
Dialogue
Good, especially in the case of Tartuffe and Orgon. Both
of the men's speeches can be identified with the characters.
2. Ghosts
by
Henrik Ibsen
SYNOPSIS
Mrs. Alving has built an orphanage which is to be dedi-
cated to her late husband. Mr. Manders, the priest, comes to
consult her on whether they should insure the building. To
do so would be to imply that they have no faith in God; to
fail to insure it would be a risk. Mrs. Alving agrees to do
without the insurance, but says she will not make good the
loss should the building burn.
Mrs. Alving's son Oswald has been home from abroad for
two days. He is an artist who has lived away from his parents
since he was seven. He holds, from experience, the same ideas
his mother has arrived at from books—ideas Mr. Manders
finds dreadful, since they deal with truth rather than with
duty.
PLAYS ANALYZED 285
^ _
286 APPENDIX A
ANALYSIS
Premise
The sins of the fathers are visited on the children.
Pivotal Character
Manders.
Characters
Mrs. Alving is a well-rounded character. We are able to
trace her life from the dutiful daughter she was to the fright-
ened young wife, who in spite of great misery, forsook free-
dom to follow her "duty." From then on her one purpose
in life was to save her husband's reputation for the sake of
her son. In the intervening years her mind developed so
PLAYS ANALYZED 287
alarmingly that she easily cast aside the flimsy fabric of her
earlier beliefs. She is a strong, determined woman.
Mr. Manders is revealed in his piousness and refusal to let
truth touch him. He has been guided by his conscience all
his life, but when his reputation is threatened, he, the torch-
bearer of truth, allows himself to be corrupted by necessity.
Oswald is intelligent, artistic, a believer in reality. He has
lived his life as he saw fit and judged it from what he had
seen, not from what he had heard.
Regina is a robust, coarse, shrewd girl.
Engstrand is a clever liar with innate shrewdness. He is
not malicious, however—in fact, he has a certain charm.
All characters are tridimensional.
Orchestration
They are well orchestrated: Mrs. Alving's clear mind
against Manders' blind piousness, Engstrand's wiliness in op-
position with Manders' great trust, Regina's independence
and shrewdness matched with Engstrand's shrewdness. Oswald
is intelligent and determined.
Unity of Opposites
Mrs. Alving and Mr. Manders are united to keep alive the
legend of Captain Alving's nobleness of character and at all
costs to prevent a marriage between Regina and Oswald, as
they are half sister and brother.
Point of Attack
The first act is a splendid example of exposition through
conflicts, rising in a steady crescendo.
Conflict
The conflicts are on a low plane at the beginning, but rise
in an ascending scale. The main issue is foreshadowed tern-
288 APPENDIX A
Transition
There are superb transitions between the conflicts, from
the very beginning—at first leading up to Mrs. Alving's revela-
tion that her husband never mended his ways, and that Re-
gina is his illegitimate child, then in the scene between Man-
ders and Engstrand, and again Oswald's decision to marry
Regina. Finally Manders is persuaded to let Engstrand take
the blame for the orphanage fire; persuaded in a manner
which would ordinarily be revolting to his standards. Transi-
tion in Act Three rises steadily to the very climax.
Growth
Mrs. Alving perceives her folly in hiding her husband's true
nature all those years.
Mr. Manders grows from strict morality to saving his repu-
tation with a lie.
Oswald goes from normality to insanity.
Regina from a dutiful girl, who has regard for Mrs. Alving
and Oswald, to one who deserts them.
Engstrand succeeds in getting the money for his sailors'
home.
Crisis
Oswald's decision to marry Regina.
Climax
Oswald's mental breakdown.
Resolution
Mrs. Alving's search for the morphia tablets.
PLAYS ANALYZED 289
Dialogue
Good; all lines come from the personality of the characters.
SYNOPSIS
Through the conversation of a group of people who are
looking at the Mannon home in New England, we learn that
the Mannons are a wealthy family and that the father and son
of the family are away fighting in the Civil War while the
mother and daughter are at home. We learn that the towns-
folk dislike Christine, the mother, because of her foreign de-
scent. We hear about the family skeleton: the marriage of Ezra
Mannon's uncle David to a French-Canuck nurse girl he had
"gotten into trouble."
The action reveals that Lavinia, the daughter, hates her
mother as much as she loves her father and brother. She has
followed Christine on a trip into New York, and verified her
suspicion that Christine and Adam Brant are lovers. Brant
is a sea captain who has been coming to the house, ostensibly
to court Lavinia. Lavinia suspects further that Brant is the
son of the once-betrayed nurse girl. She tricks him into ad-
mitting this, and they quarrel. She then turns upon her
mother, telling her that unless she gives up Brant and be-
comes a dutiful wife to Ezra, Lavinia will let her father know
of the affair and have Brant blacklisted on all sailing vessels.
Christine consents, having revealed to Lavinia her loathing
of her husband.
290 APPENDIX A
4. Dinner at Eight
A Drama in Three Acts
by
George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber
SYNOPSIS
Millicent Jordan, a society woman, plans a dinner for Lord
and Lady Ferncliffe, social lions. She invites Dr. and Mrs. Tal-
bot, Dan and Kitty Packard, Carlotta Vance, and Larry
Renault. Her daughter, Paula, is not included.
The play deals with the individual tragedies of the guests,
the host, Paula, and the domestic staff of the Jordan home.
We discover that Oliver Jordan's business is shaky and that
Dan Packard, whom he hopes will help him, intends to cheat
PLAYS ANALYZED 291
this point Paula attempts to tell her mother of her love for
Renault (she does not know of his death), and Oliver tries to
beg off from the after-dinner party because he does not feel
well. Millicent turns on them in rage because they dare dis-
turb her with their petty problems when she has only eight
for dinner. She invites her sister and brother-in-law to fill in,
and, promptly at eight, the group adjourns for dinner.
5. Idiot's Delight
by
Robert Sherwood
SYNOPSIS
A group of people are in a hotel in what used to be the
Austrian Alps but is now part of Italy. There is threat of war
in the air, and Italian officers are constantly in evidence.
Those at the hotel include Dr. Waldersee, a German scien-
tist who is eager to get to Zurich where he can continue his
experiments to find a cure for cancer; Mr. and Mrs. Cherry,
English honeymooners; Quillery, a French radical-socialist;
Harry Van, a vaudevillian, and Les Blondes, his troupe of
six girls; Achille Weber, a munitions magnate; and his travel-
ing companion, Irene.
Harry Van is sure that Irene is a girl he once slept with in
Omaha. She denies it. Quillery rushes about shouting against
war as practiced by England, France, Italy—any country.
Then, when war between France and Italy is declared, Quil-
lery turns violently patriotic and anti-Italian. He is shot. The
passports arrive in the morning, and everyone but Irene is
able to leave. The Doctor is going back to Germany, bitter
about his own humanitarian work and the world. Mr. Cherry
is going back to enlist in the war. Weber is going to further
PLAYS ANALYZED 293
PLAY NUMBER OF
PERFORMANCES
Life with Father 3224
Tobacco Road 3182
My Fair Lady 2717
Abie's Irish Rose 2327
Oklahoma! 2248
South Pacific 1925
Harvey 1775
Brn Yesterday 1642
The Voice of the Turtle 1557
Arsenic and Old Lace 1444
Hellzapoppin 1404
The Music Man 1376
Angel Street 1295
Lightnin' 1291
The King and I . 1246
The Sound of Music 1218 *
Guys and Dolls 1200
Mister Roberts 1157
Annie Get Your Gun 1147
The Seven Year Itch 1141
Pins and Needles 1108
Kiss me Kate 1070
Pajama Game . 1063
Teahouse of the August Moon 1027
Damn Yankees 1019
298
APPENDIX C 299
PLAY NUMBER OF
PERFORMANCES
West Side Story 983
Anna Lucasta 957
Kiss and Tell 957
Bells Are Ringing 924
The Moon Is Blue 924
Can-Can 892
Carousel 890
Hats Off to Ice 889
Fanny 888
Follow the Girb 882
The Bat 867
My Sister Eileen 865
White Cargo 864
Song of Norway 860
A Streetcar Named Desire 855
Comedy in Music 849
You Can't Take It with You 837
La Plume de Ma Tante 835
Three Men on a Horse 835
Camelot 832*
Inherit the Wind 806
No Time for Sergeants 796
Fiorello 796
Where's Charley? 792
The Ladder 789
State of the Union 765
The First Year 760
Two for the Seesaw 750
Death of a Salesman 742
Sons o' Fun 742
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 740
The Man Who Came to Dinner 739
• Performances as of December 1, 1962.
300 APPENDIX C
PLAY NUMBER OF
PERFORMANCES
Call Me Mister 734
High Button Shoes 787
Finian's Rainbow 725
Mary, Mary 784*
Claudia 728
The Gold Diggers 720
The Miracle Worker 719
The Diary of A nne Frank 717
/ Remember Mama 714
Tea and Sympathy 71s
Junior Miss 710
Seventh Heaven 704
Gypsy 70a
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 694
Li'l Abner 693
Peg o' My Heart 692
The Children's Hour 691
Dead End 687
The Lion and the Mouse 686
Dear Ruth 683
Carnival 683*
East is West 680
The Most Happy Fella 676
Come Blow Your Horn 676
The Doughgirls 671
Irene 670
Come blow your Horn 669
Blithe Spirit 657
The Women 657
A Trip to Chinatown 657
Bloomer Girl 654
The Fifth Season 654
* Performances as of December i, 196s.
APPENDIX C 301
PLAY NUMBER OF
PERFORMANCES
Rain 648
Witness for the Prosecution 645
Call Me Madam 644
Janie 642
The Green Pastures 64O
Auntie Mame 639
The Fourposter 632
The Tenth Man 623
Is Zat So? 6l8
Anniversary Waltz 615
The Happy Time 614
Separate Rooms 613
Affairs of State 6lO
Star and Garter 609
The Student Prince 608
Broadway 603
Adonis 603
Street Scene 6O1
Kiki 6OO
Flower Drum Song 6OO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 184, Let Freedom Ring (Bein), 254
257 Liliom (Molnar), 148, 184
Good Hope (Heijermans), 146 Lion Is in the Streets, A (Langley), 28
Graham, Gwethalynn, 29 Little Foxes, The (Hellman), 13, 249
Green, Paul, 241 Macbeth (Shakespeare), 3-4, 20, 35, 62,
Guardsman, The (Molnar), 184
109, 152, 184, 233
Madach, Imre, 184
Hamilton, Clayton, 263 Made for Each Other (Swerling), 59
Hamlet (Shakespeare), 35, 61, 62, 82, Maginn, 72
86, 94, 107, 108, 109, 113, 115, J52, Malevinsky, Moses L., 6, 7
164, 190 Maltz, Albert, 28, 115, 214, 217, 293
Hart, Moss, 249, 254 March's Thesaurus, 234
Hay Fever (Coward), 172-175 Marlowe, Christopher, 184
Hedda Gabler (Ibsen), 61, 152, 162- Matisse, Henri, 247
164, 183 Matthews, Brander, 2, 263
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 51 Maupassant, Guy de, xii, 27
Heijermans, Hermann, 146 Medea (Euripides), 36, 61, 95, 96
Hellman, Lillian, 13-14, 249, 254 Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare), 61
Heyward, Du Bose, 133, 134, 146 Michael, Jeanne, 238
Hitler, Adolf, 47 Millikan, Robert, 250
Housman, Laurence, 254 Moliere (Jean Baptiste Poquelin), 15,
Howard, Sidney, 81 23, 25, 27, 61, 99, 166, 168, 249, 279
Hymn to the Rising Sun (Green), 241- Molnar, Ferenc, 148
242 Mourning Becomes Electra (O'Neill),
72-73- 77-78. 109. 152. 169-170. 289-
Ibsen, Henrik, xii, 4, 13, 15, 32-33, 290
61, 67, 68, 69, 100, 101, 104, 114, My Heart's in the Highlands (Sa-
162, 166, 176, 177, 187, 200, i l l , royan), 246-247
229, 235, 236, 249, 252, 284
Iceman Cometh, The (O'Neill), 62 New York Herald Tribune, 295
Idiot's Delight (Sherwood), 73, 120, New York Times, The, 13, 59, 83
139-143, 163-164, 186, 243, 252, 292- Night Music (Odets), 12
293 No Time for Comedy (Behrman), 249
Iron Men, 244 Notebooks (Leonardo), 193
Nugent, Frank S., 59
Jack the Ripper, 120-121
Jackson, T. A., 212 O'Casey, Sean, 5
Jesus Christ, 257 Odets, Clifford, 12, 181, 239, 244
Jonson, Ben, 91 Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), 95-96, 97-98,
Journey's End (Sherriff), 120 108, 164, 183
Joyce, James, 265 O. Henry, xii
Judrez, 109-111 Once in a Lifetime (Kaufman and
Juno and the Paycock (O'Casey), 5 Hart), 184
O'Neill, Eugene, 72, 76, 77-78, 169,
170, 211, 289
Kaufman, George S., 206, 249, 254, 290 Othello (Shakespeare), 4, 35, 61, 106,
Kids Learn Fast (Shifrin), 242 113, 152, 154, 186, 242
King Lear (Shakespeare), 3, 35, 74,
114, 116, 122 Paradise Lost (Odets), 244-245
Kingsley, Sidney, 4, 22, 23, 37, 254 Peters, 213
Philadelphia Story, The (Barry), 11-
Langley, Adria Locke, 28 12
Lawson, John Howard, 2, 89-90, 91, Picasso, Pablo, 247
232, 233-234 Plato, 50
Leeuwenhoek, Anton van, 87 Playmaking, a Manual of Craftsman-
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, xv, 91, ship (Archer), 87, 88, 93, 237
249 Poetics (Aristotle), 92-93
INDEX