The Technique of Play Writing

From the Author's Foreword. Although there are several recent treatises on the art of writing plays, none of them, generally speaking, is precisely a text-book of the subject—"dogmatic in theory, so as not to muddle the student with alternatives before he has grasped any one rule; detailed in the analysis of examples and in the statement of principles, so that he may see just how a certain thing is done; full of the little maxims and tricks of the trade; and supported at every point with practical exercises." The present volume is not offered as one conforming in every detail to the foregoing standard. Nevertheless, it aims to embody at least some of these characteristics, in the hope that it may prove of service as a guide to him who would make his first experiments in the art of dramatic composition. It is obvious that in all primers, after the first authoritative one, much repetition of admitted truth is inevitable. Unless the writer be one of the perverse whose chief pleasure in life is derived from stout denials of all the established principles of art, he will need to refer to the dicta of Aristotle, of Hegel perhaps, of Brunetière certainly, of Lessing, Sarcey, Dumas "fils," Hugo, and a score of other critics and dramatists foreign and domestic, when he is laying down the fundamentals of the play-writing craft. There be those of lesser breeds than such leaders in art and criticism who, having once restated these principles— sometimes without credit—have come thereafter to regard them as their own. Of course, their claims to proprietary rights in these many truisms are at best about as valid as would be an assertion of copyright on the multiplication table, announced by the author of a new elementary arithmetic. No acknowledgment can be due to such compilers. In a preliminary way, it will be well to survey quickly some of the pretty generally acknowledged foundation theories first formulated by the great trail-blazers of dramatic art. Action is the soul of tragedy, or of drama generally, asserted Aristotle. This action means a conflict of wills, Hegel and others hinted, and Brunetiere succinctly declared. Drama deals with the cruces of existence when duty and inclination come to the grapple, Stevenson repeated. Periods of great national vitality have accordingly given birth to the greatest drama, added Sarcey— and others. That the theatre is a place of illusion, based on many conventions, is an obvious matter which dozens of critics have emphasized. Dramatic composition, like every other sort, must recognize Spencer's doctrine of the economy of attention. Stage dialogue, for instance, must be divested of the tautologies of real life....