The analysis of play construction and dramatic principle

Preface

After the publication of my "Technique of the Drama," sixteen years ago, and while I was acting as playreader for the then leading manager in New York, I was constantly besought by people for advice on their plays. I found that nothing could be done with the individual who, although he had read everything ever written on the subject, knew nothing of the art of playwriting. It required the expenditure of too much vital energy to combat his self-confident ignorance. It was the bottomless pit. I discovered that this ignorance was not altogether his fault, for no book, my own included, had ever been published in any language that was adequate for the practical requirements of the workshop. Such books as had been published were useful as an introduction to the study, and they are still absolutely essential to the student, but something more is required. It also became plain to me that the art was too large to be compassed by a single volume or by any one method of investigation or instruction. It is not to the purpose now to enquire into the reasons why no dramatist has ever attempted to provide these needed text books for the student, supplying him with the tools of the workshop and not books of literary style addressed to posterity, with the quick delivery stamp on them of an endowed college professor. It was also plain to me that the whole subject required a new investigation and restudy conducted on an entirely independent initiative. It was not possible to meet the demand by a compilation. The process of the amateur's mind had to be considered, that process which is entirely natural to the mind ignorant of dramatic law in all directions. I am free to say that I have learned more on that line of investigation than on any other. It has been to my profit, and I hope to that of the student, that I have read and analyzed thousands of plays by amateurs. The study of false dramatic syntax will be an important element in our work together. This volume con-

VI PREFACE

cerns Analysis only. In another section of our study I shall trace dramatic law back to nature and the constitution of the human mind, thereby proving to you that the form is not purely artificial and that true plays are not written by "rules;" and then step by step we shall do all that is required of the craftsman to gain his art. My sole and constant aim is to be of service to the student by formulating the art in the most practical way and by not writing a single line for the mere sake of writing.

W. T. PRICE.

New York, June, 1908.

Chapter I. The Delusion About Dramatic Instinct

Reserving for another chapter the vivisection and the complete demolition in every honest mind, I believe, of the absurd and monstrous idea that a playwright is or can be or ever was or ever will be born, I wish now to urge upon you the practical dangers of any belief on your part that you have any dramatic instinct as something apart from a knowledge of dramatic principle that must be gained. If you hug and caress this delusion your progress will be delayed and the day of your success will be remote. Your mind will not be open. You will not accept the authority of Technique and you will be constantly assuming that you fully understand something of which you really see only the surface. You will be constantly saying that you "knew all that before," when it is something about which you know the least. I am not trying to establish any personal authority over you by these statements, but I have a jealous regard and a profound respect for an Art whose authority cannot be denied by any one without his loss of my respect. I am speaking plainly and in the first person, for my feeling on the subject proceeds from a large experience with people of this recalcitrant mind. If one begins this study with the idea that he has a dramatic instinct superior to fixed law, he begins as a fool and usually ends as a fool ; or, he loses years in self-complacent vanity before he yields to the authority of the Art. I think I shall conclusively demonstrate that the idea that one can be born a playwright is a monstrous lie and fraught with evil.

If one personally believes it of himself he is suffering from a form of insanity. It is an evil lie, for all lies are evil. It makes vanity a loathesome appanage of a professional career. If you have the dramatic instinct in the misleading and dangerous sense that I describe, why are you seeking further knowledge? Instinct does not have to be taught. If you have any instinct about the stage it is something that you have acquired by reading or seeing or hearing or observation of your own initiative. It takes years to gain this "instinct" and even then it may be imperfect instinct. The inherent characteristic of every Art is that it reduces its principles to terms, and if you do not understand those terms and the full meaning of each principle in all its aspects you are not an artist. You would not be able to discuss intelligently or intelligibly any given scientific subject with the professional scientist. He would not understand you and you would not understand him at all. He talks in shorthand, you would be talking gibberish. You may occasionally see in the depths of night a gang of workmen making some repairs of an electrical trolley way. Great gasoline lamps flare up with a constant roar and throw a lurid light against the darkness and giving picturesqueness to the busy laborers. Here and there flames from a blowpipe are shot against the joints of the rails. A superintendent is standing perhaps on the sidewalk. Address him and ask him what they are doing. My own personal experience in this particular matter was brief. The courteous reply of the superintendent was, "Do you know anything about electricity?" "No." "Then, I am sorry, I cannot explain it to you." In every Art everything, not one or two things, has a definite meaning. You would not think much of a mathematician who could not define a straight line, would you? He might have that idea of a straight line which perhaps every human being has, but if he could not define it, stripped of all manner of verbiage, and in its one scientific expression, he would not be a mathematician at all. It is not enough merely to know the terms themselves. One hears many people who have tinkered at the study of the drama and who think they know something of the Art constantly using terms without knowing what they mean. They talk about Unity with the perfect assurance that it

THE DELUSION ABOUT DRAMATIC INSTINCT 3

is absolutely clear to them and in the practical application of it they may be invariably wide of the mark. They speak of their plays as being full of Action when, in fact, there may be an utter absence of Action in them. They talk of Plot and have not the slightest idea of the definite and inevitable requirements of a Plot. / In order to become a \~y master of this Art one must rid himself of generalities.

It is very easy to be misled as to one's own knowledge of the Art of Playwriting. I was told by a dramatist of the highest distinction that it was only after the production of his fourth play that he realized the exacting nature of the Art and saw that there were one or two principles the extent and use of which he had had little or no conception As a play reader for managers I have been in a position for a score of years and more to note the beginning and progress of practically all the dramatic authors who have succeeded in that time. In most cases, the first manuscripts submitted by these authors revealed little or no dramatic instinct. There may have been abundant ability, there may have been very apt portrayal of character and scenes worked out with more or less effectiveness, but an all embracing Technique was invariably lacking. They have since learned the Art, and every honest dramatist among them will tell you that his experience began in comparative ignorance accompanied by self-confidence. If the Art is lacking and everything in a play, as a play, is wrong, what kind of instinct is that which instinctively does things wrong? !lf you_ have any idea that you have v2) dramatic instinct and that it was born in you, get rid of it. I have a contempt that I cannot begin to express, although my vocabulary is not altogether meagre, for people who claim to have been born with a knowledge of any Art. Art is a human thing. It has to be acquired/) I would like to take hold of these people and have them do the exercise work required to bring them to their senses. Many of them think that analytical work is not necessary or that their minds are so constituted that they are not analytical but what they call "creative." Get that out of your head. In playwriting, at least, there is no distinction between these qualities. You must be analytical or you will never write plays with any professional firmness of touch. The difficulty of enforcing analytical exercise work, however, I have found to be so great that I require it only in the answers to the Question Sheets. Of course an infinite and serviceable amount of analytical work may be done in the analytical study of plays without committing the results to paper, but the habit of analytical thought should be gained. I do not recognize aptitude except as it comes from knowledge, experience and training. You may have an ad-aptitude, but aptitude means skill. If one has been reared on or about the stage he may acquire it unconsciously, but this aptitude comes from having learned the Art in one way or another. Learning it primarily from the stage itself has its dangers, which will be explained later. It is easy enough to learn the Art superficially, but this is an Art that one must master completely if he has any self-respect or hopes for a career uninterrupted by deficiencies.

Those people who think they have genius, and imagine that man is everything, are misguided egotists. They ignore, or pretend to ignore, the existence of Technique, or they may contend that technique is an indefinable thing and personal and private property. They even think that they have created Material. They are all wrong. Technique is what shapes the Material. The three elements, the Man, the Material, the Technique, exist with absolute distinctness, and each gets its value when the three are put together in combination. They must fuse as chemical elements do in creating a new substance. As a practical matter in playwriting, they are not only dependent the one upon the other, but the one helps the other. Technique suggests new material and stimulates the imagination. One man uses his technique better than another. Individual qualities are never absent. Everything* is co-operative.

THE DELUSION ABOUT DRAMATIC INSTINCT 5

The art of playwriting, Technique and the Material for plays, are as absolutely distinct from you as are the science and the substances of chemistry. Do you think you could be a born chemist? It would take you three years of hard study in some laboratory under chemists who labor to give you instruction for you to acquire sufficient knowledge to obtain a certificate of your proficiency. The State requires this certificate and does not permit born chemists to deal out death at their indiscretion and with their ignorance in the prescription departments of a chemical establishment. The text books of the science are enormous in volume. New discoveries are being made constantly. How could you be born to a knowledge of something not yet discovered? By what biological process could you be a born chemist?

Comparisons are not always conclusive, but it is absolutely certain that you can no more be a born playwright than you can be born a chemist. I want to demolish this preposterous and, as I call it, and believe it to be, soul destroying idea for all time, and to attack it in as many different directions as possible. I The point in this attack is to urge the distinction between "the Man, the Material and the Technique. It alone should be conclusive. Of course, the Material that we have to do with in playwriting is apparently not so recondite as in chemistry and would seem to be something of universal experience and apprehension. Nevertheless it is something apart from the individual. This Material cannot be classified with the same completeness and minuteness as chemical substances are. Nevertheless the emotions that you represent must have been experienced by others than yourself, and you cannot attribute to them that which is impossible for them to have felt. You cannot create any Material in a real play in the sense of making it different from nature. New combinations only can be formed, and this depends upon the man in consultation with his Technique. ] Naturally one experiences satisfaction in and assumes credit for all the niceties of spirit and of form that he gives his Material ; but it is easy enough for him to attach too much importance to himself. Let us take the first example that occurs to us, Browning's "Blot on the 'Scutcheon." Browning is lauded as one of the greatest poetic or creative minds that ever existed. The man undoubtedly had a great scope of mind and was an uncommon word monger, but how much of the material of "The Blot on the 'Scutcheon" did he create? Is it not a familiar and, in a sense, common-place bit of material out of literary ultra-romanticism, grounded, of course, in the possibilities of life?

The Material may be so potential or actual in its relations to Technique or form that the play may write itself without any material indebtedness to the dramatist. How false and absurd the claim of dramatic instinct in a case of this sort is demonstrated by a very common result, the dramatist is never heard of again. He doesn't understand the art of playwriting, never succeeds in writing another play, and his subsequent manuscripts afford amazed amusement in the offices of managers. Can you doubt the independent existence of the three elements described when you consider Sir Walter Scott and Dickens? These two novelists, the greatest so far in English literature, in their respective fields, possessed more "dramatic instinct" than an infinite number of successful and even famous dramatists of many countries put together, but they worked with different tools from those of the dramatists. Their processes of thought were different. The form was different, and therein lies the ) whole matter. Form implies a particular Technique.] Sir Walter Scott was observant of the drama and wrote a good deal about it, but he certainly was not a dramatist, and his practical knowledge of the laws of the stage was slight. It is not at all improbable that he could have become a dramatist. Dickens was very close to the stage, one of the most intimate friends of Macready, constantly behind the scenes, was an excellent amateur actor and wrote a number of small plays, but he did not cultivate the form. Neither Scott

THK DELUSION ABOUT DRAMATIC INSTINCT 7

nor Dickens took the trouble to get at the details of the workshop. If the "dramatic instinct" of these men was not sufficient to enable them to write plays of the highest distinctive quality by what chance is it that you have been born with a "dramatic instinct" that is equivalent to a complete Technique?

If by the possession of dramatic instinct you mean that you have an innate knowledge of all that Aristotle communicated to the world, of all that has been written upon the subject (a considerable part of which, however, is compilation of an uninformed kind), of all that the experienced and trained dramatist knows, you have a pitiful misconception of your own relation to the world and to human thought. If you confidently believe that you instinctively know all that some student may have gained in the toil of a well planned and essential obscurity, of privation, in the pursuit of elemental truths, you can take a little time for reflection and then apply to yourself that epithet which no one word in the English language can supply and which perhaps you may find in Esperanto, a combination of all languages. "Instinct" is knowledge, whether it be in a bird building its nest or in a beaver constructing its dam. At all events, b) [Technique is a matter of knowledge ! Technique is science and art. It requires that everything that concerns it be definite and scientific, and "instinct" is too vague to be tolerated for one instant. J Just as the art existed centuries before you were born and will continue to exist centuries after you perish in your vanity, so has existed, does exist, and will exist, independently of you, the Material out of which a play is made. You were no more born with an innate knowledge of all the Material in the world or one atom of that Material than you were born with a knowledge, an "Instinct," of the Technique. What are you and your thoughts, your imaginings and your combinations compared with the complexity of emotions and happenings between the myriads of souls that live and have lived? Do yon think you are larger than the Material and more important than the

Technique? Man was created a little lower than the angels and, we may surmise, in all modesty, is not altogether a worm; but his powers are relative. He has no instincts that are not shared by every other human being in a greater or less degree. You may believe that you have the qualities of a dramatist. That is an altogether different matter. But what qualities? [The drama or its Material embraces every emotion felt by any human being. ; ;

Chapter II. Analysis

Q) ["What is analysis ? It is the taking apart of anything, the resolving of it into its elements, in order to discover its nature and the principles of its construction whereby it exists and has its functions. It is the source of all scientific knowledge. It is something that every man of good and practical sense exercises in the simplest matter that he wishes to understand.^ He can tie a sailor's knot only when he finds out how it is done. He is on the road to understanding if he takes a watch. to pieces in order to ascertain the relations of its various parts. He will not be a watchmaker until he understands also the principles that have led to the devising of these various parts. There is a certain mechanism about playwriting that is just as distinct as the mechanism of a watch. Any contention to the contrary is the prejudice of ignorance. The principles remain the same in the one case as the other. Remember that this refers only to the mechanism, principles of construction and the law of the drama which must be obeyed by every one who attempts a drama, whether he be a genius or an ordinary human being. I may incidentally remark that many of our best plays are written by so-called ordinary people and that many of our worst plays are written by so-called geniuses. I do not believe it is possible for one to become an expert in playwriting without understanding Analysis. Do not make the mistake of thinking that it is not playwriting and that you are not beginning to learn playwriting when you begin with exercises in Analysis. In point of fact, it is playwriting, which, as I have already set forth, is a process of thought first of all.! Coming over on a steamer not a great while ago some one cornered Paul Potter, the dramatizer of "Trilby," which was played in many countries, a man whose mastery of Technique is as great as that of any other I know, and asked him "How one learned to write a play." That is a question that cannot be answered in a single word; but his answer comes as near covering the case as possible. His reply was "By analyzing plays." He added that he had analyzed a thousand plays, and Mr. Bronson Howard, the first scientific dramatist America ever had (apart from Bartley Campbell) told him that he had analyzed twelve hundred or more. Now,,

Hj what does one discover on analysis? (He certainly finds that there are not one hundred new and different principles in each of these thousand plays and that the art of playwriting does not depend upon the caprice of each writer, but that it is systematic and can be reduced to system, one system, not a hundred systems, while the principles are comparatively few, although there is infinite detail.*] He finds that it is the same art, whether exercised by Shakespeare or by Ibsen or by Henry Arthur Jones. This art is independent of genius. It is the same thing at all times ! It is a univer-

(jfNsal keyboard. [We analyze with reference to the art, to mechanism, to the Technique. We have nothing to do with the qualities or general nature of a play. The play may be good or it may be bad. The Technique, and perfect Technique, may be applied to something that has no value or which is abhorrent in morals and taste.j Reconcile yourself to that at the very outset. You will understand it fully after a little. Of course morality and taste and all the best human qualities should exist in a play, but that is not f(A the question. |_Jn making an Analysis of a play we take it apart with reference to the principles. To consider as a whole is not Analysis at all. To read a play for information, for its historical bearings in any sense, is for the general reader and not for the student. That kind of information is useful and perhaps indispensable, but it lies far away from the study of structure and how the play is put together. One might know every play, or every important play, ever written and still have little or no understanding of Technique, which is to say, how they were written. We

ANALYSIS 1 1

must, then, take up the Analysis of a play, point by point, with reference to each established principle, such as Proposition, Plot, Unity, Sequence, Cause and Effect and so on. In that way we master the play in Detail. We examine the application of every principle in every relation. The analytical work at first is almost entirely directed to gaining a familiarity with the meaning of the terms. We then expand the method of Analysis and consider each principle with reference to every other principle.] We must first understand the Terms. If two people were talking about electricity, one an expert and the other with only a general and limited knowledge, not knowing exactly what was meant by Ohm, Volt, or Killowatt, a discussion would be fruitless and the expert would abandon it in disgust. ^Analysis and Criticism are two very different things. Any one on earth can criticise, but Analysis can only be applied by him who has a knowledge of the art. Criticism may be empty and capricious. Analysis gets at the truth. One must gain a perfect understanding and command of the principles as a preliminary step toward applying them. ? How can it be said that any one is applying a principle if he does not know what the principle is? It is not enough that one may have a general knowledge. His knowledge must be specific. A general knowledge may serve for a while, but a crisis will come when it will not do. If you take the trouble to do the exercise work and to set down everything in black and white, or even if you think it out, following the method herein, you will gradually and finally realize the necessity of it and can apply the principles knowingly when you get to work on your own plays.

You will then have a pleasure in the work that is not possible if you do not possess a living Technique. To have Technique on your side inspires one with confidence. On the artistic side of a play there are many things that are not matters of opinion, but are facts of indisputable principle or Technique. MThe work of Analysis is of absolute importance, for it forms the habit of mind. It enables one to use the principles as tools. He must be so familiar with these tools that he can use them with perfect readiness and take up the exact tool needed for a certain bit of work. Of course, at first you will think that all this is academic and too formal. You will say that it is impossible for one to think of his subject and of all his tools at the same time, whereas, when one has a perfect knowledge of all the principles he does not have to marshal all the knowledge at one and the same time in any conscious way. His principle will come to his help consciously only when he needs it. I have said that the exercise of this Analysis in Technique is playwriting itself; but assuming that you had or had not exercised Analysis in the writing of the play, there is a final use of it that cannot possibly be avoided, and that is in the revision of your play. There it has a most definite and final use. For instance, if one has not mastered Proposition and Plot and should discover, either on production of the play or on a close consideration of it, or should feel, without knowing why, that there is something wrong with the play, and if the defect were in Proposition and Plot he would never correct the fault, work as long as he might.

I see an infinite number of plays that are faulty, both on the boards and in the manuscript, to which final value could be given if the author knew what was wrong in them. When an author becomes possessed of his subject and gets into the warmth of composition he may easily lose sight of accuracy, and accuracy in spite of the derision in which Technique is sometimes held means truth. Incidentally it also means money. It stands back of all permanent success. It wards off failure. I am in no degree academic and I know from long experience and observation that Technique is not an empty word and that Analysis is the first step toward gaining it. You will find that the whole tendency of this Course is to destroy conventionality and to give freedom to the man to establish the art and its methods firmly in him. The art should be gained before writing plays. Refuse to submit to it and

ANALYSIS 13

you may wander in the wilderness all your days long. This School was established in order to keep countless people from working in their own way with a contemptuous disdain for Technique. I have read literally thousands of plays written by inexpert people in their own way, and some of them reveal work that is no better than it was, to my knowledge, twenty years ago. I am convinced that a year devoted largely to analytical work is necessary for most students in order to get them to secure the right attitude toward drama. The simple question of time is important. If one begins to write too soon, it becomes a process of unlearning, and that throws the b.urden of the work on the teacherj

You will ask why these five plays were selected and you will object that they are not modern and recent enough. They were not selected with any particular deliberation, nor entirely at random, but because they answered the purpose in hand. They were and are successful and famous plays. Any play or plays of that description could have done just as well. HPublic taste may change, but dramatic \J ^ principle does not change. The application of principle is subject to betterment in the technical handling of material: but the principles remains the same in Ibsen or Shaw and no dramatist will ever overturn themj The modern and the most recent writers will be considered in another section of the course. If dramatic principle had to be derived from them, and was absent in all dramas before their time, and was as subject to fluctuation as the stock market, the art would be bottomless; in fact no art; whereas we can reach rock bottom and the foundation of all dramatic principle in these particular plays as well as in any other plays ever written. 'Analysis and technique have nothing whatever to do with history or the qualities of morality and aesthetics in a play. If "Camille" is an objectionable play to you, console yourself with this truth which I urge. You may criticise it as you will, but your criticism can never touch the technical side of it. "The Lady of

Lyons" may be old fashioned in its sentiment, but the art of it, I mean particularly the essential dramatic principles to be found in it, will never become old fashioned. Dramatic technique has improved in some details since the play was written, but the dramatic principle of it is sound.