The Atlantic book of junior plays

Front matter

Class ~PlA\a\ \2.

Book

Copyright N°___

Foreword

The Atlantic Book of Junior Plays is designed for readers some¬ what younger and less advanced than those high-school, college, and unacademic groups who are so successfully using Professor Sterling A. Leonard’s Atlantic Book of Modern Plays. While as editor and compiler of this present volume I have been as insistent as was Professor Leonard in the design of including only those plays that possess permanent literary and dramatic value, I have naturally sought only such values as are apparent and appealing to younger readers — readers whose tastes in the drama are still somewhat untutored and plastic. As only a small percentage of plays are written with these requisites in mind, my task has been more difficult and prolonged than I had at first supposed it would be. Because of this sparsity of superior plays for the junior group, perhaps those who have vainly sought for good examples of types here assembled will grant this volume the more cordial welcome. Teachers, parents, and librarians will have already discovered that it is far easier to meet the demands of the more mature students.

Anyone who has studied the mental behavior of those young people who are just entering the adolescent stage, has of course discovered that their interests, instead of being confined to the activities of child-life, have an extremely wide range. And the complex life of older people is perhaps the most intense and dominating of them all. Knowledge of these varied types of interest has guided the choice of the individual plays that make this complete anthology. I have naturally not ignored the patent fact that children quickly and easily identify themselves with the adventures and thoughts of other children. I have, however, in making the selection, kept prominently in mind the idea that the young people who are the prospective readers of these plays have interests coincident with those of the adult life which they are all now imaginatively living. Moreover, a child’s reach — no less than a man’s — should exceed his grasp.

Other considerations relating to this matter of adolescent interest have helped to determine the entire collection. I have tried to provide many types of plays, many varied appeals, v

VI

FOREWORD many different themes. To characterize each play we shall need the service of many different adjectives — symbolic, romantic, realistic, legendary, fantastic, poetic, serious, ethical, and other descriptive words that each reader will wish to select for himself as the one that accurately reflects his own characteri¬ zation of the predominant note of each separate selection.

While I have rejected all plays that are either beyond the powers of young actors or for other reasons ill-suited to the amateur stage, — for I have assumed that many of these will be acted, — I have nevertheless had more prominently in mind the reading-quality of each of these dramatic selections. It has been gratifying to my sense of imagination constantly to think of the book as offering delightful hours for parents, for teachers, and children within the congenial circles of homes and schools and libraries, where these plays can profitably be read aloud and enthusiastically discussed.

We are all now living in the age of the printed play. Suc¬ cessful dramatists are almost as anxious to have their works published as they are to have them produced. As teachers and as parents we shall be more and more concerned in placing before our children the right sort of dramatic material; we shall be equally concerned in providing methods for instructing them in the art of reading — the imaginative re-creation of scene, incident, and character. To supply these two aims is the principal function of the present volume.

For help in carrying this project to completion my obli¬ gations are many. First of all I wish to express my thanks to Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, who suggested the book. Various friends, and especially my students in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, have offered many valuable suggestions. To the authors and publishers who have generously granted their permission, I have made specific acknowledgment elsewhere. I am, however, very particularly indebted to Miss M. Agnes Edwards, a graduate of the University of California. From the beginning she has been associated with me in the work, and many of the items are of her contribution. If the pages are comparatively free from error, it is largely due to her vigilant attention to details.

Charles Swain Thomas

The Graduate School of Education Harvard University

Contents

PAGE

Appreciating the Drama . y . ix

What Men Live By . . From the story by Tolstoi

II What Real Reading Implies

While many groups will naturally wish to present many of these plays as finished examples of producing skill, — with all that this implies in matters of costume, voice-effects, gestures, postures, and stage-mechanism, — it is not upon these details that stress should at first, or even ultimately, be placed. We should in the beginning em¬ phasize the reading. But first we must be sure that the term “ reading ” carries in the student’s mind all its appropriate connotative values. True oral reading of a xi play — or any other type of literary selection — does not mean merely the pronouncing of words, even though the words be “read with proper expression.” Nor does the term “silent reading” mean merely following the thread of the story or securing the basic message. Both terms, oral reading and silent reading, involve much in the way of supplemental detail which adds richly to the fascination and the pleasure of reading; but those emotions have sel¬ dom received adequate emphasis in the pupils’ training.

Many of these supplementary details are dependent upon our power to re-create a situation and receive in the play of fancy approximately the same sensations that came to the poets, the story-tellers, or the dramatists as they wrote. The dramatist — to select but one from the author-group — creates his character, clothes him in appropriate costume, gives him individuality in voice, form, and address, and places him in a clearly objectified situation. The reader, noting the significance of scene, following the dialogue, and participating in the play and the byplay of emotion and incident, comes as nearly as possible into coincident thinking and feeling with the author at the time of writing.

Of course no one can do this absolutely; nor, if he could, would the reader know that the register of thought and feeling was exact. Indeed, in some cases it may be pos¬ sible that a fuller pleasure, due to the nice definition of concepts, may come to the reader in his moment of re-creation than to the writer in his moment of creation.

The real teacher of drama can take the plays of this volume and develop in his pupils the power to visualize the scenes, to objectify the characters, to partake of all the inherent sensory effects — sound, color, form, odor, taste, and movement. For these items are fundamental in the process of genuine appreciation. They are both xii

the realities and the ornaments of reading. When they are clearly perceived by the imagination of the student they may create an impression that rivals in interest and clarity the actual production upon the stage or the actual happenings of life. The process may bring him into such close sympathy with the author that some of the joys of creation may thus be vicariously experienced.

We should not try to push too far the demand for coincident feeling and thinking between author and reader. Each individual lives a separate life and accu¬ mulates an individual experience. Every external stimulus, because of this difference, will in each person secure a separate and distinct reaction. The dramatist might speak of a certain one of his characters as wearing a red cloak; one reader would re-create this as a deep crimson, another as a vivid scarlet. Either interpretation would be wholly satisfying even though both shades might differ from that which the author originally had in mind. The matter in this case is too trivial to mar the general effect.

Similarly, the dramatist may imagine a particular house to face the east. A reader imagines it facing west. As there is nothing vital in this item the divergent concep¬ tions are of no particular moment. But it is worth while for the reader to establish a definite direction which the house must face, for it adds to his ability to create perfectly definite pictures, perfectly definite sensory images.

Ill

The Scope of the Term, “Reading,” Applied to the Play, “What Men Live By”

The first demand upon the reader, after noting the title and the authorship of the play, is a cursory reading of the xiii

list of characters. This list is not at first to be carefully studied; it is necessary for reference and for purposes of identification during the reading of the earlier portions of the play — until the reader has become acquainted with each person.

Demand for concentrated thinking and re-creation comes with the reading of the first paragraph printed in italics. In this sensualizing 1 process we form an imagi¬ nary stage four feet below the street level. Our eye is focused upon a few steps (I personally think of them as rough wooden ones) that lead up to a door which opens upon the street. Each sequent detail the reader rapidly sets within the picture — the long, narrow window at rear right; beneath the window the cobbler’s bench with the loose tools lying scattered about; the gray curtains that form the crude coat-cabinet, the china closet, the hearth, chairs, table, and the door to the inner room. As we think of these items we should learn to endow them with appropriate shape and color and let them exist for us with almost the same definiteness as if they were actu¬ ally before us. By training of this sort the imagination easily becomes sensitive to verbal stimulus and quickly constructs scenes and properties appropriate for the incidents that follow. It is of course inevitable, as I

1 The commoner word, “visualizing,” might here have been used, but it would not fully express all that I mean, for to visualize means merely to see. To “sensualize” this scene means to re-create it, to re-compose it in all its particulars, and to bring to the reader all the sense-appeals that we should experience were we to be actually present in the cobbler’s shop. We should get a definite idea of the size, of the shape, of the glitter of knives with their keen edges, the dim cast of light, the combined odor of new and old leather, the sounds of passing feet upon the pavement outside, the irregular fall of passing shadows, the relative positions of the persons upon the stage, the voices of those who speak — in a word, all the effects that strike, simultaneously or in sequence, any of the five senses of sight, smell, hearing, feeling, taste.

XIV have constantly assumed, that each reader’s picture will vary; but in no essential — if the reading is consistently followed — will the details vary from the author’s own preconception.

The stage directions preceding the dialogue in Scene One make a new and interesting demand. We visualize Simon, the cobbler, in action — mending shoes — while his wife, seated near the fire, is repairing an old sheepskin coat. We must know enough of their station and the ordinary ways of Russian life to allow our imagination to be intelligent in supplying the proper costume for each.

In attempting to imagine a suitable costume for Simon, I find myself recalling a portrait of Tolstoi in peasant’s dress. To be sure, this was the dress of a gardener and not a cobbler, but I nevertheless appropriate for Simon the long, buttonless, loose-fitting shirt of coarse drab material that hung from the neck to the knees. An old pair of pantaloons of mongrel color and shape, heavy boots, and an improvised skullcap complete the costume. My picture may not be identical with the author’s, but it satisfies me until it is later necessary to have Simon put on the woollen slippers, the jacket, the kaftan, and the tattered sheepskin coat.

As for Matrena, I’m not so sure. Feminine attire may have, for masculine imaginings, its own peculiar difficulties. But I recall that the author has told us that she’s as “brown and dry as a chip,” so I simply cover her gray head in a faded turban, select a coarse waist and skirt of nondescript hue, encase her feet in old brogans, and let it go at that.

Even this has perhaps taken more time than any of us will later need for the costumes of Michael, Avedeitch, Thedka, Sonia, the Angel, the Little Devil, and the rest. We know their stations and their degrees, and even though xv our knowledge of Russian life may be scanty, our imagina¬ tion will quickly create garments appropriate for each, particularly if we have been fortunate enough to have seen the players from the Moscow Art Theatre.

We should go further — and this is a new demand for many young readers: we should grant to each a voice that is appropriate and individual. Inasmuch as Tolstoi describe s Matrena as being as brown and dry as a chip, we may appropriately conceive her voice to be rather thin and cracked and monotonous. And as she is in the beginning evidently in an unhappy, complaining mood, her tones are dominated by the querulous, satiric note. Doubtless her lip curls slightly as she speaks, and we know how this would alter her tone. Simon’s mood, on the other hand, is kindly and solicitous, regulated by a desire to please. The voice which our imagination fashions for him is therefore open, soft, and full, and conciliatory in tone. It should suggest his nobler attitude.

This matter of re-creating the appropriate voice is one xii *rhich there is necessarily a large amount of personal freedom, but the use of this freedom must be intelligent; it must be consistent. Above all, it must by its definite¬ ness and its concreteness contribute to the sensualizing and the vit alizing of the entire scene. It is an important matter in character-creation.

Having in our imagination definitely costumed our characters appropriately, and having, at the same time, established in our own mind a clear and definite conception of their features and their entire external appearance, we proceed t,o the more important though the more abstract inner qualities, — qualities that gradually determine in the mind of each reader the sort of person each given character really is, — good or bad, strong or weak, sly or ingenuous, stupid or astute, or any one of those innumer-

A

able attributes that help either to comiqand on* to repel our admiration and our liking, and also enable uss to forecast what action may consistently be expected frc m a partic¬ ular character in a particular situation. But, what, we may ask, are the methods whereby the dramaUist reveals these individualizing traits? »

Some of us, unquestionably, have watched a pointer at his easel. A touch here, a touch there, a skillfully drawn line, a happy intermingling of light and shade, a painstak¬ ing attention to detail, and the scene or the portrait \finally stands out in clear outline and revealing individuality. Now the dramatist works with the same general design of definite and individual portrayal; but he works i^ith another medium—largely the medium of words. Analyz¬ ing his methods, we discover that there are four distinct ways in which he brings his separate actors into the cl^ar, disclosing light of the reader’s imagination:

APPRECIATING THE DRA:

i

1. By what the character says or fails to say. \

2. By what is said about the character.

3. By what the character does or fails to

4. By what the character causes others tc> do.

It will be interesting to examine this enumeration more carefully and see how it may be analytically applied to Tolstoi’s portrayal of the character of Michael, the most commanding and magnetic personality in the play. What, we may ask, is revealed by the first method?

1. What the character says or fails to say. One of Michael’s marked traits is first revealed by what he fails to say. In the midst of those first tense moments after his entrance, he remains silent in the midst of M.atrena’s rage and Simon’s excited explanation. An ordinary man would likely have spoken before Michael did, but he remains silent until he is questioned. Even then his

XVII replies (page 15) are brief, immediately suggesting reserve, mystery, and calm. Later, in his longer speech to Matrena, he reveals both his religious spirit and his fine sense of appreciation for the kindness which the cobbler and his wife have shown him: —

The Lord be good to you ! I was lying frozen and unclothed, when Simon saw and took compassion on me. He shared with me his clothing and brought me hither. You have given me food and drink and shown me great kindness.

The later dialogue discloses other traits of Michael, but the most dramatic is revealed in the short but portentous reply to the Baron’s currish taunt, “You had better see that the boots are ready when I want them” (page 20). Michael quietly responds, “They will be ready when you need them.” Only one who possesses the mysterious gift of prophecy could, on their utterance, have known the significance of those clairvoyant words that indicate Michael’s knowledge of the approaching tragedy.

2. What is said about the character. In listening to the comments which one person in the play makes about another, we instinctively take into consideration the relationship of the two persons, whether they are friends, or enemies, or impartial observers of each other’s actions. Naturally, too, we consider the truthfulness and the intelligence of the persons making the comments.

When the dramatist speaks in the stage directions we accept his observations at their face value, for he, in a sense, is omniscient. For example, on page 13 Tolstoi gives us our first idea of Michael: “The stranger is a young man, tall and slender, with fine clear-cut features and a mild gentle expression.”

Later dialogue in the play, as any reader may easily discover, further reveals Michael’s several traits — his xviii APPRECIATING THE DRAMA

industry, his skill, his painstaking attention to detail, his reverence, his seriousness, and his clairvoyance. As these characterizations are made by his friends, and as the com¬ ments are, moreover, verified before us by Michael’s own behavior, we likewise accept these comments at their face value. Matrena is our chief informer, as in her speech to Anna (page 17): “He works all day, only resting for a moment to look upward. He never wishes to go out of doors; never jests, nor laughs. He has smiled only once: it was the night he came.” In the later conversation there are of course many other bits of characterization that readers will absorb and fit into the complete charactermosaic that is ours when we have come to the end of the play and see him in the glow of a divine illumination.

3. What the character does or fails to do. We have already anticipated, in what we said about Michael’s behavior, the use that the dramatist makes of his charac¬ ters in action. Here they strikingly reveal themselves, as the old adage-maker recognized when he wrote, “Actions speak louder than words.”

One of the traits that impresses us in Michael almost as soon as he appears is his kindness. This is perhaps most clearly seen in his gentle attitude toward the little girls whom Sonia brings to the cobbler’s shop. He first watches them with keen and friendly interest, and he talks to them in the gentlest of tones. Little Nikita slips limpingly over to Michael as he sits on his cobbler’s bench, and Michael stops his work to lift her to his knee. Anyone acting sympathetically the part of Michael would fittingly convey in his action here the kindly spirit of the man.

There is, however, something more than mere kindness in all these actions. His whole attitude is that of guardian¬ ship and solicitude and mystery. And to these is sig¬ nificantly added the spirit of adoration, for just before xix the children leave the shop, all those who are present “are drawn to look at Michael who, sitting with his hands folded on his knees, is gazing upward and smiling as though at some one unseen by the others.”

What Michael fails to do is also of significance. He might have resented, in action and word, the almost intolerable haughtiness and bluster of the Baron. But this man of mystery reveals his force by his calmness and restraint. His habitual silence and composure are the very qualities which help to give us our confidence in his spiritual strength.

4. What the character causes others to do. The fourth means of character-portrayal — what one causes others to do — is of course closely akin to the third, but nevertheless is sufficiently different to justify separate enumeration and analysis. Individual strength is re¬ vealed in a great executive who keeps his aides and subordinates keen, alert, and ambitious. We measure the strength — or it may be the weakness — of any executive by what his associates do or fail to do. And so it is with almost any individual.

There is something significant in Michael’s influence on the other characters in the play, and this influence is not apparent in his spoken words or concrete actions; it is apparent rather in the attitude which his personality creates. He generates in the shy Nikita the spirit of confidence that prompts her to seek his nearer presence. This action, trivial in itself, is nevertheless significant.

Michael’s influence on Simon is in the process of the play interestingly revealed. It is he who combats the force of evil symbolized by the Little Devil, and cooperates with the Guardian Angel in saving Simon’s soul. Yet all this is accomplished by a silently working characterforce, without either spoken words or direct action.

XX

The foregoing analysis is not meant to be complete. There are scores of interesting items in character-analysis that have not been touched upon. What has here been written is to be regarded only as a suggestion for further study and examination, either in this play or in any other plays which the student may select. Many of the specific comments and questions in the notes to this text are com¬ prehended in this method of analysis of Michael’s charac¬ ter. The entire study is only an additional item to indi¬ cate the comprehensive meaning that rightfully attaches to the term, “reading,” when we appreciate the full connotation of the term.

IV Appreciating Humor

Those readers or listeners whose appreciation of humor¬ ous scenes or speeches is keen by nature will not need any special suggestions along this line. And those who are wholly devoid of this appreciation cannot expect to be taught. There are, however, many readers whose ordinary power to see the humor in the lines may be developed. Parents and teachers can, moreover, create a common desire to linger over the humorous scenes, and by a common infection increase the enjoyment of each member of the group.

Moreover, it is unquestionably true that many need to be told quite sharply that certain situations at which they laugh are really not funny at all. People of a farpast generation used to laugh when dogs or cats or bears or any animals were the victims of practices that inflicted pain and produced yelps and yowls and roars. Even yet there are moving-picture producers who seem to regard the act of throwing a piece of custard pie at an innocent xxi bystander as the very quintessence of things humorous, and therefore worthy the tributes of loud laughter and unrestrained applause.

Those who read the plays of this volume will find here nothing that smacks of such horseplay. They will, how¬ ever, find plenty of good farce. Even in such a serious play as What Men Live By there are flitting sheens of the author’s gentle satiric fun. The widow Anna Maloska is seen, in her determined search for a husband, inter¬ preting Martin’s abstract and far-off remarks about marriage as a near approach to a proposal. When, some time later, Martin has finally agreed to marry her, she decides that her next pair of shoes shall be good and com¬ fortable — instead of sixes she orders number nines. And she is looking amiably forward to the time when she can go to breakfast in an old wrapper and curl-papers. Humorous touches such as these will prove more per¬ manently satisfying than those examples of broad farce and cheap incident that among the uneducated produce hoarse laughter and loud guffaws.

V

The Atmosphere of a Play

When we consider the various elements that build up the connotation of the term “reading,” we include one which is somewhat intangible and which we rather vaguely designate as atmosphere. It is something which produces a distinct effect, but which is difficult to define. We are conscious, when we come to make comparisons, that many other things beside plays possess atmosphere. We feel it when we step into a church, or a school, or a home, or a business office. It lingers about college halls and helps to give them character and distinction. It is the aura

XXII which surrounds every strong personality and tends to make us seek or evade his presence. The atmosphere of a play is sometimes chiefly created by the setting of the scene, as in Percy MacKaye’s Kinfolk of Robin Hood. It may be produced by the clash and menace of great historical turmoil, as in John Farrar’s Nerves. In Miss Field’s The Fifteenth Candle , we feel the pressing claims of child-labor in conflict with the higher idealism of art.

In Tolstoi’s What Men Live By we have an interesting example of the atmosphere changing as the play pro¬ gresses. In the beginning we are depressed by the air of grinding poverty that keeps the cobbler and his wife in continual anxiety. It infects the home and induces a note of querulousness and suspicion. But gradually this fetid air is dispelled by the purifying influence of Michael and his divinity. After a year all trace of the former infection is lost; we breathe the atmosphere of the restored angel whose mysterious presence has wTought the wondrous change. Into the darkness of the silent room there finally bursts the “great choir of voices, and in the doorway Michael, bathed in light, stands looking upward.” And this is the atmosphere out of which we must emerge when we finish the reading of this mystery-laden play.

VI The Plot of the Play

Into the finer technique and niceties of plot-construction it is not now necessary or desirable that we should enter. As readers of plays, we note the situation at the beginning, follow the action up to and away from the point of highest interest, and finally watch the characters end their play. And we do this without much thought about methods of plot-development.

APPRECIATING THE DRAMA xxiii

In thinking of simple plot-structure I have recalled an old farmyard story. In the crowded corral were live stock of varied kinds, all quiet and peaceful. A sleeping pig, disturbed by a fly, kicked out his hind foot somewhat viciously and struck a calf standing innocently near. The calf responded with an equally vicious kick and unfortunately hit a mule that responded with both feet, as mules frequently do. Instantly the whole barnyard was in angry turmoil and one disaster followed another in reckless disorder. The excitement died down only when the farmer opened the gate and drove all the ani¬ mals into a large field, where conditions were more favorable to the peace that finally ensued.

Something of this sort always happens in plots. Things are quiescent. Somebody or something disturbs the quiet, and moods — angry, joyous, jealous, suspicious — are aroused. The changed situations and moods come to a height of interest — it may be comedy, it may be tragedy — and then, gradually or suddenly, fall again into a quiet plane. Plot-interest in plays lies in simply following the course of events that compose a dramatic art unit.

Of course the study and analysis of the methods used by the writer are always interesting. To what degree is the trend of the story determined by one peculiar tempera¬ ment coming by chance into the congenial, or uncon¬ genial, presence of another? Or how much is due to mere situation, the characters being neutral, unindividualized? Or how much influence does the historical situation or atmosphere exert? Is the playwright skillful in explaining quickly and clearly the relationship of one character to another? Does he manage his entrances and exits so that they seem natural — motivated by the characters them¬ selves? Or, on the other hand, do they seem to be made

XXIV simply to suit the whim or the convenience or the momen¬ tary need of the dramatist? Apply these questions first to What Men Live By and then compare the skill of the other playwrights with Tolstoi’s skill in this particular.

VII The Acting of Plays

While emphasis in the preceding part of this Introduction has fallen upon the reading of plays, no one need infer that dramatic production is to be discouraged. We all know how enthusiastically pupils undertake projects of this sort, and we know, too, that competent guidance produces most beneficial results. The acting of many of these plays by the pupils who read them may therefore be regarded as merely amplifying the reading-idea and offering fuller scope for complete interpretation.