How a play is produced

Front matter

HOW A PLAY IS PRODUCED

BY KAREL ČAPEK

ILLUSTRATED BY JOSEPH ČAPEK

Introduction

Introduction

THIS instructive little book is designed to explain to dramatists, to the public, and to dramatic critics, how a play is produced, and through what transformations it has to pass before it bursts from its chrysalis in all the beauty and splendour of its first night.

We do not wish to pretend that we understand the theatre; as a matter of fact, no one really understands it, neither those who have grown old on the boards, nor the most ancient of managers—not even the dramatic critics themselves.

Good Heavens, if only the reader of plays could know beforehand whether a play will be a success or not! If only the manager could count the box-office receipts in advance! If only the actor could be given a sign that his part will be a success! Why, yes, then the production of a play might run as smoothly and calmly as cabinet-making, or the manufacture of soap.

But the production of a play is an art like that of warfare, and luck plays as great a part in it as in roulette, for no one knows beforehand just how things will turn out. It is a sheer miracle that the play gets played at all, not only on the first night, but on every succeeding night, and if it is played, that it gets played through to the end. For a play is not produced “according to plan,” but through the constant conquest of insurmountable obstacles. Every lathe in the scenery and every nerve in the actor’s body, is liable to break at any moment. Usually, it is true, they do not break, but despite this fact, the situation is a distressing one, nor can it possibly be improved.

There will be no talk here of the dramatic art and its mysteries, but simply of the theatrical trade and its mysteries. It certainly would be far more agreeable to discuss the possibilities of the ideal theatre, and the ideal manner of producing a play, but all such talk of ideals only hides the complicated and marvellous reality which actually exists for us. We are not brooding here upon the lurking possibilities of the Collective Drama, or the Constructivist décor; in a theatre all things are possible; it is a magician’s house of miracles. Indeed, the greatest miracle of all is that it goes on at all. If the curtain does happen to rise at eight o’clock, please remember that this is merely a fortunate coincidence, or simply a miracle.

Although we have avoided the temptation of talking about Art, all the same, we should like, at least in the Introduction, to burn a candle before the Divine Muse. You will behold her, poor thing, by no means in her glory; you will even see her pushed and buffeted about at rehearsals, with a cold in her head, forced to endure every kind of injustice, hard labour, and all the disturbing troubles of life behind the scenes. When she appears before you on the stage, painted, and in a blaze of lights, remember the burdens she has had to bear. Then you will have something like a conception of dramatic art.

Moreover, there are all kinds of people behind the scenes, below the scenes, and above the scenes, who help to pull and push the car of Thespis along. And even if they do play their parts in a very naturalistic manner, garbed in everyday clothes, or in blue overalls, they play a very important part in the production of a play. So let them also be celebrated in this book.

The First Beginnings

PART I

The Preliminaries

The First Beginnings

IN its first embryonic and groping beginnings, a play comes to birth outside the theatre itself, on the writing-table of the aspiring dramatist; its first appearance in the theatre does not take place until the dramatist fondly imagines it to be ready. Of course, very soon—say in about six months or so—it is easily seen that it is not at all ready, for even under the most favourable of conditions it wanders back to the dramatist with the modest request that he should not only shorten it, but also rewrite the last act completely.

For some mysterious reason it is always the last act which requires alteration, just as it is always the last act which is sure to prove a failure on the stage, and it is always the last act which is picked out by the critics, with wonderful unanimity, as the one weak part of the play. It is really quite remarkable that in spite of this unfailing experience, dramatists do insist on having some sort of a last act. Last acts simply should not be written at all. Or they should be cut off on principle, just as the tails of bull-dogs are cut off to preserve their beauty. Or else plays should be played backwards, with the last act first, and the first act, which is always said to be the best one, at the end. In short, something should be done to free dramatists from the curse of the terrible last act.

When this troublesome last act has been shortened, and altered two or three times, and the play has been finally accepted, there begins for the dramatist an awful period of waiting and general hanging around. During this period he stops writing altogether, and does simply nothing at all; he is unable to read the newspapers, live in the clouds, sleep, or kill time in any way; for the poor man exists in a trance of waiting to know whether his play will be produced, when it will be produced, how it will be produced, etc., etc. It is no use talking to a dramatist who is undergoing this enforced period of waiting; only the very hardened ones manage to suppress their natural excitement, and are able to pretend sometimes that they are thinking of other matters besides the play which they have had accepted.

Perhaps the dramatist has fondly imagined that even before he has finished his play, a man from the theatre will be standing behind his chair, breathlessly beseeching him to hurry that last act along, and declaring that the first night is on the morrow, and that he dare not return to the theatre without the last act, etc., etc. Of course, in real life this does not happen. If a play has been accepted, it must lie about in the theatre for a certain period so that it may have time to mature, and become, as it were, saturated with theatrical atmosphere. (Another reason why it must lie about in the theatre for some time, is that it may be announced as an “eagerly awaited novelty.”) Some authors are foolish enough to attempt to interfere with this ripening process by personal intervention, which, fortunately, has no effect whatever. Things must be left to take their own natural course. When the play has lain about in the theatre sufficiently, it begins, as it were, to emit a certain odour, and must be brought out on to the stage itself, which means, first of all, into the rehearsal room.

Casting the Play

Casting the Play

OF course, before the actual rehearsals begin there is the business of casting the play. The author now makes the valuable discovery that this is anything but easy. There are in the play, let us say, three ladies and five gentlemen. For the eight rôles, therefore, the author chooses eight or nine of the best players in the theatre ensemble, and declares that he has written the parts specially for them, and for them alone. It is a wonder that he does not call up Moshna, the famous Czech comedian, out of the grave to play a part—“It’s only a small one, but very important.” So far so good. He now hands his list to the producer, and the matter wanders, as they say, “higher up.”

Now, however, it turns out that:

1. Miss A. cannot take the principal rôle because she is just now playing another principal rôle.

2. Miss B. returns the rôle the dramatist has chosen for her, protesting in a hurt manner that it is not a suitable part for her.

3. Miss C. cannot be given the rôle which the author has chosen for her because she had a rôle last week, and Miss D. must have one now.

4. Mr. E. cannot have the principal male rôle. Mr. F. must get it instead, because the rôle of Hamlet was taken from him after he had wanted it, and given to Mr. G.

5. On the other hand Mr. E. might take the fifth rôle as a substitute, but he is dead certain to return it angrily because the dramatist has not chosen the fourth rôle for him, which is his own line.

6. Mr. H. must take care of himself because he has a cold owing to a conflict with the dramatic director.

7. Mr. K. cannot play the rôle No. 7 because there is no one else suitable for rôle No. 5. Although it is not his line, he says that he “will manage it all right.”

8. The eighth rôle, that of a telegraph messenger, will be assigned, by special request, to the player chosen by the dramatist himself.

Thus it comes to pass that the whole affair turns out quite differently from what the inexperienced dramatist imagined. Not only that, but a general bitterness is prevalent among the players, who cannot forgive the dramatist for not having assigned the rôles direct to them. From the moment that the parts have been handed out, two quite different opinions develop in the theatre. One group says that there are good parts in the play, but that they have been badly assigned. The other group declares, however, that the play has nothing but bad rôles in it, out of which nothing can be made—even if one were an acrobat, and could wrap one’s legs around one’s neck!

The Production

The Production

THE producer of the play works on the sound basis that the piece must be given a helping hand, as they say. In practice that means that it must be produced quite differently from the way the author has arranged things.

“You know,” says the author, “I had always imagined it quite a quiet drawing-room piece…”

“Oh! That wouldn’t do at all,” replies the producer, “the play must be given in quite a grotesque manner.”

“Clara is a shy, passive creature,” explains the author further.

“What are you thinking of!” cries the producer. “Clara is decidedly a Sadist by nature; a cruel creature. Look here, on page 37 Danesh says to her: ‘Do not torment me, Clara!’ When he says this line Danesh will writhe on the ground, while Clara will stand by in hysterics. You understand, of course?”

“But that was not my idea a bit,” protests the author.

“But, my dear fellow, that is just the best scene of all,” says the producer dryly. “Otherwise the second act has no proper curtain.”

“The scene takes place in an ordinary middle-class room,” the author goes on to explain.

“Oh, but we must certainly have some steps or at least a platform in it,” says the producer.

“But why a platform?”

“So that Clara can stand on it when she cries out the word: ‘Never!’ This moment must be pushed into prominence, do you understand? The platform must be at least nine feet high. And then, in the third scene, Vchelak jumps down from it.”

“But why should he jump down from it?”

“Because you distinctly state in the stage direction that ‘he jumps into the room.’ That is one of the strongest moments. You know, your play wants a little more life in it. You surely didn’t intend a common-or-garden scene that any Tom, Dick or Harry might write? Did you now?”

“Oh no, of course not!” replies the author hurriedly.

“Good. I knew you’d see my point.”

I will now betray certain deep secrets of the dramatic art. A creative author is one who will not allow himself to be hampered by the theatre; and a creative producer is one who will not allow himself to be hampered by the text. As far as the creative actor is concerned, the poor devil has no other choice than that of following his own judgment (in this case one lays the blame of the bad interpretation on the producer), or of follow- ing the producer’s instructions (in which case the bad interpretation is imputed to the actor).

If by pure chance no one should stumble in the dialogue on the first night, no badly fixed scenery should suddenly fall down, no reflector should burn itself out, and no other similar misfortune should take place, the producer is then praised in the local press as “having produced very carefully”: but it is really pure chance, whether any of these things should occur. Before the first night is reached, however, the martyrdom of rehearsals must be endured.

Reading the Play

Reading the Play

IF you happen to be a dramatist, or are thinking of becoming one, I should advise you not to make a habit of being present at the first reading of the play. For the impression received is absolutely crushing. Six or eight players gather together: they look tired to death; they yawn, feel cold, stand or sit about in groups, and cough sotto voce. This gloomy and depressing state of affairs continues for quite half an hour, until, finally, the producer cries: “Come, ladies and gentlemen, let us begin.”

The company, bored to extinction, seats itself round a rickety table.

“The Pilgrim’s Staff; A Comedy in Three Acts,” the producer reads out, whereupon another individual hurriedly mumbles, “A modest, middle-class room. To the right a door leads into a hall: to the left a door leads into a bedroom. In the centre is a table, etc. Enter George Danesh.”

Nothing happens.

“Where’s Mr. X?” bursts from the producer. “Doesn’t he know we are reading the play to-day?”

“He’s rehearsing another part on the stage,” some one mutters unwillingly.

“I will read his part then,” decides the producer, “Enter George Danesh. ‘Clara, something unexpected has happened to me.’”

Nothing happens.

“Damn it,” shouts the producer, “where’s Clara?”

No answer.

“Where’s Madame X?”

“Perhaps she’s ill,” suggests a voice miserably.

“She’s acting at another theatre,” says some one else.

“Yesterday morning Mary was telling me that …” some one begins to relate, “that …”

“All right, then, I’ll read Clara’s part,” sighs the producer, and races through the dialogue between George Danesh and Clara as though all the devils in hell were at his heels. No one listens to him at all. At the other end of the table a low-voiced conversation begins.

“Enter Katie,” gasps the producer finally, and takes a deep breath.

Nothing happens.

“Now, look here, Miss,” grumbles the producer, “please don’t go wool-gathering. Are you Katie or are you not?”

“Oh, Mr. Producer,” answers the ingénue brightly, “I forgot to bring my part.”

The producer mutters something terrible under his breath, and proceeds to recite the dialogue between Katie and Clara himself, rushing along nineteen to the dozen just as though he were a priest reciting the Lord’s Prayer at a pauper’s funeral. Only the dramatist endeavours to follow the flow of words: no one else betrays the slightest interest.

“Enter Gustav Vchelak,” concludes the producer in a hoarse scream.

One of the players starts; begins hunting through his pockets for his pince-nez; puts them on leisurely; hunts through his part for the exact place; and then enquires at length, “Which page is it?”

“Page six.”

The player turns over the pages, and begins to read his part in a slow, solemn, tragic voice. Good Heavens! exclaims the dramatist to himself, this fellow is supposed to be a jolly bon-vivant. Meanwhile the producer representing Clara and the player representing a jolly bon-vivant recite the gloomy responses which are meant to represent sparkling dialogue.

“When do you expect your hubsand?” the player chants in a corpse-like voice.

“Husband,” corrects the producer.

“But it says hubsand here,” the player insists.

“It’s merely an error in typing. Just correct it.”

“Why on earth can’t they type things properly?” says the player in a disgusted manner, digging his pencil into his part.

Meanwhile the agonized group is getting under way, when all of a sudden, stop! A sentence is missing in one of the parts, after “it was his first love,” and before “you are fond of your food.” Stop, the parts are mixed here. And then on again: indistinctly, stumblingly, hurriedly, pours out the text of the “eagerly awaited novelty.” When an actor has read his part, even if it is only three pages from the end, he gathers up his things and makes off. No one appears to be at all interested in how the play will end. And at last, when the final words are spoken, there is a silence, a dead silence in which the play is weighed up and judged by its first interpreters.

“What clothes am I to wear?” ejaculates the heroine of the play, breaking the heavy silence. Meanwhile the dramatist reels out of the theatre convinced that never before in the history of the world has anyone written such a hopelessly rotten, piffling play.

In the Rehearsal Room

In the Rehearsal Room

NOW the play goes a further stage on its journey: there must be arrangement tests in the rehearsal room.

“Here is one door,” asserts the producer, at the same time pointing to empty space, “and this hat-stand is another. This chair is a divan, and this chair is a window. This table here is a piano, and here, where there isn’t anything, is a large lamp. Madame enters by the door on the left, and stands by the table. Good. And now George Danesh enters by the other door. My God! Where has Mr. X. got to again?”

“He’s rehearsing another part on the stage,” comes from two voices.

“I will play Danesh then,” sighs the producer as he hurries through the imaginary door. “‘Clara, something unexpected has happened to me!’ Madame Y., kindly step three paces forward towards me, and do try to look a little bit surprised, please. ‘Clara, something unexpected has happened to me!’ Then Danesh walks over towards the window—if you wouldn’t mind, please don’t sit on that chair, it’s supposed to be a window. And now, once more please. You enter from the left, while Danesh comes towards you. ‘Clara, something unexpected has happened to me!’”

“No, Father,” reads Clara from the part in her hand, “I haven’t seen him since this morning.”

The producer stops aghast: “What on earth are you reading?”

“Act One, Page Two,” Clara explains quite calmly.

“But that line doesn’t come in at all here,” cries the producer, snatching the part out of her hands, “Let me see, for Heaven’s sake! ‘No, father,’—I don’t quite—but look here, my dear young lady, you’ve brought the wrong play along.”

“Well, it’s the one they sent me yesterday,” says Madame Y., quite unruffled.

“All right then, take the stage-manager’s copy for the time being, and for Heaven’s sake do try and be more careful. I enter right2”

“Clara, something unexpected has happened to me!” bursts out Madame Y.

“But those are not your lines,” wails the producer, “You’re playing Clara, not me.”

“Oh, I thought it was a monologue,” Madame Y. explains.

“Well, it isn’t. I come in and say: ‘Clara, something unexpected has happened to me!’ Now, look out! ‘Clara, something unexpected has happened to me!’”

“What kind of a wig shall I wear?” Madame Y. asks.

“None at all. Now, once more, ‘Clara, something unexpected has happened to me.’”

“Shol ed epi gram,” Clara reads.

“What’s that, eh?”

“I can’t make out what it says here,” Clara announces.

“Oh, my God,” wails the producer. “It says: ‘What has happened to you?’ Read properly, for goodness’ sake.”

Clara calls the whole company to witness that in her copy of the play the words do really look like “Shol ed epi gram.” When this fact has been sufficiently demonstrated, the frantic producer rushes through the imaginary door for the fifth time, feverishly croaking: “Clara, something unexpected has happened to me!”

In this sentence the dramatist realizes all the stupidity and senselessness of the world. Never, he fears, will this chaos be resolved into beautiful harmony; the world will never, never recover from the terrible fact that something unexpected has happened; for they will never get any further on than this line…

“Enter Katie,” announces the producer.

“Mm, mm,” comes from the rear of the room, where Katie has been simultaneously swallowing a sausage and executing a dance and chattering nineteen to the dozen. Crash. Two chairs fly to the ground, and Katie stands in the middle of the room hugging her knee in silent agony. “Katie has entered,” she informs the company at large.

“Ouch! I did give myself an awful bang then.”

“You are supposed to enter left, miss,” says the producer waving her back.

“But I ca-a-n’t,” Katie mourns. “Can’t you see that I’ve broken my leg?”

“Then be more careful next time,” cries the producer. “Enter Gustav Vchelak.”

Gustav Vchelak looks at his watch. “I’ve got to go and rehearse another part on the stage now,” he announces rather coldly. “I’ve wasted a whole hour already. Good morning.”

The dramatist feels as though he were guilty of some offence. Meanwhile it is discovered that in the absence of both George Danesh and Gustav Vchelak it is impossible to arrange a single dialogue except the following crisp one from the beginning of the third act:

Servant: “Mr. Vchelak, Madame.”

Clara: “Show him in.”

The producer repeats this short episode seven times, after which there is nothing for it but to conclude the rehearsal. The author staggers home in the grip of a deadly terror that his play will not be produced in seven years.

Further Rehearsals

Further Rehearsals

AND yet, at these first rehearsals, in a room where a rickety chair may represent a divan, a throne, a rock or a balcony, most of the real work of the theatre is done. But the dramatist who is simply dying to see his play, here finds it in a mangled and chaotic state calculated to bring tears to his eyes: it is rehearsed simply anyhow, from the end or the middle; an insignificant scene may be repeated twenty times while another far more important one gets left unrehearsed: half of the players are worn out with other rehearsals, while the other half are also worn out with these rehearsals. And yet, there are moments when the dramatist feels that “it”? is becoming a reality.

In a few days a new person appears upon the scene: the prompter. The players cease just to read their lines, and begin to act them properly; and things proceed like a house on fire. The dramatist declares that the first night might easily take place that very evening. But the players curb his enthusiasm: “Just you wait until you’ve seen us on the stage.” After the play has been treated in all the dreadful ways described the great day arrives when rehearsals start on the real stage. The curtain remains down, and the prompter sits at a little table, with the dramatist, who is hoping devoutly that things will proceed famously, hovering around him. Well, as a matter of fact, things do not proceed at all. For during its short journey from the rehearsal room to the stage the play appears to have become unstuck, as it were. And all is lost.

After two or three rehearsals, however, things proceed quite smoothly and brilliantly again. And the producer finally gives the order: “Up with the curtain, please, and the prompter into his box.” At this moment the most experienced player turns pale. For, no sooner does the prompter crawl into his uncomfortable little box than things go wrong again, for some mysterious reason, probably acoustic. Seated in a stall the crushed dramatist watches his beautiful text blowing about like a rotten piece of rag in a strong wind. And to make things ten times worse the producer ceases to worry about what the players are saying, and confines himself to worrying about where and how they are standing and walking. God knows why he worries so much, thinks the dramatist: In the text it simply says, “Exit Danesh.” Surely that is enough? The producer has no doubt gone raving mad, for he is roaring to Clara that she must step back a pace; even the players are now worked up and start to quarrel with the prompter, accusing him of mumbling instead of speaking properly. Finally George Danesh announces that he has influenza and is going to bed. In the background the stage-manager and the property-man are barking at each other in a fit of atavistic fury. Finally the producer roars himself hoarse, and the disjointed text stumbles about the stage in a death-like weakness. Seated in his stall the dramatist shrinks like a creature of misfortune. Things are going sadly and cannot be helped—and to-morrow is the dress-rehearsal.

The Play Matures

The Play Matures

ONE can usually count upon the storm of misfortunes bursting on the last day before the dress-rehearsal. Members of the company suddenly contract all kinds of illnesses, such as influenza, angina, pleurisy, etc. “Just see what a fever I have,” the principal player wheezes in the dramatist’s ear, like steam escaping from a tap. “I ought to go and lie down, for a week at least,” he gasps, choking with coughs, and gazing at the dramatist with the reproachful, tear-filled eyes of a sacrificial lamb being led to the altar. “I don’t know my lines at all,” says another player. “Mr. Dramatist, do tell them to postpone the first night.” “I’ve no voice at all,” says Clara hoarsely. “There’s such a draught here on the stage. Mr. Dramatist, do tell them to let me see a doctor, or I shan’t be able to act at all on the first night.” And to crown all, the jovial bon-vivant sends a doctor’s certificate: cramp in the stomach. So there you are.

Let the truth be told: the actor’s trade is far more arduous than military service. So, if any reader is stage-struck (and in loco parentis I warn him most solemnly against this ambition), let him first test his powers of resistance and his patience; let him see how he sweats under a wig or beneath grease-paint; let him try walking about naked in a frost, or running about, wrapped up in wadding, in a Turkish bath; let him see if he can stand eight hours of running, yelling, whispering, eating his meals hurriedly out of pieces of paper, wearing stinking stuff on his nose, being baked by hot reflectors, blown about by hurricanes from trap-doors, seeing about as much real daylight as a miner, being covered with dirt by everything he touches, not daring to sneeze for thirty minutes, wearing a waistcoat impregnated by the sweat of twenty predecessors, throwing off his clothes six times from his overheated, steaming nakedness, acting while he has some troublesome illness or disease—let him suffer these and many other evils that an actor must endure in playing a part: while an actor who has no part to play is even worse off!

“Let us begin, then,” cries the unfeeling producer, and a few wheezing figures begin to reel about the stage reciting, as though with their last gasp, a text which has become more hateful to them than death itself. “But ladies, that won’t do at all,” shouts the producer beside himself. “Once more now from the beginning. Let us have a better tempo, please! And don’t forget, you are supposed to stand near the door! Once more then: Enter Katie!” Katie enters with the droop of a dying consumptive, and stands stock still. “Well, Miss, proceed!” urges the producer. Katie whispers something, her eyes fastened upon the Unknown. “But, you are supposed to cross over to the window,” rages the producer. “Once more now, from the beginning again.” Katie bursts into tears, and runs from the stage. “What’s the matter with her?” asks the dramatist. The producer merely shrugs his shoulders, and hisses like molten iron plunged into ice-cold water. Meanwhile the dramatist pulls himself together, and hurries to the office, declaring that it is impossible to have the first night so soon, that it must be postponed, etc., etc. (Every dramatist feels like this on the day before the first night.) When he returns to the stage, somewhat calmed, half an hour later, he finds that a furious fight is going on between the principal actor and the prompter. The principal actor asserts that the prompter failed to give him a certain cue, which the prompter naturally denies most violently, leaving his book as a sign of protest. The stage-manager now receives a few nice curses, which he proceeds to pass on to the curtain-man: whereupon the row proceeds into a labyrinth of theatrical corridors, fading away somewhere down in the boiler-room. Meanwhile the prompter has been persuaded to return to his little box; but he is so embittered that he does nothing but whisper. “Let us begin then,” cries the producer in broken tones, sitting down, firmly determined not to have anything more to do with the affair, for you must know that the last act has not been rehearsed on the stage at all yet. “Do you think that it will be possible to-morrow?” inquires the dramatist.

“Why, things are going splendidly,” declares the producer; and immediately bursts out with: “Once more now! From the beginning! That’s all wrong! Start from Katie’s entrance!” Katie enters, but at this moment another storm bursts out. “Good God!” rages the producer. “Who the devil’s making that noise? Who’s hammering? Mr. Stage Manager, throw that man out who is making such an awful row under that trap-door!” It soon transpires that the culprit is merely an innocent stage-hand who is putting something to rights under the trap-door: for in every theatre there is always something that is being put right. It further transpires that the stage-hand objects to being sworn at, and that he is quite capable of defending himself with rich, juicy language, and at considerable length. Finally some sort of truce is arranged on condition that the stage-hand wield his hammer a little less noisily. “Let us begin then,” cries the producer hoarsely; but the prompter is now standing on the stage with his watch in his hand: “Twelve o’clock. I’m prompting this afternoon. So I must be off now.” The last rehearsal before the dress-rehearsal usually ends in this manner. It is a close, irritable, stormy, cloud; but to-morrow will arch itself into the wide, radiant, beautiful rainbow of the dress rehearsal.