Its Expression in Later Childhood
There comes a time in the life of most children, at about the tenth year, when they take pleasure in expressing dramatic ideas to an audience. The earliest expression of this instinct in the two previous eras was individualistic; this is social. The other two were quite unconscious; this is self-conscious from the beginning. Such expression of the dramatic instinct would seem to have a close relation to and be a preparation for the theatrical profession. On the contrary, however, the desire for dramatic expression belongs to children who have the very slightest dramatic ability. Its organized expression, instead of encouraging young people to become professional actors, usually quite satisfies that fever and is somewhat of an antidote for it.
The plays, therefore, include attempts at circus-playing, minstrel shows, wild West shows, etc. The constructive instinct is now so well developed that rather elaborate “properties” can be made to help stage these productions. The intense physical activity of this “Big-Injun” age makes such imitative plays as Indian, hunter, trapper, etc., especially appealing. Though the main ideas for these plays and for those given before an audience have been gained from observation and reading, there is much originality and creativeness exhibited if the dramatic instinct has been allowed to develop in previous years.
In later childhood and youth young people begin to organize themselves into clubs and societies, which represent the people and customs of another age or the social organizations of adults. This instinct is seen even among grown people in the secret lodges, where men, who have apparently outgrown the play spirit, find a genuine satisfaction in being known as “knights,” engaging in secret rites reproductive of magic and mystery, and banding themselves into fraternities which bring down the names, traditions and ideals of mediæval guilds and chivalric orders.
While this third era is later than the second, it does not supersede it, but lives alongside of it. The desire to appear before an audience persists usually only as there are easy opportunities for doing so, but the youth of unspoiled fancy continues all his life long to create imaginary people and to live in a world of ideals. It is thus that he is able to keep the spirit of youth by which he can sympathize with those of the younger generation, and continue to hope and have faith even when the world appears to be too much for him.
The matter of actual dramatic impersonation is but a small and temporary part of the range of the dramatic instinct. This paper touches upon it, but does not emphasize it. The dramatic instinct is too large, too useful, too inspiring to be confined to occasional forensic or theatrical performances.