THE PLAYWRIGHT.
“In youth he learned had a good mistére
He was a well good wright a carpentére.”
Chaucer.
The play is very nearly extinct. This is an age of dramatists. The reason is not far to seek. The playwright is merely a craftsman. The dramatist—so his friends in the press tell him—is a genius. And in these years genius is plentiful and craftsmanship becomes a rarer thing every day.
Just at the moment it is certainly not considered important to be a playwright. It is better to be an aviator. In the eighteenth century it was better to be a performing bear. But in my view now as in the eighteenth century the alternatives to the theatre will not destroy the theatre and a sound entertaining play will always find theatre-goers. There is room for plays written by a playwright, and as it is open to anyone who cares to learn the business to become a respectable craftsman—just as a man can learn to play the fiddle or make an etching on copper—there will generally be a few writers for the stage of literary merit who can turn out a stage play capable of weathering the varied storms of taste and criticism by which it is assailed in its endeavours to make safe harbour in the Box Office.
A playwright is according to Dr. Johnson “a maker of plays.” The word “wright” is satisfactorily enough a Saxon word derived from wyrht, the third person indicative of wyrcan, meaning “one that worketh.” The mere derivation of the word is enough to account for the absence of the thing itself. This is not an age of work. We retain in a degraded form the Saxon word, but the Saxon idea is foreign to our civilisation. Still in things that really matter we cling to the old world notion of a “wright” or person who knows his business, as in our word “ship-wright.” Unfortunately in the affairs of the theatre which in the present age do not really matter very much, any clever man may exploit his wares without learning his business. Money is lost over it, and the theatre as an institution suffers. But playgoers like voters and ratepayers will continue the struggle to obtain a well-made article built according to their tastes, and in course of time workmanship in playwriting will have its value again. Meanwhile it seems a pity that among so many brilliant and intelligent writers for and about the stage, hardly one will take the trouble to master a few essential problems of what is really, compared to the technicalities of music or painting, a simple business.
If a man were to claim to be a ship-wright for instance, it would be accounted to him as a matter of blame if, after money and time had been spent on building his vessel, it were to be found bottom up on the evening of the launching. Explain it as he might, his career as a ship-wright would be endangered. With a playwright it is quite otherwise. If a man hangs out a sign that he is a wheelwright, you go to him in the expectation that he can make a wheel. It may not be a highly artistic wheel. It may be roughly painted, there may be no poetical carving in its wood-work, still you do expect him to turn you out a wheel. You would be disappointed if the article were oblong or rhomboid in shape. You would hesitate to trust yourself to it if it had no hub, no spokes, no tyres—none of the attributes of a wheel, and you would certainly be utterly disgusted if it did not run. But a playwright who makes his play without dramatic hubs or spokes or tyres, is often accredited a genius by those who have never learned how, and how only, a play can be made, and the fact that his play does not run is set down to the centrifugal ignorance of the spectators by the side of the road who came there desiring to see it run.
There are of course many playwrights to-day who are masters of their craft and audiences who can approve of them, but unfortunately the men who make it their business to write criticisms of the theatre are peculiarly and in some cases boastfully ignorant of the business of the playwright. In this way they mislead the aspirant dramatist into the idea that his audience is to blame for not appreciating his play, when his audience is only the mercury in the barometer recording the general depression that must result in a theatre from a badly made play. However beautiful the words and the sentiments of a play may be, and whatever their moral and literary value, they are quite useless unless they are put in a form to get over the footlights. Quite silly sentiments and foolish language may be made serviceable by a playwright who knows his craft, and it would be valuable if some of the writers about theatrical affairs were to turn their attention from the discovery of new genius to the interesting business of the making of stage plays. One does not expect this to happen just yet, for the stage as a craft is a dull thing from a literary point of view, compared to the politics of the theatre and the apportioning of praise and blame—especially the latter—to writers, actors, and theatre-goers. Besides, there is a cult and creed among these writers, and to be in the movement, you must of necessity abjure the well-made play. I read a very clever essay the other day by a modern writer about the theatre, proving that “the well-made play” was the abomination of desolation. The essay was full of learning and epigram, and the questions were cleverly begged and answered in an apparent spirit of generosity, but it did not convince me. Supposing the title of the essay instead of being “the well-made Play” had been “the well-made Coat” or “the well-made Porridge” and the author had set out to prove to you that you were a stodgy Early Victorian duffer, because you pretended to like well-made coats and well-made porridge, might you not reasonably have sighed over his perversity. But this would never happen, for you will find that in the matter of coats and porridge, your writer is full of learning, and will write on these subjects if at all, with a sound knowledge of the craft he is criticising. Indeed I think the playwright and the actor are the only craftsmen whose work is widely written about by people who deliberately refrain from learning the grammar of the crafts they are writing about. Even the critic of pictures has generally failed to paint them, and that in itself is a liberal education. But many brilliant entertaining writers about the stage seem to base their right to be read with attention upon the scant attention they have themselves given to the subject matter of their criticisms. Thankful as I am, for the amusement contained in their epigrams, I am still of opinion that for men to set out to judge a play who have no idea how a play is made, and no desire to learn how a play is made, is bound to end in amazement.
I remember taking an eminent antiquarian to Old Trafford on the occasion of a county cricket match. It was in the historic days of A. N. Hornby and Lancashire were in the field. My friend—who by-the-bye had written dramatic criticism in his early days—knew little or nothing about cricket but was not wanting in that kind of courage that goes to the making of a great critic. Viewing the game solemnly for about a quarter of an hour, he at length delivered judgment. “If I were Hornby,” he said, “I should never have chosen those two fellows in the long white coats for a Lancashire team; they haven’t tried to stop a ball for the last ten minutes.” I am often reminded of that story when I read a criticism of a play. Nor do I for a moment harbour any feelings of wrath against average critics. Like my friend they too have great literary and scholastic qualities that I can humbly envy and admire, but there is one thing that they have not taken the trouble to learn because it is too simple and easy for their really superior intelligence—the rules of the game.
And playwriting is a game like chess or cricket or many another great game and many a duffer can learn its elementary moves and rules and the more studious can master its gambits and strategy, but not even the greatest can succeed at the game, or understand what the game is about if they will not learn the rules. This is an age in which quackery and slush and conceit are having a long innings, and it is a common boast that some new genius has found a new way of saving souls, or painting pictures or making plays that is to revolutionise the practice of these things. Originality is a good thing, and who shall say a harsh word to the youth who dreams in the waking hours of his inexperience of a new way of doing old things. There are many new things to be done in the world, but not so very many for the playwright or the wheelwright. The world has long ago laid down the lines on which a play or a wheel is to be built and whilst it is open to us to use any material we choose, that will bear the necessary strain and decorate it with all the artistic ability we possess the structure must be sound—the work of the wright must be done—or all is vanity. The most eloquent writer of sermons in the world cannot make a play of his preachings merely by chopping them into acts and giving them to different eminent actors and actresses to recite.
There is an A-B-C for the apprentice playwright to learn as there is for the child at school, and if he never learns it, he will not be a proficient workman. I acknowledge this simile is a little old-fashioned for the modern kindergarten child is taught nowadays to grunt strange sounds instead of mastering his or her A-B-C; the scientific teacher being I suppose, under a delusion that English is a phonetic language like my own native Welsh. But when the educational slush has subsided a little, we shall begin again with the A-B-C in our study of the English tongue, just as our playwrights will go back to the simple elementary rules of their interesting craft.
When Shakespeare wrote of the players that “they have their exits and their entrances,” he wrote what was strictly true of his own plays, for he took care to provide them with exits and entrances as any honest playwright should. And to explain briefly what I mean by the simple rules of the craft, let us consider for a moment the subject of “entrances.” It does not, nor need it, enter into the head of the playgoer that his convenience is consulted by the playwright on the matter of the entrances of the characters. The critic generally misses the best “entrances” if any, and makes his own exit with the programme as a book of reference before the players’ exits are completed. He has a soul above these matters. But Shakespeare knew that an actor wanted—and rightly wanted both an exit and an entrance and would not be happy unless he got them. These matters had to be thought out and designed, and in the matter of entrances, Shakespeare seems to have learned a very simple little truth, namely, that from a playwright’s point of view, and equally from an audience’s point of view, it was not the slightest use for a player to be talking upon the stage unless the audience knew who he was. Open your Hamlet and see how the play begins:
Act I. Scene I. A Platform before the Castle.
Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernardo.
Ber. Who’s there?
Fran. Nay, answer me; stand, and unfold yourself.
Ber. Long live the king!
Fran. Bernardo?
Ber. He.
Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.
Ber. ’Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
Fran. For this relief much thanks; ’tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
Ber. Have you had a quiet guard?
Fran. Not a mouse stirring.
Ber. Well, good-night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
Fran. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who’s there?
Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
Hor. Friends to this ground.
Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.
Fran. Give you good-night.
Mar. O! farewell, honest soldier:
Who hath relieved you?
Fran. Bernardo has my place.
Give you good-night. [Exit.
Mar. Holla! Bernardo!
Ber. Say,
What! is Horatio there?
Hor. A piece of him.
Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
Notice how naturally and in what a businesslike way Bernardo, Francisco, Horatio and Marcellus are all introduced to the audience, and the care taken to stamp their identity upon the mind of the spectators. The natural easy way in which it is done springs from the good craftsmanship of Shakespeare, but the doing of it is the business of every playwright.
One would suppose that such a simple matter as that could not be overlooked, but if one turns to the plays of some modern dramatists and seeks to understand them without studying the stage directions and noticing carefully the name of the speaker, one is apt to get into confusion. The latest craze is to publish a programme with the “order of going in” like a cricket card and thus you can buy for sixpence information that the playwright is too slovenly and too ignorant of his business to provide for you. There were no programmes in Shakespeare’s time, but there were playwrights.
It may occur to those who have not studied the rules of the game that there is not the same necessity for careful workmanship in the matter of entrances in a play of to-day that there was three hundred years ago. The answer to that is that a play or a wheel of to-day is essentially the same as a play or a wheel was in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The duty of the playwright to make his entrances obvious to his audience is equally clear, and is equally understood by the man who knows his business.
Compare as a modern instance Sir Arthur Pinero’s opening of “Sweet Lavender.” The scene is a sitting-room at 3 Brain Court Temple. Left and right are two doors leading to the rooms of Richard Phenyl and Clement Hale. Ruth, the housekeeper, is discovered, and Bulger, the barber, enters the room and the play begins. Now note the workmanship.
Bul. I’ve give Mr. ’Ale a nice shave, Mrs. Rolt, clean and quick. Water’s ’ot enough for me jist to rub over Mr. Phenyl’s face if ’e’s visible.
Ruth. I’m afraid Mr. Phenyl isn’t well enough for you this morning, Mr. Bulger.
Bul. Not one of ’is mornings, hey?
(Ruth goes to the right-hand door and knocks sharply).
Ruth (calling). Mr. Phenyl! Mr. Phenyl! The barber.
You see, Sir Arthur Pinero, having been an actor and knowing his business, informs you in a few lines not only the names of Phenyl, Hale, their housekeeper, and barber, but where each of the two men sleep and something of their characters. In a word, Pinero, like Shakespeare, is a thoroughly experienced playwright.
No doubt the younger writers of to-day have been led into their contempt for the business they have undertaken by the success that has enriched Mr. Bernard Shaw. They should remember, however, that he is more of a preacher and society entertainer than a playwright, winning the game by his delightful personality or personalities. He is an earnest religious man, with a great hatred of the theatre, the stage, and entertainment, to use his own words, “the great dramatist has something better to do than to amuse either himself or his audience.” But dour Nonconformist as he is, his dullest moments are interrupted by his deep insight into the really funny things of this world. Mr. Shaw could make a sound play if he cared enough about it to try to do so, and in “Arms and the Man” and “You Never Can Tell” he showed much knowledge of the business. He would never, I think, have attained the real grip of the matter that Shakespeare and Pinero have, and knowing this he prefers to exploit his really great qualities in other ways.
But anyone can see for himself in this one little matter of entrances how slovenly the modern writer can be. If you turn to Mr. Galsworthy’s “Joy,” the play is opened without any effort being made to tell you the names and identities of the people on the stage; so, too, I remember, in the first act of the “Silver Box,” Mr. and Mrs. Borthwick discourse amusingly about politics without disclosing who they are. No doubt these little mysteries are easily solved by the regular up-to-date theatregoer armed with a programme, but the absence of the information irritates some of the duller members of the audience, and the play suffers. Mr. Granville Barker, in “Waste,” opens his piece with a room containing five ladies and one gentleman. He does not disclose you an identity by name for twelve lines, and Mr. Walter Kent, one of the characters, is not introduced by name until some nine pages of very clever dialogue have been spoken.
No one supposes that Mr. Galsworthy or Mr. Barker could not put these little matters right somehow, though they could not do it with the craftsmanship of Pinero or Shakespeare. Unfortunately they seem to have a very real contempt for the minor details of the playwright’s business, which prevents the full effect of their literary gifts being appreciable in a theatre. Mr. Galsworthy, it is very pleasant to notice, is growing out of these ways somewhat, and will probably, as his knowledge of the stage increases, come to respect its old world characteristics, and recognise that they are permanent, fixed, and unalterable. In his love of pantomime and the exhibition of real things on the stage, he has the true playwright’s instinct. His real police courts, real prisons, and real boardrooms are admirable, and he is on the verge of understanding the true gospel of the playwright according to Vincent Crummles, manager, who really knew all about it from the Shakespearean standpoint.
Of course, this little matter of opening a play and designing an entrance for a character is only one of many simple matters that a good workman or “wright” has to attend to, but it is a very important one, and sufficiently illustrative of the difference between good and bad craftsmanship. To extend the theme by citing further instances of elementary rules broken and followed would be to commence an essay on the construction of plays. But to anyone who wishes to pursue the matter, it is curiously entertaining to see how in all essential things the actor-playwright is invariably the better craftsman than the literary man who commences dramatist. Mr. McEvoy, one of our most interesting modern dramatists, who has still perhaps something of the craft to learn, writes in a spirit of noble optimism: “I, as a dramatist, who knows how to do things the right way, mainly because I never had to unlearn how to do them wrong,” in a few words, expresses the attitude of the dramatist of to-day towards the experience of centuries in the craft of playwriting. No one doubts that Mr. McEvoy and others may help a little in the evolution of the stage, but they lessen their chances of success by the belief so piously held nowadays that there is nothing to be learned from the playwrights that have gone before. It was reckoned a mad conceit that prompted Walt Whitman to sing:
“I conn’d old times
I sat studying at the feet of the great masters
Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me.”
The modern genius finds nothing to study in the old masters, and if they, poor fellows, were now eligible to return and study our world of genius, I fear they would lack even the courtesy of an invitation box.
It is a pity that it should be so, but for my part I think it is only a temporary matter, and that, like all other things connected with the stage, it will work itself out under the wholesome discipline of the Box Office. A man who will not learn some of the elementary rules of playwriting must ultimately become too expensive for the most patient patron. Nor should we blame the literary man who turns dramatist very severely because he has a contempt for the craft of the playwright. He was born for higher things. His journalist friends proclaim the value of his ideas, and the literary expression of them in his play, and it is only the carelessness of the players and the stupidity of the playgoers that hinder his success. It is all to the good for the stage that men of education and intellect should be players, and that good artists should be scene painters, but no one who is a player or a painter expects to succeed in his stage work without learning the rules of the game. Why should a literary man despise the craft of the playwright when he seeks to earn his wages as a craftsman?
There is nothing new in this distaste of a literary man for the baser duties of playwriting. Bulwer Lytton, who, whatever we may think of his literary qualities, had undeniable talent as a playwright, discovered when he wrote “The Duchess de la Vallière” the interesting fact that playwriting was a special craft and that “dramatic construction and theatrical effect” were mysteries to be mastered. “I felt,” he writes in his preface to the Lady of Lyons, “that it was in this that a writer accustomed to the narrative class of composition would have the most faults to learn and unlearn. Accordingly, it was to the development of the plot and the arrangement of the incidents I directed my chief attention, and I sought to throw whatever belongs to poetry less into the diction and the ‘felicity of words’ than into the construction of the story, the creation of the characters and the spirit of the pervading sentiment.”
Genius will shrug his shoulders at the name of Bulwer Lytton, but as a playwright two things are worth remembering about him—first, that in modern phrase he “got there,” and, second, that “he remains.” And if genius desires to write plays with a view to “getting there” and “remaining,” after the manner of Bulwer Lytton and other greater men who have stooped to the craft, let genius seriously consider whether, in his own interests as well as in the interests of the harmless necessary playgoer, it is not worth while to learn the rules of the game and commence playwright.