Managers and players have no trouble in building up both scenes and characters; the less “directions,” the more room for individual initiative.
Nor is the reader of a play troubled by entire absence of description and “directions.” His imagination supplements the dramatist’s, and he creates heroes and heroines to please himself.
That psychological analysis is not only not essential to the psychological novel, but positively detrimental, is demonstrated by the entire absence of such analysis in so profound a psychological study as Hamlet. Paul Bourget is as obsolete as Henry James.
Bernard Shaw is the one conspicuous reactionary. He still exploits the ego, and writes as if his readers were fools—perhaps they are.
The popularity of the cinematograph lies not in the cheapness of the entertainment, nor in its novelty, which wore off long ago, but in the fact that it is without words and each onlooker enjoys his own interpretation; from child to old man, every one in the audience is his own playwright, supplying his own dialogue as the scenes flicker on the curtain.
The best of modern plays leave much to the imagination of the audience. Words and bits of business absolutely necessary thirty years ago are considered childishly obvious nowadays, as is amply demonstrated in revivals of old plays.
Apparently the development is toward more action and less dialogue—more cinematograph, fewer words.
Scenery will become less and less obvious—save, of course, where it is intended to be of first importance. In the theater of the future there will be less and less on the stage to interfere with the play—of the spectator’s imagination.