9. Newte is a cheerful person, attractively dressed in clothes suggestive of a successful follower of horse races. He carries a white pot hat and tasselled cane. His gloves are large and bright. He is smoking an enormous cigar.
10. She is young, slender, graceful; her yellow hair is in disorder, her face the color of ruddy gold, her teeth white as the bones of the cuttle-fish, her eyes humid and sea-green, her neck long and thin, with a necklace of shells about it; in her whole person something inexpressibly fresh and glancing, which makes one think of a creature impregnated with sea-salt dipped in the moving waters, coming out of the hiding-places of the rocks. Her petticoat of striped white and blue, torn and discolored, falls only just below the knees, leaving her legs bare; her bluish apron drips and smells of the brine like a filter; and her bare feet in contrast with the brown color that the sun has given her flesh, are singularly pallid, like the roots of aquatic plants. And her voice is limpid and childish; and some of the words that she speaks seem to light up her ingenuous face with a mysterious happiness.
Studying Plays. In nearly every grade of school and college, plays are either read or studied. The usual method of study is to read the lines of the play in rotation about the class, stopping at times for explanations, definitions, impressions, general discussions. Such minute analysis may extend to the preparation of outlines and diagrams. The methods used to get pupils to know plays are almost as varied as teachers. After such analytical study has been pursued it is always a stimulating exercise to get another impression of the play—not as mere poetry or literature, but as acted drama.
This may be accomplished in a short time by very simple means. Pupils should memorize certain portions and then recite them before the class. Neither costumes nor scenery will be required. All the members of the class have in their minds the appearances of the surroundings and the persons. What they need is to hear the speeches the dramatist put into the hearts and mouths of his characters.
The best presentation would be the delivery of the entire play running through some four or five class periods. If so much time cannot be allotted to this, only certain scenes need be delivered. The teacher might assign the most significant ones to groups of pupils, allowing each group to arrange for rehearsals before appearing before the class. In some classes the pupils may be trusted to arrange the entire distribution of scenes and rôles. When their preliminary planning has been finished, they should hand to the teacher a schedule of scenes and participants.
Whenever a play is read or studied, pupils will be attracted more by some passages than by others. A teacher may dispense with all assignments. The pupils could be directed merely to arrange their own groups, choose the scenes they want to offer, and to prepare as they decide. In such a voluntary association some members of the class might be uninvited to speak with any group. These then might find their material in prologue, epilogue, chorus, soliloquy, or inserted songs. Nearly every play contains long passages requiring for their effect no second speaker. Shakespeare's plays contain much such material. All the songs from a play would constitute a delightful offering. Nothing in all the acted portion of Henry V is any better than the stirring speeches of the Chorus. Hamlet has three great soliloquies for boys. Macbeth contains the sleepwalking scene for girls. Milton's Comus is made up of beautiful poetic passages. Every drama studied or read for school contains enough for every member of a class.
Some pupils may object that unless an exact preliminary assignment is made, two or more groups may choose the same scene. Such a probable happening, far from being a disadvantage to be avoided, is a decided advantage worthy of being purposely attempted. Could anything be more stimulating than to see and hear two different casts interpret a dramatic situation? Each would try to do better than the other. Each would be different in places. From a comparison the audience and performers would have all the more light thrown upon what they considered quite familiar.
It would be a mistake to have five quartettes repeat the same scene over and over again. Yet if twenty pupils had unconsciously so chosen, three presentations might be offered for discriminating observation. Then some other portion could be inserted and later the first scene could be gone through twice.
Assigning Rôles. Teacher and pupils should endeavor to secure variety of interest in rôles. At first, assignments are likely to be determined by apparent fitness. The quiet boy is not required to play the part of the braggart. The retiring girl is not expected to impersonate the shrew. In one or two appearances it may be a good thing to keep in mind natural aptitude.