For one instance where it is useful to conceal from the spectator an important event until it has taken place there are ten and more where interest demands the very contrary. By means of secrecy a poet effects a short surprise, but in what enduring disquietude could he have maintained us if he had made no secret about it! Whoever is struck down in a moment, I can only pity for a moment. But how if I expect the blow, how if I see the storm brewing and threatening for some time about my head or his? For my part none of the personages need know each other if only the spectator knows them all. Nay I would even maintain that the subject which requires such secrecy is a thankless subject, that the plot in which we have to make recourse to it is not as good as that in which we could have done without it. It will never give occasion for anything great. We shall be obliged to occupy ourselves with preparations that are either too dark or too clear, the whole poem becomes a collection of little artistic tricks by means of which we effect nothing more than a short surprise. If on the contrary everything that concerns the personages is known, I see in this knowledge the source of the most violent emotions. Why have certain monologues such a great effect? Because they acquaint me with the secret intentions of the speaker and this confidence at once fills me with hope or fear. If the condition of the personages is unknown, the spectator cannot interest himself more vividly in the action than the personages. But the interest would be doubled for the spectator if light is thrown on the matter, and he feels that action and speech would be quite otherwise if the personages knew one another.
Only then I shall scarcely be able to await what is to become of them when I am able to compare that which they really are with that which they do or would do.[44]
Look at the quotation from the First Part of Henry VI on Pp. 97-100. Talbot whispers to the Captain, and leaves us guessing what he means to do at his meeting with the Countess of Auvergne. In like manner the Countess merely refers to the plot she has laid with her Porter. We never know just what was the plan of the Countess. We get only a momentary sensation, surprise, when Talbot’s soldiers force their way in. Suppose we had been allowed to know the plans of the Countess, and they had seemed very dangerous for Talbot. Then, as she played with him, sure of her position, there would have been more suspense than in Shakespeare’s text, because an audience would have been wondering, not merely “What is the blow Talbot will strike?” but “Can any blow he will strike overcome the seemingly effective plans of the Countess?” Suppose we had been allowed to know the plans of both. Then, as we watched the Countess playing her scheme off against the plan of Talbot, of which she would be unaware, might there not easily be even more suspense? At every turn of their dialogue we should be wondering: “Why does not Talbot strike now? Can he save the situation, if he delays? With all this against him, can he save it in any case?” In the use of surprise, the dramatist depends almost entirely on his situation. Suspense permits him to elaborate his situation by means of the characters in it. In other words, surprise is situation, suspense is characterization.
On this matter recent words of William Archer seem final:
Curiosity [I said] is the accidental relish of a single night; whereas the essential and abiding pleasure of the theatre lies in foreknowledge. In relation to the characters of the drama, the audience are as gods looking before and after. Sitting in the theatre, we taste, for a moment, the glory of omniscience. With vision unsealed, we watch the gropings of purblind mortals after happiness and smile at their stumblings, their blunders, their futile quests, their misplaced exultations, their groundless panics. To keep a secret from us is to reduce us to their level, and deprive us of our clairvoyant aloofness. There may be a pleasure in that too; we may join with zest in the game of blind-man’s-buff; but the theatre is in its essence a place where we are privileged to take off the bandage we wear in daily life, and to contemplate, with laughter or with tears, the blindfold gambols of our neighbors.[45]
What is basal in suspense is, of course, that an audience shall feel for some person or persons of the play just the degree of sympathy the dramatist desires. Unless their sympathy is as keen as his, the scene must fall short emotionally. For instance, in a play produced some years ago author and actors expected the audience to sympathize throughout with a mother. At the climax of one of the acts she was left on-stage in an agonized state of mind because her husband, who hates her illegitimate child, has left the stage with threats to kill it. The actress wrote of the first night: “In that scene I might as well have recited the alphabet for all the audience cared for my emotion. Their sympathy made them live, not with me, but with the defenceless child who at any moment might be murdered off-stage by the cruel father.” Suspense for the audience there certainly was, but not of the kind intended. It was necessary to rewrite the scene.
Evidently, what happens off-stage may, by its greater interest for the audience, kill the effect of what is passing on-stage. What the dramatist dares not try to represent on-stage because of its mechanical difficulty or horror, he tries to carry off by vivid and even terrifying description. By making the audience see the off-stage action through the eyes of the person most affected, or by portraying vividly his emotions when another describes the action to him, dramatists endeavor to lose none of their desired suspense. The point to remember is that the moment the off-stage action becomes of more importance than the emotions caused by that action for persons on-stage, the real centre of interest has been shifted, the desired suspense is gone, and the scene must be rewritten. Suspense in a play is rightly handled, then, when it is promptly created to the extent desired by the dramatist; carries on with increasing intensity from act to act; and reaches its climax at or just before the final curtain. Climax is, therefore, an integral part of suspense. The point of greatest intensity reached in an incident, scene, act, or play is the moment of climax. Climax is not the result of theory but comes from long observation of audiences. A scene or act which breaks off or declines in interest towards its close never delights an audience as does a scene or act which closes with its strongest emotional effect. Look at the ending of The Troublesome Raigne of King John, Part I. Though King John declares himself “the joyfulst man alive,” the audience does not so sympathize with him that his delight is a fitting climax to the play. Rather do they so keenly sympathize with Prince Arthur and even the lords who have been outraged by Arthur’s proposed death that they want to know more of him and them.
| Hubert. My lord, attend the happie tale I tell, For heauens health send Sathan packing hence That instigates your Highnes to despaire. If Arthurs death be dismall to be heard, Bandie the newes for rumors of vnthruth: He liues my Lord, the sweetest youth aliue, In health, with eyesight, not a hair amisse. This hart tooke vigor from this froward hand, Making it weake to execute your charge. Iohn. What, liues he! Then sweete hope come home agen, Chase hence despaire, the purueyor for hell. Hye Hubert, tell these tidings to my Lords That throb in passions for yong Arthurs death: Hence Hubert, stay not till thou hast reueald The wished newes of Arthurs happy health. I go my selfe, the joyfulst man aliue To storie out this new supposed crime. (Exeunt.)[46] |
The author, though he got from this a suspense which carried his audience over to the performance of Part II on the next day, missed any real climax for Part I.