Though a new twist is given our emotions, is not something lost to the artistry of the play?
If the means to climax be various, the ways in which it may elude a writer are several. If an audience foresees it, much of the value of climax, perhaps all, disappears. Bulwer-Lytton, in writing Money, recognized this:
And principally with regard to Act 5 I don’t feel easy. The first idea suggested by you & worked on by me was of course to carry on Evelyn’s trick to the last—& bring in the creditors &c when it is discovered that he is as rich as ever. I so made Act 5 at first. But ... the trick was so palpable to the audience that having been carried thro’ Acts 3 & 4, it became stale in Act 5—& the final discovery was much less comic than you w^d suppose.[59]
If anticipating a climax will impair it for an audience, repetition may kill it. In the civic masque, Caliban,[60] as performed, many of the historical scenes were introduced in the same way: Ariel asked his master, Prospero, what he should show him next, and at his bidding summoned the episode. No variety in phrasing could surmount the monotony of this. There was consequent loss in suspense and climax.
It is easy, also, to miss possible climax by using more at a given point than is absolutely necessary. Sometimes it is wiser to postpone part or all of thoroughly desirable material for later treatment. In the novel, Les Oberlé,[61] father and daughter sympathize with the Germans, mother and son with the old French tradition. In patriarchal fashion, the half-paralytic grandfather, as head of the house, keeps the keys. When a young German officer, favored by the daughter, asks her hand, feeling becomes intense and strained between the parents and the brother and the sister. Suddenly the old paralytic enters, half-supported by his attendant. Furious to think of his granddaughter as the wife of a German he cries, with a superb gesture of dismissal, “Clear out! This is my house!” (Va t’en! Ici chez moi!) The dramatizer saw that with the accompanying action of all concerned, especially the silent going of the German suitor, “Ici chez moi” made a sufficient climax. Therefore, with a touch of real genius, he saved the “Va t’en” for a climax to a totally different scene. Later in the play, Jean, who has determined to escape across the French boundary rather than serve longer in the German army, has been locked in his room by his outraged father. As usual, after the house has been locked up for the night, the keys have been handed to the old, half-paralytic grandfather, who lies sleepless in a room near Jean’s. Learning from Uncle Ulrich what has occurred, the grandfather totters into the living room with his keys. Unlocking Jean’s door, with a fine gesture of affection, and command toward the outer door, he cries to Jean, “Va.” Here the dramatist gets two fine climaxes where the novelist gained but one.
Sometimes a very effective climax at a given point should be postponed because it will be even more effective later, and if given the first position would check preferable movement in the play. At the end of Act IV of Magda (Heimat) by Sudermann, we seem all ready for a scene in which Magda confesses the truth about her past life to her father.
Schwartze. Magda,—I want Magda.
Marie. (Goes to the door and opens it.) She’s coming now,—down the stairs.
Schwartze. So! (Pulls himself together with an effort.)