Billing gives it up and writes out a check to the Doctor’s order for five hundred pounds, while the Doctor poses grandly before the cheers of the assembled and admiring populace of Ballymoy.[2]
Here, too, is an outline which led to a very dramatic sermon. Obviously it is a satisfactory summary of the story underlying the sermon, but just what it would give a reader, if it were a perfect scenario, is lacking—namely, suggestion of the emotional treatment of the scenes which is to make them worth the manager’s or actor’s producing:
AT THE TOP OF THE TENEMENT
The arrangement of the platform will suggest the bare condition of the home in the first part of the sermon, and in the second part will show the improved condition a year later.
PART I
Dan Howard comes home discouraged. He cannot get work. Christmas is approaching. His wife keeps his courage up and that of the family. The Minister calls and is not received kindly by Dan Howard, who does not believe in the church. He promises to get Dan work and thus proves himself a true friend in need. Misfortune has come to the home. The oldest boy is drinking and the next son has been arrested for theft. Things looks very black. It is Christmas eve and the father compels the children to go to bed. He tells them Santa Claus will not come to-night. But they hang up their stockings by the fireplace.
PART II
A year later. Things have changed. The home is better. All are happy tonight. The father has had steady work and so they are to have a good Christmas this year. The boys are doing well. The family all go to church now and it has made a difference in them all. The children have gone to bed with joy tonight. Dan Howard tells his wife what a help she has been to him through thick and thin. While they stand talking they hear the carol singers from the church, singing outside their home. The Minister comes in and is made very welcome. While they exchange greetings the Christmas Carol is sung and the beautiful illuminated star shines out in the night.
The following may be full of dramatic suggestion for its writer, but if we mean by scenario a document which, when handed to a manager or actor, is to arouse his enthusiasm because it tells him interestingly just what a proposed play will do, this is not a scenario at all.