A list of dramatis personæ should be followed with a statement of the time and place if they are important, and of the settings for all the acts. A detailed description of each new setting should precede its scene or act.[4] In the scenarios already quoted notice how difficult it is to place the characters as far as setting is concerned and how much would be gained if a good description of the setting were added. Keep the description of a setting to essentials, that is, furniture and decorations necessary to give requisite atmosphere or required in the action of the piece. As always in scenarios and acting editions use “left” and “right” as “left” and “right” of the actor, not of the audience.
THE SIRE DE MALETROIT’S DOOR (See p. 428)
SCENE: A large room in the house of the Sire de Maletroit; large fireplace at centre back; curtained door on left leads to stairway; curtained door right leads to chapel. The room is well illuminated by candles, reflecting the polish of stone walls. It is scantily furnished.
THE LEGACY (See p. 464)
THE SCENE: The Brice living-room comfortably furnished in walnut. A piano centre L., a round table, rear R. Four entrances: upper L., rear centre, upper right, right centre. Curtained windows rear R. & L.
As has already been pointed out earlier in this book, it is wholly unwise to call, in a description of a setting, for details not really necessary. Here is the setting for the dramatis personæ quoted on p. 431. It is over-elaborate because the action of the proposed play involves use of hardly any of the properties called for.
SCENE: Forsythe Savile’s “den.” It is an odd room, a curious mixture of library, smoking-room, and museum. On the right is a large fireplace, over which are hung an elk’s head, a couple of rifles, queer-looking Eastern weapons, and other sporting trophies and evidences of travel. The room is panelled in dark oak; low bookcases line the walls, and on top of the cases are small bronzes, photographs, strange bits of bric-à-brac, and a medley of things,—such truck as a man with cultivated tastes would insist on accumulating. There are numerous pictures, a rather heterogeneous lot; valuable engravings,—portraits of famous lights of the bench and the bar, to judge by their wigs,—a few oils of the Meissonier type; and others which are obviously relics of college, with medals slung across them by brightly coloured ribbons. The furniture of the room is of heavy oak, upholstered in dull crimson leather. Capacious club armchairs are in convenient places, near lamps and books. Around the hearth is a high English fender, and before it is a great Davenport sofa. On the left, is a broad-topped table-desk, covered with papers and books, and bearing a squat bronze lamp with a crimson shade. At one end of the Davenport is a low cabinet, on which are glasses and decanters. There is a wide doorway at the back of the stage which gives the only entrance and is hung with heavy crimson portières. The centre of the floor is filled by a huge polar bear-skin rug, with massive head and the odd spaces are covered by smaller fur rugs. The stage is dark, save for the uncertain, wavering light cast by the wood fire.
Time: The present, and about half-past eight on a winter evening.
A sketch of the desired arrangement of the stage should be prefixed to the description of the setting. This may be as simple as comports with clear picturing of the exact conditions required. Such drawings not only help to clearness, they sometimes bring out difficulties in a proposed setting not at once evident in a description. Perhaps the staging called for in what immediately follows may not seem over-elaborate in the reading. A diagram at once shows its awkwardness, expensiveness, and undesirability.