The immediate and unmistakable identity of your characters is essential to knowing your characters; the early and clear establishment of relationship between characters is essential to grasping your story. A profound study of the subject yields the conclusion that the simplest, most economical, quickest and most effective means of revealing the identity and establishing the relationship of the character is the caption. Without the caption we must resort to the inartistically obvious and more or less clumsy devices, such as doors labeled “Private Office of John Smith”; trade-signs, as “Solomon Isaacs, Pawnbroker,” or have the actors overgesture their parts in a laborious effort to tell the audience who and what they are.
(EXAMPLE 36.) A perusal of six produced plays discloses the unanimous use of the caption for the combined purposes of identity and relationship. These captions usually appear early in the play—before the second or third scene: (1) GEORGIA WANTS TO BE A LEADER OF HER SEX AND NOT A DRUDGE; (2) ANNIE’S WIDOWED MOTHER LEFT PENNILESS; (3) COLONEL FARRINGTON FORCES HIS DAUGHTER ON MARSTON, HIS SUPPOSED BENEFACTOR; (4) MALCOLM DECIDES TO WAIT AND MAKE HIS PROPOSAL TO ROSALIE AN ARTISTIC OCCASION; (5) SHELBURNE, HARD HIT, TURNS AGAINST HIS IRRESPONSIBLE LIFE; (6) ARCHER DURAND AND HIS WIFE ARRIVE IN THE MINING DISTRICT HALF STARVED.
The letter insert can be employed with equal effectiveness. The characters once introduced effectively, their future actions are easily understood—providing they are logical and natural. The relationships, as they are established by the first appearances of the characters, form the premise of the plot and the argument of the story that are readily followed, if the scenes are well-knit and the story interesting.
In conjunction with the caption or letter, then, something occurs immediately to grasp the attention and offer insight into characters, their relationships and motives. Furthermore, both vocation and character may be indicated by environment, make-up, costume, tools, manner and culture. Contrasts in action, appearance and conduct between characters is always effective in clarifying characterization. Where there are no voices and many characters, great care must be exercised to differentiate. The sooner the writer realizes the difficulties that beset actor and director in differentiating character, the quicker he will begin to economize on the number he employs and to strengthen personalities. It is an axiom of photodrama that the bigger the idea, the fewer the characters! Thus it is seen that too many important characters make too great a demand on the audience.
In order that the character may exhibit the motive underlying the action, the writer must visualize it, and the actor must realize it. There must be mimetic harmony, sympathy and naturalness.
We are cautioned by some savants never to tell the actor how to act a line, but tell them only what to do. We disagree. Providing the writer has become an expert in the writing of business and dramatic expression, he can scarcely infringe on the director’s right, the actor’s profession, or injure the prospects of his play by offering an analysis of the construction of the characters he himself has created. Co-operation is too often lacking from the fact that the actor seldom knows exactly what he is trying to do. The director extricates a jumbled part from the inseparable whole of the play, recites it extempore for the actor and drills the requisite action into him. How, then, can the actor be expected to interpret things and put them in that were in the mind of the writer? He must guess at the harmony of the composition, surmise the relationships, and consequently lose all the nice touches that the true artist would incorporate in the well-made play. It is the actor’s sole business and art to interpret ideas. He is the living motive of the play and the most important symbol in the expression of its inner truth. When will actors learn their lines in order to catch the very soul of your play, instead of yah-yahing at each other when a visualized exchange of words is necessary? But the writer will have to write the essential words—perhaps that’s the rub?
Violent action will always excite and thrill the mind; but it takes passive repression to move the soul. The body that suffers, writhes and flings itself about; the hurt soul shrinks back and lies stunned. The prick of a pin will make a strong man jump spasmodically a foot in the air; a sharp word will make the noblest soul sink deep into gloom. We actors, directors and playwrights are seeking the artistic expression of the life of the soul; the existence and agency of the body are merely means to that end. We should be striving to capture the soft lights and shadows of mental impressionism; and not be struggling to imprison the bold sunlight and harsh lines of physical photography. Deep emotion and its characterization lies not in the bold step forward, but in the shrinking half-step backward; not in the brazen eye, but in the shy, drooping eye-lid; not in the defiant word, but in the silent, quivering lip; not in the blow of the fist, but in the gentle, stroking hand; not in the violent embrace, but in the tender caress; not in the sudden turn on the heel, but in the shrug of the shoulders—one is a matter of physical mechanics, the other emotional art. If emotional art is put first in our endeavors, all the range of physical mechanics will follow logically, but secondarily.
Our writers have been frightened away from suggestive artistic detail, and have fallen upon the evil way of bald physical mechanics that leave nothing to the imagination. The gentle gesture, the poise of the head, the trembling lip, the downcast eye, of the story vision are usurped by the over-emphasized action. Decisive action is essential in the photoplay, but the producer’s version is too often another story.
Characters should tend to personify and visualize the tender twilights of pathos; the soft shadows of pain and sorrow; the gentle glow of goodness and nobility; the serene surface of happiness. They should build the lives of the audience anew; inspire them to noble deeds; let them touch the hem of the garment of sublimity and teach them life’s lessons of humility, forbearance and faith.
The playwright should never take advantage of his audience’s moral weakness to display “strong” scenes of character depravity; but rather he should employ a character’s weakness to strengthen his audience’s morality.