(EXAMPLE 75.) In “Madame X” we find the young barrister defending his own mother who has committed murder. At first neither mother nor son is aware of it. The audience knows, and this knowledge makes of this scene one of the most powerful Situations in all Drama.
The Close-View—in the capacity of showing only a small portion of the physical action magnified—is most effective in producing Situations. Again, it brings that to the knowledge of the spectator of which the recipient is blithely ignorant.
(EXAMPLE 76.) A Close-View shows us the hand of the villain stealing the priceless scarf-pin; or the hero’s wallet that means his all.
Or again, the Close-View can bring close what the audience witnesses almost unemotionally from a distance, possibly showing the burglar’s ugly face where they saw but a head in the foliage. The Close-View is, in fact, one of the most effective devices at the command of the playwright.
The Caption, too, is capable of doing service as a Situation, by rousing a thrill in drama just as they rouse a laugh in comedy. Our difficulty in this relation is to prevent it from robbing the scene, or scenes, to follow of surprise or suspense.
(EXAMPLE 77.) The following strengthens a fact that has half-dawned in the mind of the audience. Without the Caption the fact would have passed without particular notice: “Mrs. Donnelly Handles Dalton’s Deadly Messenger, Neither Dreaming That She Is the Intended Victim.” Again we impress a Situation that must not be lost sight of: “Marsten Thinks the Mortgage Lost That Has Slipped Into the Lining of the Coat.”
Thus we have seen that even infinitesimal, tho important, points may be made potential Situations by bringing them “down front” in the spot-light, or giving them the advantages obtained thru introspection in fiction.
Death in itself is neither dramatic nor a Situation. Drama is dependent on life, struggle and complication; and a Situation may be evolved out of a perilous circumstance in which the character is threatened with death. A Situation always germinates further life-action; death terminates a line of action and eliminates forever an active participant. Death is never the Climax, but the end.
Since Situations are a matter of such consequence to the playwright, it behooves him to harvest them with the same diligence that he garners plot material. He may readily file and classify them under the same captions and sub-divisions as he does his plot material. Again, the same sources of material are available, especially the daily press, which graciously condenses Situations and Climaxes in the large type of its head-lines.
(EXAMPLE 78.) Ten are chosen at random from current newspapers: (1) Bee Upsets Big Auto; (2) Deceived by His Valet; (3) Two Women Claim Boy; (4) Finds Woman Stowaway; (5) Claims Wife—She Laughs; (6) Woman Gives Away Coins (7) Prince Weds a Commoner; (8) President Is Captured; (9) Blind Man Made to See; (10) Identified by X-Ray.