Once the student satisfies himself as to the singleness of effect or theme of the play, he will do well to set himself to the task of seeing just how the dramatist has achieved this effect. He should keep in mind that the playwright is a skilled workman; that he has predetermined for himself just what he wishes his audience to think, feel, or understand, and has marshalled all his materials to that end. The way by which he accomplishes that end is his technic. Technic is but the practical method by which an artist can most effectively convey his message to his public. In a play the materials that the dramatist uses to this end are character, plot, dialogue, and stage direction. If he is skilled he will use these elements in such a way that the result will be an artistic whole, a singleness of effect, an organized unit that will exemplify and express his theme.
A. The Characters in the One-Act Play.—Generally speaking, drama grows out of character. Farce, melodrama, and extravaganza usually consist of situation rather than of character. In any event, the student should avail himself of every means to understand the characters in the play under discussion. His real appreciation of the play will be in direct ratio almost to his understanding of the persons in the drama. Any attention given to this end will be energy well spent. The student should get into the very heart of the characters, as it were.
Thus, Adonijah, in Beulah Bornstead's The Diabolical Circle, is a narrow, self-centred, Puritan egotist who has little about his personality to appeal to the romantic and vivacious Betty. Lady Sims, in Sir James M. Barrie's The Twelve-Pound Look, is a woman who really is pathetic in her longing for some human independence in the presence of her self-centred husband, "Sir" Harry Sims. And Manikin and Minikin, in Alfred Kreymborg's Manikin and Minikin, are conventionalized puppets representing the light yet half-serious bickerings, jealousies, and quarrellings of human nature.
The student will do well to characterize the dramatis personæ deliberately and specifically. He should not now value himself for working fast; for things done in a hurry usually lack depth. He must not be content with vague and thin generalities. In analyzing a character it might be well to apply some specific questions similar to the following: Just what is the elemental human quality in the character? Loving? Trusting? Egotistic? Superstitious? Revengeful? Treacherous? Selfish? Discontented? Optimistic? Romantic? Or what? How does the dramatist characterize them: By action? By dialogue? By spirit of likes and dislikes? By racial trait? By religion? By peculiarity of manner, speech, appearance? Are the characters really dramatic: are they impelled to strong emotional reaction upon each other and upon situation? Do they provoke one's dramatic sympathy? Do they make one feel their own point of view and their own motives for conduct?
B. The Plot of the One-Act Play.—Plot and character are integrally interlinked. Plot is not merely story taken from every-day life, where seldom do events occur in a series of closely following minor crucial moments leading to a climax. The dramatist so constructs his material that there is a sequential and causal interplay of dramatic forces, ending in some major crisis or crucial moment. Plot may be said to be the framework and constructed story by which a dramatist exemplifies his theme. It does not exist for its own end, but is one of the fundamental means whereby the playwright gets his singleness of effect, or theme, to his reader or hearer. From the story material at his disposal the playwright constructs his plot to this very end.
Careful attention should be given to the plot. The student should question it carefully. Do the plot materials seem to have been taken from actual life? Or do they seem to be invented? Is the plot well suited to exemplifying the theme? Reconstruct the story out of which the plot may have been built. Since the plot of a one-act play is highly simplified, determine whether there are any complexities, any irrelevancies, any digressions. Does the plot have a well-defined beginning, middle, and end?
1. The Beginning of the One-Act Play.—Having but a relatively short time at its disposal, usually about thirty minutes and seldom more than forty-five minutes, the beginning of a one-act play is very short. It is characterized by condensation, compactness, and brevity. Seldom is the beginning more than a half-page in length; often the play is got under way in two or three speeches. The student will do well to practise to the end that he will recognize instantly when the dramatic background of a one-act play has been laid.
Whatever else may characterize the beginning, it must be dramatically effective. Instantly it must catch the powers of perception by making them aware of the initial situation out of which the subsequent dramatic action will develop. A good beginning makes one feel that suddenly he has come face to face with a situation which cannot be solved without an interplay of dramatic forces to a given final result.
Thus, when one reads Althea Thurston's The Exchange, one is made suddenly to feel that human beings are discontent with their shortcomings and possessed qualities, and that they always feel that they would be happier if they possessed something other than what they have. The Judge, who handles the cases as they come in for exchange, is disgusted with the vanities of humankind, and is ready to clear his hands of the whole matter. Here is a situation; it is the beginning of the play. In the beginning of Lady Gregory's Hyacinth Halvey one is brought suddenly to the realization that Hyacinth Halvey instinctively rebels against the highly colored and artificially created good name that has been unwittingly superimposed upon him. This situation, suddenly presented, is the beginning of the play. Out of this initial situation the subsequent dramatic action evolves.
Is the beginning too short? Too long? Does it make the initial dramatic situation clear? How has the playwright made it clear and effective? Just where is the end of the beginning? Although the beginning and the subsequent plot development are well blended together, so that there is no halting where the beginning ends, usually one can detect where the one ends and the other begins. It is a good idea, for the purpose of developing a sense of the organic structure of the one-act play, to draw a line across the page of the play, just where the one ends and the other begins.