In analyzing dramatic dialogue it is well to inquire whether in the play it serves (1) to express the ideas and emotions of characters at points of highest emotional functioning, (2) to advance the plot, (3) to reveal character, or (4) what. Is it brief, clear, direct, spontaneous? Or is it careless, loose, insipid? Wit, repartee? Didactic, moralizing? Satirical, cynical?
D. Stage-Business and Stage-Direction in the One-Act Play.—The stage-business and stage-direction, usually printed in italics, of a play are an essential part of a drama. They must not be ignored in either reading or staging a play. The novel or short story generally uses narration and description to achieve its desired result; a play, on the contrary, uses dialogue and concrete objective pantomime that may be seen readily with the eye. A play is not a story narrated in chronological order of events, but it is a story so handled and so constructed that it can be acted on a stage by actors before an audience. It is a series of minor crises leading to a major crisis, presented to a reader or to an audience by characters, dialogue, and stage-business and pantomime. For purposes of indicating the pantomimic action of the play, the dramatist resorts to stage-business and stage-direction.
Does the stage-direction aid in making (1) the dialogue, (2) the plot, (3) the dramatic action, or (4) the character more clear? Does it shorten the play? Does it express idea, emotion, or situations more effectively than could dialogue, if it were used?
And, finally, do not judge any play until all the evidence is in, until you have thoroughly mastered every detail and have fully conceived the author's idea and purpose. It is not a question whether you would have selected such a theme or whether you would have handled it in the same way in which the author did; but the point is does the author in his way make his theme clear to you. The author has conceived a dramatic problem in his own mind and has set it forth in his own way. The question is, does he make you see his result and his method?
Do you like the play? Or do you not like it? State your reason in either case. Is it because of the author? Is it because of the theme? Is it because of the technic—the way he gets his intent to his reader or audience? Is it because of your own likes or dislikes; preconceived notions or prejudices? Is it because of the acting? Of the staging or setting? Does it uplift or depress? Does it provoke you to emotional functioning?
| "Though old the thought and oft expressed, |
| 'Tis his at last who says it best." |
THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK
BY
SIR JAMES M. BARRIE
The Twelve-Pound Look is reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, the publisher in America of the works of Sir James M. Barrie. For permission to perform, address the publisher.