Anne. I do na want them. Will—I—I—did na mean to be unkind. We were good friends, and I trust in thee, for the future, that thou'lt be great. Good-by—and do na forget the little playmate.
Will. I will na forget [kissing her], and, Anne, be good to my mother. [She goes back to Mistress Shakespeare, and he stands watching them in the dusk.]
Peele [at the window]. Come, come, Will! We must go.
Will [turning slowly]. I—I'm coming, sir.
[THE CURTAIN.]
All the dramatic motives that have been enumerated so far have been more or less literary in origin, but "A play may start from almost anything: a detached thought that flashes through the mind; a theory of conduct or an act which one firmly believes or wishes only to examine; a bit of dialogue overheard or imagined; a setting, real or imagined, which creates emotion in the observer; a perfectly detached scene, the antecedents and consequences of which are as yet unknown; a figure glimpsed in a crowd which for some reason arrests the attention of the dramatist ... a mere incident—heard in idle talk or observed; a story told only in barest outline or with the utmost detail."[18]
The great dramatic critic, William Archer, has said that "the only valid definition of the dramatic is: Any representation of imaginary personages which is capable of interesting an average audience assembled in a theater." For the purposes of the definition the Boy Will of Robert Emmons Rogers's little piece and Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln are equally imaginary personages. In the case of the one-act play the theatre in question is more often than not a Little Theatre or a school theatre, the representation is more frequently at the moment by amateur than by professional actors and the audience, being small and close to the stage, is likely to assume a co-operative attitude towards the playwright, the actor, and the other immediate factors in the production. Since the success of a play depends on its adaptability to the requirements of actor, theatre, and audience, it is well for inexperienced playwrights to study the conditions under which one-act plays are likely to be produced.
One very practical consideration to hold in mind is that the one-act play has a shorter time in which to focus attention than the full-length play and so the indispensable preliminary exposition must be quickly disposed of and an urgent appeal to the emotional interest of the audience must be made at the beginning. As has been said, every artistic consideration that calls for singleness of impression in the short-story is of equal importance in determining the unified structure of the one-act play. For the reason that a one-act play is almost never given by itself, if for no other, its effect will be dissipated if plot, characterization, or atmosphere fails in unity.
The writer exercising himself in the art of play-making had best begin with the procedure common to many professional playwrights. This first step is the drawing up of a scenario, which is an outline showing the course of the story, identifying the characters, indicating the setting and atmosphere and explaining the nature of the play; that is, whether, for example, it is to be a fantasy like The Pierrot of the Minute, or a comedy of manners like Wurzel-Flummery.
Here for instance is such a scenario as might have been drawn up for The Boy Will: