The most obvious division of our subject is into tragedy, comedy, melodrama; but inasmuch as it is plain that the laws of success in all these walks of dramatic art must contain much in common, we have preferred a different division for analysis, leaving the kind of drama as a subdivision common to each part of the inquiry. A less obvious but equally just division will be as to the canons regulating the subject, the treatment, and the production of a successful drama, in whatever walk. We propose to ascertain our canons from the successful plays, still holding the stage, of Shakespeare, Sheridan, Knowles, Bulwer, Dion Boucicault, Tom Taylor, Augustin Daly, and Gilbert, together with such single plays, like "The Honeymoon," "Masks and Faces," and a few others, as are better known to the public than their authors, whose sole dramatic successes they were. Ephemeral successes, however great, cannot be safely taken as guides to a canon; but an established success of long standing, however repugnant to our tastes, must be examined, even if it take the form of the "Black Crook."
The influence of the French drama on Anglo-Saxon art has been so decided that no safe estimates of canons can be made which do not take into account the works of Sardou, Dumas, and the minor French authors, whose name is legion. Fortunately for our subject, the French work on simple principles, and will not confuse us any more than the Greeks, whom they imitate. Let us try, then, to ascertain our canons in their order, beginning with the subject of the drama.
What subjects are fit for dramatic treatment, and are there any entirely unfitted therefor?
We find a pretty wide range in the successful dramas of modern time. In tragedy we have ancient history, as shown by "Coriolanus," "Julius Cæsar," "Virginius," "Alexander the Great"; medieval history, in "Macbeth," "Richard III."; legendary stories, in "Lear," "Hamlet," "Othello," "Romeo and Juliet." In comedy and melodrama we have an almost infinite variety, as much so as in novel writing. History, legend, and pure invention claim equal right in the field. We have "The Tempest," "As You Like It," "Much Ado about Nothing," "Twelfth Night," "Henry IV.," "Henry V.," "Merchant of Venice," "The Wonder," "The Honeymoon," "Masks and Faces," "London Assurance," "School for Scandal," "The Rivals," "The Lady of Lyons," "Richelieu," "Wild Oats," "The Colleen Bawn," "Arrah-na-Pogue," "The Shaughraun," "The Wife," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "Under the Gaslight," "Don Cæsar de Bazan," "American Cousin," "Rip Van Winkle," and the "Black Crook," all well known and successful plays, many perhaps being acted this very night all over the Union and England. We are not here examining the question of the goodness or badness of these plays, their merits or demerits: we are merely recognizing them as well known plays, constantly being acted, and always successful when well acted. Of all of these, the most constantly successful and most frequently acted are those of Shakespeare, Sheridan, and Bulwer, among the old plays, and those of Boucicault and Daly among living authors. Almost all playgoers are familiar with these works, and have seen them once or more; and every new aspirant for histrionic honors has one or more of the plays of the first three in his list of test characters. If he be a man and a tragedian, he must play Hamlet, Othello, Richard, Shylock, Macbeth, Richelieu, Claude Melnotte; if versatile, he must add Benedick, Charles Surface, Captain Absolute, and others to the list; if a lady, she must be tested in Portia, Ophelia, Pauline, Lady Teazle, Juliet—who knows what? Some very versatile ladies have tried all the light comedy characters, finishing with Lady Macbeth as an experiment. A short time ago there was quite an epidemic of Lady Macbeths, but that is over for the present. The stray sheep have returned to the fold. Let us return to them.
What can we glean about the limitations of the dramatic subject from these successful plays? There is a limitation somewhere, and the first and most obvious is—time. A novelist can make the minute description of a life interesting. The most celebrated novels, such as "Robinson Crusoe," "Vicar of Wakefield," "David Copperfield," "Pendennis," "The Three Guardsmen," and others, have been just such books, imitations of real biographies. But a play is limited in length to five acts, or six at most, and its time of acting has a practical limit of three hours, with the inter-acts. Each act is further practically limited to five scenes, and it is but seldom that it stretches over three, while the latter average is never exceeded and seldom reached in a five-act play. No scene can properly contain more than a chapter of a novel, so we find ourselves practically limited to a story which can be told inside of fifteen chapters, the further inside the better. The French, who are much more artificial than the English in their dramatic canons, almost invariably limit their acts to a single scene, reducing their story thereby to only five chapters. A careful comparison of successful acting plays will generally end in bringing us to one obvious canon:
I. The subject of a drama must be capable of being fully treated in fifteen chapters at most.
The next limitation that we meet is in the nature of the story. A novelist can describe his hero and heroine and the scenes in which they move. He can depict them in motion, and describe a long journey in strange countries, trusting to picturesque scenery and incident to help him out. He can give us a sketch of their former life, and tell how they fared after they were happily married. The dramatist cannot do this. He must put his people down in a given place and leave them there till his scene is over, opening another scene or another act after a silent interval. He can, indeed, put a narrative of supposed events into the mouth of any of his characters, but such narratives are always dull and prosy, and to be avoided. Shakespeare uses them sometimes, but only when he cannot help himself, and always makes them short. The nearest instances that occur to us are, the description by Tressel to Henry VI. of the murder of Prince Edward, usually put now in the first act of "Richard III.," and the story of Oliver in "As You Like It." Sometimes a short story cannot be helped, but if told, it is always found to be of a collateral circumstance not directly leading to the catastrophe. It generally is brought in only to explain the presence of a character on the stage in the successful drama. Sometimes it happens otherwise. For instance, Coleman makes Mortimer, in the "Iron Chest," tell the whole mystery of his life in the form of a story instead of acting it. The result is a poor play, seldom acted, and generally to small audiences, being only valuable for some special features of which we shall speak later. It is not too much to ask for acceptance of this second canon regarding the subject:
II. The subject should be capable of being acted without the aid of narrative.
Is it still possible to limit the subject, and do novels and dramas differ still further? A third limitation will reveal itself, if we compare a typical drama, like "Much Ado About Nothing," or "Hamlet," with a typical novel such as "David Copperfield" or "Robinson Crusoe." These latter depend for their interest on a series of adventures which befall a hero, sometimes entirely unconnected with each other, just as they happen to a man in real life, wherein he meets many and various scenes and persons. Neither possesses any sequence of events, depending on each other, such as pervades "Hamlet" and all acting plays. It is true that some few novelists, such as Wilkie Collins, write novels that depend on plot for their interest, but those typical novels which stand at the head of the list do not. The masterpieces of Scott, such as "Ivanhoe," "Talisman," "Old Mortality," are antiquarian studies, with very slight plots; Dickens and Thackeray's best novels have no plot worth mentioning; and where perfect plots are found, it is rare to find a lasting and enduring novel. In a play, on the other hand, a plot seems to be absolutely necessary to interest the spectator, the more intricate the better. We have all seen Shakespeare's plays so often, that we are apt to forget how intricate and involved many of his plots are; and when we consider that most of his plots were taken from very bad novels which have utterly perished from sight, while the plays still live, we begin to realize by the force of contrast another canon relating to the subject, which is this:
III. The subject must have a connected plot, in which one event depends on the other.