Part 58 (1/2)

_Simms._ (_Pacifically._) Hol' on, Jinny! I ain't said nuffin'. Dat I ain't! Yo' g' long now en' I'll sen' down a gal t' yo' cabin wif a basket.

_Jinny._ (_Turning away._) Yo' sho' will--er Ma.r.s.e Phil'd--

_Simms._ (_As he goes up the steps._) En' keep yo' gran'chillun out dat saloom, Jinny, ef yo' don' want t' see 'em cross de Jo'dan ahead o' yo'! Dat Joe! Lawd-a-ma.s.sy! De white in him ain't done n.o.body no good's fah's dis--'Scuse me, sah!

(_He stops suddenly and turns aside, bowing, on seeing Noyes and Georgie, who have opened the door and come out._)

Here is equal care to represent the speech of Southerners.

_Noyes._ My fathah? Yes, he gave way t' his Comme'cial ambition by sellin' powda an' bullets t' the Union--way back in '62. That got him into a bunch o' trouble, but it wasn't what _sta'ted_ the--slight fam'ly coolness!

_Georgie._ Wasn't it? Why, I always hea'd---

_Noyes._ No, it came befo' that. My gran'fathah an' Phil's--they were brothahs-in-law, you know--they began it in the fo'ties.

_Georgie._ Why?

_Noyes._ (_Grimly._) I reckon the Morrows are tryin' now t' keep it da'k. But Lawd!--I don't mind tellin'. It's the old thing--both losin'

theah heads ovah the same woman.

_Georgie._ (_Innocently._) How romantic! Phil's gran'mothah?

_Noyes._ (_After a pause._) No--n.i.g.g.ah woman.

_Georgie._ (_In a low voice, turning away._) Oh--I didn't--realize--

_Noyes._ (_Clearing his throat._) Phil's gran'fathah--he won out. An'

that's the kick that sta'ted the Noyes fam'ly a-rollin' t' pe'dition.

_Georgie._ (_With difficulty._) But mos' people are willin' to fo'get--at least they ought to be.

_Noyes._ (_Dryly._) Some ain't killed 'emselves tryin'. Howevah, on lookin' ahead I saw Phil an' I might be in a position t' help each othah, so we agreed t' sink it. I--I wish yo' mothah would follow Phil, Miss Byrd. I ce'tainly do wish that!

_Georgie_. She's old-fas.h.i.+oned--oh, hopelessly so!--in things the world now considers--trivial.

_Noyes._ (_Looking at his hands._) Such as--trade?

_Georgie._ (_Gently._) That's one of them.[16]

Lady Gregory, after writing a rough draft of one of her plays, goes among the people of her community and sets them talking of the subject she is treating. Noting their racy, apt, and highly individualized phrases, she gives them to her characters in the play as she re-writes.

Such intimate, loving study of dialect as Lady Gregory, Mr. Yeats, and Synge have shown has given us an accurate representation of the Irish peasant, and may ultimately drive from the English stage the conventional absurdities of the past. Dialect, then, if carefully studied, is highly desirable if two or three facts are borne in mind.

First of all, it should be accurate; but secondly it must be clear or must be made clear for any audience. Unquestionably, Mr. Stanley Houghton's memorable play _Hindle Wakes_ had a bad t.i.tle away from its birthplace,--Manchester, England. In the United States, this t.i.tle is perfectly meaningless. How many in any audience in this country could be expected to know that the t.i.tle means certain ”autumn week-end holidays in the town of Hindle.” There could be no harm in using a different t.i.tle away from the birthplace of the play. Recently, in a ma.n.u.script play, appeared a figure speaking a strange mixture of Negro and Irish dialects. He seemed to all readers a clumsy attempt by the author at a dialect part. Really, the figure was a portrait of a small political boss who, from boyhood on, had acquired in the saloons and purlieus of his district words and phrases of both the Negroes and the Irish. A little preliminary exposition at the right place cleared up this difficulty and turned what seemed inept characterization into a particularly individual figure of richly characterizing phrase.

Obviously, then, dialect should, first, be written accurately. Then it should be gone over to see what in it may not be clear to most auditors.

These words or phrases should be made clear because they are translated by other people on the stage or by the speaker, who himself sees or is told that some stage listener does not understand him. Only a little ingenuity is needed to do away with such vaguenesses. To subst.i.tute for such words and phrases others which, though incorrect, would be instantly understood by the audience is to botch the dialect and produce what is, after all, not different from the conventional stage dialect of the past. This raises a third point in regard to dialect, and one very frequently disregarded. Over and over again in plays using dialect certain speeches are pa.s.sed over by the author in his final revision which neither phonetically nor in the words and phrases chosen comport with the context. Instantly the mood and the color of the scene are lost unless the actor supplies what the author failed to give. That is, dialect, if used, should be used steadily and consistently. The desiderata are, then, accuracy, persistent use, and clearness for the general public. Thus used, dialect is one of the chief aids to characterization.

If, in writing dialogue, a dramatist must not speak as himself but in character, must not be consciously or unconsciously literary if not in character, how may one surely choose the right words? Perhaps one or two ill.u.s.trations will help here. The citation in the left-hand column from the first quarto _Hamlet_ states the facts clearly enough, but wholly uncolored by the emotion of the speaker. In the right-hand column the pa.s.sionate sympathy of Shakespeare has given him perfect understanding of Hamlet's feeling.

_Hamlet._ O fie Horatio, and if _Hamlet._. O good Horatio, what a thou shouldst die, wounded name What a scandale wouldst thou Things standing thus unknowne, leave behinde? shall I leave behind me?

What tongue should tell the If thou did'st ever hold me in story of our deaths, thy hart, If not from thee? O my heart Absent thee from felicity a sinckes Horatio, while Mine eyes have lost their sight, And in this harsh world drawe my tongue his use: thy breath in paine Farewell Horatio, heaven receive To tell my story; What warlike my soule. noise is this?

(_Hamlet dies._) (_A march a farre off._)[17]

Speaking, not as the historian, not as the observer, but as Hamlet himself, Shakespeare by his quickened feeling finds a phrasing of which we may say what Swinburne said of some of the lines of John Webster: that the character says, not what he might have said, not what we are satisfied to have him say, but what seems absolutely the only thing he could have said.

When a dramatist works as he should, the emotion of his characters gives him the right words for carrying their feelings to the audience, and every word counts. Writing to Macready of _Money_, Bulwer-Lytton said of his play, ”At the end of Act in your closing speech, will you remember to say, you 'would' refuse me ten pounds to spend on benevolence. Not you refuse me. The _would_ is important.” [18]