Part 59 (2/2)

Once I found a speech in prose--prose so subtly balanced, harmonious, and interesting that it seemed, on paper, a song: But no actor or actress, though they spoke with the voice of angels, could make it, on the stage, even tolerable.... Yet the speech is nevertheless fine stuff: it is nevertheless interesting in substance: it has imagination: it has charm. What, then, was lacking? Emotion in the _tone_ and, on the part of the writer, consideration for the speaking voice. Stage dialogue may have or may not have many qualities, but it must be emotional. It rests primarily on feeling. Wit, philosophy, moral truths, poetic language--all these count as nothing unless there is feeling of an obvious, ordinary kind.[24]

When reading a play aloud, do we give all the stage directions, or, cutting out those which state how certain speeches should be read, try to give these as directed? Even when reading some story aloud, do we not often find troublesome full directions as to just how the speakers delivered their lines? If given by us, they provide an awkward standard by which to judge our reading. If we wish to suppress them, they are not, in rapid reading, always seen in time. As was pointed out very early in this book, gesture, facial expression, movement about the stage, and above all, the voice, aid the dramatist as they cannot aid the novelist. These aids and the time limits of a play have, as we shall see, very great effect on dialogue. Note in the opening of _The Case of Rebellious Susan_, by Henry Arthur Jones, the effects demanded from the aids just named.

ACT I. _SCENE. Drawing-room at Mr. Harabin's; an elegantly furnished room in Mayfair. At back, in centre, fireplace, with fire burning. To right of fireplace a door leading to lady Susan's sitting-room. A door down stage left._

_Enter footman left showing in Lady Darby_

_Lady Darby._ (_A lady of about fifty._) Where is Lady Susan now?

_Footman._ Upstairs in her sitting-room, my lady.

(_Indicating the door right._)

_Lady D._ Where is Mr. Harabin?

_Footman._ Downstairs in the library, my lady.

_Enter Second Footman showing in Inez, a widow of about thirty, fascinating, inscrutable_

_Lady D._ (_To First Footman._) Tell Lady Susan I wish to see her at once.

_Inez._ And will you say that I am here too?

(_Exit First Footman at door right. Exit Second Footman at door left._)

_Lady D._ (_Going affectionately to Inez, shaking hands very sympathetically._) My dear Mrs. Quesnel, you know?

_Inez._ Sue wrote me a short note saying that she had discovered that Mr. Harabin had--and that she had made up her mind to leave him.

_Lady D._ Yes, that's what she wrote me. Now, my dear, you're her oldest friend. You'll help me to persuade her to--to look over it and hush it up.

_Inez._ Oh, certainly. It's the advice everybody gives in such cases, so I suppose it must be right. What are the particulars?

_Lady D._ I don't know. But with a man like Harabin--a gentleman in every sense of the word--it can't be a very bad case.

_Enter Lady Susan._[25]

If the voice does not deftly stress ”now” in Lady Darby's first speech, and the ”upstairs” and the ”downstairs” of the footman, this opening will fail of its desired effect. Everything in this well-written beginning of an interesting play depends on bringing to the delivery of the lines right use of the dramatist's greatest aids: gesture, facial expression, pantomime, and above all the exquisite intonations of which the human voice is capable. Write this scene as a novelist would handle it, and see to what different proportions it will swell. Note in the final result how much less connotative, how much more commonplace the dialogue probably is. Contrasting two pa.s.sages--one from a novel, the other in a play drawn from it--will perhaps best ill.u.s.trate that the dialogue of the novel and of the play treating the same story usually differ greatly.

And when it became clear that somebody, good or bad, was without, Patty, having regard to the lateness of the hour and the probability of supernatural visitations, was much disposed to make as though the knocking were unheard, and to creep quietly off to bed. But Mistress Beatrice prevailed upon her to depart from this prudent course; and the two peered from an upper window to see who stood before the door.

At first they could see no one; but presently a little figure stepped back from the shadow, looking up to the window above, and Beatrice Cope, although she discerned not the face, felt more than ever certain that this summons was for her.

”'Tis but a child there without, Patty,” she said. ”Maybe 'tis some poor little creature that has lost its way, and come here for help and shelter. Heaven forbid that we should leave it to wander about, all the dreary night through!”

Patty's fears were not much calmed by the sight of this lonely child.

”'Twas the Phantom Child,” she murmured, ”who comes wailing piteously to honest folks' doors o' nights; and if they take it in and cherish it, it works them grievous woe.”

Mistress Beatrice, however, tried to hear as little as she might of what Patty was saying; and she went downstairs and undid the heavy bar very cautiously. Then she opened the door a little s.p.a.ce; and Patty Joyce stood by her staunchly, although disapproving of what she did.

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