speech in Julius Cæsar, of depth of insight like Hamlet's speech "To be or not to be," of tremendous "Purple imaginative power like the heath scenes in King patches" Lear, of tender poetic beauty like the love scenes in Romeo and Juliet, of ironical keenness like the seven ages of man speech in As You Like It, or of passionate human protest like Shylock's defence of his race in The Merchant of Venice, the play will live. Consequently any special qualities the dialogue of a play may have are worth looking for and remembering.

Setting

The setting of a play is not usually emphasized or elaborated so much as the setting of a novel but it is important for at least two reasons. In the first place, it may be directly influential on plot or character, or both. In Influence of prose fiction we have seen the interaction of setting on plot these three elements. In drama this interdependency is not so pronounced, though it is frequently present. A Midsummer Night's Dream has to take place in a fairy wood; The Tempest could not have happened except on Prospero's island. Barrie calls attention to the importance of the setting of his Quality Street by naming the play for it. His The Admirable Crichton, Dear Brutus, and Mary Rose are also examples of the influence of setting on plot. Other plays in which setting has an essential part are easy to recall-The Copperhead, The Passion Flower, The Rising of the Moon, The Great Divide, The Scarecrow, Anna Christie, Merton of the Movies, and Outward Bound.

In the second place, the setting may be dramatically effective even if it is not essential to the action. There is a good

deal in having the action occur at an appro- Setting and priate place, in using the setting to create an atmosphere appropriate atmosphere for an event. It is not necessary that Casca and Brutus be won over to the conspiracy on

the night of a fearful storm, but certainly the terror of the night creates an atmosphere of dramatic suspense which adds tremendously to the play. Macbeth might very well listen to the forces of evil on a bright sunny day, but it is far more effective dramatically to have the play steeped in the atmosphere of night and terror, on the blasted heath, in the rude banquet hall lit by flaring torches, in weird underground caverns, and in the castle halls at midnight where unearthly chills and black shadows and hollow echoes are gathered. The sun appears only once in the whole play and then as if for purposes of contrast. Duncan remarks that the castle has a pleasant seat and that the birds are nesting happily in every available nook and cranny of its sunny walls, but the audience already suspects it to be the breeding place of treachery and murder. The whole play of As You Like It is a notable example of the charm that atmosphere can throw over a play through setting alone. There is little to describe the Forest of Arden. People fleet the time there carelessly as they did in the Golden Age of mankind; they lie under the greenwood tree and tune their songs to the music of the birds; in those inaccessible forests they lose and neglect the creeping hours and become good-humored, happy, pleasantly irresponsible, and strangely susceptible to the influence of love. The whole story seems possible because of the atmosphere of the Forest of Arden, but surely it is an impossible forest with its startling combinations of fauna and flora, its palm trees and oaks, its sheep, its hungry lionesses, and its green and gilded snakes. No one can say that the action of the play needed such a setting, but without the Forest of Arden we feel that the plot and the characters would have been as childishly absurd as they are in the story from which Shakespeare borrowed them.

It must be remembered that Shakespeare created most of

Details of

setting from

the stage man

ager's point of

view

his effects through poetry; he did not depend on elaborate scenic effects as the modern dramatist does. In reading a play from the modern point of view, however, we have to give a thought to the problems of the stage manager. How shall we arrange the scene for Antony's funeral oration? By what lighting effects shall we suggest the garden of Capulet where the inconstant moon "tips with silver all the fruit-tree tops?" And how shall we create an actual picture of that dim monument where lies Juliet, whose "beauty makes this vault a feasting presence full of light"? In King Lear how shall we produce the howling storm on the heath where the poor old man seeks shelter from the wind and the rain in a madman's hovel? How shall we portray the mysterious shadows and rounded towers of the castle at Elsinore where the ghost walks at midnight? What stage arrangement is best for the play within the play in Hamlet? Again, what sounds and odors shall we use? We must select music for Capulet's ball; we must reproduce the sound of the masques and merrymaking that covers up Jessica's flight from her father's, and the roar of battle that closes Julius Cæsar and Macbeth. We must furthermore choose costumes and scenery so that the colors harmonize with action and mood, at the same time making an effective stage picture. What Rosalind and Juliet shall wear is no unimportant detail. An actor's make-up for Shylock or Macbeth is often a part of his conception of the character. All these considerations are interesting and significant; one must read a play with them in mind if one is to read imaginatively. But important as they are, details of setting should never attract so much attention to themselves that they distract attention from the play and its people. There is no need to spend thousands of dollars and employ hundreds of people to present a play of any kind. Shakespeare had no conception of the useless ex

travagance that could be lavished on a production of Julius Cæsar or The Merchant of Venice. Settings should be artistically in keeping with the mood of the story but not flagrantly conspicuous in themselves.

Artistic economy

The Principle of Artistic Economy

The final principle in the art of playwriting is the principle of artistic economy. It is imperative that good dramatic literature observe this principle which demands that there be no waste of material, no diffusion of attention, and no lack of interest in a play. It is not too much to say that in a perfectly constructed play not a scene is unnecessary, not a character unessential, not a line without its purpose. After selecting his material, a dramatist must go over it again and again, rigorously cutting out what will not be of some dramatic service to him. Almost any fault of construction is preferable to "talkiness," futile engulfing of incident, character, and even ideas in a sea of talk. If a dramatist is to write a good play about Abraham Lincoln, as Drinkwater Examples of has, he cannot expect to show all of Lincoln's artistic economy life in one evening's performance. He must select only those incidents which he thinks will most dramatically emphasize what manner of man his hero was; and he must make his selection with severe economy, no matter how attractive the unessential material may be. When Drinkwater wrote a play about Mary Stuart, he did not try to show us every fascinating incident in her career; he confined the action of his play to a single night, the night of the murder of her secretary, David Rizzio; but in that short space he managed to suggest to us his clue to the mystery of the romantic Queen of Scots. Clyde Fitch selected with an eye to dramatic emphasis the incidents which reveal the life and character of Beau Brummell. Shakespeare cannot show us the whole of Macbeth's life.

He selects what he thinks will be most dramatically effective. There are often things we should like to know about a character in a play, but the principle of artistic economy does not permit a dramatist to gossip about his characters in the manner of Thackeray. In Othello, as well as in Julius Cæsar, there is scarcely a superfluous line. Even Shakespeare Shakespeare, however, is not always entirely economy obedient to the demands of artistic economy; much of his work is too hurried and careless for that; but the fact that the principle is constantly in evidence even in his most crowded work is sufficient proof of its vital importance.

and artistic

Watch the next play that you see, then, for its artistic economy. Does the author use his material like a careful workman, avoiding waste and useless duplication and futile digressions, or is he extravagant with it, with no regard for value and no taste for proper emphasis?

THE DRAMA AS LITERATURE OF PERMANENT VALUE

drama endure?

One might think that a form of composition so hampered by artificial restrictions and so dependent on the approval of the public for its support would not produce anything of permanent value. On the whole, perhaps, final oblivion is the fate of the majority of plays; nevertheless Does the there are dramas read, studied, and acted today that were written for audiences in ancient Greece long before the birth of Christ. There is something imperishable, apparently, about the tragedies of Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the comedies of Aristophanes. It is over three hundred years since the first edition of Shakespeare's plays was published, and yet at the present time these same plays draw crowded houses. The same immortality seems inherent in the comedies of Molière in France; they will probably never cease to be read as long as the French language is read and spoken. Yet surely times have changed.