Play-Making eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 359 pages of information about Play-Making.

Play-Making eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 359 pages of information about Play-Making.
tend to set the audience wondering by what mechanism the effect was produced, instead of attending to the soul-struggles of Rita and Allmers.  It would be absurd to blame Ibsen for overriding theatrical prudence in such a case; I merely point out to beginners that it is wise, before relying on an effect of this order, to make sure that it is, not only possible, but convenient from the practical point of view.  In one or two other cases Ibsen strained the resources of the stage.  The illumination in the last act of Pillars of Society cannot be carried out as he describes it; or rather, if it were carried out on some exceptionally large and well-equipped stage, the feat of the mechanician would eclipse the invention of the poet.  On the other hand, the abode of the Wild Duck in the play of that name is a conception entirely consonant with the optics of the theatre; for no detail at all need be, or ought to be, visible, and a vague effect of light is all that is required.  Only in his last melancholy effort did Ibsen, in a play designed for representation, demand scenic effects entirely beyond the resources of any theatre not specially fitted for spectacular drama, and possible, even in such a theatre, only in some ridiculously makeshift form.

There are two points of routine on which I am compelled to speak in no uncertain voice—­two practices which I hold to be almost equally condemnable.  In the first place, no playwright who understands the evolution of the modern theatre can nowadays use in his stage-directions the abhorrent jargon of the early nineteenth century.  When one comes across a manuscript bespattered with such cabalistic signs as “R.2.E.,” “R.C.,” “L.C.,” “L.U.E.,” and so forth, one sees at a glance that the writer has neither studied dramatic literature nor thought out for himself the conditions of the modern theatre, but has found his dramatic education between the buff covers of French’s Acting Edition.  Some beginners imagine that a plentiful use of such abbreviations will be taken as a proof of their familiarity with the stage; whereas, in fact, it only shows their unfamiliarity with theatrical history.  They might as well set forth to describe a modern battleship in the nautical terminology of Captain Marryat.  “Right First Entrance,” “Left Upper Entrance,” and so forth, are terms belonging to the period when there were no “box” rooms or “set” exteriors on the stage, when the sides of each scene were composed of “wings” shoved on in grooves, and entrances could be made between each pair of wings.  Thus, “R. 1 E.” meant the entrance between the proscenium and the first “wing” on the right, “R. 2 E.” meant the entrance between the first pair of “wings,” and so forth.  “L.U.E.” meant the entrance at the left between the last “wing” and the back cloth.  Now grooves and “wings” have disappeared from the stage.  The “box” room is entered, like any room in real life, by doors or French windows; and the only rational course is

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Play-Making from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.