It is a wise plan to use familiar and conventional types to fill in the minor parts of a play.  The comic valet, the pretty and witty chambermaid, the ingenue, the pathetic old friend of the family, are so well known upon the stage that they spare the mental energy of the spectators and leave them greater vigor of attention to devote to the more original major characters.  What is called “comic relief” has a similar value in resting the attention of the audience.  After the spectators have been harrowed by Ophelia’s madness, they must be diverted by the humor of the grave-diggers in order that their susceptibilities may be made sufficiently fresh for the solemn scene of her funeral.

We have seen that any sudden shock of surprise should be avoided in the theatre, because such a shock must inevitably cause a scattering of attention.  It often happens that the strongest scenes of a play require the use of some physical accessory,—­a screen in The School for Scandal, a horse in Shenandoah, a perfumed letter in Diplomacy.  In all such cases, the spectators must be familiarised beforehand with the accessory object, so that when the climax comes they may devote all of their attention to the action that is accomplished with the object rather than to the object itself.  In a quarrel scene, an actor could not suddenly draw a concealed weapon in order to threaten his antagonist.  The spectators would stop to ask themselves how he happened to have the weapon by him without their knowing it; and this self-muttered question would deaden the effect of the scene.  The denouement of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler requires that the two chief characters, Eilert Loevborg and Hedda Tesman, should die of pistol wounds.  The pistols that are to be used in the catastrophe are mentioned and shown repeatedly throughout the early and middle scenes of the play; so that when the last act comes, the audience thinks not of pistols, but of murder and suicide.  A striking illustration of the same dramaturgic principle was shown in Mrs. Fiske’s admirable performance of this play.  The climax of the piece comes at the end of the penultimate act, when Hedda casts into the fire the manuscript of the book into which Eilert has put the great work of his life.  The stove stands ready at the left of the stage; but when the culminating moment comes, the spectators must be made to forget the stove in their horror at Hedda’s wickedness.  They must, therefore, be made familiar with the stove in the early part of the act.  Ibsen realised this, and arranged that Hedda should call for some wood to be cast upon the fire at the beginning of the scene.  In acting this incident, Mrs. Fiske kneeled before the stove in the very attitude that she was to assume later on when she committed the manuscript to the flames.  The climax gained greatly in emphasis because of this device to secure economy of attention at the crucial moment.

III