Dramatic instinct is the ability to see the dramatic moments in real life; to grasp the dramatic possibilities; to pick out the thrills, the tears and the laughter, and to lift these out from the mass and set them—­combined, coherent and convincing—­in a story that seems truer than life itself, when unfolded on the stage by characters who are more real than reality. [1]

[1] Arniel in his Journal says:  “The ideal, after all, is truer than the real; for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things; it is their type, their sum, their ‘raison d’etre,’ their formula in the book of the Creator, and therefore at once the most exact and the most condensed expression of them.”

Elizabeth Woodbridge in her volume, The Drama, says:  “It is in finding the mean between personal narrowness which is too selective, and photographic impersonality that is not selective at all, that the individuality of the artist, his training, and his ideals, are tested.  It is this that determines how much his work shall possess of what we may call poetic, or artistic, truth.” [end footnote]

Yet, true as it is that dramatic ability inevitably shines through finished drama when it is well played upon the stage, there are so many determining factors of pleasing theme, acting, production and even of audience—­and so many little false steps both in manuscript and presentation; which might be counted unfortunate accident—­that the failure of a play is not always a sure sign that the playwright lacks dramatic instinct.  If it were, hardly one of our successful dramatists of today would have had the heart to persevere—­for some wrote twenty full-evening plays before one was accepted by a manager, and then plodded through one or more stage failures before they were rewarded with final success.  If producing managers could unerringly tell who has dramatic instinct highly developed and who has it not at all, there would be few play failures and the show-business would cease to be a gamble that surpasses even horse-racing for hazard.

Not only is it impossible for anyone to weigh the quantity or to assay the quality of dramatic instinct—­whether in his own or another’s breast—­but it is as nearly impossible for anyone to decide from reading a manuscript whether a play will succeed or fail.  Charles Frohman is reported to have said:  “A man who could pick out winners would be worth a salary of a million dollars a year.”

And even when a play is put into rehearsal the most experienced men in the business cannot tell unerringly whether it will succeed or fail before an audience.  An audience—­the heart of the crowd, the intellect of the mass, whatever you wish to call it—­is at once the jury that tries a play and the judge who pronounces sentence to speedy death or a long and happy life.  It is an audience, the “crowd,” that awards the certificate of possession of dramatic instinct. [1]

[1] [four paragraphs:]