Does the story grip?  Does it thrill?  Does it lure to laughter?  Does it touch to tears?  Is it well constructed—­that is, does it interest every minute of the time?  Is every word, is every action, thoroughly motivated?  Is the dialogue fine?  Are the characters interesting, lovable, hateable, laughable, to be remembered?  Does it state its problem clearly, so that everyone can comprehend it, develop its angle absorbingly, and end, not merely stop, with complete satisfaction?  Could one little scene be added, or even one little passage be left out, without marring the whole?  Is it true to life—­truer than life?  If it is all this, it is good drama.

Good drama is therefore more than plot.  It is more than story plus characters, dialogue, acting, costumes, scenery—­it is more than them all combined.  Just as a man is more than his body, his speech, his dress, his movings to and fro in the scenes where he plays out his life, and even more than his deeds, so is a play more than the sum of all its parts.  Every successful play, every great playlet, possesses a soul—­a character, if you like—­that carries a message to its audiences by means which cannot be analyzed.

But the fact that the soul of a great play cannot be analyzed does not prevent some other dramatist from duplicating the miracle in another play.  And it is from a study of these great plays that certain mechanics of the drama—­though, of course, they cannot explain the hidden miracle—­have been laid down as laws.

3.  What is Dramatic?

These few observations upon the nature of drama, which have scarcely been materially added to since Aristotle laid down the first over two thousand years ago, will be taken up and discussed in their relation to the playlet in the chapter on plot construction.  Here they have no place, because we are concerned now not with how the results are obtained, but with what they are.

Let us approach our end by the standard definition route.  The word “drama” is defined by Webster as, “A composition in poetry or prose, or both, representing a picture of human life, arranged for action, and having a plot, developed by the words and actions of its characters, which culminates in a final situation of human interest.  It is usually designed for production on the stage, with the accessories of costumes, scenery, music, etc.”

“Dramatic,” is defined as, “Of or pertaining to the drama; represented by action; appropriate to or in the form of a drama; theatrical.  Characterized by the force and fidelity appropriate to the drama.”

In this last sentence we have the first step to what we are seeking:  anything to be dramatic must be forceful, and it also must be faithful to life.  And in the preceding sentence, “dramatic. . . is theatrical,” we have a second step.

But what is “forceful,” and why does Webster define anything that is dramatic as “theatrical”?  To define one shadow by the name of another shadow is not making either clearer.  However, the necessary looseness of the foregoing definitions is why they are so valuable to us—­they are most suggestive.