5.  The Essence of the Dramatic lies in Meaning, not in Movement or in Speech

But clear and illuminating as these statements of the law of the drama are, one point needs slight expansion, and another vital point, not yet touched upon, should be stated, in a volume designed not for theory but for practice.

The first is, “Action in the drama is thus seen to be not mere movement or external agitation; it is the expression of a will which knows itself.”  Paradoxical as it may seem, action that is dramatic is not “action,” as the word is commonly understood.  Physical activity is not considered at all; the action of a play is not acting, but plot—­story.  Does the story move—­not the bodies of the actors, but the merely mental recounting of the narrative?  As the French state the principle in the form of a command, “Get on with the story!  Get on!” This is one-half of the playwright’s action-problem.

The other half—­the other question—­deals, not with the story itself, but with how it is made to “get on.”  How it is told in action—­still mental and always mental, please note—­is what differentiates the stage story from other literary forms like the novel and the short-story.  It must be told dramatically or it is not a stage story; and the dramatic element must permeate its every fibre.  Not only must the language be dramatic—­slang may in a given situation be the most dramatic language that could be used—­and not only must the quality of the story itself be dramatic, but the scene-steps by which the story is unfolded must scintillate with the soul of the dramatic—­revealing flashes.

To sum up, the dramatic, in the final analysis, has nothing whatever to do with characters moving agitatedly about the stage, or with moving at all, because the dramatic lies not in what happens but in what the happening means.  Even a murder may be undramatic, while the mere utterance of the word “Yes,” by a paralyzed woman to a paralyzed man may be the most dramatic thing in the world.  Let us take another instance:  Here is a stage—­in the centre are three men bound or nailed to crosses.  The man at the left turns to the one in the middle and sneers: 

“If you’re a god, save yourself and us.”

The one at the left interrupts,

“Keep quiet!  We’re guilty, we deserve this, but this Man doesn’t.”

And the Man in the centre says,

“This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

Could there be anything more dramatic than that? [1]

[1] Do not attempt to stage this sacred scene.  However, Ran Kennedy, who wrote The Servant in the House, did so at Winthrop Ames’ Little Theatre, New York, in an evening of one-act plays, with surprising results.

To carry this truth still further, let me offer two examples out of scores that might be quoted to prove that the dramatic may not even depend upon speech.