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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18769-8.txt b/18769-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ebbd0a --- /dev/null +++ b/18769-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1384 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Autobiography of a Play, by Bronson Howard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Autobiography of a Play + Papers on Play-Making, II + +Author: Bronson Howard + +Commentator: Augustus Thomas + +Release Date: July 6, 2006 [EBook #18769] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project) + + + + + + + + + +PAPERS ON PLAY-MAKING + +II + +The Autobiography of a Play + +by + +BRONSON HOWARD + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + +AUGUSTUS THOMAS + +Printed for the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University + +_in the City of New York_ + +MCMXIV + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Introduction by Augustus Thomas +The Autobiography of a Play by Bronson Howard +Notes by B. M. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The qualities that made Bronson Howard a dramatist, and then made him +the first American dramatist of his day, were his human sympathy, his +perception, his sense of proportion, and his construction. With his +perception, his proportion, and his construction, respectively, he could +have succeeded as a detective, as an artist, or as a general. It was his +human sympathy, his wish and his ability to put himself in the other +man's place, that made play-writing definitely attractive to him. As a +soldier he would have shown the courage of the dogged defender in the +trench or the calmly supervising general at headquarters, rather than +the mad bravery that carried the flag at the front of a forlorn hope. +His gifts were intellectual. His writing was more disciplined than +inspired. If we shall claim for him genius, it must be preferably the +genius of infinite pains. + +He saw intimately and clearly. His proportion made him write with +discretion and a proper sense of cumulative emphasis, and his +construction enabled him so to combine his materials as to secure this +effect. He was intensely self-critical; and while almost without conceit +concerning his own work, he had an accuracy of detached estimation that +enabled him to stand by his own opinion with a proper inflexibility when +his judgment convinced him that the opinion was correct. + +He worked slowly. At one time, in his active period, it was his custom +to go from New York, where he lived, to New Rochelle, where he had +formerly lived. There, upon the rear end of a suburban lot, he had a +plain board cabin not more than ten feet square. In it were a deal +table, a hard chair, and a small stove. He would go to this cabin in the +morning when the tide of suburban travel was setting the other way, and +spend his entire day there with his manuscript and his cigars. He +carried a small lunch from his home. He once told me he was satisfied +with his day's work if it provided him with ten good lines that would +not have to be abandoned. I did not take that statement to imply that +there were not in his experience the more profitable days that are in +the work of every writer--days when the subject seems to command the +pen and when the hand cannot keep pace with the vision. He was often too +saturated with his story, too much the prisoner of his people, for it to +have been otherwise; but his training had verified for him the truth +that easy writing is hard reading. + +Then, too, while Bronson Howard arranged his characters for the eye and +built his story for the judgment, he wrote his speeches for the ear. +This attention to the cadence of a line was so essential to him that +when writing as he sometimes did for a magazine he studied the sound of +his phrase as if the print were to be read aloud. This same care for the +dialog would retard its production; and critical revision would enforce +still further delay. + +William Gillette once said to an interviewer that "plays were not +written, but were rewritten." The experience of many play-wrights would +support that statement. In the case of Bronson Howard, the autobiography +of his 'Banker's Daughter' certainly does so. His most profitable play, +perhaps, and the one which also brought him the greatest popular +recognition, was 'Shenandoah'. That play was produced by a manager, who, +after its first performance, believed that it would not succeed. A +younger and more hopeful one saw in it its great elements of popularity, +and encouraged him to rewrite it. + +Mr. William H. Crane, in a recent felicitous talk to the Society of +American Dramatists, said that the 'Henrietta' was played exactly as its +author had delivered it to the actors, without the change or the need of +change in a single word, and with only the repetition late in the play +of a line that had been spoken in an early act. That fact does not +exclude the possibility of rewritings before the manuscript came to the +company, but rather, in view of Bronson Howard's thoroness as a workman +and his masterly sense of proportion, makes such rewritings the more +probable. The effect, however, of his rewriting, wherever it may have +been, and the slow additions of his daily contributions, was that of +spontaneity. + +Some philosopher tells us that a factor of greatness in any field is the +power to generalize, the ability to discover the principle underlying +apparently discordant facts. Bronson Howard's plays are notable for +their evidence of this power. He saw causes, tendencies, results. His +plays are expositions of this chemistry. 'Shenandoah' dealt broadly with +the forces and feelings behind the Civil War; the 'Henrietta' with the +American passion for speculation--the money-madness that was dividing +families. 'Aristocracy' was a very accurate, altho satirical, seizure of +the disposition, then in its strongest manifestation, of a newly-rich +and Western family of native force to break into the exclusive social +set of New York and to do so thru a preparatory European alliance. + +He has a human story in every instance. There is always dramatic +conflict between interesting characters, of course, but behind them is +always the background of some considerable social tendency--some +comprehensive generalization--that includes and explains them all. The +commander from his eminence saw all the combatants: he knew what the +fight was about, and it always was about something worth while. Bronson +Howard never dramatized piffle. + +He was an observer of human nature and events, a traveler, a thinker, a +student of the drama of all ages. He had been a reporter and an +editorial writer. His plays were written by a watchful, sympathetic, and +artistic military general turned philosopher. + + AUGUSTUS THOMAS. + +(June 1914). + + + + +The Autobiography of a Play + +As read before the Shakspere Club _of_ Harvard University + + +I have not come to Newcastle with a load of coals; and I shall not try +to tell the faculty and students of Harvard University anything about +the Greek drama or the classical unities. I will remind you of only one +thing in that direction; and say even this merely because it has a +direct bearing upon some of the practical questions connected with +play-writing which I purpose to discuss. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides--perhaps we should give the entire credit, as some authorities +do, to Aeschylus--taught the future world the art of writing a play. But +they did not create the laws of dramatic construction. Those laws exist +in the passions and sympathies of the human race. They existed thousands +of years before the Father of the Drama was born: waiting, like the +other laws of nature, to be discovered and utilized by man. + +A lecturer on "Animal Magnetism" failed to make his appearance one +night, many years ago, in the public hall of a little town in Michigan, +and a gentleman from Detroit consented to fill the vacant place. His +lecture began and ended as follows: "Animal magnetism is a great +subject, and the less said about it the better; we will proceed to +experiments." + +I will take that wise man as my own exemplar today, and I will begin by +echoing his words: The drama in general is a great subject, and the less +I say about it the better; we will proceed to experiments. + +It happens that one of my own plays has had a very curious history. It +has appeared before the American public in two forms, so radically +different that a description of the changes made, and of the reasons for +making them, will involve the consideration of some very interesting +laws of dramatic construction. I shall ask you to listen very carefully +to the story, or plot, of the piece as it was first produced in Chicago +in 1873. Then I shall trace the changes that were made in this story +before the play was produced in New York five years later. And after +that, to follow the very odd adventures of the same play still further, +I shall point out briefly the changes which were made necessary by +adapting it to English life with English characters, for its production +at the Court Theater, London, in 1879. All the changes which I shall +describe to you were forced upon me (as soon as I had decided to make +the general alterations in the play) by the laws of dramatic +construction; and it is to the experimental application of these laws to +a particular play that I ask your attention. The learned professors of +Harvard University know much more about them than I do, so far as a +study of dramatic literature, from the outside, can give them that +knowledge; and the great modern authorities on the subject--Hallam, +Lessing, Schlegel and many others--are open to the students of Harvard +in her library; or, rather, shall I say, they lie closed on its shelves. +But I invite you today to step into a little dramatic workshop, instead +of a scientific library; and to see an humble workman in the craft, +trying, with repeated experiments--not to elucidate the laws of dramatic +construction, but to obey them, exactly as an inventor (deficient, it +may be, in all scientific knowledge) tries to apply the general laws of +mechanics to the immediate necessities of the machine he is working out +in his mind. The moment a professor of chemistry has expressed a +scientific truth, he must illustrate it at once by an experiment, or the +truth will evaporate. An immense amount of scientific truth is +constantly evaporating, for want of practical application; the air above +every university in the world is charged with it. But what are the laws +of dramatic construction? No one man knows much about them. As I have +already reminded you, they bear about the same relation to human +character and human sympathies as the laws of nature bear to the +material universe. When all the mysteries of humanity have been solved, +the laws of dramatic construction can be codified and clearly explained; +not until then. But every scientific man can tell you a little about +nature, and every dramatist can tell you a little about dramatic truth. +A few general principles have been discovered by experiment and +discussion. These few principles can be brought to your attention. But +after you have learned all that has yet been learned by others, the +field of humanity will still lie before you, as the field of nature lies +before the scientist, with millions of times more to be discovered, by +you or by some one else, than has ever yet been known. All I purpose +to-night is to show you how certain laws of dramatic construction +asserted themselves from time to time as we were making the changes in +this play; how they thrust themselves upon our notice; how we could not +possibly ignore them. And you will see how a man comes to understand any +particular law, after he has been forced to obey it, altho, perhaps, he +has never heard of it or dreamed of it before. + +And let me say here, to the students of Harvard--I do not presume to +address words of advice to the faculty--it is to you and to others who +enjoy the high privileges of liberal education that the American stage +ought to look for honest and good dramatic work in the future. Let me +say to you, then: Submit yourselves truly and unconditionally to the +laws of dramatic truth, so far as you can discover them by honest mental +exertion and observation. Do not mistake any mere defiance of these laws +for originality. You might as well show your originality by defying the +law of gravitation. Keep in mind the historical case of Stephenson. When +a member of the British Parliament asked him, concerning his newfangled +invention, the railroad, whether it would not be very awkward if a cow +were on the track when a train came along, he answered: "Very ark'ard, +indeed--for the cow." When you find yourself standing in the way of +dramatic truth, my young friends--clear the track! If you don't, the +truth can stand it; you can't. Even if you feel sometimes that your +genius--that's always the word in the secret vocabulary of our own +minds--even if your genius seems to be hampered by these dramatic laws, +resign yourself to them at once, with that simple form of Christian +resignation so beautifully illustrated by the poor German woman on her +deathbed. Her husband being asked, afterward, if she were resigned to +her death, responded with that touching and earnest recognition of +eternal law: "Mein Gott, she had to be!" + +The story of the play, as first produced in Chicago, may be told as +follows: + +Act first--Scene, New York. A young girl and a young man are in love, +and engaged to be married. The striking originality of this idea will +startle any one who has never heard of such a thing before. Lilian +Westbrook and Harold Routledge have a lover's quarrel. Never mind what +the cause of it. To quote a passage from the play itself: "A woman never +quarrels with a man she doesn't love"--that is one of the minor laws of +dramatic construction--"and she is never tired of quarreling with a man +she does love." I dare not announce this as another law of female human +nature; it is merely the opinion of one of my characters--a married man. +Of course, there are women who do not quarrel with any one; and there +are angels; but, as a rule, the women we feel at liberty to fall in love +with do quarrel now and then; and they almost invariably quarrel with +their husbands or lovers first, their other acquaintances must often be +content with their smiles. But, when Lilian announces to Harold +Routledge that their engagement is broken forever, he thinks she means +to imply that she doesn't intend to marry him. + +Women are often misunderstood by our more grossly practical sex; we are +too apt to judge of what they mean by what they say. The relations, if +there are any, between a woman's tongue and her thoughts form the least +understood section, perhaps, of dramatic law. You will get some idea of +the intricacies of this subject, if one of your literary professors will +draw you a diagram of what a woman doesn't mean when she uses the +English language. Harold Routledge, almost broken-hearted, bids Lilian +farewell, and leaves her presence. Lilian herself, proud and angry, +allows him to go; waits petulantly a moment for him to return; then, +forlorn and wretched, she bursts into the flood of tears which she +intended to shed upon his breast. Under ordinary circumstances, those +precious drops would not have been wasted. Young girls, when they +quarrel with their lovers, are not extravagant with their tears; they +put them carefully to the best possible use; and, I dare say, some of +Lilian's tears would have fallen on a sheet of notepaper; and the +stained lines of a letter would have reached Harold by the next post, +begging him to come back, and to let her forgive him for all the +spiteful things she had said to him. Unfortunately, however, just at +this critical juncture in the affairs of love--while Cupid was waiting, +hat in hand, to accompany the letter to its destination and keep an eye +on the postman--Lilian's father enters. He is on the verge of financial +ruin, and he has just received a letter from Mr. John Strebelow, a man +of great wealth, asking him for his daughter's hand in marriage. Mr. +Westbrook urges her to accept him, not from any selfish motives, but +because he dreads to leave, in his old age, a helpless girl, trained +only to luxury and extravagance, to a merciless world. Lilian, on her +part, shudders at the thought of her father renewing the struggle of +life when years have exhausted his strength. She knows that she will be +the greatest burden that will fall upon him; she remembers her dead +mother's love for them both; and she sacrifices her own heart. Mr. +Strebelow is a man of about forty years, of unquestioned honor, of noble +personal character in every way. Lilian had loved him, indeed, when she +was a little child, and she feels that she can at least respect and +reverence him as her husband. Mr. Strebelow marries her without knowing +that she does not love him; much less, that she loves another. + +Act second--Paris. Lilian has been married five years, and is residing +with her husband in the French capital. As the curtain rises, Lilian is +teaching her little child, Natalie, her alphabet. All the warm affection +of a woman's nature, suppressed and thrown back upon her own heart, has +concentrated itself upon this child. Lilian has been a good wife, and +she does reverence her husband as she expected to do. He is a kind, +generous and noble man. But she does not love him as a wife. Mr. +Strebelow now enters, and, after a little domestic scene, the French +nurse is instructed to dress the child for a walk with its mother. +Strebelow then tells Lilian that he has just met an old friend of hers +and of himself--the American artist, Mr. Harold Routledge, passing thru +Paris on his way from his studio in Rome. He has insisted on a visit +from Mr. Routledge, and the two parted lovers are brought face to face +by the husband. They are afterwards left alone together. Routledge has +lived a solitary life, nursing his feelings toward a woman who had +heartlessly cast him off, as he thinks, to marry a man merely for his +wealth. He is bitter and cruel. But the cruelty to a woman which is born +of love for her has a wonderful, an almost irresistible fascination for +the female heart. Under the spell of this fascination, Lilian's old love +reasserts its authority against that of his will. She forgets everything +except the moment when her lover last parted from her. She is again the +wayward girl that waited for his return; he has returned!--and she does +what she would have done five years before; she turns, passionately, to +throw herself into his arms. At this moment, her little child, Natalie, +runs in. Lilian is a mother again, and a wife. She falls to her knees +and embraces her child at the very feet of her former lover. Harold +Routledge bows his head reverently, and leaves them together. + +Act third. The art of breaking the tenth commandment--thou shalt not +covet they neighbor's wife--has reached its highest perfection in +France. One of the most important laws of dramatic construction might be +formulated in this way. If you want a particular thing done, choose a +character to do it that an audience will naturally expect to do it. I +wanted a man to fall in love with my heroine after she was a married +woman, and I chose a French count for that purpose. I knew that an +American audience would not only expect him to fall in love with another +man's wife, but it would be very much surprised if he didn't. This saved +much explanation and unnecessary dialog. Harold Routledge overhears the +Count de Carojac, a hardened roué and a duellist, speaking of Lilian in +such terms as no honorable man should speak of a modest woman. +Routledge, with a studio in Rome, and having been educated at a German +university, is familiar with the use of the rapier. A duel is arranged. +Lilian hears of it thru a female friend, and Strebelow, also, thru the +American second of Mr. Routledge. The parties meet at the Château +Chateaubriand, in the suburbs of Paris, at midnight, by the light of the +moon, in winter. A scream from Lilian, as she reaches the scene in +breathless haste, throws Routledge off his guard; he is wounded and +falls. Strebelow, too, has come on the field, not knowing the cause of +the quarrel; but anxious to prevent a meeting between two of his own +personal friends. Lilian is ignorant of her husband's presence, and she +sees only the bleeding form of the man she loves lying upon the snow. +She falls at his side, and words of burning passion, checked a few hours +before by the innocent presence of her child, spring to her lips. The +last of these words are as follows: "I have loved you--and you +only--Harold, from the first." + +These words, clear, unmistakable, carrying their terrible truth straight +to his heart, come to John Strebelow as the very first intimation that +his wife did not love him when she married him. Crushed by this sudden +blow, an expression of agony on his face, he stands for a moment +speechless. When his voice returns, he has become another man. He is +hard and cold, still generous, so far as those things a generous man +cares least for are concerned. He will share all his wealth with her; +but, in the awful bitterness of a great heart, at that moment, he feels +that the woman who has deceived him so wickedly has no natural right to +be the guardian of their child. "Return to our home, madam; it will be +yours, not mine, hereafter; but our child will not be there." Ungenerous +words! But if we are looking in our own hearts, where we must find +nearly all the laws of dramatic construction, how many of us would be +more generous, with such words as John Strebelow had just heard ringing +in our ears? As the act closes, the startled love of a mother has again +and finally asserted itself in Lilian's heart, its one overmastering +passion of her nature. With the man she has loved lying near her, +wounded, and, for aught she knows, dying, she is thinking only of her +lost child. Maternal love, thruout the history of the world, has had +triumphs over all the other passions; triumphs over destitution and +trials and tortures; over all the temptations incident to life; triumphs +to which no other impulse of the human heart--not even the love of man +for woman--has ever risen. One of the most brilliant men I had ever +known once said in court; "Woman, alone, shares with the Creator the +privilege of communing with an unborn human being"; and, with this +privilege, the Creator seems to have shared with woman a part of His own +great love. All other love in our race is merely human. The play, from +this time on, becomes the story of a mother's love. + +Acts fourth and fifth. Two years later Lilian is at the home of her +father in New York. Her husband has disappeared. His name was on the +passenger list of a wrecked steamer; and no other word of him or of the +child has been heard. If he had left the little girl in the care of +others, it is unknown to whom or where. So Lilian is a widow and +childless. She is fading, day by day, and is hardly expected to live. +Her mind, tortured by the suspense, which, worse than certainty, is +gradually yielding to hallucinations which keep her little one ever +present to her fancy. Harold Routledge was wounded seriously in the +duel, but not killed; he is near Lilian; seeing her every day; but he is +her friend, rather than her lover, now; she talks with him of her child, +and he feels how utterly hopeless his own passion is in the presence of +an all-absorbing mother's love. It is discovered that the child is +living peacefully among kind guardians in a French convent; and +Routledge determines to cross the ocean with the necessary evidence and +bring the little one back to its mother. He breaks the news to Lilian +tenderly and gently. A gleam of joy illuminates her face for the first +time since the terrible night, two years before, and Routledge feels +that the only barrier to his own happiness has been removed. But the +sudden return and reappearance of the husband falls like a stroke of +fate upon both. As the curtain descends on the fourth act, Lilian lies +fainting on the floor, with Natalie at her side, while the two men stand +face to face above the unconscious woman whom they both love. Three +lives ruined--because Lilian's father, having lost his wealth, in his +old age, dared not, as he himself expressed it, leave a tenderly +nurtured daughter to a merciless world. The world is merciless, perhaps, +but it is not so utterly and hopelessly merciless to any man or woman as +one's heart may be. + +Lilian comes back to consciousness on her deathbed. Her child had +returned to her only as a messenger from heaven, summoning her home. But +the message had been whispered in unconscious ears; for she had not seen +the little girl, who was removed before the mother had recovered from +her swoon. They dare not tell her now that Natalie is on this side of +the ocean and asleep in the next room. Mr. Strebelow had heard in a +distant land, travelling to distract his mind from the great sorrow of +his own life, of Lilian's condition, and he hastened back to undo the +wrong he felt that he had committed. She asks to see him; she kisses his +hand with tenderness and gratitude, when he tells her that Natalie shall +be her own hereafter; his manly tears are tears of repentance, mingled +with a now generous love. The stroke of death comes suddenly; they have +only a moment's time to arouse the little one from its sleep; but they +are not too late, and Lilian dies at last, a smile of perfect happiness +on her face, with her child in her arms. + +The Mississippi darky, in Mark Twain's story, being told that his heroic +death on the field of battle would have made but little difference to +the nation at large, remarked, with deep philosophy; "It would have made +a great deal of difference to me, sah." The radical change made in the +story I have just related to you, before the production of the play in +New York, was this: Lilian lives, instead of dying, in the last act. It +would have made very little difference to the American nation what she +did; but it made a great deal of difference to her, as you will see, +and to the play also in nearly every part. My reasons for making the +change were based upon one of the most important principles of the +dramatic art, namely: A dramatist should deal, so far as possible, with +subjects of universal interest, instead of with such as appeal strongly +to a part of the public only. I do not mean that he may not appeal to +certain classes of people, and depend upon those classes for success; +but, just so far as he does this, he limits the possibilities of that +success. I have said that the love of offspring in woman has shown +itself the strongest of all human passions; and it is the most nearly +allied to the boundless love of Deity. But the one absolutely universal +passion of the race--which underlies all other passions--on which, +indeed, the very existence of the race depends--the very fountain of +maternal love itself, is the love of the sexes. The dramatist must +remember that his work cannot, like that of the novelist or the poet, +pick out the hearts, here and there, that happen to be in sympathy with +its subject. He appeals to a thousand hearts at the same moment; he has +no choice in the matter; he must do this. And it is only when he deals +with the love of the sexes that his work is most interesting to that +aggregation of human hearts we call the audience. This very play was +successful in Chicago; but, as soon as that part of the public had been +exhausted which could weep with pleasure, if I may use the expression, +over the tenderness of a mother's love, its success would have been at +an end. Furthermore--and here comes in another law of dramatic +construction--a play must be, in one way or another, "satisfactory" to +the audience. This word has a meaning which varies in different +countries, and even in different parts of the same country; but, +whatever audience you are writing for, your work must be "satisfactory" +to it. In England and America, the death of a pure woman on the stage is +not "satisfactory," except when the play rises to the dignity of +tragedy. The death, in an ordinary play, of a woman who is not pure, as +in the case of 'Frou-Frou,' is perfectly satisfactory, for the reason +that it is inevitable. Human nature always bows gracefully to the +inevitable. The only griefs in our own lives to which we could never +reconcile ourselves are those which might have been averted. The wife +who has once taken the step from purity to impurity can never reinstate +herself in the world of art on this side of the grave; and so an +audience looks with complacent tears on the death of an erring woman. +But Lilian had not taken the one fatal step which would have reconciled +an audience to her death. She was still pure, and every one left the +theatre wishing she had lived. I yielded, therefore, to the sound logic, +based on sound dramatic principle, of my New York manager, Mr. A. M. +Palmer, and the piece was altered. + +I have called the play, as produced in New York and afterward in London, +the "same play" as the one produced in Chicago. That one doubt, which +age does not conquer--which comes down to us from the remotest antiquity +of our own youth, which will still exist in our minds as we listen to +the music of the spheres, thru countless ages, when all other doubts are +at rest; that never-to-be answered doubt: Whether it was the same +jack-knife, or another one, after all its blades and handle had been +changed--must ever linger in my own mind as to the identity of this +play. But a dramatic author stops worrying himself about doubts of this +kind very early in his career. The play which finally takes its place on +the stage usually bears very little resemblance to the play which first +suggested itself to his mind. In some cases the public has abundant +reason to congratulate itself on this fact, and especially on the way +plays are often built up, so to speak, by the authors, with advice and +assistance from other intelligent people interested in their success. +The most magnificent figure in the English drama of this century was a +mere faint outline, merely a fatherly old man, until the suggestive mind +of Macready stimulated the genius of Bulwer Lytton, and the great +author, eagerly acknowledging the assistance rendered him, made Cardinal +Richelieu the colossal central figure of a play that was written as a +pretty love-story. Bulwer Lytton had an eye single, as every dramatist +ought to have--as every successful dramatist must have--to the final +artistic result; he kept before him the one object of making the play of +'Richelieu' as good a play as he possibly could make it. The first duty +of a dramatist is to put upon the stage the very best work he can, in +the light of whatever advice and assistance may come to him. Fair +acknowledgment afterward is a matter of mere ordinary personal honesty. +It is not a question of dramatic art. + +So Lilian is to live, and not die, in the last act. The first question +for us to decide--I say "us"--the New York manager, the literary attaché +of the theatre, and myself--the first practical question before us was: +As Lilian is to live, which of the two men who love her is to die? There +are axioms among the laws of dramatic construction, as in mathematics. +One of them is this--three hearts cannot beat as one. The world is not +large enough, from an artistic point of view, for three good human +hearts to continue to exist, if two of them love the third. If one of +the two hearts is a bad one, art assigns it to the hell on earth of +disappointed love; but if it is good and tender and gentle, art is +merciful to it, and puts it out of its misery by death. Routledge was +wounded in a duel. Strebelow was supposed to be lost in the wreck of a +steamer. It was easy enough to kill either of them, but which? We argued +this question for three weeks. Mere romance was on the side of the +young artist. But to have had him live would have robbed the play of all +its meaning. Its moral, in the original form, is this: It is a dangerous +thing to marry, for any reason, without the safeguard of love, even when +the person one marries is worthy of one's love in every possible way. If +we had decided in favor of Routledge, the play would have had no moral +at all, or rather a very bad one. If a girl marries the wrong man, she +need only wait for him to die; and if her lover waits, too, it'll be all +right. If, on the other hand, we so reconstruct the whole play that the +husband and wife may at last come together with true affection, we shall +have the moral: Even if a young girl makes the worst of all mistakes, +and accepts the hand of one man when her heart belongs to another, +fidelity to the duty of a wife on her side, and a manly, generous +confidence on the part of her husband, may, in the end, correct even +such a mistake. The dignity of this moral saved John Strebelow's life, +and Harold Routledge was killed in the duel with the Count de Carojac. + +All that was needed to affect this first change in the play was to +instruct the actor who played Routledge to lie still when the curtain +fell at the end of the third act, and to go home afterward. But there +are a number of problems under the laws of dramatic construction which +we must solve before the play can now be made to reach the hearts of an +audience as it did before. Let us see what they are. + +The love of Lilian for Harold Routledge cannot now be the one grand +passion of her life. It must be the love of a young girl, however +sincere and intense, which yields, afterward, to the stronger and deeper +love of a woman for her husband. The next great change, therefore, which +the laws of dramatic construction forced upon us was this: Lilian must +now control her own passion, and when she meets her lover in the second +act she must not depend for her moral safety on the awakening of a +mother's love by the appearance of her child. Her love for Harold is no +longer such an all-controlling force as will justify a woman--justify +her dramatically, I mean--yielding to it. For her to depend on an +outside influence would be to show a weakness of character that would +make her uninteresting. Instead, therefore, of receiving her former +lover with dangerous pent-up fires, Lilian now feels pity for him. She +hardly yet knows her own feelings toward her husband; but his manhood +and kindness are gradually forcing their way to her heart. Routledge, in +his own passion, forgets himself, and she now repels him. She even +threatens to strike the bell, when the Count de Carojac appears, and +warns his rival to desist. This is now the end of the second act, a very +different end, you see, from the other version, where the little girl +runs in, and, in her innocence, saves the mother from herself. + +Here let me tell a curious experience, which illustrates how stubbornly +persistent the dramatic laws are, in having their own way. We were all +three of us--manager, literary attaché, and author--so pleased with the +original ending of the second act the picture of the little girl in her +mother's arms, and the lover bowing his head in its presence of +innocence, that we retained it. The little girl ran on the stage at +every rehearsal at the usual place. But no one knew what to do with her. +The actress who played the part of Lilian caught her in her arms, in +various attitudes; but none of them seemed right. The actor who played +Routledge tried to drop his head, according to instructions, but he +looked uncomfortable, not reverential. The next day we had the little +girl run on from another entrance. She stopped in the center of the +stage. Lilian stared at her a moment and then exclaimed: "Mr. Howard, +what shall I do with this child?" Routledge, who had put his hands in +his pocket, called out: "What's the girl doing here, anyway, Howard?" I +could only answer: "She used to be all right; I don't know what's the +matter with her now." And I remember seeing an anxious look on the face +of the child's mother, standing at the side of the stage. She feared +there was something wrong about her own little darling who played the +part of Natalie. I reassured her on this point; for the fact that I was +in error was forcing itself on my mind, in spite of my desire to retain +the scene. You will hardly believe that I am speaking literally, when I +tell you that it was not until the 19th rehearsal that we yielded to the +inevitable, and decided not to have the child come on at all at that +point. The truth was this: now that Lilian saved herself in her own +strength, the child had no dramatic function to fulfill. So strongly did +we all feel the force of a dramatic law which we could not, and would +not, see. Our own natural human instinct--the instinct which the +humblest member of an audience feels, without knowing anything of +dramatic law--got the better of three men, trained in dramatic work, +only by sheer force, and against our own determined opposition. We were +three of Stephenson's cows--or shall I say three calves?--standing on +the track, and we could not succeed where Jumbo failed. + +The third step, in the changes forced upon us by the laws of dramatic +construction, was a very great one; and it was made necessary by the +fact, just mentioned, that the child, Natalie, had no dramatic function +to fulfill in the protection of her mother's virtue. In other words, +there is no point in the play, now, where sexual love is, or can be, +replaced by maternal love, as the controlling passion of the play. +Consequently, the last two acts in their entirety, so far as the serious +parts are concerned, disappear; one new scene and a new act taking their +place. The sad mother, playing with a little shoe or toy, passes out of +our view. The dying woman, kissing the hand of the man she has wronged; +the husband, awe-stricken in the presence of a mother's child; the child +clasped in Lilian's arms; her last look on earth, a smile, and her last +breath, the final expression of maternal tenderness--these scenes belong +only to the original version of the play, as it lies in its author's +desk. With an author's sensitive interest in his own work, I wasted many +hours in trying to save these scenes. But I was working directly against +the laws of dramatic truth, and I gave up the impossible task. + +The fourth great change--forced on us, as the others were--concerns the +character of John Strebelow. As he is now to become the object of a +wife's mature affection, he must not merely be a noble and generous man; +he must do something worthy of the love which is to be bestowed on him. +He must command a woman's love. When, therefore, he hears his wife, +kneeling over her wounded lover, use words which tell him of their +former relations, he does not what most of us would do, but what an +occasional hero among us would do. Of course, the words of Lilian +cannot be such, now, as to close the gates to all hopes of love, as they +were before. She still utters a wild cry, but her words merely show the +awakened tenderness and pity of a woman for a man she had once loved. +They are uttered, however, in the presence of others, and they +compromise her husband's honor. At that moment he takes her gently in +his arms, and becomes her protector, warning the French roué and +duellist that he will call him to account for the insults which the arm +of the dead man had failed to avenge. He afterward does this, killing +the count--not in the action of the play; this is only told. John +Strebelow thus becomes the hero of the play, and it is only necessary to +follow the workings of Lilian's heart and his a little further, until +they come together at last, loving each other truly, the early love of +the wife for another man being only a sad memory in her mind. There is a +tender scene of explanation and a parting, until Lilian's heart shall +recall her husband. This scene, in my opinion, is one of the most +beautiful scenes ever written for the stage. At the risk of breaking the +tenth commandment myself, I do not hesitate to say, I wish I had +written it. As I did not, however, I can express the hope that the name +of Mr. A. R. Cazauran, who did write it, will never be forgotten in +connection with this play as long as the play itself may be remembered. +I wrote the scene myself first; but when he wrote it according to his +own ideas, it was so much more beautiful than my own that I would have +broken a law of dramatic art if I had not accepted it. I should not have +been giving the public the best play I could, under the circumstances. +Imbued, as my own mind was, with all the original motives of the piece, +it would have been impossible for me to have made changes within a few +weeks without the assistance Mr. Cazauran could give me; this assistance +was invaluable to me in all parts of the revised piece. In the fifth act +the husband and wife come together again, the little child acting as the +immediate cause of their reconciliation; the real cause lies in their +own true hearts. + +Before we leave the subject, another change which I was obliged to make +will interest you, because it shows very curiously what queer turns +these laws of dramatic construction may take. As soon as it was decided +to have Lilian live, in the fifth act, and love John Strebelow, I was +compelled to cut out the quarrel-scene between Lilian and Harold +Routledge in the first act. This is a little practical matter, very much +like taking out a certain wheel at one end of a machine because you have +decided to get a different mechanical result at the other end. I was +very fond of this quarrel-scene, but I lost no time in trying to save +it, for I saw at once that Harold Routledge must not appear in the first +act at all. He could only be talked about as Lilian's lover. John +Strebelow must be present alone in the eyes and sympathy of the +audience. If Routledge did not appear until the second act, the audience +would regard him as an interloper; it would rather resent his presence +than otherwise, and would be easily reconciled to his death in the next +act. It was taking an unfair advantage of a young lover; but there was +no help for it. Even if Harold had appeared in the first act, the +quarrel-scene would have been impossible. He might have made love to +Lilian, perhaps, or even kissed her, and the audience would have +forgiven me reluctantly for having her love another man afterward. But +if the two young people had a lover's quarrel in the presence of the +audience, no power on earth could have convinced any man or woman in the +house that they were not intended for each other by the eternal decrees +of divine Providence. + +I have now given you the revised story of this play as it was produced +at the Union Square Theater in New York, under the name of the 'Banker's +Daughter.' I have said nothing about the comic scenes or characters, +because the various changes did not affect them in any way that concerns +the principles of dramatic art. They are almost identically the same in +both versions. Now, if you please, we will cross the ocean. I have had +many long discussions with English managers on the practice in London of +adapting foreign plays, not merely to the English stage, but to English +life, with English characters. The Frenchmen of a French play become, as +a rule, Englishmen; so do Italians and Spaniards and Swedes. They +usually, however, continue to express foreign ideas and to act like +foreigners. In speaking of such a transplanted character, I may be +permitted to trifle with a sacred text: + + The manager has said it, + But it's hardly to his credit, + That he is an Englishman! + For he ought to have been a Roosian, + A French, or Turk, or Proosian, + Or perhaps I-tali-an! + But in spite of Art's temptations, + To belong to other nations, + He becomes an Englishman! + +Luckily, the American characters of the 'Banker's Daughter', with one +exception, could be twisted into very fair Englishmen, with only a faint +suspicion of our Yankee accent. Mr. James Alberry, one of the most +brilliant men in England, author of the 'Two Roses,' was engaged to make +them as nearly English as he could. The friendship, cemented as Alberry +and I were discussing for some weeks the international social questions +involved, is among the dearest and tenderest friendships I have ever +made; and I learned more about the various minor differences of social +life in England and American while we were thus at work together than I +could have learned in a residence there of five years. I have time to +give you only a few of the points. Take the engagement of Lilian, broken +in act first. An engagement in England is necessarily a family matter, +and it could neither be made or broken by the mere fiat of a young girl, +without consultation with others, leaving the way open for the immediate +acceptance of another man's hand. In the English version, therefore, +there is no engagement with Harold Routledge. It is only an +understanding between them that they love each other. Not even the most +rigid customs of Europe can prevent such an understanding between two +young people, if they can once look into each other's eyes. They could +fall in love through a pair of telescopes. Then the duel--it is next to +impossible to persuade an English audience that a duel is justifiable or +natural with an Englishman as one of the principles. So we played a +rather sharp artistic trick on our English audience. In the American +version, I assume that, if a plucky young American in France insults a +Frenchman purposely, he will abide by the local customs, and give him +satisfaction, if called upon to do so. So would a young Englishman, +between you and me; but the laws of dramatic construction deal with the +sympathies of the audience as well as with the natural motives and +actions of the characters in a play; and an English audience would think +the French count ought to be perfectly satisfied if Routledge knocked +him down. How did we get over the difficulty? First, we made Routledge a +British officer returning from India, instead of an artist on his way +from Rome--a fighting man by profession; and then we made the Count de +Carojac pile so many sneers and insults on this British officer, and on +the whole British nation, that I verily believe a London audience would +have mobbed him if he hadn't tried to kill him. The English public +walked straight into the trap, although they abhor nothing on earth more +than the duelling system. I said that the comic characters were not +affected by the changes made in America; the change of nationality did +affect them to a certain extent. A young girl, Florence St. Vincent, +afterward Mrs. Browne, represents, here, with dramatic exaggeration, of +course, a type of young girl more or less familiar to all of us. In +England she is not a type, but an eccentric personality, with which the +audience must be made acquainted by easy stages. It was necessary, +therefore, to introduce a number of preliminary speeches for her, before +she came to the lines of the original version. After that, she ran on +without any further change, except a few excisions. Mrs. Browne is +married to a very old man, who afterward dies, and in the last act she +illustrates the various grades of affliction endured by every young +widow, from the darkness of despair to the becoming twilight of +sentimental sadness. This was delicate ground in England. They have not +that utter horror of marriage between a very old man and a very young +woman which, in this country, justifies all the satire which a dramatist +can heap upon the man who commits this crime, even after he is in the +grave. And the English people do not share with us--I say it to their +credit--our universal irreverence for what is solemn and sacred. One +must not, either in social life or on the stage, speak too lightly there +of any serious subject; of course, they can laugh, however, at an old +man that makes a fool of himself. So we merely toned down the levity by +leaving old Mr. Browne out of the cast entirely. There is a great +difference, as in the case of Routledge left out of the first act, +between what the audience sees and what it only hears talked about; and +none of the laws of dramatic construction are more important than those +which concern the questions whether you shall appeal to the ear of an +audience, to its eye, or both. Old Mr. Browne was only talked about +then, and as long as the English audience did not know him personally, +it was perfectly willing to laugh at him after Mrs. Browne was a widow. +Another change made for the London version will interest American +business men. In our own version, Lilian's father and his partner close +up their affairs in the last act and retire from their business as +private bankers. "That will never do in England," said Mr. Alberry. "An +old established business like that might be worth £100,000. We must sell +it to some one, not close it." So we sold it to Mr. George Washington +Phipps. This last character illustrates, again, the stubbornness of +dramatic law. Mr. Alberry and I tried to make him an Irishman, or a +Scotchman, or some kind of an Englishman. But we could not. He remains +an American in England in 1886, as he was in Chicago in 1873. He +declined to change either his citizenship or his name; "G. +Washington--Father of his Country--Phipps." + +The peculiar history of the play is my only justification for giving you +all these details of its otherwise unimportant career. I only trust that +I have shown you how very practical the laws of dramatic construction +are in the way they influence a dramatist. The art of obeying them is +merely the art of using your common sense in the study of your own and +other people's emotions. All I now add is, if you want to write a play, +be honest and sincere in using your common sense. A prominent lawyer +once assured me that there was only one man he trembled before in the +presence of a jury--not the learned man, nor the eloquent man; it was +the sincere man. The public will be your jury. That public often +condescends to be trifled with by mere tricksters, but, believe me, it +is only a condescension and very contemptuous. In the long run, the +public will judge you, and respect you, according to your artistic +sincerity. + + + + +NOTES + + +This lecture was originally delivered in March, 1886, in the Sanders +Theater, before the Shakspere Society of Harvard University; and it was +repeated before the Nineteenth Century Club in New York in December, +1889. On the latter occasion two other dramatic authors were requested +to debate the points made by the speaker; and as a result he added a few +supplementary remarks: + + The Nineteenth Century Club looks for a discussion, I believe, on + the subject brought forward in the paper of this evening. If the + word "discussion" implies "argument," I fear there is nothing in + the mere struggles of a dramatist in his workshop to justify that + difference of opinion which is necessary to an argument. My + American colleague, Mr. Brander Matthews, must feel like a man + whose wife persists from day to day in saying nothing that he can + object to, thereby making his home a desert and driving him to the + club. As for the great Irish dramatist, this paper leaves him still + wishing that some one would tread on the tail of his coat. But, + with all true Irishmen, the second party in a quarrel is merely a + convenience, not a necessity. Whenever Mr. Boucicault feels that a + public discussion is desirable for any reason, he can always tread + on the tail of his own coat, and make quite as good a fight of it + all by himself as if some one was assisting him. + +And he ended with this reference to the constructive skill of Ibsen: + + Another thing strikes me in connection with this subject: the + praise of Ibsen, the Scandinavian dramatist, is abroad in England; + and again, as so often before, mine eyes have seen the glory of the + coming of the Lord in the direction of Boston. But some of the + loudest worshippers of this truly great man in both countries + either wilfully ignore, or else they know nothing about, his real + greatness. + + Ibsen holds in his hand the terrible power, in dealing with the + evils of society, which dramatic construction gives to a genius + like his; he has not laid this power aside and reduced his own + stage to a mere lecture platform. A man armed with a sword who + should lay it down in the heat of battle and take up a wisp of + straw to fight with, would be a fool. Ibsen, like his great + predecessors and contemporaries in France, deals his vigorous blows + at social wrongs thru dramatic effects and the true dramatic + relations of his characters. I know of no writer for the stage, + past or present, who depends for his moral power more continuously + at all points on the art of dramatic construction than Ibsen does. + He, himself, would be the first to smile at those who praise him as + if he were a writer of moral dialogs or the self-appointed lecturer + for one of those psychological panoramas which are unrolled in + acts, at a theater, or in monthly parts in a periodical. + + In conclusion: to all who argue that careful construction is + unnecessary in literary art, I will say only this: it is extremely + easy not to construct. + +It may be noted also that Bronson Howard returned to the topic of his +lecture in a contribution to the _Dramatic Mirror_ in 1900; he called +this + + _A MERE SUGGESTION_. + + So much is written in critical notices of plays, about their + "construction," that I should like to suggest a few of the + considerations which that term involves. It is possible that some + of the beginners, who are to become the future dramatists of + America, will see the necessity of thinking twice before using the + term at all. Some of the more general considerations to be kept in + view, when a careful and properly educated critic feels justified + in using the word "construction," may be jotted down as follows: + + I. The actual strength of the main incident of a play. + + II. Relative strength of the main incident, in reference to the + importance of the subject; and also to the length of the play. + + III. Adequacy of the story in relation to the importance and + dignity of the main incident and of the subject. + + IV. Adequacy of the original motives on which the rest of the play + depends. + + V. Logical sequence of events by which the main incident is + reached. + + VI. Logical results of the story after the main incident is passed. + + VII. The choice of the characters by which the sequence of events + is developed. + + VIII. Logical, otherwise natural, use of motives in these + particular characters, in leading from one incident to another. + + IX. The use of such human emotions and passions as are universally + recognized as true, without those special explanations which + belong to general fiction and not to the stage. + + X. The relation of the story and incidents to the sympathies of the + audience as a collection of human beings. + + XI. The relation of the story and incidents to the sympathies of + the particular audience for which the play is written; to its + knowledge and ignorance; its views of life; its social customs; and + to its political institutions, so far as they may modify its social + views, as in the case of a democracy or an aristocracy. + + Minor matters--such as the use of comic relief, the relation of + dialog to action, the proper use of superfluous characters to + prevent an appearance of artificiality in the treatment, and a + thousand other details belonging to the constructive side of a + play--must also be within the critic's view; but a list of them + here would be too long for the space available. When the young + critic has made a careful study of the standard English drama, with + a special view to the proper considerations above indicated, his + opinion on the "construction" of a play will be of more or less + value to American dramatic literature. + +There is, of course, no overt novelty in the theory advanced by Bronson +Howard in his address. The same theory was held by Francisque Sarcey, +who declared that all the principles of playmaking might be deduced from +the fact that a piece is always intended for performance before an +audience. And Marmontel, dramatist as well as dramatic theorist, +asserted that the first rule the play-wright must obey is "to move the +spectators, and the second is to move them only in so far as they are +willing to be moved.... This depends on the disposition and the manners +of the people to whom appeal is made and on the degree of sensibility +they bring to the theater.... This is therefore a point in which tragedy +is not invariable." + +The same principle underlies George Meredith's statement in regard to +Comedy: "There are plain reasons why the comic poet is not a frequent +apparition; and why the great comic poet remains without a fellow. A +society of cultivated men and women is required wherein ideas are +current and the perception quick, that he may be supplied with matter +and an audience." + + B. M. + +OF THIS BOOK THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE COPIES WERE PRINTED FROM +TYPE BY CORLIES, MACY AND COMPANY IN NOVEMBER: MCMXIV + + + + +PUBLICATIONS + +_of the_ + +Dramatic Museum +of Columbia University + +IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK + +_First Series_ + +Papers on Playmaking: + + I THE NEW ART OF WRITING PLAYS. By Lope de Vega. Translated by + William T. Brewster. With an Introduction and Notes by Brander + Matthews. + + II THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY. By Bronson Howard. With an + Introduction by Augustus Thomas. + + III THE LAW OF THE DRAMA. By Ferdinand Brunetière. Translated by + Philip M. Hayden. With an Introduction by Henry Arthur Jones. + + IV ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AS A DRAMATIST. By Arthur Wing Pinero. + With an Introduction and Bibliographical Appendix by Clayton + Hamilton. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Autobiography of a Play, by Bronson Howard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY *** + +***** This file should be named 18769-8.txt or 18769-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/6/18769/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Autobiography of a Play + Papers on Play-Making, II + +Author: Bronson Howard + +Commentator: Augustus Thomas + +Release Date: July 6, 2006 [EBook #18769] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>PAPERS ON PLAY-MAKING</h1> +<h3>II</h3> +<h1>The Autobiography of a Play</h1> +<h3>by</h3> +<h1><span class="smcap">Bronson Howard</span></h1> +<h3>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</h3> +<h3>Augustus Thomas</h3> +<h3>Printed for the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University</h3> +<h3><i>in the City of New York</i></h3> +<h3>MCMXIV</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<p><a name="table" id="table"></a></p> +<table summary="contents"> +<tr><td> +<a href="#INTRODUCTION"><b>Introduction by Augustus Thomas</b></a><br /> +<a href="#The_Autobiography_of_a_Play"><b>The Autobiography of a Play by Bronson Howard</b></a><br /> +<a href="#NOTES"><b>Notes by B. M.</b></a><br /> +</td></tr> +</table> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a><a href="#table">INTRODUCTION</a></h2> + + +<p>The qualities that made Bronson Howard a dramatist, and then made him +the first American dramatist of his day, were his human sympathy, his +perception, his sense of proportion, and his construction. With his +perception, his proportion, and his construction, respectively, he could +have succeeded as a detective, as an artist, or as a general. It was his +human sympathy, his wish and his ability to put himself in the other +man's place, that made play-writing definitely attractive to him. As a +soldier he would have shown the courage of the dogged defender in the +trench or the calmly supervising general at headquarters, rather than +the mad bravery that carried the flag at the front of a forlorn hope. +His gifts were intellectual. His writing was more disciplined than +inspired. If we shall claim for him genius, it must be preferably the +genius of infinite pains.</p> + +<p>He saw intimately and clearly. His proportion made him write with +discretion and a proper sense of cumulative emphasis, and his +construction enabled him so to combine his materials as to secure this +effect. He was intensely self-critical; and while almost without conceit +concerning his own work, he had an accuracy of detached estimation that +enabled him to stand by his own opinion with a proper inflexibility when +his judgment convinced him that the opinion was correct.</p> + +<p>He worked slowly. At one time, in his active period, it was his custom +to go from New York, where he lived, to New Rochelle, where he had +formerly lived. There, upon the rear end of a suburban lot, he had a +plain board cabin not more than ten feet square. In it were a deal +table, a hard chair, and a small stove. He would go to this cabin in the +morning when the tide of suburban travel was setting the other way, and +spend his entire day there with his manuscript and his cigars. He +carried a small lunch from his home. He once told me he was satisfied +with his day's work if it provided him with ten good lines that would +not have to be abandoned. I did not take that statement to imply that +there were not in his experience the more profitable days that are in +the work of every writer—days when the subject seems to command the +pen and when the hand cannot keep pace with the vision. He was often too +saturated with his story, too much the prisoner of his people, for it to +have been otherwise; but his training had verified for him the truth +that easy writing is hard reading.</p> + +<p>Then, too, while Bronson Howard arranged his characters for the eye and +built his story for the judgment, he wrote his speeches for the ear. +This attention to the cadence of a line was so essential to him that +when writing as he sometimes did for a magazine he studied the sound of +his phrase as if the print were to be read aloud. This same care for the +dialog would retard its production; and critical revision would enforce +still further delay.</p> + +<p>William Gillette once said to an interviewer that "plays were not +written, but were rewritten." The experience of many play-wrights would +support that statement. In the case of Bronson Howard, the autobiography +of his 'Banker's Daughter' certainly does so. His most profitable play, +perhaps, and the one which also brought him the greatest popular +recognition, was 'Shenandoah'. That play was produced by a manager, who, +after its first performance, believed that it would not succeed. A +younger and more hopeful one saw in it its great elements of popularity, +and encouraged him to rewrite it.</p> + +<p>Mr. William H. Crane, in a recent felicitous talk to the Society of +American Dramatists, said that the 'Henrietta' was played exactly as its +author had delivered it to the actors, without the change or the need of +change in a single word, and with only the repetition late in the play +of a line that had been spoken in an early act. That fact does not +exclude the possibility of rewritings before the manuscript came to the +company, but rather, in view of Bronson Howard's thoroness as a workman +and his masterly sense of proportion, makes such rewritings the more +probable. The effect, however, of his rewriting, wherever it may have +been, and the slow additions of his daily contributions, was that of +spontaneity.</p> + +<p>Some philosopher tells us that a factor of greatness in any field is the +power to generalize, the ability to discover the principle underlying +apparently discordant facts. Bronson Howard's plays are notable for +their evidence of this power. He saw causes, tendencies, results. His +plays are expositions of this chemistry. 'Shenandoah' dealt broadly with +the forces and feelings behind the Civil War; the 'Henrietta' with the +American passion for speculation—the money-madness that was dividing +families. 'Aristocracy' was a very accurate, altho satirical, seizure of +the disposition, then in its strongest manifestation, of a newly-rich +and Western family of native force to break into the exclusive social +set of New York and to do so thru a preparatory European alliance.</p> + +<p>He has a human story in every instance. There is always dramatic +conflict between interesting characters, of course, but behind them is +always the background of some considerable social tendency—some +comprehensive generalization—that includes and explains them all. The +commander from his eminence saw all the combatants: he knew what the +fight was about, and it always was about something worth while. Bronson +Howard never dramatized piffle.</p> + +<p>He was an observer of human nature and events, a traveler, a thinker, a +student of the drama of all ages. He had been a reporter and an +editorial writer. His plays were written by a watchful, sympathetic, and +artistic military general turned philosopher.</p> + +<p class="smcap right"> +Augustus Thomas.</p> + +<p>(June 1914).</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="The_Autobiography_of_a_Play" id="The_Autobiography_of_a_Play"></a><a href="#table">The Autobiography of a Play</a></h2> + +<p>As read before the Shakspere Club <i>of</i> Harvard University</p> + + +<p>I have not come to Newcastle with a load of coals; and I shall not try +to tell the faculty and students of Harvard University anything about +the Greek drama or the classical unities. I will remind you of only one +thing in that direction; and say even this merely because it has a +direct bearing upon some of the practical questions connected with +play-writing which I purpose to discuss. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides—perhaps we should give the entire credit, as some authorities +do, to Aeschylus—taught the future world the art of writing a play. But +they did not create the laws of dramatic construction. Those laws exist +in the passions and sympathies of the human race. They existed thousands +of years before the Father of the Drama was born: waiting, like the +other laws of nature, to be discovered and utilized by man.</p> + +<p>A lecturer on "Animal Magnetism" failed to make his appearance one +night, many years ago, in the public hall of a little town in Michigan, +and a gentleman from Detroit consented to fill the vacant place. His +lecture began and ended as follows: "Animal magnetism is a great +subject, and the less said about it the better; we will proceed to +experiments."</p> + +<p>I will take that wise man as my own exemplar today, and I will begin by +echoing his words: The drama in general is a great subject, and the less +I say about it the better; we will proceed to experiments.</p> + +<p>It happens that one of my own plays has had a very curious history. It +has appeared before the American public in two forms, so radically +different that a description of the changes made, and of the reasons for +making them, will involve the consideration of some very interesting +laws of dramatic construction. I shall ask you to listen very carefully +to the story, or plot, of the piece as it was first produced in Chicago +in 1873. Then I shall trace the changes that were made in this story +before the play was produced in New York five years later. And after +that, to follow the very odd adventures of the same play still further, +I shall point out briefly the changes which were made necessary by +adapting it to English life with English characters, for its production +at the Court Theater, London, in 1879. All the changes which I shall +describe to you were forced upon me (as soon as I had decided to make +the general alterations in the play) by the laws of dramatic +construction; and it is to the experimental application of these laws to +a particular play that I ask your attention. The learned professors of +Harvard University know much more about them than I do, so far as a +study of dramatic literature, from the outside, can give them that +knowledge; and the great modern authorities on the subject—Hallam, +Lessing, Schlegel and many others—are open to the students of Harvard +in her library; or, rather, shall I say, they lie closed on its shelves. +But I invite you today to step into a little dramatic workshop, instead +of a scientific library; and to see an humble workman in the craft, +trying, with repeated experiments—not to elucidate the laws of dramatic +construction, but to obey them, exactly as an inventor (deficient, it +may be, in all scientific knowledge) tries to apply the general laws of +mechanics to the immediate necessities of the machine he is working out +in his mind. The moment a professor of chemistry has expressed a +scientific truth, he must illustrate it at once by an experiment, or the +truth will evaporate. An immense amount of scientific truth is +constantly evaporating, for want of practical application; the air above +every university in the world is charged with it. But what are the laws +of dramatic construction? No one man knows much about them. As I have +already reminded you, they bear about the same relation to human +character and human sympathies as the laws of nature bear to the +material universe. When all the mysteries of humanity have been solved, +the laws of dramatic construction can be codified and clearly explained; +not until then. But every scientific man can tell you a little about +nature, and every dramatist can tell you a little about dramatic truth. +A few general principles have been discovered by experiment and +discussion. These few principles can be brought to your attention. But +after you have learned all that has yet been learned by others, the +field of humanity will still lie before you, as the field of nature lies +before the scientist, with millions of times more to be discovered, by +you or by some one else, than has ever yet been known. All I purpose +to-night is to show you how certain laws of dramatic construction +asserted themselves from time to time as we were making the changes in +this play; how they thrust themselves upon our notice; how we could not +possibly ignore them. And you will see how a man comes to understand any +particular law, after he has been forced to obey it, altho, perhaps, he +has never heard of it or dreamed of it before.</p> + +<p>And let me say here, to the students of Harvard—I do not presume to +address words of advice to the faculty—it is to you and to others who +enjoy the high privileges of liberal education that the American stage +ought to look for honest and good dramatic work in the future. Let me +say to you, then: Submit yourselves truly and unconditionally to the +laws of dramatic truth, so far as you can discover them by honest mental +exertion and observation. Do not mistake any mere defiance of these laws +for originality. You might as well show your originality by defying the +law of gravitation. Keep in mind the historical case of Stephenson. When +a member of the British Parliament asked him, concerning his newfangled +invention, the railroad, whether it would not be very awkward if a cow +were on the track when a train came along, he answered: "Very ark'ard, +indeed—for the cow." When you find yourself standing in the way of +dramatic truth, my young friends—clear the track! If you don't, the +truth can stand it; you can't. Even if you feel sometimes that your +genius—that's always the word in the secret vocabulary of our own +minds—even if your genius seems to be hampered by these dramatic laws, +resign yourself to them at once, with that simple form of Christian +resignation so beautifully illustrated by the poor German woman on her +deathbed. Her husband being asked, afterward, if she were resigned to +her death, responded with that touching and earnest recognition of +eternal law: "Mein Gott, she had to be!"</p> + +<p>The story of the play, as first produced in Chicago, may be told as +follows:</p> + +<p>Act first—Scene, New York. A young girl and a young man are in love, +and engaged to be married. The striking originality of this idea will +startle any one who has never heard of such a thing before. Lilian +Westbrook and Harold Routledge have a lover's quarrel. Never mind what +the cause of it. To quote a passage from the play itself: "A woman never +quarrels with a man she doesn't love"—that is one of the minor laws of +dramatic construction—"and she is never tired of quarreling with a man +she does love." I dare not announce this as another law of female human +nature; it is merely the opinion of one of my characters—a married man. +Of course, there are women who do not quarrel with any one; and there +are angels; but, as a rule, the women we feel at liberty to fall in love +with do quarrel now and then; and they almost invariably quarrel with +their husbands or lovers first, their other acquaintances must often be +content with their smiles. But, when Lilian announces to Harold +Routledge that their engagement is broken forever, he thinks she means +to imply that she doesn't intend to marry him.</p> + +<p>Women are often misunderstood by our more grossly practical sex; we are +too apt to judge of what they mean by what they say. The relations, if +there are any, between a woman's tongue and her thoughts form the least +understood section, perhaps, of dramatic law. You will get some idea of +the intricacies of this subject, if one of your literary professors will +draw you a diagram of what a woman doesn't mean when she uses the +English language. Harold Routledge, almost broken-hearted, bids Lilian +farewell, and leaves her presence. Lilian herself, proud and angry, +allows him to go; waits petulantly a moment for him to return; then, +forlorn and wretched, she bursts into the flood of tears which she +intended to shed upon his breast. Under ordinary circumstances, those +precious drops would not have been wasted. Young girls, when they +quarrel with their lovers, are not extravagant with their tears; they +put them carefully to the best possible use; and, I dare say, some of +Lilian's tears would have fallen on a sheet of notepaper; and the +stained lines of a letter would have reached Harold by the next post, +begging him to come back, and to let her forgive him for all the +spiteful things she had said to him. Unfortunately, however, just at +this critical juncture in the affairs of love—while Cupid was waiting, +hat in hand, to accompany the letter to its destination and keep an eye +on the postman—Lilian's father enters. He is on the verge of financial +ruin, and he has just received a letter from Mr. John Strebelow, a man +of great wealth, asking him for his daughter's hand in marriage. Mr. +Westbrook urges her to accept him, not from any selfish motives, but +because he dreads to leave, in his old age, a helpless girl, trained +only to luxury and extravagance, to a merciless world. Lilian, on her +part, shudders at the thought of her father renewing the struggle of +life when years have exhausted his strength. She knows that she will be +the greatest burden that will fall upon him; she remembers her dead +mother's love for them both; and she sacrifices her own heart. Mr. +Strebelow is a man of about forty years, of unquestioned honor, of noble +personal character in every way. Lilian had loved him, indeed, when she +was a little child, and she feels that she can at least respect and +reverence him as her husband. Mr. Strebelow marries her without knowing +that she does not love him; much less, that she loves another.</p> + +<p>Act second—Paris. Lilian has been married five years, and is residing +with her husband in the French capital. As the curtain rises, Lilian is +teaching her little child, Natalie, her alphabet. All the warm affection +of a woman's nature, suppressed and thrown back upon her own heart, has +concentrated itself upon this child. Lilian has been a good wife, and +she does reverence her husband as she expected to do. He is a kind, +generous and noble man. But she does not love him as a wife. Mr. +Strebelow now enters, and, after a little domestic scene, the French +nurse is instructed to dress the child for a walk with its mother. +Strebelow then tells Lilian that he has just met an old friend of hers +and of himself—the American artist, Mr. Harold Routledge, passing thru +Paris on his way from his studio in Rome. He has insisted on a visit +from Mr. Routledge, and the two parted lovers are brought face to face +by the husband. They are afterwards left alone together. Routledge has +lived a solitary life, nursing his feelings toward a woman who had +heartlessly cast him off, as he thinks, to marry a man merely for his +wealth. He is bitter and cruel. But the cruelty to a woman which is born +of love for her has a wonderful, an almost irresistible fascination for +the female heart. Under the spell of this fascination, Lilian's old love +reasserts its authority against that of his will. She forgets everything +except the moment when her lover last parted from her. She is again the +wayward girl that waited for his return; he has returned!—and she does +what she would have done five years before; she turns, passionately, to +throw herself into his arms. At this moment, her little child, Natalie, +runs in. Lilian is a mother again, and a wife. She falls to her knees +and embraces her child at the very feet of her former lover. Harold +Routledge bows his head reverently, and leaves them together.</p> + +<p>Act third. The art of breaking the tenth commandment—thou shalt not +covet they neighbor's wife—has reached its highest perfection in +France. One of the most important laws of dramatic construction might be +formulated in this way. If you want a particular thing done, choose a +character to do it that an audience will naturally expect to do it. I +wanted a man to fall in love with my heroine after she was a married +woman, and I chose a French count for that purpose. I knew that an +American audience would not only expect him to fall in love with another +man's wife, but it would be very much surprised if he didn't. This saved +much explanation and unnecessary dialog. Harold Routledge overhears the +Count de Carojac, a hardened roué and a duellist, speaking of Lilian in +such terms as no honorable man should speak of a modest woman. +Routledge, with a studio in Rome, and having been educated at a German +university, is familiar with the use of the rapier. A duel is arranged. +Lilian hears of it thru a female friend, and Strebelow, also, thru the +American second of Mr. Routledge. The parties meet at the Château +Chateaubriand, in the suburbs of Paris, at midnight, by the light of the +moon, in winter. A scream from Lilian, as she reaches the scene in +breathless haste, throws Routledge off his guard; he is wounded and +falls. Strebelow, too, has come on the field, not knowing the cause of +the quarrel; but anxious to prevent a meeting between two of his own +personal friends. Lilian is ignorant of her husband's presence, and she +sees only the bleeding form of the man she loves lying upon the snow. +She falls at his side, and words of burning passion, checked a few hours +before by the innocent presence of her child, spring to her lips. The +last of these words are as follows: "I have loved you—and you +only—Harold, from the first."</p> + +<p>These words, clear, unmistakable, carrying their terrible truth straight +to his heart, come to John Strebelow as the very first intimation that +his wife did not love him when she married him. Crushed by this sudden +blow, an expression of agony on his face, he stands for a moment +speechless. When his voice returns, he has become another man. He is +hard and cold, still generous, so far as those things a generous man +cares least for are concerned. He will share all his wealth with her; +but, in the awful bitterness of a great heart, at that moment, he feels +that the woman who has deceived him so wickedly has no natural right to +be the guardian of their child. "Return to our home, madam; it will be +yours, not mine, hereafter; but our child will not be there." Ungenerous +words! But if we are looking in our own hearts, where we must find +nearly all the laws of dramatic construction, how many of us would be +more generous, with such words as John Strebelow had just heard ringing +in our ears? As the act closes, the startled love of a mother has again +and finally asserted itself in Lilian's heart, its one overmastering +passion of her nature. With the man she has loved lying near her, +wounded, and, for aught she knows, dying, she is thinking only of her +lost child. Maternal love, thruout the history of the world, has had +triumphs over all the other passions; triumphs over destitution and +trials and tortures; over all the temptations incident to life; triumphs +to which no other impulse of the human heart—not even the love of man +for woman—has ever risen. One of the most brilliant men I had ever +known once said in court; "Woman, alone, shares with the Creator the +privilege of communing with an unborn human being"; and, with this +privilege, the Creator seems to have shared with woman a part of His own +great love. All other love in our race is merely human. The play, from +this time on, becomes the story of a mother's love.</p> + +<p>Acts fourth and fifth. Two years later Lilian is at the home of her +father in New York. Her husband has disappeared. His name was on the +passenger list of a wrecked steamer; and no other word of him or of the +child has been heard. If he had left the little girl in the care of +others, it is unknown to whom or where. So Lilian is a widow and +childless. She is fading, day by day, and is hardly expected to live. +Her mind, tortured by the suspense, which, worse than certainty, is +gradually yielding to hallucinations which keep her little one ever +present to her fancy. Harold Routledge was wounded seriously in the +duel, but not killed; he is near Lilian; seeing her every day; but he is +her friend, rather than her lover, now; she talks with him of her child, +and he feels how utterly hopeless his own passion is in the presence of +an all-absorbing mother's love. It is discovered that the child is +living peacefully among kind guardians in a French convent; and +Routledge determines to cross the ocean with the necessary evidence and +bring the little one back to its mother. He breaks the news to Lilian +tenderly and gently. A gleam of joy illuminates her face for the first +time since the terrible night, two years before, and Routledge feels +that the only barrier to his own happiness has been removed. But the +sudden return and reappearance of the husband falls like a stroke of +fate upon both. As the curtain descends on the fourth act, Lilian lies +fainting on the floor, with Natalie at her side, while the two men stand +face to face above the unconscious woman whom they both love. Three +lives ruined—because Lilian's father, having lost his wealth, in his +old age, dared not, as he himself expressed it, leave a tenderly +nurtured daughter to a merciless world. The world is merciless, perhaps, +but it is not so utterly and hopelessly merciless to any man or woman as +one's heart may be.</p> + +<p>Lilian comes back to consciousness on her deathbed. Her child had +returned to her only as a messenger from heaven, summoning her home. But +the message had been whispered in unconscious ears; for she had not seen +the little girl, who was removed before the mother had recovered from +her swoon. They dare not tell her now that Natalie is on this side of +the ocean and asleep in the next room. Mr. Strebelow had heard in a +distant land, travelling to distract his mind from the great sorrow of +his own life, of Lilian's condition, and he hastened back to undo the +wrong he felt that he had committed. She asks to see him; she kisses his +hand with tenderness and gratitude, when he tells her that Natalie shall +be her own hereafter; his manly tears are tears of repentance, mingled +with a now generous love. The stroke of death comes suddenly; they have +only a moment's time to arouse the little one from its sleep; but they +are not too late, and Lilian dies at last, a smile of perfect happiness +on her face, with her child in her arms.</p> + +<p>The Mississippi darky, in Mark Twain's story, being told that his heroic +death on the field of battle would have made but little difference to +the nation at large, remarked, with deep philosophy; "It would have made +a great deal of difference to me, sah." The radical change made in the +story I have just related to you, before the production of the play in +New York, was this: Lilian lives, instead of dying, in the last act. It +would have made very little difference to the American nation what she +did; but it made a great deal of difference to her, as you will see, +and to the play also in nearly every part. My reasons for making the +change were based upon one of the most important principles of the +dramatic art, namely: A dramatist should deal, so far as possible, with +subjects of universal interest, instead of with such as appeal strongly +to a part of the public only. I do not mean that he may not appeal to +certain classes of people, and depend upon those classes for success; +but, just so far as he does this, he limits the possibilities of that +success. I have said that the love of offspring in woman has shown +itself the strongest of all human passions; and it is the most nearly +allied to the boundless love of Deity. But the one absolutely universal +passion of the race—which underlies all other passions—on which, +indeed, the very existence of the race depends—the very fountain of +maternal love itself, is the love of the sexes. The dramatist must +remember that his work cannot, like that of the novelist or the poet, +pick out the hearts, here and there, that happen to be in sympathy with +its subject. He appeals to a thousand hearts at the same moment; he has +no choice in the matter; he must do this. And it is only when he deals +with the love of the sexes that his work is most interesting to that +aggregation of human hearts we call the audience. This very play was +successful in Chicago; but, as soon as that part of the public had been +exhausted which could weep with pleasure, if I may use the expression, +over the tenderness of a mother's love, its success would have been at +an end. Furthermore—and here comes in another law of dramatic +construction—a play must be, in one way or another, "satisfactory" to +the audience. This word has a meaning which varies in different +countries, and even in different parts of the same country; but, +whatever audience you are writing for, your work must be "satisfactory" +to it. In England and America, the death of a pure woman on the stage is +not "satisfactory," except when the play rises to the dignity of +tragedy. The death, in an ordinary play, of a woman who is not pure, as +in the case of 'Frou-Frou,' is perfectly satisfactory, for the reason +that it is inevitable. Human nature always bows gracefully to the +inevitable. The only griefs in our own lives to which we could never +reconcile ourselves are those which might have been averted. The wife +who has once taken the step from purity to impurity can never reinstate +herself in the world of art on this side of the grave; and so an +audience looks with complacent tears on the death of an erring woman. +But Lilian had not taken the one fatal step which would have reconciled +an audience to her death. She was still pure, and every one left the +theatre wishing she had lived. I yielded, therefore, to the sound logic, +based on sound dramatic principle, of my New York manager, Mr. A. M. +Palmer, and the piece was altered.</p> + +<p>I have called the play, as produced in New York and afterward in London, +the "same play" as the one produced in Chicago. That one doubt, which +age does not conquer—which comes down to us from the remotest antiquity +of our own youth, which will still exist in our minds as we listen to +the music of the spheres, thru countless ages, when all other doubts are +at rest; that never-to-be answered doubt: Whether it was the same +jack-knife, or another one, after all its blades and handle had been +changed—must ever linger in my own mind as to the identity of this +play. But a dramatic author stops worrying himself about doubts of this +kind very early in his career. The play which finally takes its place on +the stage usually bears very little resemblance to the play which first +suggested itself to his mind. In some cases the public has abundant +reason to congratulate itself on this fact, and especially on the way +plays are often built up, so to speak, by the authors, with advice and +assistance from other intelligent people interested in their success. +The most magnificent figure in the English drama of this century was a +mere faint outline, merely a fatherly old man, until the suggestive mind +of Macready stimulated the genius of Bulwer Lytton, and the great +author, eagerly acknowledging the assistance rendered him, made Cardinal +Richelieu the colossal central figure of a play that was written as a +pretty love-story. Bulwer Lytton had an eye single, as every dramatist +ought to have—as every successful dramatist must have—to the final +artistic result; he kept before him the one object of making the play of +'Richelieu' as good a play as he possibly could make it. The first duty +of a dramatist is to put upon the stage the very best work he can, in +the light of whatever advice and assistance may come to him. Fair +acknowledgment afterward is a matter of mere ordinary personal honesty. +It is not a question of dramatic art.</p> + +<p>So Lilian is to live, and not die, in the last act. The first question +for us to decide—I say "us"—the New York manager, the literary attaché +of the theatre, and myself—the first practical question before us was: +As Lilian is to live, which of the two men who love her is to die? There +are axioms among the laws of dramatic construction, as in mathematics. +One of them is this—three hearts cannot beat as one. The world is not +large enough, from an artistic point of view, for three good human +hearts to continue to exist, if two of them love the third. If one of +the two hearts is a bad one, art assigns it to the hell on earth of +disappointed love; but if it is good and tender and gentle, art is +merciful to it, and puts it out of its misery by death. Routledge was +wounded in a duel. Strebelow was supposed to be lost in the wreck of a +steamer. It was easy enough to kill either of them, but which? We argued +this question for three weeks. Mere romance was on the side of the +young artist. But to have had him live would have robbed the play of all +its meaning. Its moral, in the original form, is this: It is a dangerous +thing to marry, for any reason, without the safeguard of love, even when +the person one marries is worthy of one's love in every possible way. If +we had decided in favor of Routledge, the play would have had no moral +at all, or rather a very bad one. If a girl marries the wrong man, she +need only wait for him to die; and if her lover waits, too, it'll be all +right. If, on the other hand, we so reconstruct the whole play that the +husband and wife may at last come together with true affection, we shall +have the moral: Even if a young girl makes the worst of all mistakes, +and accepts the hand of one man when her heart belongs to another, +fidelity to the duty of a wife on her side, and a manly, generous +confidence on the part of her husband, may, in the end, correct even +such a mistake. The dignity of this moral saved John Strebelow's life, +and Harold Routledge was killed in the duel with the Count de Carojac.</p> + +<p>All that was needed to affect this first change in the play was to +instruct the actor who played Routledge to lie still when the curtain +fell at the end of the third act, and to go home afterward. But there +are a number of problems under the laws of dramatic construction which +we must solve before the play can now be made to reach the hearts of an +audience as it did before. Let us see what they are.</p> + +<p>The love of Lilian for Harold Routledge cannot now be the one grand +passion of her life. It must be the love of a young girl, however +sincere and intense, which yields, afterward, to the stronger and deeper +love of a woman for her husband. The next great change, therefore, which +the laws of dramatic construction forced upon us was this: Lilian must +now control her own passion, and when she meets her lover in the second +act she must not depend for her moral safety on the awakening of a +mother's love by the appearance of her child. Her love for Harold is no +longer such an all-controlling force as will justify a woman—justify +her dramatically, I mean—yielding to it. For her to depend on an +outside influence would be to show a weakness of character that would +make her uninteresting. Instead, therefore, of receiving her former +lover with dangerous pent-up fires, Lilian now feels pity for him. She +hardly yet knows her own feelings toward her husband; but his manhood +and kindness are gradually forcing their way to her heart. Routledge, in +his own passion, forgets himself, and she now repels him. She even +threatens to strike the bell, when the Count de Carojac appears, and +warns his rival to desist. This is now the end of the second act, a very +different end, you see, from the other version, where the little girl +runs in, and, in her innocence, saves the mother from herself.</p> + +<p>Here let me tell a curious experience, which illustrates how stubbornly +persistent the dramatic laws are, in having their own way. We were all +three of us—manager, literary attaché, and author—so pleased with the +original ending of the second act the picture of the little girl in her +mother's arms, and the lover bowing his head in its presence of +innocence, that we retained it. The little girl ran on the stage at +every rehearsal at the usual place. But no one knew what to do with her. +The actress who played the part of Lilian caught her in her arms, in +various attitudes; but none of them seemed right. The actor who played +Routledge tried to drop his head, according to instructions, but he +looked uncomfortable, not reverential. The next day we had the little +girl run on from another entrance. She stopped in the center of the +stage. Lilian stared at her a moment and then exclaimed: "Mr. Howard, +what shall I do with this child?" Routledge, who had put his hands in +his pocket, called out: "What's the girl doing here, anyway, Howard?" I +could only answer: "She used to be all right; I don't know what's the +matter with her now." And I remember seeing an anxious look on the face +of the child's mother, standing at the side of the stage. She feared +there was something wrong about her own little darling who played the +part of Natalie. I reassured her on this point; for the fact that I was +in error was forcing itself on my mind, in spite of my desire to retain +the scene. You will hardly believe that I am speaking literally, when I +tell you that it was not until the 19th rehearsal that we yielded to the +inevitable, and decided not to have the child come on at all at that +point. The truth was this: now that Lilian saved herself in her own +strength, the child had no dramatic function to fulfill. So strongly did +we all feel the force of a dramatic law which we could not, and would +not, see. Our own natural human instinct—the instinct which the +humblest member of an audience feels, without knowing anything of +dramatic law—got the better of three men, trained in dramatic work, +only by sheer force, and against our own determined opposition. We were +three of Stephenson's cows—or shall I say three calves?—standing on +the track, and we could not succeed where Jumbo failed.</p> + +<p>The third step, in the changes forced upon us by the laws of dramatic +construction, was a very great one; and it was made necessary by the +fact, just mentioned, that the child, Natalie, had no dramatic function +to fulfill in the protection of her mother's virtue. In other words, +there is no point in the play, now, where sexual love is, or can be, +replaced by maternal love, as the controlling passion of the play. +Consequently, the last two acts in their entirety, so far as the serious +parts are concerned, disappear; one new scene and a new act taking their +place. The sad mother, playing with a little shoe or toy, passes out of +our view. The dying woman, kissing the hand of the man she has wronged; +the husband, awe-stricken in the presence of a mother's child; the child +clasped in Lilian's arms; her last look on earth, a smile, and her last +breath, the final expression of maternal tenderness—these scenes belong +only to the original version of the play, as it lies in its author's +desk. With an author's sensitive interest in his own work, I wasted many +hours in trying to save these scenes. But I was working directly against +the laws of dramatic truth, and I gave up the impossible task.</p> + +<p>The fourth great change—forced on us, as the others were—concerns the +character of John Strebelow. As he is now to become the object of a +wife's mature affection, he must not merely be a noble and generous man; +he must do something worthy of the love which is to be bestowed on him. +He must command a woman's love. When, therefore, he hears his wife, +kneeling over her wounded lover, use words which tell him of their +former relations, he does not what most of us would do, but what an +occasional hero among us would do. Of course, the words of Lilian +cannot be such, now, as to close the gates to all hopes of love, as they +were before. She still utters a wild cry, but her words merely show the +awakened tenderness and pity of a woman for a man she had once loved. +They are uttered, however, in the presence of others, and they +compromise her husband's honor. At that moment he takes her gently in +his arms, and becomes her protector, warning the French roué and +duellist that he will call him to account for the insults which the arm +of the dead man had failed to avenge. He afterward does this, killing +the count—not in the action of the play; this is only told. John +Strebelow thus becomes the hero of the play, and it is only necessary to +follow the workings of Lilian's heart and his a little further, until +they come together at last, loving each other truly, the early love of +the wife for another man being only a sad memory in her mind. There is a +tender scene of explanation and a parting, until Lilian's heart shall +recall her husband. This scene, in my opinion, is one of the most +beautiful scenes ever written for the stage. At the risk of breaking the +tenth commandment myself, I do not hesitate to say, I wish I had +written it. As I did not, however, I can express the hope that the name +of Mr. A. R. Cazauran, who did write it, will never be forgotten in +connection with this play as long as the play itself may be remembered. +I wrote the scene myself first; but when he wrote it according to his +own ideas, it was so much more beautiful than my own that I would have +broken a law of dramatic art if I had not accepted it. I should not have +been giving the public the best play I could, under the circumstances. +Imbued, as my own mind was, with all the original motives of the piece, +it would have been impossible for me to have made changes within a few +weeks without the assistance Mr. Cazauran could give me; this assistance +was invaluable to me in all parts of the revised piece. In the fifth act +the husband and wife come together again, the little child acting as the +immediate cause of their reconciliation; the real cause lies in their +own true hearts.</p> + +<p>Before we leave the subject, another change which I was obliged to make +will interest you, because it shows very curiously what queer turns +these laws of dramatic construction may take. As soon as it was decided +to have Lilian live, in the fifth act, and love John Strebelow, I was +compelled to cut out the quarrel-scene between Lilian and Harold +Routledge in the first act. This is a little practical matter, very much +like taking out a certain wheel at one end of a machine because you have +decided to get a different mechanical result at the other end. I was +very fond of this quarrel-scene, but I lost no time in trying to save +it, for I saw at once that Harold Routledge must not appear in the first +act at all. He could only be talked about as Lilian's lover. John +Strebelow must be present alone in the eyes and sympathy of the +audience. If Routledge did not appear until the second act, the audience +would regard him as an interloper; it would rather resent his presence +than otherwise, and would be easily reconciled to his death in the next +act. It was taking an unfair advantage of a young lover; but there was +no help for it. Even if Harold had appeared in the first act, the +quarrel-scene would have been impossible. He might have made love to +Lilian, perhaps, or even kissed her, and the audience would have +forgiven me reluctantly for having her love another man afterward. But +if the two young people had a lover's quarrel in the presence of the +audience, no power on earth could have convinced any man or woman in the +house that they were not intended for each other by the eternal decrees +of divine Providence.</p> + +<p>I have now given you the revised story of this play as it was produced +at the Union Square Theater in New York, under the name of the 'Banker's +Daughter.' I have said nothing about the comic scenes or characters, +because the various changes did not affect them in any way that concerns +the principles of dramatic art. They are almost identically the same in +both versions. Now, if you please, we will cross the ocean. I have had +many long discussions with English managers on the practice in London of +adapting foreign plays, not merely to the English stage, but to English +life, with English characters. The Frenchmen of a French play become, as +a rule, Englishmen; so do Italians and Spaniards and Swedes. They +usually, however, continue to express foreign ideas and to act like +foreigners. In speaking of such a transplanted character, I may be +permitted to trifle with a sacred text:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The manager has said it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But it's hardly to his credit,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That he is an Englishman!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For he ought to have been a Roosian,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A French, or Turk, or Proosian,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or perhaps I-tali-an!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But in spite of Art's temptations,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To belong to other nations,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He becomes an Englishman!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Luckily, the American characters of the 'Banker's Daughter', with one +exception, could be twisted into very fair Englishmen, with only a faint +suspicion of our Yankee accent. Mr. James Alberry, one of the most +brilliant men in England, author of the 'Two Roses,' was engaged to make +them as nearly English as he could. The friendship, cemented as Alberry +and I were discussing for some weeks the international social questions +involved, is among the dearest and tenderest friendships I have ever +made; and I learned more about the various minor differences of social +life in England and American while we were thus at work together than I +could have learned in a residence there of five years. I have time to +give you only a few of the points. Take the engagement of Lilian, broken +in act first. An engagement in England is necessarily a family matter, +and it could neither be made or broken by the mere fiat of a young girl, +without consultation with others, leaving the way open for the immediate +acceptance of another man's hand. In the English version, therefore, +there is no engagement with Harold Routledge. It is only an +understanding between them that they love each other. Not even the most +rigid customs of Europe can prevent such an understanding between two +young people, if they can once look into each other's eyes. They could +fall in love through a pair of telescopes. Then the duel—it is next to +impossible to persuade an English audience that a duel is justifiable or +natural with an Englishman as one of the principles. So we played a +rather sharp artistic trick on our English audience. In the American +version, I assume that, if a plucky young American in France insults a +Frenchman purposely, he will abide by the local customs, and give him +satisfaction, if called upon to do so. So would a young Englishman, +between you and me; but the laws of dramatic construction deal with the +sympathies of the audience as well as with the natural motives and +actions of the characters in a play; and an English audience would think +the French count ought to be perfectly satisfied if Routledge knocked +him down. How did we get over the difficulty? First, we made Routledge a +British officer returning from India, instead of an artist on his way +from Rome—a fighting man by profession; and then we made the Count de +Carojac pile so many sneers and insults on this British officer, and on +the whole British nation, that I verily believe a London audience would +have mobbed him if he hadn't tried to kill him. The English public +walked straight into the trap, although they abhor nothing on earth more +than the duelling system. I said that the comic characters were not +affected by the changes made in America; the change of nationality did +affect them to a certain extent. A young girl, Florence St. Vincent, +afterward Mrs. Browne, represents, here, with dramatic exaggeration, of +course, a type of young girl more or less familiar to all of us. In +England she is not a type, but an eccentric personality, with which the +audience must be made acquainted by easy stages. It was necessary, +therefore, to introduce a number of preliminary speeches for her, before +she came to the lines of the original version. After that, she ran on +without any further change, except a few excisions. Mrs. Browne is +married to a very old man, who afterward dies, and in the last act she +illustrates the various grades of affliction endured by every young +widow, from the darkness of despair to the becoming twilight of +sentimental sadness. This was delicate ground in England. They have not +that utter horror of marriage between a very old man and a very young +woman which, in this country, justifies all the satire which a dramatist +can heap upon the man who commits this crime, even after he is in the +grave. And the English people do not share with us—I say it to their +credit—our universal irreverence for what is solemn and sacred. One +must not, either in social life or on the stage, speak too lightly there +of any serious subject; of course, they can laugh, however, at an old +man that makes a fool of himself. So we merely toned down the levity by +leaving old Mr. Browne out of the cast entirely. There is a great +difference, as in the case of Routledge left out of the first act, +between what the audience sees and what it only hears talked about; and +none of the laws of dramatic construction are more important than those +which concern the questions whether you shall appeal to the ear of an +audience, to its eye, or both. Old Mr. Browne was only talked about +then, and as long as the English audience did not know him personally, +it was perfectly willing to laugh at him after Mrs. Browne was a widow. +Another change made for the London version will interest American +business men. In our own version, Lilian's father and his partner close +up their affairs in the last act and retire from their business as +private bankers. "That will never do in England," said Mr. Alberry. "An +old established business like that might be worth £100,000. We must sell +it to some one, not close it." So we sold it to Mr. George Washington +Phipps. This last character illustrates, again, the stubbornness of +dramatic law. Mr. Alberry and I tried to make him an Irishman, or a +Scotchman, or some kind of an Englishman. But we could not. He remains +an American in England in 1886, as he was in Chicago in 1873. He +declined to change either his citizenship or his name; "G. +Washington—Father of his Country—Phipps."</p> + +<p>The peculiar history of the play is my only justification for giving you +all these details of its otherwise unimportant career. I only trust that +I have shown you how very practical the laws of dramatic construction +are in the way they influence a dramatist. The art of obeying them is +merely the art of using your common sense in the study of your own and +other people's emotions. All I now add is, if you want to write a play, +be honest and sincere in using your common sense. A prominent lawyer +once assured me that there was only one man he trembled before in the +presence of a jury—not the learned man, nor the eloquent man; it was +the sincere man. The public will be your jury. That public often +condescends to be trifled with by mere tricksters, but, believe me, it +is only a condescension and very contemptuous. In the long run, the +public will judge you, and respect you, according to your artistic +sincerity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NOTES" id="NOTES"></a><a href="#table">NOTES</a></h2> + + +<p>This lecture was originally delivered in March, 1886, in the Sanders +Theater, before the Shakspere Society of Harvard University; and it was +repeated before the Nineteenth Century Club in New York in December, +1889. On the latter occasion two other dramatic authors were requested +to debate the points made by the speaker; and as a result he added a few +supplementary remarks:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Nineteenth Century Club looks for a discussion, I believe, on +the subject brought forward in the paper of this evening. If the +word "discussion" implies "argument," I fear there is nothing in +the mere struggles of a dramatist in his workshop to justify that +difference of opinion which is necessary to an argument. My +American colleague, Mr. Brander Matthews, must feel like a man +whose wife persists from day to day in saying nothing that he can +object to, thereby making his home a desert and driving him to the +club. As for the great Irish dramatist, this paper leaves him still +wishing that some one would tread on the tail of his coat. But, +with all true Irishmen, the second party in a quarrel is merely a +convenience, not a necessity. Whenever Mr. Boucicault feels that a +public discussion is desirable for any reason, he can always tread +on the tail of his own coat, and make quite as good a fight of it +all by himself as if some one was assisting him.</p></div> + +<p>And he ended with this reference to the constructive skill of Ibsen:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Another thing strikes me in connection with this subject: the +praise of Ibsen, the Scandinavian dramatist, is abroad in England; +and again, as so often before, mine eyes have seen the glory of the +coming of the Lord in the direction of Boston. But some of the +loudest worshippers of this truly great man in both countries +either wilfully ignore, or else they know nothing about, his real +greatness.</p> + +<p>Ibsen holds in his hand the terrible power, in dealing with the +evils of society, which dramatic construction gives to a genius +like his; he has not laid this power aside and reduced his own +stage to a mere lecture platform. A man armed with a sword who +should lay it down in the heat of battle and take up a wisp of +straw to fight with, would be a fool. Ibsen, like his great +predecessors and contemporaries in France, deals his vigorous blows +at social wrongs thru dramatic effects and the true dramatic +relations of his characters. I know of no writer for the stage, +past or present, who depends for his moral power more continuously +at all points on the art of dramatic construction than Ibsen does. +He, himself, would be the first to smile at those who praise him as +if he were a writer of moral dialogs or the self-appointed lecturer +for one of those psychological panoramas which are unrolled in +acts, at a theater, or in monthly parts in a periodical.</p> + +<p>In conclusion: to all who argue that careful construction is +unnecessary in literary art, I will say only this: it is extremely +easy not to construct.</p></div> + +<p>It may be noted also that Bronson Howard returned to the topic of his +lecture in a contribution to the <i>Dramatic Mirror</i> in 1900; he called +this</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<h3><i>A MERE SUGGESTION</i>.</h3> + +<p>So much is written in critical notices of plays, about their +"construction," that I should like to suggest a few of the +considerations which that term involves. It is possible that some +of the beginners, who are to become the future dramatists of +America, will see the necessity of thinking twice before using the +term at all. Some of the more general considerations to be kept in +view, when a careful and properly educated critic feels justified +in using the word "construction," may be jotted down as follows:</p> + +<p>I. The actual strength of the main incident of a play.</p> + +<p>II. Relative strength of the main incident, in reference to the +importance of the subject; and also to the length of the play.</p> + +<p>III. Adequacy of the story in relation to the importance and +dignity of the main incident and of the subject.</p> + +<p>IV. Adequacy of the original motives on which the rest of the play +depends.</p> + +<p>V. Logical sequence of events by which the main incident is +reached.</p> + +<p>VI. Logical results of the story after the main incident is passed.</p> + +<p>VII. The choice of the characters by which the sequence of events +is developed.</p> + +<p>VIII. Logical, otherwise natural, use of motives in these +particular characters, in leading from one incident to another.</p> + +<p>IX. The use of such human emotions and passions as are universally +recognized as true, without those special explanations which +belong to general fiction and not to the stage.</p> + +<p>X. The relation of the story and incidents to the sympathies of the +audience as a collection of human beings.</p> + +<p>XI. The relation of the story and incidents to the sympathies of +the particular audience for which the play is written; to its +knowledge and ignorance; its views of life; its social customs; and +to its political institutions, so far as they may modify its social +views, as in the case of a democracy or an aristocracy.</p> + +<p>Minor matters—such as the use of comic relief, the relation of +dialog to action, the proper use of superfluous characters to +prevent an appearance of artificiality in the treatment, and a +thousand other details belonging to the constructive side of a +play—must also be within the critic's view; but a list of them +here would be too long for the space available. When the young +critic has made a careful study of the standard English drama, with +a special view to the proper considerations above indicated, his +opinion on the "construction" of a play will be of more or less +value to American dramatic literature.</p></div> + +<p>There is, of course, no overt novelty in the theory advanced by Bronson +Howard in his address. The same theory was held by Francisque Sarcey, +who declared that all the principles of playmaking might be deduced from +the fact that a piece is always intended for performance before an +audience. And Marmontel, dramatist as well as dramatic theorist, +asserted that the first rule the play-wright must obey is "to move the +spectators, and the second is to move them only in so far as they are +willing to be moved.... This depends on the disposition and the manners +of the people to whom appeal is made and on the degree of sensibility +they bring to the theater.... This is therefore a point in which tragedy +is not invariable."</p> + +<p>The same principle underlies George Meredith's statement in regard to +Comedy: "There are plain reasons why the comic poet is not a frequent +apparition; and why the great comic poet remains without a fellow. A +society of cultivated men and women is required wherein ideas are +current and the perception quick, that he may be supplied with matter +and an audience."</p> + +<p class="right">B. M. +</p> + +<h3>OF THIS BOOK THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE COPIES WERE PRINTED FROM +TYPE BY CORLIES, MACY AND COMPANY IN NOVEMBER: MCMXIV</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3> +PUBLICATIONS</h3> +<h4><i>of the</i></h4> +<h3>Dramatic Museum</h3> +<h4><span class="smcap">of Columbia University</span></h4> +<h4>IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK</h4> +<h4><i>First Series</i></h4> + +<p>Papers on Playmaking:</p> + +<table summary="ad" cellpadding="8"> +<tr><td align="left">I</td><td align="left">THE NEW ART OF WRITING PLAYS. By Lope de Vega. Translated by +William T. Brewster. With an Introduction and Notes by Brander +Matthews.</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="left">II</td><td align="left">THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY. By Bronson Howard. With an +Introduction by Augustus Thomas.</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="left">III</td><td align="left">THE LAW OF THE DRAMA. By Ferdinand Brunetière. Translated by +Philip M. Hayden. With an Introduction by Henry Arthur Jones.</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="left">IV</td><td align="left">ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AS A DRAMATIST. By Arthur Wing Pinero. +With an Introduction and Bibliographical Appendix by Clayton +Hamilton.</td></tr> +</table> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Autobiography of a Play, by Bronson Howard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY *** + +***** This file should be named 18769-h.htm or 18769-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/6/18769/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Autobiography of a Play + Papers on Play-Making, II + +Author: Bronson Howard + +Commentator: Augustus Thomas + +Release Date: July 6, 2006 [EBook #18769] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project) + + + + + + + + + +PAPERS ON PLAY-MAKING + +II + +The Autobiography of a Play + +by + +BRONSON HOWARD + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + +AUGUSTUS THOMAS + +Printed for the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University + +_in the City of New York_ + +MCMXIV + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Introduction by Augustus Thomas +The Autobiography of a Play by Bronson Howard +Notes by B. M. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The qualities that made Bronson Howard a dramatist, and then made him +the first American dramatist of his day, were his human sympathy, his +perception, his sense of proportion, and his construction. With his +perception, his proportion, and his construction, respectively, he could +have succeeded as a detective, as an artist, or as a general. It was his +human sympathy, his wish and his ability to put himself in the other +man's place, that made play-writing definitely attractive to him. As a +soldier he would have shown the courage of the dogged defender in the +trench or the calmly supervising general at headquarters, rather than +the mad bravery that carried the flag at the front of a forlorn hope. +His gifts were intellectual. His writing was more disciplined than +inspired. If we shall claim for him genius, it must be preferably the +genius of infinite pains. + +He saw intimately and clearly. His proportion made him write with +discretion and a proper sense of cumulative emphasis, and his +construction enabled him so to combine his materials as to secure this +effect. He was intensely self-critical; and while almost without conceit +concerning his own work, he had an accuracy of detached estimation that +enabled him to stand by his own opinion with a proper inflexibility when +his judgment convinced him that the opinion was correct. + +He worked slowly. At one time, in his active period, it was his custom +to go from New York, where he lived, to New Rochelle, where he had +formerly lived. There, upon the rear end of a suburban lot, he had a +plain board cabin not more than ten feet square. In it were a deal +table, a hard chair, and a small stove. He would go to this cabin in the +morning when the tide of suburban travel was setting the other way, and +spend his entire day there with his manuscript and his cigars. He +carried a small lunch from his home. He once told me he was satisfied +with his day's work if it provided him with ten good lines that would +not have to be abandoned. I did not take that statement to imply that +there were not in his experience the more profitable days that are in +the work of every writer--days when the subject seems to command the +pen and when the hand cannot keep pace with the vision. He was often too +saturated with his story, too much the prisoner of his people, for it to +have been otherwise; but his training had verified for him the truth +that easy writing is hard reading. + +Then, too, while Bronson Howard arranged his characters for the eye and +built his story for the judgment, he wrote his speeches for the ear. +This attention to the cadence of a line was so essential to him that +when writing as he sometimes did for a magazine he studied the sound of +his phrase as if the print were to be read aloud. This same care for the +dialog would retard its production; and critical revision would enforce +still further delay. + +William Gillette once said to an interviewer that "plays were not +written, but were rewritten." The experience of many play-wrights would +support that statement. In the case of Bronson Howard, the autobiography +of his 'Banker's Daughter' certainly does so. His most profitable play, +perhaps, and the one which also brought him the greatest popular +recognition, was 'Shenandoah'. That play was produced by a manager, who, +after its first performance, believed that it would not succeed. A +younger and more hopeful one saw in it its great elements of popularity, +and encouraged him to rewrite it. + +Mr. William H. Crane, in a recent felicitous talk to the Society of +American Dramatists, said that the 'Henrietta' was played exactly as its +author had delivered it to the actors, without the change or the need of +change in a single word, and with only the repetition late in the play +of a line that had been spoken in an early act. That fact does not +exclude the possibility of rewritings before the manuscript came to the +company, but rather, in view of Bronson Howard's thoroness as a workman +and his masterly sense of proportion, makes such rewritings the more +probable. The effect, however, of his rewriting, wherever it may have +been, and the slow additions of his daily contributions, was that of +spontaneity. + +Some philosopher tells us that a factor of greatness in any field is the +power to generalize, the ability to discover the principle underlying +apparently discordant facts. Bronson Howard's plays are notable for +their evidence of this power. He saw causes, tendencies, results. His +plays are expositions of this chemistry. 'Shenandoah' dealt broadly with +the forces and feelings behind the Civil War; the 'Henrietta' with the +American passion for speculation--the money-madness that was dividing +families. 'Aristocracy' was a very accurate, altho satirical, seizure of +the disposition, then in its strongest manifestation, of a newly-rich +and Western family of native force to break into the exclusive social +set of New York and to do so thru a preparatory European alliance. + +He has a human story in every instance. There is always dramatic +conflict between interesting characters, of course, but behind them is +always the background of some considerable social tendency--some +comprehensive generalization--that includes and explains them all. The +commander from his eminence saw all the combatants: he knew what the +fight was about, and it always was about something worth while. Bronson +Howard never dramatized piffle. + +He was an observer of human nature and events, a traveler, a thinker, a +student of the drama of all ages. He had been a reporter and an +editorial writer. His plays were written by a watchful, sympathetic, and +artistic military general turned philosopher. + + AUGUSTUS THOMAS. + +(June 1914). + + + + +The Autobiography of a Play + +As read before the Shakspere Club _of_ Harvard University + + +I have not come to Newcastle with a load of coals; and I shall not try +to tell the faculty and students of Harvard University anything about +the Greek drama or the classical unities. I will remind you of only one +thing in that direction; and say even this merely because it has a +direct bearing upon some of the practical questions connected with +play-writing which I purpose to discuss. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides--perhaps we should give the entire credit, as some authorities +do, to Aeschylus--taught the future world the art of writing a play. But +they did not create the laws of dramatic construction. Those laws exist +in the passions and sympathies of the human race. They existed thousands +of years before the Father of the Drama was born: waiting, like the +other laws of nature, to be discovered and utilized by man. + +A lecturer on "Animal Magnetism" failed to make his appearance one +night, many years ago, in the public hall of a little town in Michigan, +and a gentleman from Detroit consented to fill the vacant place. His +lecture began and ended as follows: "Animal magnetism is a great +subject, and the less said about it the better; we will proceed to +experiments." + +I will take that wise man as my own exemplar today, and I will begin by +echoing his words: The drama in general is a great subject, and the less +I say about it the better; we will proceed to experiments. + +It happens that one of my own plays has had a very curious history. It +has appeared before the American public in two forms, so radically +different that a description of the changes made, and of the reasons for +making them, will involve the consideration of some very interesting +laws of dramatic construction. I shall ask you to listen very carefully +to the story, or plot, of the piece as it was first produced in Chicago +in 1873. Then I shall trace the changes that were made in this story +before the play was produced in New York five years later. And after +that, to follow the very odd adventures of the same play still further, +I shall point out briefly the changes which were made necessary by +adapting it to English life with English characters, for its production +at the Court Theater, London, in 1879. All the changes which I shall +describe to you were forced upon me (as soon as I had decided to make +the general alterations in the play) by the laws of dramatic +construction; and it is to the experimental application of these laws to +a particular play that I ask your attention. The learned professors of +Harvard University know much more about them than I do, so far as a +study of dramatic literature, from the outside, can give them that +knowledge; and the great modern authorities on the subject--Hallam, +Lessing, Schlegel and many others--are open to the students of Harvard +in her library; or, rather, shall I say, they lie closed on its shelves. +But I invite you today to step into a little dramatic workshop, instead +of a scientific library; and to see an humble workman in the craft, +trying, with repeated experiments--not to elucidate the laws of dramatic +construction, but to obey them, exactly as an inventor (deficient, it +may be, in all scientific knowledge) tries to apply the general laws of +mechanics to the immediate necessities of the machine he is working out +in his mind. The moment a professor of chemistry has expressed a +scientific truth, he must illustrate it at once by an experiment, or the +truth will evaporate. An immense amount of scientific truth is +constantly evaporating, for want of practical application; the air above +every university in the world is charged with it. But what are the laws +of dramatic construction? No one man knows much about them. As I have +already reminded you, they bear about the same relation to human +character and human sympathies as the laws of nature bear to the +material universe. When all the mysteries of humanity have been solved, +the laws of dramatic construction can be codified and clearly explained; +not until then. But every scientific man can tell you a little about +nature, and every dramatist can tell you a little about dramatic truth. +A few general principles have been discovered by experiment and +discussion. These few principles can be brought to your attention. But +after you have learned all that has yet been learned by others, the +field of humanity will still lie before you, as the field of nature lies +before the scientist, with millions of times more to be discovered, by +you or by some one else, than has ever yet been known. All I purpose +to-night is to show you how certain laws of dramatic construction +asserted themselves from time to time as we were making the changes in +this play; how they thrust themselves upon our notice; how we could not +possibly ignore them. And you will see how a man comes to understand any +particular law, after he has been forced to obey it, altho, perhaps, he +has never heard of it or dreamed of it before. + +And let me say here, to the students of Harvard--I do not presume to +address words of advice to the faculty--it is to you and to others who +enjoy the high privileges of liberal education that the American stage +ought to look for honest and good dramatic work in the future. Let me +say to you, then: Submit yourselves truly and unconditionally to the +laws of dramatic truth, so far as you can discover them by honest mental +exertion and observation. Do not mistake any mere defiance of these laws +for originality. You might as well show your originality by defying the +law of gravitation. Keep in mind the historical case of Stephenson. When +a member of the British Parliament asked him, concerning his newfangled +invention, the railroad, whether it would not be very awkward if a cow +were on the track when a train came along, he answered: "Very ark'ard, +indeed--for the cow." When you find yourself standing in the way of +dramatic truth, my young friends--clear the track! If you don't, the +truth can stand it; you can't. Even if you feel sometimes that your +genius--that's always the word in the secret vocabulary of our own +minds--even if your genius seems to be hampered by these dramatic laws, +resign yourself to them at once, with that simple form of Christian +resignation so beautifully illustrated by the poor German woman on her +deathbed. Her husband being asked, afterward, if she were resigned to +her death, responded with that touching and earnest recognition of +eternal law: "Mein Gott, she had to be!" + +The story of the play, as first produced in Chicago, may be told as +follows: + +Act first--Scene, New York. A young girl and a young man are in love, +and engaged to be married. The striking originality of this idea will +startle any one who has never heard of such a thing before. Lilian +Westbrook and Harold Routledge have a lover's quarrel. Never mind what +the cause of it. To quote a passage from the play itself: "A woman never +quarrels with a man she doesn't love"--that is one of the minor laws of +dramatic construction--"and she is never tired of quarreling with a man +she does love." I dare not announce this as another law of female human +nature; it is merely the opinion of one of my characters--a married man. +Of course, there are women who do not quarrel with any one; and there +are angels; but, as a rule, the women we feel at liberty to fall in love +with do quarrel now and then; and they almost invariably quarrel with +their husbands or lovers first, their other acquaintances must often be +content with their smiles. But, when Lilian announces to Harold +Routledge that their engagement is broken forever, he thinks she means +to imply that she doesn't intend to marry him. + +Women are often misunderstood by our more grossly practical sex; we are +too apt to judge of what they mean by what they say. The relations, if +there are any, between a woman's tongue and her thoughts form the least +understood section, perhaps, of dramatic law. You will get some idea of +the intricacies of this subject, if one of your literary professors will +draw you a diagram of what a woman doesn't mean when she uses the +English language. Harold Routledge, almost broken-hearted, bids Lilian +farewell, and leaves her presence. Lilian herself, proud and angry, +allows him to go; waits petulantly a moment for him to return; then, +forlorn and wretched, she bursts into the flood of tears which she +intended to shed upon his breast. Under ordinary circumstances, those +precious drops would not have been wasted. Young girls, when they +quarrel with their lovers, are not extravagant with their tears; they +put them carefully to the best possible use; and, I dare say, some of +Lilian's tears would have fallen on a sheet of notepaper; and the +stained lines of a letter would have reached Harold by the next post, +begging him to come back, and to let her forgive him for all the +spiteful things she had said to him. Unfortunately, however, just at +this critical juncture in the affairs of love--while Cupid was waiting, +hat in hand, to accompany the letter to its destination and keep an eye +on the postman--Lilian's father enters. He is on the verge of financial +ruin, and he has just received a letter from Mr. John Strebelow, a man +of great wealth, asking him for his daughter's hand in marriage. Mr. +Westbrook urges her to accept him, not from any selfish motives, but +because he dreads to leave, in his old age, a helpless girl, trained +only to luxury and extravagance, to a merciless world. Lilian, on her +part, shudders at the thought of her father renewing the struggle of +life when years have exhausted his strength. She knows that she will be +the greatest burden that will fall upon him; she remembers her dead +mother's love for them both; and she sacrifices her own heart. Mr. +Strebelow is a man of about forty years, of unquestioned honor, of noble +personal character in every way. Lilian had loved him, indeed, when she +was a little child, and she feels that she can at least respect and +reverence him as her husband. Mr. Strebelow marries her without knowing +that she does not love him; much less, that she loves another. + +Act second--Paris. Lilian has been married five years, and is residing +with her husband in the French capital. As the curtain rises, Lilian is +teaching her little child, Natalie, her alphabet. All the warm affection +of a woman's nature, suppressed and thrown back upon her own heart, has +concentrated itself upon this child. Lilian has been a good wife, and +she does reverence her husband as she expected to do. He is a kind, +generous and noble man. But she does not love him as a wife. Mr. +Strebelow now enters, and, after a little domestic scene, the French +nurse is instructed to dress the child for a walk with its mother. +Strebelow then tells Lilian that he has just met an old friend of hers +and of himself--the American artist, Mr. Harold Routledge, passing thru +Paris on his way from his studio in Rome. He has insisted on a visit +from Mr. Routledge, and the two parted lovers are brought face to face +by the husband. They are afterwards left alone together. Routledge has +lived a solitary life, nursing his feelings toward a woman who had +heartlessly cast him off, as he thinks, to marry a man merely for his +wealth. He is bitter and cruel. But the cruelty to a woman which is born +of love for her has a wonderful, an almost irresistible fascination for +the female heart. Under the spell of this fascination, Lilian's old love +reasserts its authority against that of his will. She forgets everything +except the moment when her lover last parted from her. She is again the +wayward girl that waited for his return; he has returned!--and she does +what she would have done five years before; she turns, passionately, to +throw herself into his arms. At this moment, her little child, Natalie, +runs in. Lilian is a mother again, and a wife. She falls to her knees +and embraces her child at the very feet of her former lover. Harold +Routledge bows his head reverently, and leaves them together. + +Act third. The art of breaking the tenth commandment--thou shalt not +covet they neighbor's wife--has reached its highest perfection in +France. One of the most important laws of dramatic construction might be +formulated in this way. If you want a particular thing done, choose a +character to do it that an audience will naturally expect to do it. I +wanted a man to fall in love with my heroine after she was a married +woman, and I chose a French count for that purpose. I knew that an +American audience would not only expect him to fall in love with another +man's wife, but it would be very much surprised if he didn't. This saved +much explanation and unnecessary dialog. Harold Routledge overhears the +Count de Carojac, a hardened roue and a duellist, speaking of Lilian in +such terms as no honorable man should speak of a modest woman. +Routledge, with a studio in Rome, and having been educated at a German +university, is familiar with the use of the rapier. A duel is arranged. +Lilian hears of it thru a female friend, and Strebelow, also, thru the +American second of Mr. Routledge. The parties meet at the Chateau +Chateaubriand, in the suburbs of Paris, at midnight, by the light of the +moon, in winter. A scream from Lilian, as she reaches the scene in +breathless haste, throws Routledge off his guard; he is wounded and +falls. Strebelow, too, has come on the field, not knowing the cause of +the quarrel; but anxious to prevent a meeting between two of his own +personal friends. Lilian is ignorant of her husband's presence, and she +sees only the bleeding form of the man she loves lying upon the snow. +She falls at his side, and words of burning passion, checked a few hours +before by the innocent presence of her child, spring to her lips. The +last of these words are as follows: "I have loved you--and you +only--Harold, from the first." + +These words, clear, unmistakable, carrying their terrible truth straight +to his heart, come to John Strebelow as the very first intimation that +his wife did not love him when she married him. Crushed by this sudden +blow, an expression of agony on his face, he stands for a moment +speechless. When his voice returns, he has become another man. He is +hard and cold, still generous, so far as those things a generous man +cares least for are concerned. He will share all his wealth with her; +but, in the awful bitterness of a great heart, at that moment, he feels +that the woman who has deceived him so wickedly has no natural right to +be the guardian of their child. "Return to our home, madam; it will be +yours, not mine, hereafter; but our child will not be there." Ungenerous +words! But if we are looking in our own hearts, where we must find +nearly all the laws of dramatic construction, how many of us would be +more generous, with such words as John Strebelow had just heard ringing +in our ears? As the act closes, the startled love of a mother has again +and finally asserted itself in Lilian's heart, its one overmastering +passion of her nature. With the man she has loved lying near her, +wounded, and, for aught she knows, dying, she is thinking only of her +lost child. Maternal love, thruout the history of the world, has had +triumphs over all the other passions; triumphs over destitution and +trials and tortures; over all the temptations incident to life; triumphs +to which no other impulse of the human heart--not even the love of man +for woman--has ever risen. One of the most brilliant men I had ever +known once said in court; "Woman, alone, shares with the Creator the +privilege of communing with an unborn human being"; and, with this +privilege, the Creator seems to have shared with woman a part of His own +great love. All other love in our race is merely human. The play, from +this time on, becomes the story of a mother's love. + +Acts fourth and fifth. Two years later Lilian is at the home of her +father in New York. Her husband has disappeared. His name was on the +passenger list of a wrecked steamer; and no other word of him or of the +child has been heard. If he had left the little girl in the care of +others, it is unknown to whom or where. So Lilian is a widow and +childless. She is fading, day by day, and is hardly expected to live. +Her mind, tortured by the suspense, which, worse than certainty, is +gradually yielding to hallucinations which keep her little one ever +present to her fancy. Harold Routledge was wounded seriously in the +duel, but not killed; he is near Lilian; seeing her every day; but he is +her friend, rather than her lover, now; she talks with him of her child, +and he feels how utterly hopeless his own passion is in the presence of +an all-absorbing mother's love. It is discovered that the child is +living peacefully among kind guardians in a French convent; and +Routledge determines to cross the ocean with the necessary evidence and +bring the little one back to its mother. He breaks the news to Lilian +tenderly and gently. A gleam of joy illuminates her face for the first +time since the terrible night, two years before, and Routledge feels +that the only barrier to his own happiness has been removed. But the +sudden return and reappearance of the husband falls like a stroke of +fate upon both. As the curtain descends on the fourth act, Lilian lies +fainting on the floor, with Natalie at her side, while the two men stand +face to face above the unconscious woman whom they both love. Three +lives ruined--because Lilian's father, having lost his wealth, in his +old age, dared not, as he himself expressed it, leave a tenderly +nurtured daughter to a merciless world. The world is merciless, perhaps, +but it is not so utterly and hopelessly merciless to any man or woman as +one's heart may be. + +Lilian comes back to consciousness on her deathbed. Her child had +returned to her only as a messenger from heaven, summoning her home. But +the message had been whispered in unconscious ears; for she had not seen +the little girl, who was removed before the mother had recovered from +her swoon. They dare not tell her now that Natalie is on this side of +the ocean and asleep in the next room. Mr. Strebelow had heard in a +distant land, travelling to distract his mind from the great sorrow of +his own life, of Lilian's condition, and he hastened back to undo the +wrong he felt that he had committed. She asks to see him; she kisses his +hand with tenderness and gratitude, when he tells her that Natalie shall +be her own hereafter; his manly tears are tears of repentance, mingled +with a now generous love. The stroke of death comes suddenly; they have +only a moment's time to arouse the little one from its sleep; but they +are not too late, and Lilian dies at last, a smile of perfect happiness +on her face, with her child in her arms. + +The Mississippi darky, in Mark Twain's story, being told that his heroic +death on the field of battle would have made but little difference to +the nation at large, remarked, with deep philosophy; "It would have made +a great deal of difference to me, sah." The radical change made in the +story I have just related to you, before the production of the play in +New York, was this: Lilian lives, instead of dying, in the last act. It +would have made very little difference to the American nation what she +did; but it made a great deal of difference to her, as you will see, +and to the play also in nearly every part. My reasons for making the +change were based upon one of the most important principles of the +dramatic art, namely: A dramatist should deal, so far as possible, with +subjects of universal interest, instead of with such as appeal strongly +to a part of the public only. I do not mean that he may not appeal to +certain classes of people, and depend upon those classes for success; +but, just so far as he does this, he limits the possibilities of that +success. I have said that the love of offspring in woman has shown +itself the strongest of all human passions; and it is the most nearly +allied to the boundless love of Deity. But the one absolutely universal +passion of the race--which underlies all other passions--on which, +indeed, the very existence of the race depends--the very fountain of +maternal love itself, is the love of the sexes. The dramatist must +remember that his work cannot, like that of the novelist or the poet, +pick out the hearts, here and there, that happen to be in sympathy with +its subject. He appeals to a thousand hearts at the same moment; he has +no choice in the matter; he must do this. And it is only when he deals +with the love of the sexes that his work is most interesting to that +aggregation of human hearts we call the audience. This very play was +successful in Chicago; but, as soon as that part of the public had been +exhausted which could weep with pleasure, if I may use the expression, +over the tenderness of a mother's love, its success would have been at +an end. Furthermore--and here comes in another law of dramatic +construction--a play must be, in one way or another, "satisfactory" to +the audience. This word has a meaning which varies in different +countries, and even in different parts of the same country; but, +whatever audience you are writing for, your work must be "satisfactory" +to it. In England and America, the death of a pure woman on the stage is +not "satisfactory," except when the play rises to the dignity of +tragedy. The death, in an ordinary play, of a woman who is not pure, as +in the case of 'Frou-Frou,' is perfectly satisfactory, for the reason +that it is inevitable. Human nature always bows gracefully to the +inevitable. The only griefs in our own lives to which we could never +reconcile ourselves are those which might have been averted. The wife +who has once taken the step from purity to impurity can never reinstate +herself in the world of art on this side of the grave; and so an +audience looks with complacent tears on the death of an erring woman. +But Lilian had not taken the one fatal step which would have reconciled +an audience to her death. She was still pure, and every one left the +theatre wishing she had lived. I yielded, therefore, to the sound logic, +based on sound dramatic principle, of my New York manager, Mr. A. M. +Palmer, and the piece was altered. + +I have called the play, as produced in New York and afterward in London, +the "same play" as the one produced in Chicago. That one doubt, which +age does not conquer--which comes down to us from the remotest antiquity +of our own youth, which will still exist in our minds as we listen to +the music of the spheres, thru countless ages, when all other doubts are +at rest; that never-to-be answered doubt: Whether it was the same +jack-knife, or another one, after all its blades and handle had been +changed--must ever linger in my own mind as to the identity of this +play. But a dramatic author stops worrying himself about doubts of this +kind very early in his career. The play which finally takes its place on +the stage usually bears very little resemblance to the play which first +suggested itself to his mind. In some cases the public has abundant +reason to congratulate itself on this fact, and especially on the way +plays are often built up, so to speak, by the authors, with advice and +assistance from other intelligent people interested in their success. +The most magnificent figure in the English drama of this century was a +mere faint outline, merely a fatherly old man, until the suggestive mind +of Macready stimulated the genius of Bulwer Lytton, and the great +author, eagerly acknowledging the assistance rendered him, made Cardinal +Richelieu the colossal central figure of a play that was written as a +pretty love-story. Bulwer Lytton had an eye single, as every dramatist +ought to have--as every successful dramatist must have--to the final +artistic result; he kept before him the one object of making the play of +'Richelieu' as good a play as he possibly could make it. The first duty +of a dramatist is to put upon the stage the very best work he can, in +the light of whatever advice and assistance may come to him. Fair +acknowledgment afterward is a matter of mere ordinary personal honesty. +It is not a question of dramatic art. + +So Lilian is to live, and not die, in the last act. The first question +for us to decide--I say "us"--the New York manager, the literary attache +of the theatre, and myself--the first practical question before us was: +As Lilian is to live, which of the two men who love her is to die? There +are axioms among the laws of dramatic construction, as in mathematics. +One of them is this--three hearts cannot beat as one. The world is not +large enough, from an artistic point of view, for three good human +hearts to continue to exist, if two of them love the third. If one of +the two hearts is a bad one, art assigns it to the hell on earth of +disappointed love; but if it is good and tender and gentle, art is +merciful to it, and puts it out of its misery by death. Routledge was +wounded in a duel. Strebelow was supposed to be lost in the wreck of a +steamer. It was easy enough to kill either of them, but which? We argued +this question for three weeks. Mere romance was on the side of the +young artist. But to have had him live would have robbed the play of all +its meaning. Its moral, in the original form, is this: It is a dangerous +thing to marry, for any reason, without the safeguard of love, even when +the person one marries is worthy of one's love in every possible way. If +we had decided in favor of Routledge, the play would have had no moral +at all, or rather a very bad one. If a girl marries the wrong man, she +need only wait for him to die; and if her lover waits, too, it'll be all +right. If, on the other hand, we so reconstruct the whole play that the +husband and wife may at last come together with true affection, we shall +have the moral: Even if a young girl makes the worst of all mistakes, +and accepts the hand of one man when her heart belongs to another, +fidelity to the duty of a wife on her side, and a manly, generous +confidence on the part of her husband, may, in the end, correct even +such a mistake. The dignity of this moral saved John Strebelow's life, +and Harold Routledge was killed in the duel with the Count de Carojac. + +All that was needed to affect this first change in the play was to +instruct the actor who played Routledge to lie still when the curtain +fell at the end of the third act, and to go home afterward. But there +are a number of problems under the laws of dramatic construction which +we must solve before the play can now be made to reach the hearts of an +audience as it did before. Let us see what they are. + +The love of Lilian for Harold Routledge cannot now be the one grand +passion of her life. It must be the love of a young girl, however +sincere and intense, which yields, afterward, to the stronger and deeper +love of a woman for her husband. The next great change, therefore, which +the laws of dramatic construction forced upon us was this: Lilian must +now control her own passion, and when she meets her lover in the second +act she must not depend for her moral safety on the awakening of a +mother's love by the appearance of her child. Her love for Harold is no +longer such an all-controlling force as will justify a woman--justify +her dramatically, I mean--yielding to it. For her to depend on an +outside influence would be to show a weakness of character that would +make her uninteresting. Instead, therefore, of receiving her former +lover with dangerous pent-up fires, Lilian now feels pity for him. She +hardly yet knows her own feelings toward her husband; but his manhood +and kindness are gradually forcing their way to her heart. Routledge, in +his own passion, forgets himself, and she now repels him. She even +threatens to strike the bell, when the Count de Carojac appears, and +warns his rival to desist. This is now the end of the second act, a very +different end, you see, from the other version, where the little girl +runs in, and, in her innocence, saves the mother from herself. + +Here let me tell a curious experience, which illustrates how stubbornly +persistent the dramatic laws are, in having their own way. We were all +three of us--manager, literary attache, and author--so pleased with the +original ending of the second act the picture of the little girl in her +mother's arms, and the lover bowing his head in its presence of +innocence, that we retained it. The little girl ran on the stage at +every rehearsal at the usual place. But no one knew what to do with her. +The actress who played the part of Lilian caught her in her arms, in +various attitudes; but none of them seemed right. The actor who played +Routledge tried to drop his head, according to instructions, but he +looked uncomfortable, not reverential. The next day we had the little +girl run on from another entrance. She stopped in the center of the +stage. Lilian stared at her a moment and then exclaimed: "Mr. Howard, +what shall I do with this child?" Routledge, who had put his hands in +his pocket, called out: "What's the girl doing here, anyway, Howard?" I +could only answer: "She used to be all right; I don't know what's the +matter with her now." And I remember seeing an anxious look on the face +of the child's mother, standing at the side of the stage. She feared +there was something wrong about her own little darling who played the +part of Natalie. I reassured her on this point; for the fact that I was +in error was forcing itself on my mind, in spite of my desire to retain +the scene. You will hardly believe that I am speaking literally, when I +tell you that it was not until the 19th rehearsal that we yielded to the +inevitable, and decided not to have the child come on at all at that +point. The truth was this: now that Lilian saved herself in her own +strength, the child had no dramatic function to fulfill. So strongly did +we all feel the force of a dramatic law which we could not, and would +not, see. Our own natural human instinct--the instinct which the +humblest member of an audience feels, without knowing anything of +dramatic law--got the better of three men, trained in dramatic work, +only by sheer force, and against our own determined opposition. We were +three of Stephenson's cows--or shall I say three calves?--standing on +the track, and we could not succeed where Jumbo failed. + +The third step, in the changes forced upon us by the laws of dramatic +construction, was a very great one; and it was made necessary by the +fact, just mentioned, that the child, Natalie, had no dramatic function +to fulfill in the protection of her mother's virtue. In other words, +there is no point in the play, now, where sexual love is, or can be, +replaced by maternal love, as the controlling passion of the play. +Consequently, the last two acts in their entirety, so far as the serious +parts are concerned, disappear; one new scene and a new act taking their +place. The sad mother, playing with a little shoe or toy, passes out of +our view. The dying woman, kissing the hand of the man she has wronged; +the husband, awe-stricken in the presence of a mother's child; the child +clasped in Lilian's arms; her last look on earth, a smile, and her last +breath, the final expression of maternal tenderness--these scenes belong +only to the original version of the play, as it lies in its author's +desk. With an author's sensitive interest in his own work, I wasted many +hours in trying to save these scenes. But I was working directly against +the laws of dramatic truth, and I gave up the impossible task. + +The fourth great change--forced on us, as the others were--concerns the +character of John Strebelow. As he is now to become the object of a +wife's mature affection, he must not merely be a noble and generous man; +he must do something worthy of the love which is to be bestowed on him. +He must command a woman's love. When, therefore, he hears his wife, +kneeling over her wounded lover, use words which tell him of their +former relations, he does not what most of us would do, but what an +occasional hero among us would do. Of course, the words of Lilian +cannot be such, now, as to close the gates to all hopes of love, as they +were before. She still utters a wild cry, but her words merely show the +awakened tenderness and pity of a woman for a man she had once loved. +They are uttered, however, in the presence of others, and they +compromise her husband's honor. At that moment he takes her gently in +his arms, and becomes her protector, warning the French roue and +duellist that he will call him to account for the insults which the arm +of the dead man had failed to avenge. He afterward does this, killing +the count--not in the action of the play; this is only told. John +Strebelow thus becomes the hero of the play, and it is only necessary to +follow the workings of Lilian's heart and his a little further, until +they come together at last, loving each other truly, the early love of +the wife for another man being only a sad memory in her mind. There is a +tender scene of explanation and a parting, until Lilian's heart shall +recall her husband. This scene, in my opinion, is one of the most +beautiful scenes ever written for the stage. At the risk of breaking the +tenth commandment myself, I do not hesitate to say, I wish I had +written it. As I did not, however, I can express the hope that the name +of Mr. A. R. Cazauran, who did write it, will never be forgotten in +connection with this play as long as the play itself may be remembered. +I wrote the scene myself first; but when he wrote it according to his +own ideas, it was so much more beautiful than my own that I would have +broken a law of dramatic art if I had not accepted it. I should not have +been giving the public the best play I could, under the circumstances. +Imbued, as my own mind was, with all the original motives of the piece, +it would have been impossible for me to have made changes within a few +weeks without the assistance Mr. Cazauran could give me; this assistance +was invaluable to me in all parts of the revised piece. In the fifth act +the husband and wife come together again, the little child acting as the +immediate cause of their reconciliation; the real cause lies in their +own true hearts. + +Before we leave the subject, another change which I was obliged to make +will interest you, because it shows very curiously what queer turns +these laws of dramatic construction may take. As soon as it was decided +to have Lilian live, in the fifth act, and love John Strebelow, I was +compelled to cut out the quarrel-scene between Lilian and Harold +Routledge in the first act. This is a little practical matter, very much +like taking out a certain wheel at one end of a machine because you have +decided to get a different mechanical result at the other end. I was +very fond of this quarrel-scene, but I lost no time in trying to save +it, for I saw at once that Harold Routledge must not appear in the first +act at all. He could only be talked about as Lilian's lover. John +Strebelow must be present alone in the eyes and sympathy of the +audience. If Routledge did not appear until the second act, the audience +would regard him as an interloper; it would rather resent his presence +than otherwise, and would be easily reconciled to his death in the next +act. It was taking an unfair advantage of a young lover; but there was +no help for it. Even if Harold had appeared in the first act, the +quarrel-scene would have been impossible. He might have made love to +Lilian, perhaps, or even kissed her, and the audience would have +forgiven me reluctantly for having her love another man afterward. But +if the two young people had a lover's quarrel in the presence of the +audience, no power on earth could have convinced any man or woman in the +house that they were not intended for each other by the eternal decrees +of divine Providence. + +I have now given you the revised story of this play as it was produced +at the Union Square Theater in New York, under the name of the 'Banker's +Daughter.' I have said nothing about the comic scenes or characters, +because the various changes did not affect them in any way that concerns +the principles of dramatic art. They are almost identically the same in +both versions. Now, if you please, we will cross the ocean. I have had +many long discussions with English managers on the practice in London of +adapting foreign plays, not merely to the English stage, but to English +life, with English characters. The Frenchmen of a French play become, as +a rule, Englishmen; so do Italians and Spaniards and Swedes. They +usually, however, continue to express foreign ideas and to act like +foreigners. In speaking of such a transplanted character, I may be +permitted to trifle with a sacred text: + + The manager has said it, + But it's hardly to his credit, + That he is an Englishman! + For he ought to have been a Roosian, + A French, or Turk, or Proosian, + Or perhaps I-tali-an! + But in spite of Art's temptations, + To belong to other nations, + He becomes an Englishman! + +Luckily, the American characters of the 'Banker's Daughter', with one +exception, could be twisted into very fair Englishmen, with only a faint +suspicion of our Yankee accent. Mr. James Alberry, one of the most +brilliant men in England, author of the 'Two Roses,' was engaged to make +them as nearly English as he could. The friendship, cemented as Alberry +and I were discussing for some weeks the international social questions +involved, is among the dearest and tenderest friendships I have ever +made; and I learned more about the various minor differences of social +life in England and American while we were thus at work together than I +could have learned in a residence there of five years. I have time to +give you only a few of the points. Take the engagement of Lilian, broken +in act first. An engagement in England is necessarily a family matter, +and it could neither be made or broken by the mere fiat of a young girl, +without consultation with others, leaving the way open for the immediate +acceptance of another man's hand. In the English version, therefore, +there is no engagement with Harold Routledge. It is only an +understanding between them that they love each other. Not even the most +rigid customs of Europe can prevent such an understanding between two +young people, if they can once look into each other's eyes. They could +fall in love through a pair of telescopes. Then the duel--it is next to +impossible to persuade an English audience that a duel is justifiable or +natural with an Englishman as one of the principles. So we played a +rather sharp artistic trick on our English audience. In the American +version, I assume that, if a plucky young American in France insults a +Frenchman purposely, he will abide by the local customs, and give him +satisfaction, if called upon to do so. So would a young Englishman, +between you and me; but the laws of dramatic construction deal with the +sympathies of the audience as well as with the natural motives and +actions of the characters in a play; and an English audience would think +the French count ought to be perfectly satisfied if Routledge knocked +him down. How did we get over the difficulty? First, we made Routledge a +British officer returning from India, instead of an artist on his way +from Rome--a fighting man by profession; and then we made the Count de +Carojac pile so many sneers and insults on this British officer, and on +the whole British nation, that I verily believe a London audience would +have mobbed him if he hadn't tried to kill him. The English public +walked straight into the trap, although they abhor nothing on earth more +than the duelling system. I said that the comic characters were not +affected by the changes made in America; the change of nationality did +affect them to a certain extent. A young girl, Florence St. Vincent, +afterward Mrs. Browne, represents, here, with dramatic exaggeration, of +course, a type of young girl more or less familiar to all of us. In +England she is not a type, but an eccentric personality, with which the +audience must be made acquainted by easy stages. It was necessary, +therefore, to introduce a number of preliminary speeches for her, before +she came to the lines of the original version. After that, she ran on +without any further change, except a few excisions. Mrs. Browne is +married to a very old man, who afterward dies, and in the last act she +illustrates the various grades of affliction endured by every young +widow, from the darkness of despair to the becoming twilight of +sentimental sadness. This was delicate ground in England. They have not +that utter horror of marriage between a very old man and a very young +woman which, in this country, justifies all the satire which a dramatist +can heap upon the man who commits this crime, even after he is in the +grave. And the English people do not share with us--I say it to their +credit--our universal irreverence for what is solemn and sacred. One +must not, either in social life or on the stage, speak too lightly there +of any serious subject; of course, they can laugh, however, at an old +man that makes a fool of himself. So we merely toned down the levity by +leaving old Mr. Browne out of the cast entirely. There is a great +difference, as in the case of Routledge left out of the first act, +between what the audience sees and what it only hears talked about; and +none of the laws of dramatic construction are more important than those +which concern the questions whether you shall appeal to the ear of an +audience, to its eye, or both. Old Mr. Browne was only talked about +then, and as long as the English audience did not know him personally, +it was perfectly willing to laugh at him after Mrs. Browne was a widow. +Another change made for the London version will interest American +business men. In our own version, Lilian's father and his partner close +up their affairs in the last act and retire from their business as +private bankers. "That will never do in England," said Mr. Alberry. "An +old established business like that might be worth L100,000. We must sell +it to some one, not close it." So we sold it to Mr. George Washington +Phipps. This last character illustrates, again, the stubbornness of +dramatic law. Mr. Alberry and I tried to make him an Irishman, or a +Scotchman, or some kind of an Englishman. But we could not. He remains +an American in England in 1886, as he was in Chicago in 1873. He +declined to change either his citizenship or his name; "G. +Washington--Father of his Country--Phipps." + +The peculiar history of the play is my only justification for giving you +all these details of its otherwise unimportant career. I only trust that +I have shown you how very practical the laws of dramatic construction +are in the way they influence a dramatist. The art of obeying them is +merely the art of using your common sense in the study of your own and +other people's emotions. All I now add is, if you want to write a play, +be honest and sincere in using your common sense. A prominent lawyer +once assured me that there was only one man he trembled before in the +presence of a jury--not the learned man, nor the eloquent man; it was +the sincere man. The public will be your jury. That public often +condescends to be trifled with by mere tricksters, but, believe me, it +is only a condescension and very contemptuous. In the long run, the +public will judge you, and respect you, according to your artistic +sincerity. + + + + +NOTES + + +This lecture was originally delivered in March, 1886, in the Sanders +Theater, before the Shakspere Society of Harvard University; and it was +repeated before the Nineteenth Century Club in New York in December, +1889. On the latter occasion two other dramatic authors were requested +to debate the points made by the speaker; and as a result he added a few +supplementary remarks: + + The Nineteenth Century Club looks for a discussion, I believe, on + the subject brought forward in the paper of this evening. If the + word "discussion" implies "argument," I fear there is nothing in + the mere struggles of a dramatist in his workshop to justify that + difference of opinion which is necessary to an argument. My + American colleague, Mr. Brander Matthews, must feel like a man + whose wife persists from day to day in saying nothing that he can + object to, thereby making his home a desert and driving him to the + club. As for the great Irish dramatist, this paper leaves him still + wishing that some one would tread on the tail of his coat. But, + with all true Irishmen, the second party in a quarrel is merely a + convenience, not a necessity. Whenever Mr. Boucicault feels that a + public discussion is desirable for any reason, he can always tread + on the tail of his own coat, and make quite as good a fight of it + all by himself as if some one was assisting him. + +And he ended with this reference to the constructive skill of Ibsen: + + Another thing strikes me in connection with this subject: the + praise of Ibsen, the Scandinavian dramatist, is abroad in England; + and again, as so often before, mine eyes have seen the glory of the + coming of the Lord in the direction of Boston. But some of the + loudest worshippers of this truly great man in both countries + either wilfully ignore, or else they know nothing about, his real + greatness. + + Ibsen holds in his hand the terrible power, in dealing with the + evils of society, which dramatic construction gives to a genius + like his; he has not laid this power aside and reduced his own + stage to a mere lecture platform. A man armed with a sword who + should lay it down in the heat of battle and take up a wisp of + straw to fight with, would be a fool. Ibsen, like his great + predecessors and contemporaries in France, deals his vigorous blows + at social wrongs thru dramatic effects and the true dramatic + relations of his characters. I know of no writer for the stage, + past or present, who depends for his moral power more continuously + at all points on the art of dramatic construction than Ibsen does. + He, himself, would be the first to smile at those who praise him as + if he were a writer of moral dialogs or the self-appointed lecturer + for one of those psychological panoramas which are unrolled in + acts, at a theater, or in monthly parts in a periodical. + + In conclusion: to all who argue that careful construction is + unnecessary in literary art, I will say only this: it is extremely + easy not to construct. + +It may be noted also that Bronson Howard returned to the topic of his +lecture in a contribution to the _Dramatic Mirror_ in 1900; he called +this + + _A MERE SUGGESTION_. + + So much is written in critical notices of plays, about their + "construction," that I should like to suggest a few of the + considerations which that term involves. It is possible that some + of the beginners, who are to become the future dramatists of + America, will see the necessity of thinking twice before using the + term at all. Some of the more general considerations to be kept in + view, when a careful and properly educated critic feels justified + in using the word "construction," may be jotted down as follows: + + I. The actual strength of the main incident of a play. + + II. Relative strength of the main incident, in reference to the + importance of the subject; and also to the length of the play. + + III. Adequacy of the story in relation to the importance and + dignity of the main incident and of the subject. + + IV. Adequacy of the original motives on which the rest of the play + depends. + + V. Logical sequence of events by which the main incident is + reached. + + VI. Logical results of the story after the main incident is passed. + + VII. The choice of the characters by which the sequence of events + is developed. + + VIII. Logical, otherwise natural, use of motives in these + particular characters, in leading from one incident to another. + + IX. The use of such human emotions and passions as are universally + recognized as true, without those special explanations which + belong to general fiction and not to the stage. + + X. The relation of the story and incidents to the sympathies of the + audience as a collection of human beings. + + XI. The relation of the story and incidents to the sympathies of + the particular audience for which the play is written; to its + knowledge and ignorance; its views of life; its social customs; and + to its political institutions, so far as they may modify its social + views, as in the case of a democracy or an aristocracy. + + Minor matters--such as the use of comic relief, the relation of + dialog to action, the proper use of superfluous characters to + prevent an appearance of artificiality in the treatment, and a + thousand other details belonging to the constructive side of a + play--must also be within the critic's view; but a list of them + here would be too long for the space available. When the young + critic has made a careful study of the standard English drama, with + a special view to the proper considerations above indicated, his + opinion on the "construction" of a play will be of more or less + value to American dramatic literature. + +There is, of course, no overt novelty in the theory advanced by Bronson +Howard in his address. The same theory was held by Francisque Sarcey, +who declared that all the principles of playmaking might be deduced from +the fact that a piece is always intended for performance before an +audience. And Marmontel, dramatist as well as dramatic theorist, +asserted that the first rule the play-wright must obey is "to move the +spectators, and the second is to move them only in so far as they are +willing to be moved.... This depends on the disposition and the manners +of the people to whom appeal is made and on the degree of sensibility +they bring to the theater.... This is therefore a point in which tragedy +is not invariable." + +The same principle underlies George Meredith's statement in regard to +Comedy: "There are plain reasons why the comic poet is not a frequent +apparition; and why the great comic poet remains without a fellow. A +society of cultivated men and women is required wherein ideas are +current and the perception quick, that he may be supplied with matter +and an audience." + + B. M. + +OF THIS BOOK THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE COPIES WERE PRINTED FROM +TYPE BY CORLIES, MACY AND COMPANY IN NOVEMBER: MCMXIV + + + + +PUBLICATIONS + +_of the_ + +Dramatic Museum +of Columbia University + +IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK + +_First Series_ + +Papers on Playmaking: + + I THE NEW ART OF WRITING PLAYS. By Lope de Vega. Translated by + William T. Brewster. With an Introduction and Notes by Brander + Matthews. + + II THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY. By Bronson Howard. With an + Introduction by Augustus Thomas. + + III THE LAW OF THE DRAMA. By Ferdinand Brunetiere. Translated by + Philip M. Hayden. With an Introduction by Henry Arthur Jones. + + IV ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AS A DRAMATIST. By Arthur Wing Pinero. + With an Introduction and Bibliographical Appendix by Clayton + Hamilton. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Autobiography of a Play, by Bronson Howard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLAY *** + +***** This file should be named 18769.txt or 18769.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/7/6/18769/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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