To summarize: accurately conveyed emotion is the great fundamental in all good drama. It is conveyed by action, characterization, and dialogue. It must be conveyed in a space of time, usually not exceeding two hours and a half, and under the existing physical conditions of the stage, or with such changes as the dramatist may bring about in them. It must be conveyed, not directly through the author, but indirectly through the actors. In order that the dramatic may become theatric in the right sense of the word, the dramatic must be made to meet all these conditions successfully. These conditions affect action, characterization, and dialogue. A dramatist must study the ways in which the dramatic has been and may be made theatric: that is what technique means.
[1] _Early Plays_, pp. 5-6. Riverside Literature Series. C. G. Child. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
[2] _The Ancient Classical Drama_, pp. 3-4. R. G. Moulton. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
[3] Quoted in _The Development of the Drama_, pp. 10-11. Copyright, 1903, by Brander Matthews. Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York.
[4] For these two plays see _Early Plays_. Riverside Literature Series. C. G. Child. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
[7] _Becket: A Tragedy._ Lord Tennyson. Arranged for the stage by Henry Irving. Macmillan & Co., London and New York.
[8] _Macaire._ By R. L. Stevenson and W. E. Henley. Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York. Copyright, 1895, by Stone & Kimball, Chicago.
[10] _Théâtre Complet_, vol. v. Dumas fils. Calmann Lévy, Paris.
[11] Marlowe's _Faustus_, Act v. Mermaid Series or Everyman's Library.
[12] _The Romancers._ Translated by Mary Hendee. Doubleday & McClure Co., New York.
[13] _The Blind._ Translated by Richard Hovey. Copyright, 1894 and 1896, by Stone & Kimball, Chicago.
[14] _Études Critiques_ vol. VII, p. 207.
[15] _Play-Making_, p. 48. William Archer. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.
A play may start from almost anything: a detached thought that flashes through the mind; a theory of conduct or of art which one firmly believes or wishes only to examine; a bit of dialogue overheard or imagined; a setting, real or imagined, which creates emotion in the observer; a perfectly detached scene, the antecedents and consequences of which are as yet unknown; a figure glimpsed in a crowd which for some reason arrests the attention of the dramatist, or a figure closely studied; a contrast or similarity between two people or conditions of life; a mere incident--noted in a newspaper or book, heard in idle talk, or observed; or a story, told only in the barest outlines or with the utmost detail. "How do the ideas underlying plays come into being? Under the most varying conditions. Most often you cannot tell exactly how. At the outset you waste much time hunting for a subject, then suddenly one day, when you are in your study or even in the street, you bring up with a start, for you have found something. The piece is in sight. At first there is only an impression, an image of the brain that wholly defies words. If you were to write out exactly what you feel at the moment--provided that were at all possible--it would be exceedingly difficult to indicate its attractiveness. The situation is similar to that when you dream that you have discovered an idea of profound significance; on awaking you write it down; and on rereading perceive that it is commonplace or stale. Then you follow up the idea; it tries to escape, and when captured at last, still resists, ceaselessly changing form. You wish to write a comedy; the idea cries, 'Make a tragedy of me, or a story-play.' At last, after a struggle you master the idea."[1]