[3] In the mind
of the playwright figs grow from thistles, and a silk purse--perhaps a
Fortunatus' purse--may often be made from a sow's ear. The whole
delicate texture of Ibsen's _Doll's House_ was woven from a commonplace
story of a woman who forged a cheque in order to redecorate her
drawing-room. Stevenson's romance of _Prince Otto_ (to take an example
from fiction) grew out of a tragedy on the subject of Semiramis!
One thing, however, we may say with tolerable confidence: whatever may
be the germ of a play--whether it be an anecdote, a situation, or what
not--the play will be of small account as a work of art unless
character, at a very early point, enters into and conditions its
development. The story which is independent of character--which can be
carried through by a given number of ready-made puppets--is essentially
a trivial thing. Unless, at an early stage of the organizing process,
character begins to take the upper hand--unless the playwright finds
himself thinking, "Oh, yes, George is just the man to do this," or,
"That is quite foreign to Jane's temperament"--he may be pretty sure
that it is a piece of mechanism he is putting together, not a drama with
flesh and blood in it.
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