Moving Picture World (Aug 1916)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD August 19, 1916 What IS a Play? ® W W :S-SJ » a » a SI ^ Louis Reeves Harrison THERE arc no Other authorities on this subject than the great critical writers, inclusive of successful playwrights themselves, and a study of those authorities is a broadening education, rather than a narrowing one. I Uu if a scenario editor, or whoever is held responsible for play selection, is permitted to exercise untrammeled judgment in providing for screen production, he need not deeply concern himself with what constitutes a play. The trouble is that nearly all scenario editors are hampered by one or another restrictive policy, are not permitted to exercise the good critical judgment for which they are employed. One of the foremost translators of foreign stage plays and critical writers. Barrett H. Clark, says that the play "'may teach, it may demonstrate, it may antagonize," but it must "appeal to our imagination through the senses. 'Edipus the King' has been acted and read for over two thousand years, yet it deals with patricide and incest; 'Macbeth' is brutal and bloody, and yet it is played and read in every part of the world. Both plays please or they would not have survived. They are tragedies : they show great men struggling with forces which are greater than they and which finally dominate them. They appeal to the sympathies, to the imagination, and because of their literary form, to the esthetic sense. "Both, as it happens, have lessons to teach, but that is because life has a lesson to teach ; and a great artist in foreshortening and synthesizing his materials. has brought that lesson of life into sharper relief and made it stand out in clearer terms than it does in the irrelevant and complex thing we call life. It is when the dramatist sees his lesson first and tries to shape a semblance of life to fit it that he fails." That a play must please, that it must appeal to our imagination through the senses, that it must appeal to our sympathies, our feelings, our emotions, even that it should stimulate the esthetic sense, is required in advance of the lesson it may contain — such is the view of Mr. Clark. Clayton Hamilton agrees in a way, defining the play as "a struggle between individual human wills, motivated by emotion rather than by intellect," but his definition lacks breadth. It does not comprehend the struggle of human wills against political and social forces. It is very often the author's fault that his story is turned down by one scenario editor after another. He may have a fine conception and clearly see how it could be worked out to interest almost any audience, but he has failed in structure and method to convey his idea to those who are called upon to decide favorably or unfavorably upon his work. That failure would probably be registered on the screen. So, in the bitterness of his heart. unhappy over the apparent uselessness of his hard labor. he becomes discouraged, even disgusted, before he has really tried out his native ability. It is quite among the possibilities that he has had his "lesson" too much in mind, to the detriment of story interest. Then it mav be too overwhelmingly a picture of struggle. Brander Mathews picks a flaw in the Hamilton definition. Admitting that the essence of drama is largely "a representation of the human will exerting itself against an opposing force," he continues : "The playwright has ever been seeking the means of presenting his conflict without admixture of anything else." He may only injure his story by the elimination of character study and all else not essentiallv dramatic. Then, again, the author should realize that there are screen plays which depend largely upon treatment, although they may be among the most popular. Farcecomedy makes no pretense to merits essential in comedy — it may be a mere admixture of melodramatic incident and horse play, a fun maker without semblance of structure, a mere vehicle for some talented comedian. Or it may depend almost wholly upon the spectacular, the story a thin line of interest constantly broken up for the sake of large and impressive ensembles. Some spectacles have been very successful, though there is little doubt that thev would have earned even more with intense story interesl added. Brander Matthews was even wiser than he knew, for he was not thinking of moving pictures when he said, "The dramatist will profit by his ability to reach the soul through the eye as well as through the ear." "In real life the action precedes the word, and it is sometimes so significant that the explanatory phrase which follows is not always' needed." That favorite theatrical attitude assumed in pointing to the door is used in illustration, but Mr. Matthews has unwittingly indicated the greater subtlety of action replacing words in moving pictures. That a playwright is one who can "project the truth he has observed in the form of his art" is the opinion of Thomas H. Dickinson, editor of "Chief Contemporary Dramatists," and his definition is certainly not lacking in breadth. The dramatist "must express in a human medium his observation of human things," according to Mr. Dickinson, "so he must be skilled as FEW ARE in human nature itself. Looking out over society, he finds floating abroad conceptions that are not formulated in text books, or outlined in social codes, but are diffused through society, and these things that he finds in society it is his business to translate into the formulas of his art, that through it there mav be turned to societv a reflection of itself." Mr. Dickinson does not believe that the dramatist should actually reflect society to itself, but interpret it, present its meaning, solve its mysteries in one or another enchanting form suited to the medium through which he seeks expression. His idea, deep as it may seem at a glance, is shared by many strong novelists and dramatists of today who have said their say on this interesting subject, and can it be reasonably denied that a story lacks interest which solves any mystery of our existence? It is almost impossible for any of us to get at the motives and causes behind what is operating for us or against us as individuals, why we are failing to attain our desires, why there is injustice, why there is wrong, even why we occasionally succeed, unless we are saturated with egotism. To reach the sympathies of an audience the dramatist must know something of what members of that audience have already enjoyed, suffered or thought about. It looks very much as though contemporary interest could only be mused by subjects and matter vital to the people. AYhile the arts of expression vary in form and method, there are certain general principles in them all so far as story substance is concerned. The screen story, like that of stage and print, is primarily designed to entertain and is largely social in it- nature. Tt provides mental and emotional stimulus and refreshment of a varied character. and so easilv wearied is an audience of repetition that the story should have behind it a measure of that rare and beautiful quality, creative genius.