Chapter XVII: Act III: SCENE 1. The Street

_Enter Lorenzo, in Friar's habit, meeting Dominic_

Here follow some fifteen speeches in which the arrangements are made. Then:

SCENE 2

_Enter Elvira, in her chamber_

_Elvira._ He'll come, that's certain; young appetites are sharp, and
seldom need twice bidding to such a banquet;--well, if I prove
frail,--as I hope I shall not till I have compassed my design,--never
woman had such a husband to provoke her, such a lover to allure her,
or such a confessor to absolve her. Of what am I afraid, then? not my
conscience that's safe enough; my ghostly father has given it a dose
of church opium to lull it; well, for soothing sin, I'll say that for
him, he's a chaplain for any court in Christendom.

_Enter Lorenzo and Dominic_

O father Dominic, what news? How, a companion with you! What game have
you on hand, that you hunt in couples?

_Lorenzo._ (_Lifting up his hood._) I'll show you that immediately.

_Elvira._ O my love!

_Lorenzo._ My life!

_Elvira._ My soul! (_They embrace._)

_Dominic._ I am taken on the sudden with a grievous swimming in my
head and such a mist before my eyes that I can neither hear nor
see.[9]

All the needed exposition given in Scene 1 could, with very little difficulty, be transferred to Scene 2. Were the two men to enter, not to Elvira, but by themselves, they could quickly make their relationship clear. The conduct and speech of Elvira could be made to illustrate what she now states in soliloquy just before the two men enter.

In the original last act[10] of Lillo's _George Barnwell_, the settings are: "A room in a prison," "A dungeon." The whole act could easily have been arranged to take place in some room where prisoners could see friends. Today we should in many cases exchange a number of settings as used in eighteenth century plays for one setting.

Scenes, which in the original story occurred upstairs or downstairs, inside or outside a house, may often be easily interchanged or combined. _The Clod_, by Lewis Beach, a one-act success of the Washington Square Players, in its first draft showed a setting both upstairs and downstairs. This unsightly arrangement was quickly changed so that all the action took place in a lower room. At one time Bulwer-Lytton thought seriously of changing what is now Scene 1, Act I, of his _Richelieu_, an interior, to an exterior scene. To Macready he wrote:

Let me know what you mean about omitting altogether the scene at
Marion de Lorme's.

Do you mean to have no substitute for it?

What think you of merely the outside of the House? Francois, coming
out with the packet and making brief use of Huguet and Mauprat [who
figure in the interior scene]. Remember you wanted to have the packet
absolutely given to Francois.[11]

Greek plays, because of the fixed backing, provide many illustrations of interior scenes brought outdoors:

...The dramatic action was necessarily laid in the open air--usually
before a palace or temple.... In general the dramatists displayed an
amazing fertility of invention in this particular, as a few
illustrations will suffice to show. In the _Alcestis_ Apollo explains
his leaving Ametus' palace on the ground of the pollution which a
corpse would bring upon all within the house (Euripides' _Alcestis_,
22 f.) and Alcestis herself, though in a dying condition, fares forth
to look for the last time upon the sun in heaven (_ibid._ 206).
Oedipus is so concerned in the afflictions of his subjects that he
cannot endure making inquiries through a servant but comes forth to
learn the situation in person (Sophocles' _Oedipus Rex_, 6 f.). Karion
is driven out of doors by the smoke of sacrifice upon the domestic
altar (Aristophanes' _Plutus_, 821 f.). In Plautus' _Mostellaria_ (1,
ff.) one slave is driven out of doors by another as the result of a
quarrel. Agathon cannot compose his odes in the winter time, unless he
bask in the sunlight (Aristophanes' _Thesmophoriazuae_, 67 f.). The
love-lorn Phaedra teases for light and air (Euripides' _Hippolytus_,
181). And Medea's nurse apologizes for her soliloquizing before the
house with the excuse that the sorrows within have stifled her and
caused her to seek relief by proclaiming them to earth and sky
(Euripides' _Medea_, 56 ff.).[12]

When it is not easy to see how a number of settings may be cut down, a dramatist should carefully consider this: May episodes happening to the same person or persons in the same settings, but apparently demanding separate treatment because they occur at widely different times, be brought together? The dramatizer of a novel faces many opportunities for this telescoping of scenes. Any one adapting _A Tale of Two Cities_, if he uses Jerry Cruncher, will probably combine the two scenes in his home. To bring together incidents happening to the same person or persons at the same place, but at different times, is the easiest method of cutting down possible scenes.

It is, of course, possible to bring together circumstances which happened at different places at different times, but to the same persons. A notable instance is Irving's compacting of two scenes in Tennyson's _Becket_: he places at Montmirail what is essential in both Scene 2, Act II, Montmirail. "The Meeting of the Kings," and Scene 3,