Chapter LII: Act I

_Professor Ward, roused at daybreak after a night at his desk, shows
intense disappointment and nervous fatigue._

_In brief scene with Phronie, he shows the essential part she plays in
his life as one on whom he can absolutely depend; but when he
expresses his disapproval of her admirer, Keith Sanford, she shows
clear signs of rebellious spirit._

_In rapid scene with Phronie and Keith, their spirit of youthful
romance is made clear; and Keith indicates his college ambition, his
predicament regarding his "cribbed" thesis, and his new attitude
therein, ending with his evident resolve to make a clean breast of the
matter...._

There follows a scenario which is somewhat clearer than the others because it identifies the figures, but it certainly leaves their relations rather confused.

_An old white-haired man, the Sire de Maletroit, is seated in the
chair to right of fireplace, in a listening attitude. The sound of a
heavy door banging is heard and a minute later a young man, sword in
hand, parts the curtains on left and stands blinking in the opening.
He enters and explains that he has accidentally gained entrance to the
house and is unable to re-open the door. His name is Denis de
Beaulieu. He seems amazed to have the old man say that he has been
waiting for him. Denis suggests that he must be going, at which the
old man bursts into a fit of laughter. Denis is insulted and offers to
hew the Maletroit's door to pieces. He is convinced that this is
folly; the place is full of armed men. The old man rises, goes to door
on right and calls upon his niece to leave her prayers and receive her
lover. She comes in attended by a priest and protests that this is not
the man. The uncle is incredulous and withdraws with a leer_.

Again a good list of _dramatis personae_ would be helpful.

Prefix to this the following:

THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR

_Place: Chateau Landon._
_Time: Fourteenth century._

_Dramatis Personae_

_Blanche, orphan niece of Sire de Maletroit._
_A Priest, chaplain to Sire de Maletroit._
_The Sire de Maletroit._
_Denis de Beaulieu, a stranger._

With this prefixed we can read the scenario just quoted far more comprehendingly.

Note how clearly the following two lists of _dramatis personae_ take us to the scenario proper:

THE LEGACY

_The Persons_

_David Brice, a young attorney._
_Reene Brice, his uncle._
_Benjamin Doyle, his fiancee's father._
_Dr. Wangren, family physician._
_Mrs. Brice, the mother._
_"Ditto" Brice, the sister._
_Katherine Doyle, fiancee._

THE CAPTAIN: A MELODRAMA

_Dramatis Personae_

_Captain La Rue, a little sea captain._

_Bromley Barnes, former special investigator for the U.S. customs
service.
Patrick Clancy, his friend.
A burly Butler.
John Felspar, junior partner of the firm of Felspar & Felspar, wine
merchants.
Two Dinner Guests, members of the firm.
Carl Cozzens, the firm's Canadian representative._

It is easy, however, to let this list of characters go too far descriptively. For instance, this next list tells much which might better appear first in the body of the scenario. The danger here is one already mentioned in this book, namely, that such careful characterizing in the _dramatis personae_ or program is likely to make the characterization of the scenario or play inadequate.[3]

AN ENCORE

_Adapted from the story by Margaret Deland_

IN TWO ACTS

_Time: About 1830 in June.
Place: Little town of Old Chester.
Between the first and second acts three weeks elapse._

_Dramatis Personae_

_Captain Price: Retired sea-captain, big, bluff, and hearty, with
white hair and big white mustachios, rather untidy as to dress. Age,
about 68._

_Cyrus Price: His son, weak and neat-looking, very thin and of sandy
complexion. Age, about 35._

_Mrs. North: Sprightly, pretty, white-haired little lady of about 65.
Always in black silk._

_Miss North: Her daughter, nervous and shy, but truthful with a mania
for taking care of her mother and no knowledge of how to wear her
clothes; about 40._

_Mrs. Gussie Price: A stout, colorless blond, a weeping, vividly
gowned lady, who rules her husband, Cyrus, through her tears. Age,
about 30._

_Flora: A colored maid_.

The danger is shown to the utmost in the following. The characterization in the scenario to which this was prefixed was practically _nil_.

_Forsythe Savile: A young lawyer of about thirty, clever, and rather
versatile. While of great promise in his profession, he is not at all
pedantic, but has many interests. He is well-read, widely travelled,
fond of outdoor sports, and is very popular. Perhaps his most
prominent characteristic is his ready wit. He is rarely non-plussed,
and while quick and pointed in his remarks, is yet not ill-natured
with them. He has been Dennings' most intimate friend ever since they
were in college together, although their lives lie along very
divergent lines._

_Richard Dennings: A globe trotter, as a hunter, explorer, and
war-correspondent. He is clever and able, with a tendency to act on
impulse rather than after deliberation. He is the closest kind of
friend to Forsythe. He has been engaged to Frances Langdon, but the
engagement has been broken off. This last fact is not known to any
save the two themselves._

_Judge Savile: A widower, and Forsythe's father. He has been a very
successful man, and holds a high place in his profession. He is
devoted to books, and cannot understand his son's taste for
out-of-door life, and athletics in general. He philosophically accepts
the inevitable, however, and is very proud of Forsythe. The Judge does
not approve of the engagement of Frances Langdon to Dennings; he
cannot understand Dennings' uncertain methods of life. The Judge while
saying very little of his opinion foresees that matters are very far
from being finally settled, and is quietly awaiting developments._

_Margaret Savile: Forsythe's younger sister, and a feminine edition of
him. She is very pretty, bright, and attractive. She and Forsythe are
most intimate, more so than brother and sister usually are._

_Frances Langdon: An intimate friend of Margaret, and familiarly known
as "Frank." She is essentially feminine, attractive, witty and
talented. She is very nervous and high-strung--a strong character, but
susceptible to her feelings. She has known the Saviles since she was a
child and is considered exactly as a relative. She has broken her
engagement to Richard Dennings._

_A butler: The usual English type_.

That list tells so much about the characters that the scenario proper could do little but repeat. The writer, troubled by his sense of repetition, rested for his characterization on the slight chance that a reader would remember every detail of the _dramatis personae_. All that a reader needs to know at the outset of a scenario is who the characters are, and, in the broadest way, their relations to one another.

A list of _dramatis personae_ should be followed with a statement of the time and place if they are important, and of the settings for all the acts. A detailed description of each new setting should precede its scene or act.[4] In the scenarios already quoted notice how difficult it is to place the characters as far as setting is concerned and how much would be gained if a good description of the setting were added. Keep the description of a setting to essentials, that is, furniture and decorations necessary to give requisite atmosphere or required in the action of the piece. As always in scenarios and acting editions use "left" and "right" as "left" and "right" of the actor, not of the audience.

THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR (_See p. 428_)

SCENE: _A large room in the house of the Sire de Maletroit; large
fireplace at centre back; curtained door on left leads to stairway;
curtained door right leads to chapel. The room is well illuminated by
candles, reflecting the polish of stone walls. It is scantily
furnished._

THE LEGACY (_See p. 464_)

THE SCENE: _The Brice living-room comfortably furnished in walnut. A
piano centre L., a round table, rear R. Four entrances: upper L., rear
centre, upper right, right centre. Curtained windows rear R. & L._

As has already been pointed out earlier in this book, it is wholly unwise to call, in a description of a setting, for details not really necessary. Here is the setting for the _dramatis personae_ quoted on p. 431. It is over-elaborate because the action of the proposed play involves use of hardly any of the properties called for.

SCENE: _Forsythe Savile's "den." It is an odd room, a curious mixture
of library, smoking-room, and museum. On the right is a large
fireplace, over which are hung an elk's head, a couple of rifles,
queer-looking Eastern weapons, and other sporting trophies and
evidences of travel. The room is panelled in dark oak; low bookcases
line the walls, and on top of the cases are small bronzes,
photographs, strange bits of bric-a-brac, and a medley of
things,--such truck as a man with cultivated tastes would insist on
accumulating. There are numerous pictures, a rather heterogeneous lot;
valuable engravings,--portraits of famous lights of the bench and the
bar, to judge by their wigs,--a few oils of the Meissonier type; and
others which are obviously relics of college, with medals slung across
them by brightly coloured ribbons. The furniture of the room is of
heavy oak, upholstered in dull crimson leather. Capacious club
armchairs are in convenient places, near lamps and books. Around the
hearth is a high English fender, and before it is a great Davenport
sofa. On the left, is a broad-topped table-desk, covered with papers
and books, and bearing a squat bronze lamp with a crimson shade. At
one end of the Davenport is a low cabinet, on which are glasses and
decanters. There is a wide doorway at the back of the stage which
gives the only entrance and is hung with heavy crimson portieres. The
centre of the floor is filled by a huge polar bear-skin rug, with
massive head and the odd spaces are covered by smaller fur rugs. The
stage is dark, save for the uncertain, wavering light cast by the wood
fire._

_Time: The present, and about half-past eight on a winter evening._

A sketch of the desired arrangement of the stage should be prefixed to the description of the setting. This may be as simple as comports with clear picturing of the exact conditions required. Such drawings not only help to clearness, they sometimes bring out difficulties in a proposed setting not at once evident in a description. Perhaps the staging called for in what immediately follows may not seem over-elaborate in the reading. A diagram at once shows its awkwardness, expensiveness, and undesirability.

THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR

_The scene represents a mediaeval outer hall of a powerful nobleman of
Paris with the approach thereto, the streets adjacent and several
other buildings thereon, at 11.30 P.M., the streets in semi-darkness.
This hall runs clear down the stage to within the width of a narrow
street of the footlights. This street is supposed to run clear
across the stage. The approach to the hall from without is through two
doors left which open into a gloomy passageway large enough to contain
a dozen soldiers. The door to the left of these two entrances opens
inward from the street running up left at right angles to the street
by the footlights, leaving room enough at the extreme left for several
doorways which should be set into the houses so as to form a place
sufficient to hide a man who was being searched for on the sidewalk.
At the extreme rear of the street going up the stage is stone
pavement. The walls of the palace are of thick stones and the
furnishings of the hall are plain and gloomy consisting of chairs and
a table, a tall clock with a loud tick, curtains at the doors; and
over the fireplace, which is huge, hang a shield and helmet, the
former emblazoned with the device of the family, the latter beplumed,
while under them are two long swords, crossed, with their points
hidden behind the shield, these blades both in their scabbards. The
floors are all of stone._

_At the right of the fireplace are two wide doors which when opened
give a full view of the chapel beyond, with the attar to the rear in
the centre. The chapel need show no more than a private altar, the
accompanying candles, drapery, and steps, lighted with a single
hanging lamp of the period that swings before the first step of the
altar._

_The chairs and table in the hall are of mission style. The doors
opening on the street from all of the establishments are very wide,
embossed in iron bands and supplied with knockers, heavy bolts and
bars on the inside wherever the inside is exposed. There is a large
fire in the fireplace. A lamp of the period is swung with heavy chains
over the table._

The diagram on the next page shows how this would look.

It is in many ways a bad setting. Waiving all question whether any attempt to suggest the fourth wall of a room, as in _The Passing of the Third Floor Back_ by the fireplace at centre front of stage is wise, surely there can be no doubt that to ask an audience to imagine a street between them and the room into which they are looking, particularly when no necessary action takes place in that street, is undesirable. Therefore the suggested "street" across the front of the stage may go. Where is the value of the street at the side? Little, if any, action in it will be seen except by the very small part of the audience directly in line with it. For these the settings below the doors at stage left must be decidedly pushed back or they will lose important action by the fireplace. It is questionable, too, whether the fireplace should not be moved down stage to one side or the other, so important is the facial expression of the Sire de Maletroit as he sits by it. For effective action, it is better, also, to separate fireplace and chapel entrance. It is both easy and for acting purposes better, to stage this proposed play with a setting as simple as this:

Nowadays descriptions of settings are noticeably free from the mystic R.U.E., L. 2 E., D.L.C., etc., which characterized stage directions of the early Victorian period. When wings and flats, as in some wood-scenes today, were used for indoor as well as outdoor scenes--that is, before the coming of the box-set--the stage was divided in this way:

Now that the box-set has replaced the older fashion and new devices are steadily improving on the old wood-wings, it is enough to indicate clearly in the diagram and in the description what doors, windows, fireplaces, and properties are necessary, and exactly where, if their positions are essential in the action. If not, they may be placed to suit the sense of proportion of the designer of the scenery and the sense of fitness of the producer. In any case, rarely today does an author need to use all or many of these stage divisions of an older day. The first of the following diagrams shows how simply an interior set which makes no special demands may be indicated.

THE DANCING GIRL. ACT I[5]

_Diana Valrose's boudoir at Richmond. A very elegantly furnished room,
with light, pretty furniture. Discover Drusilla in handsome morning
dress arranging flowers in large china bowl. Enter footman, announcing
Mr. Christison. Enter John. Exit Footman._

It is often desirable to vary the usual shape given a room on the stage--exactly rectangular or nearly square. The next diagram shows a more complicated setting, of unusual shape.

THE WALLS OF JERICHO. ACT I[6]

_An ante-room in Marquis of Steventon's house during a ball. Miss
Wyatt, a vivacious young American, has cake-walked with Twelvetrees
all the way from the ball-room._

_Music under stage._

Act II of _Young America_ calls for a setting in which the placing of heavy properties is important.

YOUNG AMERICA. ACT II[7]

SCENE. _The Juvenile Court, 10_ A.M._--Two days later._

_Two entrances, R. U. door leading to Judge's chamber. L.2 door
leading to corridor._

_Right--Judge's bench. It extends up and down stage. Below it Clerk's
bench upon which are two card catalogue filing cases for court records
for children. At L. of Judge's bench small docket for prisoner. At L.
of docket, witness stand. It is an 18-inch platform with chair on it.
The docket and witness stand face front._

_Left--three benches for spectators and witnesses. They face front and
are enclosed within a picket railing. Gate with spring lock, near left
end of front railing_.

How the setting for an outdoor scene may be indicated the diagram for