to turn the entire hall into a seventeenth-century room. Canvases, brilliantly painted to represent tapestries, were hung around the walls. A huge chandelier of silver ribbons hung over the small platform in the center of the hall. The platform was small, about six feet square and eighteen inches high, with a single step all around it, so that it could be easily mounted from any side. The only furniture on the platform was a small

FIG. 13. "THE DOCTOR BY COMPULSION"-CENTRAL STAGING.

square box, covered with the same colored canvas as the platform itself. The audience sat at tables, placed in rows around the playing space, and refreshments were served during the two intermissions in the performance. The action in "The Doctor by Compulsion" takes place in several different places: a hut, a place in the forest, a boudoir, a saloon. No attempt was made to change the scene in any way. The play was written, as a matter of fact, to be played without

any scenery in the modern sense; the place of the action is very unimportant, and the audience learns from the lines of the play where that place is, in practically every instance. After the audience had been quieted by the ringing of chimes, the turning out of the lights in the hall, and the lighting up of the central space by a number of concealed spotlights, the play opened with the entrance of Sganarelle, a woodcutter, and his wife Martine, from the audience at one end of the hall. They are quarreling loudly. Still quarreling, they advance into the center and upon the platform, where Sganarelle seizes a slapstick and beats his wife. From the other end of the hall a neighbor, M. Robert, rushes in and attempts to separate them. Both turn upon him fiercely, and he is driven out in discomfort. Sganarelle then attempts to pacify his wife, who pretends to be reconciled to him. Promising to cut a large supply of wood he goes out as he entered, through the audience. Two gentlemen are heard talking, and they move slowly into the lighted space discussing the trouble they are having in finding the famous physician for whom their master has sent them. Martine has been sitting on the platform meditating revenge. The gentlemen finally see her, and approach. Seeing her opportunity, she tells them that Sganarelle is a marvelous physician, but that he is queer and doesn't like to admit his skill. The gentlemen can make him admit that he is a physician by beating him. Sganarelle is heard singing and he staggers in with his bottle. Martine runs out in the opposite direction, and the two gentlemen wait for Sganarelle and try to persuade him that he is a noted

physician. And so the play proceeds. Again, the play lends itself very well to the idea of central staging.

The Technique

The technique of successful central staging is somewhat different from that of playing against a wall with the audience entirely on one side. The play must be rehearsed so that the action turns first in one direction, and then in another. The movement must be worked out with unusual care, so that the backs of all the actors are never at any one time turned in the same Three Characters

Two Characters

FIG. 14.-DIAGRAM OF CORRECT FACING IN CENTRAL STAGING.

direction. The rule should be that every spectator should be enabled to see the face of at least one actor at any time. Thus, if three persons are talking, they should stand in a triangle, each with his face to the center. Two persons must face in opposite directions, and never be left standing side by side, and facing the same wall. If the director, in directing a play for central staging, constantly changes his position, he will have little difficulty in working out tableaux that will be interesting from all angles. In central staging, as there is little scenery, a play that allows brilliant and

interesting costuming is better than one for which costumes are dull. The costumes may be made to give the tone to the play. Make-up must be unusually correct and careful, owing to the fact that the actors come so near to the spectators. A good lighting system, that allows the lighting of the central playing space to be varied, aids greatly, too. And if large groups are used, they must be kept out of the central space as far as possible, or they obscure the action of the important characters. If, for example, a troupe of soldiers were to be introduced in some play centrally staged, it would be wise to keep them back against the setting at the end of an aisle, while their officer, or one or two men only, advanced into the center to arrest an important character.

Groups desiring a novel form of play production, with great possibilities and opportunities for experimentation, can do no better than to try central staging.

CHAPTER VIII

THE THEORY OF STAGE DESIGN

Modern Conception of a Play

The modern conception of a play is that it is the sum total of a number of impressions made on the spectators. A play is not merely an intellectual conception of an incident gathered from the movements and the words of the actors. It is not a series of pleasing, or of moving, sounds, made upon the ears. It is not a sense of form and color to the eyes. But a play is an emotional reaction to all of these things, and to other things that are too subtle to be analyzed out of the total situation. Play production, therefore, is an attempt to translate a conception, an artistic vision, into a medium that will affect another person, the spectator, in the same way that the artist has been affected. This is the only conception that makes dramatic art a true art.

New Conception of Setting Plays

The element most changed by this new conception is stage design. There is a new attitude towards scenery, costume, and lighting. The time was, not so long ago, that the dramatic producer sent to the storehouse for a "parlor," or a "kitchen," or a "wood set," or for whatever else was demanded by the author in the play. The costumes, if nothing that seemed suitable