50. Costume Designs for "The Romancers" . facing 164

55. Method of Making Upper Garment

56. Basic Wrinkles for Old Age.

57. Noise Devices

58. Footlights

59. Border Lights

220

221

225

228

62. Common Lighting Devices Arranged on a Stage 63. Method of Lighting a Cyclorama or Back Drop 64. Homemade Light Units

THE BOOK OF

PLAY PRODUCTION

CHAPTER I

POINT OF VIEW

The Modern Conception of a Play

A play is a story designed to be presented by characters in dialogue and action. The lines to be spoken and the stage directions to be carried out, as written down in a manuscript or printed in a book, are not in the truest sense a play at all. They are the directions from which a play can be made. They become a play by being played, in the same way that a song comes into existence only as the printed words and notes are sung. It is an ancient maxim that "No play is a play until it is acted."

But, according to the modern conception, acting alone does not produce a play; for a play is not merely an intellectual conception of an incident gathered from the movements and the words of the actors. It is a far bigger thing. It is an impression made on the spectators by ideas, sounds, colors, movements, lines, and all the other elements that move one in the theater. It is an emotional reaction to these elements, and to many

others that are too subtie to be analyzed out of the total situation. In brief, a "play" is an effect made upon an audience.

Definition of Play Production

Play production, then, is the process of building up this effect. It is an attempt to translate the artistic vision of the author into a medium that will affect the spectator in the same way that the author has been affected. Play production is the union of two elements: the first is the author's idea, and the second is the interpretation of that idea by actors, costumes, scenery, lights, and many other details. It is impossible, and entirely unnecessary, to decide which of the two elements is the more important. They cannot be separated, for they have no real existence apart from one another. An unusually proficient bit of impersonation, a cleverly designed set of scenery, or an especially skillful use of lights-these things may hide the emptiness and the lack of value in the play itself. On the other hand, a good play may be entirely ruined by a poor performance. A good musical score may be badly played, and a poor score may be well played. But good music and good plays are created only by the combination of skillful writing and proficient performance.

It is the purpose of the following pages to seek out the principles and to analyze the processes that tend to make a proficient performance. "When we take up the study of any art," says Professor Brander Matthews, "we find that there are two ways of approach.

We may trace the growth of the art, or we may inquire into its processes. In the one case we consider its history and in the other we examine its practice. Either of these methods is certain to lead us into pleasant paths of inquiry." It is the second of these paths, the one leading into the realm of practice, that we are to follow. Unity of Play Production as an Art

1

In this inquiry we should be guided by the idea that in so far as the practice of dramatics is an art it must have unity, just as do the arts of painting, or singing, or writing. There cannot be one dramatic art for the amateur and one for the professional practitioner, nor one for the college and one for the kindergarten. Differences must be of degree, and not of kind. The only real division is between good art and bad, between practice that is successful and practice that fails. Hence, the nonprofessional, to whom these pages are addressed, should study dramatic art wherever he finds it practiced, and imitate what is good and avoid what is bad. Professionals, from the nature of the situation, usually develop a much more perfect technique in any art than the amateurs. On the other hand, they often lose the spontaneity that gives value to the work of the nonprofessional. Moreover, in the practice of dramatic art, amateurs often have the advantage of being more independent of financial success; hence, they can be much bolder in experimentations. The aim of amateurs may well be to keep their joyous spirit and

1 Brander Matthews, A Study of the Drama (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1910), p. 4.