How to Write a Play | Page 6

in no hurry. Your object is not to arrive
anywhere, but to find amusement while on the road. Your true goal is
the trip itself.
A play is a railway journey by an express train--forty miles an hour,
and from time to time ten minutes stop for the intermissions; and if the
locomotive ceases rushing and hissing you hiss.
All this does not mean that there are no dramatic masterpieces which
do not run so fast or that there was not an author of great talent,
Molière, who often brought about his ending by the grace of God. Only,
let me add that to secure absolution for the last act of 'Tartuffe' you
must have written the first four.
Ernest Legouvé.
* * * * *

VIII.
From Édouard Pailleron.

You ask me how a play is made, my dear Dreyfus. I may well astonish
you, perhaps, but on my soul and honor, before God and man, I assure
to you that I know nothing about it, that you know nothing, that nobody
knows anything, and that the author of a play knows less about it than
any one else.
You don't believe me?
Let us see.
Here is a capable gentleman, a man of the theater, a dramatist
acclaimed a score of times, at the height of his powers, in full success.
He has written a comedy. He has bestowed upon it all his care, all his
time, all his ability. He has left nothing to chance.
He has just finisht it, and is content. According to the consecrated
expression, it is "certain to go." But as he is cautious, he does not rely
entirely upon his own opinion. He consults his friends--fellow-workers,
skillful as he, successful as he. He reads to them his piece. I will not
say that they are satisfied--another word is needed--but at any rate, with
more reason than ever, it is "certain to go."
He seeks out a manager, an old stager who has every opportunity for
being clear-headed, because of his experience, and every reason for
being exacting, because of his self-interest. He gives him the
manuscript, and as soon as the manager gets a fair notion of the piece,
this Napoleon of the stage, this strategist of success, is seized by a
profound emotion, but one easy to comprehend in the case of a man
who is convinced that five hundred thousand francs have just been
placed in his hand. He exults, he shouts, he presses the author in his
arms, he rains upon him the most flattering adjectives, beginning with
"sublime" and mounting upward. He calls him the most honied names:
Shakspere, Duvert and Lauzanne, Rossini, Offenbach--according to the
kind of theater he directs. He is not only satisfied, he is delighted, he is
radiant--it is "certain to go."
Wait! That is not all. It is read to the actors--the same enthusiasm! All
are satisfied, if not with the play--they have not heard it yet--at least

with their parts. All are satisfied! It is "certain to go."
Thereupon rehearsals are held for two months before those who have
the freedom of the theater, who sit successively in the depths of the
dark hall and show the same delirium. Even the sixty firemen on duty
who, during these sixty rehearsals, have invariably laught and wept at
the same passages. Yet it is well known that the fireman is the modern
Laforêt of our modern Molières, as M. Prud'homme would say, and that
when the fireman is satisfied--it is "certain to go!"
The dress rehearsal arrives. A triumph! Bravos! Encores! Shouts!
Recalls! All of the signs of success--and note that the public on this
evening of rehearsal with the exception of a small and insignificant
contingent, will be the public of the first performance the next night. It
is "certain to go," I tell you! Certain! Absolutely certain!
On this next night the piece is presented. It falls flat! Well, then?
If the author knows what he is doing, if he is the master of his method,
explain to me then why, after having written twenty good pieces, he
writes a bad one?
And don't tell me that failure proves nothing--you would pain me, my
friend.
I do not intend to deny, you must understand, the value of talent and
skill and experience. They are, philosophically speaking, important
elements. But in what proportions do they contribute to the result?
That's what, let me repeat, nobody knows, the author as little as
anybody else.
The author in travail with a play is an unconscious being, whatever he
may think about himself; and his piece is the product of instinct rather
than of intention.
Believe me, my dear Dreyfus, in this as in everything, the cleverest of
us does what he can, and if he succeeds,