How to Write a Play | Page 8

which I shall doubtless not permit myself until I am very
old.
After all, if I could indulge in the theater. I should try to make plays
much less than is the custom. In literature truth is always in inverse
proportion to the construction. I mean this: The comedies of Molière
are sometimes of a structure hardly adequate, while those of Scribe are
often Parisian articles of marvellous manufacture.
Very cordially yours,
Émile Zola.
* * * * *

NOTES
ABRAHAM DREYFUS (1847-) was the author of half a dozen
ingenious little plays, mostly confined to a single act. One of them, 'Un
Crane sans un Tempête,' adapted into English as the 'Silent System,'
was acted in New York by Coquelin and Agnes Booth. Dreyfus was
also the author of two volumes of lively sketches lightly satirizing
different aspects of the French stage,--'Scènes de la vie de théâtre'
(1880) and 'L'Incendie des Folies-Plastiques' (1886).
In the Spring of 1884 he delivered an address on the art of playmaking
before the Cercle Artistique et Littéraire of Brussels. This lecture was
entitled 'Comment se fait une pièce de théâtre;' and it was printed
privately in an edition limited to fifty copies, (Paris: A. Quantin, 1884).
In the course of this address he read letters received by him from ten or
twelve of the most distinguisht dramatists of France in response to his
request for information as to their methods of composition. It was to
these letters that the lecture owed its interest and its value. What M.
Dreyfus contributed himself was little more than a running commentary
on the correspondence that he had collected. This commentary was
characteristically clever, brisk, bright and amusing; but its interest was
partly personal, partly local, and partly contemporary. The interest of
the letters themselves is permanent; and this is the reason why it has
seemed advisable to select the most significant of them and to present
them here unincumbered by the less useful remarks of the lecturer.
Émile Augier (1820-1889) disputes with Alexandre Dumas the
foremost place among the French dramatists of the second half of the
nineteenth century. The 'Gendre de M. Poirier' (which he wrote in
collaboration with Jules Sandeau) is the masterpiece of modern comedy,
a worthy successor to the 'Tartuffe' of Molière and the 'Marriage of
Figaro' of Beaumarchais.
Théodore de Banville (1823-1891) was a poet rather than a playwright.
Altho he composed half-a-dozen little pieces in verse, the only one of
his dramatic efforts which really succeeded in establishing itself on the
stage, was 'Gringoire,' a one-act comedy in prose; and this met with a
more fortunate fate than its more fantastic companions only because

Banville revised and strengthened his plot in accordance with the
skilful suggestions of Coquelin, who "created" the part of the starving
poet.
Adolphe Dennery (1811-1899) was the most adroit and fertile of
melodramatists in the midyears of the nineteenth century. Perhaps his
best play was 'Don César de Bazan'; and perhaps his most popular play
was the 'Two Orphans.'
Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895) was the son of the author of the
'Three Guardsmen'; and he inherited from his father the native gift of
playmaking, which he declared in this letter to be the indispensable
qualification of the successful dramatist. His 'Dame aux Camélias' has
held the stage for more than sixty years and has been performed
hundreds of times in every modern language.
Edmond Gondinet (1828-1888) was the author of a host of pleasant
pieces, mostly comedies in from one to three acts, and mostly written in
collaboration. He believed that he preferred to write alone and that only
his good nature kept tempting him into working with others. It was
probably to warn away those who wanted to bring him their
manuscripts for expert revision that led him to assert in this letter that
he was "a detestable collaborator."
Ernest Legouvé (1807-1903) was the collaborator of Scribe in the
composition of 'Bataille de Dames' and 'Adrienne Lecouvreur.' In his
delightful recollections, 'Soixante Ans de Souvenirs' he has a chapter
on Scribe in which he describes the methods of that master-craftsman
in dramatic construction; and in one of his 'Conférences Parisiennes' he
sets forth the successive steps by which another dramatist, Bouilly, was
able to compound his pathetic piece, the 'Abbé de l'Epée';--two papers
which deserve careful study by all who wish to apprehend the
principles of playmaking.
Eugène Labiche (1815-1888) was the most prolific of the comic
dramatists of France in the nineteenth century and the most richly
endowed with comic force. Most of his pieces are frankly farcical, but
not a few of them rise to the level of true comedy. The solid merit of

his best work is cordially recognized in the luminous preface written by
Augier for the complete collection of Labiche's comedies.
Édouard Pailleron