How to Write a Play | Page 9

(1834-1899) was a comic dramatist of more
aspiration than inspiration; and yet he succeeded in writing one of the
most popular pieces of his time;--the 'Monde où l'on s'énnuie.'
Victorien Sardou (1831-1908) was probably the French playwright who
was most widely known outside of France. In the course of fifty years
he was successful in almost every kind of playwriting, from lively farce
to historic drama. His first indisputable triumph was with 'Pattes de
Mouche,' known in English as the 'Scrap of Paper' and as widely
popular in our language as in the original.
Émile Zola (1840-1902) was a novelist who repeatedly sought for
success as a dramatist, attaining it only in the adaptations of his stories
made by professional playwrights. Yet one of his earlier pieces,
'Thérèse Raquin' is evidence that he might have mastered the art of the
playwright, if he had not allowed himself to be misled by his own
unfortunate theory of the theatre as set forth in his severe studies of
'Nos Auteurs Dramatiques' (1881).
In the 'Année Psychologique' for 1894 the distinguisht physiological
psychologist, the late Alfred Binet,--to whom we are indebted for the
useful Binet tests--publisht a series of papers dealing with the
psychology of the playwright, in the preparation of which he was aided
by M.J. Passy. The two investigators had a series of interviews with
Sardou, Dumas fils, Pailleron, Meilhac, Daudet, and Edmond de
Goncourt. Altho Daudet and Goncourt had written plays they were
essentially novelists with no instinctive understanding of the drama as a
specific art. Nor did either Pailleron and Meilhac make any
contribution of importance. But Dumas and Sardou were both of them
born playwrights of keen intelligence, having a definite understanding
of the principles of playmaking; and what they said to M. Binet and his
associate was interesting and significant.
Dumas declared that he made no notes for any of his plays and that he
never composed a detailed scenario. He thought of only one piece at a

time, brooding over it for long months sometimes, and then throwing it
on paper almost at white heat, if it dealt with passion. If, on the other
hand, it was a comedy of character, a study of social conditions, the
actual composition was necessarily more leisurely and protracted. He
had carried in mind for six or seven years the theme of 'Monsieur
Alphonse;' and he had actually put it on paper in seventeen days. He
had written the 'Princesse Georges' in three weeks and the 'Etrangère' in
a month; and the second act of the 'Dame aux Camélias' had been
penned in a single session of four hours. But he had toiled seven or
eight hours a day for eleven months over the 'Demi-Monde,' the second
act alone costing him two months labor. He rarely modified what he
had written by minor corrections; but sometimes, when his play was
completed, he discovered that it was weak in its structure or inadequate
in its motivation, in which case he reconstructed one or more acts, or
even the whole play, writing it all over again.
M. Dumas admitted that he took little interest in the setting of his plays
or in the manifold details of stage-management. He indicated
summarily the kind of room that he desired; and he put down in his
manuscript only the absolutely necessary movements of his characters.
The rest he left to the manager and the stage-manager.
Here--as indeed everywhere,--Dumas revealed himself in the sharpest
contrast with Sardou, who designed his sets himself and placed his
furniture precisely where he needed it for the action of his play,
sometimes finding that a given scene seemed to him to lose half its
effect if it was acted on the left side of the stage instead of the right. He
was a constant note-taker, putting down suggestions for single scenes
or for striking suggestions, as these might occur to him; and as a result
of this incessant cerebral activity he had always on hand more or less
complete plots for at least fifty plays. When he decided to write one of
these pieces, he assembled his scattered notes, set them in order,
amplified and strengthened them; and when at last he saw his way clear
he made out an elaborate and detailed scenario, containing the whole
story, with ample indication of all the changes of feeling which might
take place in any of the characters in any scene.

Then when he felt himself in the right mood, he feverishly improvized
the play, laughing over the jokes, weeping over the pathetic moments
and objurgating the evil deeds of the more despicable characters. But
this was only a first draft of the play; and it had to be gone over three or
four times, altered, condensed, sharpened, tightened in effect. The first
version