Read-Aloud Plays

Read-Aloud Plays

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Read-Aloud Plays, by Horace Holley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Read-Aloud Plays
Author: Horace Holley
Release Date: June 4, 2005 [EBook #15983]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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READ-ALOUD PLAYS

BY HORACE HOLLEY DIVINATIONS AND CREATIONS _READ-ALOUD PLAYS_ THE DYNAMICS OF ART BAHAISM THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE THE INNER GARDEN THE STRICKEN KING

READ-ALOUD PLAYS
BY HORACE HOLLEY
NEW YORK MITCHELL KENNERLEY 1916

COPYRIGHT 1916 BY MITCHELL KENNERLEY
DRAMATIC AND LECTURE RIGHTS RESERVED BY HORACE HOLLEY
PRINTED IN AMERICA

CONTENTS
PAGE INTRODUCTION V HER HAPPINESS 1 A MODERN PRODIGAL 7 THE INCOMPATIBLES 29 THE GENIUS 39 SURVIVAL 55 THE TELEGRAM 71 RAIN 79 PICTURES 103 HIS LUCK 121

INTRODUCTION
The first two or three of these "plays" (I retain the word for lack of a better one) began themselves as short stories, but in each case I found that the dramatic element, speech, tended to absorb the impersonal element of comment and description, so that it proved easier to go on by allowing the characters to establish the situation themselves. As I grew conscious of this tendency, I realized that even for the purpose of reading it might be advantageous to render the short story subject dramatically, since this method is, after all, one of extreme realism, which should also result in an increase of interest. As the series developed, however, I perceived that something more than a new short story form was involved; I perceived that the "read-aloud" play has a distinct character and function of its own. In the long run, everything human rises or falls to the level of speech. The culminating point, even of action the most poignant or emotion the most intimate, is where it finds the right word or phrase by which it is translated into the lives of others. Every literary form has always paid, even though usually unconscious, homage to the drama. But the drama as achieved on the stage includes, for various reasons, only a small portion of its own inherent possibility. Exigencies of time and machinery, as well as the strong influence of custom, deny to the stage the value of themes such as the Divine Comedy, on the one hand, and of situations which might be rendered by five or ten minutes' dialogue on the other, each of which extremes may be quite as "dramatic" as the piece ordinarily exploited on the stage. By trying these "read-aloud" plays on different groups, of from two to six persons, I have proved that the homage all literature pays the drama is misplaced if we identify the drama with the stage. A sympathetic voice is all that is required to "get over" any effect possible to speech; and what effect is not? Moreover, by deliberately setting out for a drama independent of the stage, a drama involving only the intimate circle of studio or library, I feel that an entire new range of experiences is opened up to literature itself. Nothing is more thrilling than direct, self-revealing speech; and, once the proper tone has been set, even abstract subjects, as we all know, have the power to absorb. Thus I entertain the hope that others will take up the method of this book, the method of natural, intimate, heart-to-heart dialogue carried on in a suitable setting, and with attendant action as briefly indicated; for the discovery awaits each one that speech, independent of the tradition of the stage, has the power of rendering old themes new and vital, as well as suggesting new themes and situations. Indeed, it is in the confidence that others will follow with "read-aloud" plays far more interesting and valuable than the few offered here that I am writing this introduction, and not merely to call attention to a novelty in my own work.
HORACE HOLLEY. New York City.

HER HAPPINESS
_Darkness. A door opens swiftly. Light from outside shows a woman entering. She is covered by a large cape, but the gleam of hair and brow indicates beauty. She closes the door behind her. Darkness._
THE WOMAN
Paul! Paul! Are you here, Paul?
A VOICE
Yes, Elizabeth, I am here.
THE WOMAN
Oh thank God! You are here! I felt so strange--I thought ... Oh, I cannot tell you what I have been thinking! Turn on the light, Paul.
THE VOICE
You are troubled, dear. Let the darkness stay a moment. It will calm you. Sit down, Elizabeth.
THE WOMAN
Yes.... I am so faint! I had to come, Paul! I had to see you, to know that you were.... I know I promised not to, but