The Autobiography of a Play | Page 2

William H. Crane, in a recent felicitous talk to the Society of
American Dramatists, said that the 'Henrietta' was played exactly as its
author had delivered it to the actors, without the change or the need of
change in a single word, and with only the repetition late in the play of
a line that had been spoken in an early act. That fact does not exclude
the possibility of rewritings before the manuscript came to the company,
but rather, in view of Bronson Howard's thoroness as a workman and
his masterly sense of proportion, makes such rewritings the more
probable. The effect, however, of his rewriting, wherever it may have
been, and the slow additions of his daily contributions, was that of
spontaneity.
Some philosopher tells us that a factor of greatness in any field is the
power to generalize, the ability to discover the principle underlying
apparently discordant facts. Bronson Howard's plays are notable for
their evidence of this power. He saw causes, tendencies, results. His
plays are expositions of this chemistry. 'Shenandoah' dealt broadly with
the forces and feelings behind the Civil War; the 'Henrietta' with the
American passion for speculation--the money-madness that was
dividing families. 'Aristocracy' was a very accurate, altho satirical,
seizure of the disposition, then in its strongest manifestation, of a
newly-rich and Western family of native force to break into the
exclusive social set of New York and to do so thru a preparatory
European alliance.
He has a human story in every instance. There is always dramatic
conflict between interesting characters, of course, but behind them is
always the background of some considerable social tendency--some
comprehensive generalization--that includes and explains them all. The

commander from his eminence saw all the combatants: he knew what
the fight was about, and it always was about something worth while.
Bronson Howard never dramatized piffle.
He was an observer of human nature and events, a traveler, a thinker, a
student of the drama of all ages. He had been a reporter and an editorial
writer. His plays were written by a watchful, sympathetic, and artistic
military general turned philosopher.
AUGUSTUS THOMAS.
(June 1914).

The Autobiography of a Play
As read before the Shakspere Club of Harvard University
I have not come to Newcastle with a load of coals; and I shall not try to
tell the faculty and students of Harvard University anything about the
Greek drama or the classical unities. I will remind you of only one
thing in that direction; and say even this merely because it has a direct
bearing upon some of the practical questions connected with
play-writing which I purpose to discuss. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides--perhaps we should give the entire credit, as some authorities
do, to Aeschylus--taught the future world the art of writing a play. But
they did not create the laws of dramatic construction. Those laws exist
in the passions and sympathies of the human race. They existed
thousands of years before the Father of the Drama was born: waiting,
like the other laws of nature, to be discovered and utilized by man.
A lecturer on "Animal Magnetism" failed to make his appearance one
night, many years ago, in the public hall of a little town in Michigan,
and a gentleman from Detroit consented to fill the vacant place. His
lecture began and ended as follows: "Animal magnetism is a great
subject, and the less said about it the better; we will proceed to
experiments."

I will take that wise man as my own exemplar today, and I will begin
by echoing his words: The drama in general is a great subject, and the
less I say about it the better; we will proceed to experiments.
It happens that one of my own plays has had a very curious history. It
has appeared before the American public in two forms, so radically
different that a description of the changes made, and of the reasons for
making them, will involve the consideration of some very interesting
laws of dramatic construction. I shall ask you to listen very carefully to
the story, or plot, of the piece as it was first produced in Chicago in
1873. Then I shall trace the changes that were made in this story before
the play was produced in New York five years later. And after that, to
follow the very odd adventures of the same play still further, I shall
point out briefly the changes which were made necessary by adapting it
to English life with English characters, for its production at the Court
Theater, London, in 1879. All the changes which I shall describe to you
were forced upon me (as soon as I had decided to make the general
alterations in the play) by the laws of dramatic construction; and it is to