1.2 To choose a theme
The word “theme” refers to the subject of a play, or to the story. For example, the theme of “Romeo and Juliet” is youthful love crossed by ancestral hate; the theme of “Othello” is jealousy; the theme of “Le Tartufe” is hypocrisy; the theme of “Caste” is fond hearts and coronets and the theme of “Getting Married” is getting married.
In some plays it is evident that there was no theme that could be expressed in abstract terms, present in the author’s mind, but through a process of abstraction we can formulate a theme for plays like “As You Like It”, “The Way of the World” or for “Hedda Gabler”.
Should the dramatist first think of a theme and then build a story around it? This is a possible, but not a promising, method, since a story created to fit or illustrate a moral concept is always apt to advertise its origin, to the detriment of its illusive quality. It can work, if that intent is stated frankly – even in the title, and if it’s witty and charming, and does not pretend to be what it’s not. Examples are the French ”Proverbe” and “A Pair of Spectacles”, by Mr. Sydney Grundy. In this bright little English comedy every incident and situation bears upon the general theme, and is pleasing, not by its probability, but by being ingeniously appropriate.
A theme of temporary interest will often have a great but no less temporary success, also if it is not universal enough, as in “An Englishman’s Home”, by Major du Maurier. Though there was a good deal of clever character drawing, the theme was so evidently the source and inspiration of the play that in America, where the theme was of no interest, the play failed.
Excellent plays in which the theme, in all probability, preceded both the story and the characters in the author’s mind, are most of M. Brieux’s as well as Mr. Galsworthy’s “Strife” and “Justice”.
The theme may sometimes be an environment, a social phenomenon of one sort or another and not an idea, an abstraction or a principle. The author’s primary object in such a case is to transfer to the stage an animated picture of some broad aspect or phase of life, without concentrating the interest on any one figure or group or to portray any individual character or tell any definite story. Such tableau-plays are Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair”, Schiller’s “Wallensteins Lager”. More recent plays like Hauptmann’s “Die Weber” and Gorky’s “Nachtasyl” are perhaps the best examples of the type. It needs an exceptional amount of knowledge and dramaturgic skill to handle them successfully. It is far easier to tell a story on the stage than to paint a picture, and few playwrights can resist the temptation to foist a story upon their picture, thus marring it by an inharmonious intrusion of melodrama or farce. James A. Herne inserted into a charming idyllic
picture of rural life, by the name of “Shore Acres”, a melodramatic scene in a lighthouse, which was hopelessly out of key with the rest of the play. This was done in the belief that no play can exist, or can attract playgoers, without a definite and more or less exciting plot. It seems to be better to give a tableau play just so much of story as may naturally and inevitably fall within its limits.