3.2 Preparation: The finger-post
Constructing a play is an art - in giving the mind of an audience something to look forward to through creating a captivating line of tension, and then not disappointing the audience by letting them feel they have stretched forward in vain. “How” may be more important than the “what.” Dumas remarked: “The art of the theatre is the art of preparations.” It is helping the audience to sense where the play is going and encouraging them to wonder how it’s going to get to the solution. There should be a finger-post (road sign) to direct the anticipation to the road it should go and the dramatist should place these “road signs” there. Forward momentum is important, as too much retrospect can be irritating and counteract the momentum of the play. Finger-posts that point backwards aren’t too useful. Over-preparation, or too obtrusive preparation leading only to a small effect is the characteristic error of the so-called “well-made play,” with too elaborate and ingenious intrigue, which may lead to it’s demise since few playwrights manage to be intricate, consistent, and clear at the same time. Misdirected ingenuity and too involved patterns confuse and fatigue the mind’s eye and may cause the audience to feel sceptic, like in “The Degenerates” by Sydney Grundy.
When a situation is at once highly improbable in real life and exceedingly familiar on the stage, we cannot help mentally caricaturing it as it proceeds, and then the play loses the credence on which interest and emotion depend. In “Mrs. Dane’s Defence”, by Henry Arthur Jones, the first three acts of this play show dexterous preparation and development by which interest in the sequence of events is aroused, sustained, and skillfully worked up to a high tension. The action moves forwards with momentum, and the finger-posts are placed just where they are wanted. Good balance and proportion between preparation and result may be vital. The audience may enjoy & look forward to an event that has been “prepared” in the sense that it has been presented as desirable, and the spectators have wondered how it was going to happen. But an occurrence which could be foreseen and is too predictable often get resented in advance.