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Page 1
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.
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