New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-26
Reader Wants to Tell All
About Conflict" in
Drama.
SUBTLE FACTORS IN
SUCCESS OF PLAYS
Contrast Suggested as
Possible Substitute
for Clash.
BY HAYWOOD BROUN.

Back in the dear. dead days of Eng
lish ~. when we used TO speak patron
izingly about Henry Arthur Jones and
turn up our noses at the dramatic
technique of George Bernard Shaw,
there was great deal of talk about
conflict" We agreed that if there
was no conflict there was no drama.
The word doesn't get about much
along our street The Broadway folk
talk in terms of punch" and Surprise
and what the hotel ticket agencies are
going to do.
And so it brings back old times to
receive letter from a reader who. in
commenting on our review Of "The
Happy Ending" writes;
when we say play is undramatic
we mean that it has no conflict The
last act is dramatic because It has a
confict-one individual trying TO make
another do something against his will.
Plays without conflict are sure failures
unless they have some definite feature
TO make up for the lack Of a conflict.
II is possible TO tell from the scenario
whether there is conflict or not. Last
season there were thirteen plays which
failed because they had no conflict and
no other feature 20 make up for the
lack. How many will there be this
season? It's the same thing every sea-
son. And still managers say you can
never tell whether play viii fail or
not"
The managers are quite right. You
can't tell There are things never
dreamed of in any dramatic course, on
which the success or failure of a play
may hang. Often il isn't technique
which counts so much as the rent Of
the theatre, the condition of the paving
in the street which runs by that theatre.
the temperature, the salary of the lead
ing lady and the nerve of the man who
is backing the show.
Our reader is insistent upon his con-
hict. He will have no other word. We
wrote concerning "The Happy End
ing: Though he takes his play TO
heaven or hell, an author cannot shake
from him the necessity of telling a
story for the stage in terms OF drama.
He must have a story with beginning,
an end and a middle. The thing must
grow and move and get some place
as we watch It."
Our correspondent has ringed STORY
and jotted down in the margin, How
about having a conflict" We think
that poignant drama can be devised
without a clash of wills We have
specifically in mind Maeterlinck's IN
terror" which was played at the Band
box Theatre last season. The drama Of
this one-act play came not from con-
fict. but from contrast. Il told the
story of a young girl who had been
drowned. 1t was played in two planes,
Framed in great window was the
family of the dead child. They were
waiting for her to return. Outside the
window, in darkness, stood a group Of
three persons, who discussed what had
happened and commented on the move
ment of the figures within the frame
who did not speak.
BY and by the audience learned that
the body Of the girl was being brought
10 the house. Finally, as the crowd
drew nearer, one Of the figures from
the darkness knocked on the door of
the room. At the moment he was ad-
mitted the curtain came down.
The play was effective. Its appeal TO
the mind lay in the ever present con-
trast Of the persons in the light, who
moved about and made no sound, and