The sun., 1919-10-05

our two men have changed places the
sentimental adventurer wants mis- lone.
liness back again; the harassed pater
ramilias his family worriesf
Middleton-Exactly. ~
Bolton-That will work all right In
the case Of pater famillas, but tho
young man will be in love with the.
rich mans daughter.
Middleton-He can be terribly UNI
comfortable and unhappy nevertheless! As
cant he?" 10
Bolton-Yes. for a while, but II be's1o
in love he wouldn't want to quit. HEIDI
want to be near the GIRL however -
badly the family treated him
Middleton - My point is that after
ne mas taken over the family I wantsa
him to have a sense NJ failure o.
Bolton Il see. But he ought to
succeed eventually. He ought to make
the family over. There would be =
nothing dramatic in his returning the
family to the rich man just as he
found it. ~
or.
Question of Priority.
we talked about how this might be- II
accomplished. l forget which of usa,
suggested the fictitious failure. Ats~
any rate It wasn't Miss Hummer. al-,o
though the critics have quite PARDON,
ably thought 1t might have been. The .,
first draft OF adam and Eva" was,1
finished long before "A Successful. -
Calamity" was produced, and we canoe
show a copyright blank to prove II. ~,
AS 1 recollect it, that was about as
FAR as we went that first evening. It.,
doesn't sound like much, perhaps, but-s
don't forget an idea is play. All that
remained was process OF elaboration.
the nature of the love story; the
form of Opposition" that would keep ;,
the course of true love from running
smooth, We talked a good deal about
the characters-speaking of them as =
If they were people we knew Char a.,
acter Is the great thing. The laugh
that comes from character is WORTH
so much more than the mechanical
gag" no matter how funny it may ..
be. 1t is this sort of discussion that =
makes collaboration valuable. We,
very largely learn the characters Of
our own friends by talking about them. q,
and so 1t is with the characters who,-
people play. Give them names-get r..
to believe In them and 1t is surprising
W ilON lIlSS viii HeIp you.
Some sessions we held were produc-.ao
tive, others quite barren 1 remember.
the fine fever that came when we HIT
on the idea of the doctors proposing sq
to Adam that he should take advan--7
tage of the rubber market panic to tell
the family they were penniless. We
knew that the moment when Adam /,
looked up from his figures and replied.g
Strange you should suggest that. doc-7i
tor, because the family really are pen-n!
niless"-we knew that would no a big p
one. And then again when Wen
planned the jewel robbery with Adam
caught by the girl he loves so desper-
ately and his simple explanation that 2
he stole the necklace SO that the
family would have no resources at all ~
and would therefore be obliged too
work out their own salvation Moo
heroics, just plain statement by him ia
and the way the girl takes it, givingll
him back the Jewels and the sense off,
the secret pact drawing them together"S
That, I think was the hest idea in the
whole play. 30
l could go on, step by step. okplain-'1
ing the development OF the story. but -
space will not permit. After all, / onlyil
set out to show how an Idea first
comes and Is moulded into dramatic
form and that l have done.