Elder Olson - Teaching Drama

A Letter on Teaching Drama
Author(s): Elder Olson

Source: Chicago Review, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Summer, 1957), pp. 80-91
Published by: Chicago Review
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ELDER OLSON
ON TEACHING DRAMA
A LETTER
Dear Jack:
So you have to teach drama, and want advice. Well: do you

mind if I just jot things down anyhow, as they come into my
head?
First of all, remember what so much of contemporary dra
matic criticism seems to have forgotten: a play is a play. It is not
like other literature, inwhich everything is imagined; it is some
thing acted out. Think what this means. The novelist is simul
taneously producer, director, actors, scene-designer, orchestra,
even; the dramatist is not, he is only a dramatist. Remember
Hume's distinction between impressions and ideas?Well, the
dramatist has to work with impressions, whereas all other poets
(of course I call the dramatist a poet!) work with ideas. That is,
he proposes to affect his audience through their sensations first of
all, whereas other writers operate through the imagination.
Hence the dramatist is less dependent upon words than any
other poet; he has first of all to construct a scenario of impres
sions. Don't tell me about Shakespeare and his wonderful lan
guage; that's beside the point. Fact is, he knew that the essential
thing is to invent something thatwould be powerful pantomime,
without aword said. That is the difference between Shakespeare
and Stephen Phillips. (Forget about Knight-he really thinks
drama is lyric poetry-which it hain't.) Impressions are more
Mr. Olson is Professor of English at the University of Chicago. He is the

author of The Poetry of Dylan Thomas and other volumes of poetry and criti
cism.
s0
vivid than ideas;what the audience perceives in a stage produc
tion will always overcrow mere images of the imagination.
Corollary: a play cannot be read in the sense inwhich fiction is
read; for the reader must always construct the real performnance
in his mind. That iswhy it is difficult to judge a play by reading
it; fine plays sometimes read poorly, and bad plays sometimes
read very well.
In radio drama, everything is done by the ear; hence the radio
dramatist has to figure out very carefully what would have been
most vivid in a stage production, and assign his most vivid images
to that, so that itwill predominate in the imagination.
What is a dramatic action? I hear you asking. An action, I
reply, which has itsmost appropriate and powerful effect when
it is realized through external signs. Some things cannot be
dramatized at all; for instance, when Henry James demanded
that the actors in his play "simply look as if they had had tea,"
without the use of napkins, macaroons, tea-cups or anything, he
was asking an impossibility. Some things can be dramatized, but
are less effective, or produce effects, of a different order when
they are dramatized; for instance, Becky Sharp's actions really
can't be dramatized accurately because her character and moti
vations are contrary to those which we infer from her external
behavior. Another thing, tempo; the writer of fiction has great
freedom with time, he can span centuries in a phrase, or stretch
out a short incident to great length; but the dramatist has to hold
pretty closely to the pace of real action. (What about accelerated
time, you ask, as inWilder's The Long Christmas Dinner or The
Skin of Our Teeth? Answer: the incidents keep the pace of real
action; certain dramatic conventions imply the passage of time,
just as the dropping of the curtain implies the passing of it.)
Plot: it should be distinguished from a number of things with
which it is often confused.
a) It is not the argument or a summary of a play, however
detailed that may be. A plot is always aimed at some definite
emotional effect, whereas bare summary never precludes the pos
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sibility of opposite emononal effects. For instance, the argument
of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream closely
parallels the argument of Romeo and Juliet; but it's comic, not
tragic.
b) Plot isn't a bare system of events in abstraction from char
acter, for the same reason. This may afford materials for the plot,
but the plot is always something made by the poet.
c) It also isn'tmyth or legend or story or a series of historical
happenings. A glance at all the various Oedipuses will reveal that
whereas the same legend is used in all, different plots result.
d) Plot is not simply action; that is, all plot is action, but not
all action is plot. Action is often used in didactic works as
"proof" of a thesis, and such action is not plot. For example, the
action of the Divilna Commedia is proof, not plot. There are
three ways in which action can function as proof in didactic
works; even when the action is recognized as didactic, these are
often confused, so I'll give them:
1) the type of action in which the characters are understood
as individuals; the audience is expected to generalize from them.
This is inductive proof, or the exemplum; the action of the
Divina Commedia is of this sort; so are A Doll's House, Hedda
Gabler, Ghosts.
2) the type of action inwhich the characters are generalities
or classes or universals and the audience is expected to particular
ize from them. This deductive proof, and such actions are
strictly allegorical. Examples: The Faery Queene, Pilgrim's
Progress, Everyman, etc.
3) The type of action inwhich the relation of didactic action
to the thesis is neither as individual to general nor general to indi
vidual, but analogical. This is the form of the parable, fable etc.
These kinds are simple kinds and can be combined in various
ways, so as to appear together in a single work. Since all proof
must be either inductive or deductive or analogical, this division
is exhaustive.
To come back to plot:
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e) it is not mere intrigue or "conflict," although post-Eliza
bethan theorists often make it synonymous with the former, and
nineteenth century theorists often equate itwith the latter.
f) it is also not the representation. The dramatic representa
tion iswhat is seen on the stage. That this is different from plot
can be seen from the following considerations: the representation
may begin before or after the beginning of the plot; e.g., Hamlet
begins long before the initiating incident of the action (the infor
mation of theGhost); that of Lear begins almost immediately be
fore the initiating incident, while the representation in Oedipus
Rex begins after the initiating incident. Again, parts of the plot,
however important, may be omitted from the representation
(i.e., are "off-stage"); and again, parts of the representation may
not be parts of the plot at all, e.g., Act I of Othello, etc.; these are
"protatic" parts, to introduce the characters and set them in a
given light, and generally give the information required for a
proper emotional reaction to the plot.
WHAT PLOT IS: A system of morally determinate actions
(or in cases where characters are purely passive, as in Schicksal
Dramas, reactions.) It is one in the sense that, whatever itsmag
nitude and complexity, it has been integrated into one system;
complete, in the sense that the action ends by resolving those
issues out of which it has developed (another way of saying this
is that the consequences of the initiating causes have been ex
hausted.) Morally determinate-determined by a given moral
character of the person in the play, and thus also determining a
given moral response on the part of the audience.
Points to discuss with respect to plot:
Magnitude of action: We can distinguish four kinds of action
(apart from consideration of emotional effects).
1) Action (or reaction) of a single character in a closed situa
tion. This does not occur in drama, but is the "action" of most
lyric poetry.... Lycidas, Keats' Ode, Sailing to Byzantium, etc.
A "closed situation" is one inwhich there is no external interven
tion in the action. For example, whenever amessenger enters, or
83
a new agent, the situation is "opened" in the sense that more
causes have now been added to the action, to affect the conse
quences; but in a closed situation the character operates without
such external intervention, except at the beginning, perhaps, or
at the end; thus Keats' Nightingale Ode has the bird's song start
the train of meditation, and the bird flies away at the end; but the
action is the train of thought of the poet.
2) Two or more characters in a closed situation (call this a
"scene" . . .). It is the form of Theocritean idylls, Virgil's
Eclogues, and pieces such asBrowning's The Bishop Orders His
Tomb (N.B. the latter is a monologue in representation, but in
fact the characters interact, so it belongs here.) Some short
stories and one-act plays are of this order.
3) A series of "scenes" centering about one principal event;
call this the "episode." For example, the actions of Heart of
Darkness, The Secret Sharer, Arnold's Schrab and Rustum, etc.
4) The "grand plot" proper, where a series of episodes are
integrated into one system of action. All of Shakespeare's plays
have this kind of action.
Lines of action: all action is either linear or polylinear. E.g.,
Othello is linear, Lear is bi-linear, (Lear, Gloucester), Hamlet is
tri-linear (Hamlet, Laertes, Fortinbras.) A line of action is a
chain of causally connected events involving certain persons,
separable from other lines at least in part. Lines of action are
either related as contrasting or as similar (they cannot, in awell
constructed plot, be unrelated); they nearly always heighten the
emotional effect of the principal line, if they are by-plots or sub
lines. Thus a comic under-plot in a serious play is contrasting,
and the Fortinbras and Laertes lines offer "standards" contrast
ing with the action of Hamlet himself, while the Gloucester line
is similar to that of Lear, paralleling it. The student should be
made to determine what line is principal, and what the relation
of the other lines is, and what function they discharge in the
whole.
Lines of action either converge or diverge or run parallel. If
84
you diagram a plot, and find two or more lines of action starting
from a single cause or incident, this is divergence. If you find
independent chains of causation concurring in a single effect,
this is convergence. If they run along independently, they are
parallel. Convergence is principally used in achieving resolution
or denouement; divergence in beginning the actions. Threatened
convergence is a way of obtaining suspense, when the conver
gence will materially affect the outcome, and sudden conver
gence is one way of obtaining surprise. For example, in Lear,
the points where Albany almost tumbles to the situation; and in
Othello, where things threaten the plotting of lago. (I counted
some dozen places where the apple-cart was within an ace of
being upset.)
Types of incidents: I have already said that incidents of the
representation should be distinguished from incidents of the plot
(see f above). But plot incidents themselves should also be
distinguished into three classes:
1) the basic incidents of the plot; for instance, in Othello, the
working out of lago's scheme ending in the tragic denouement.
2) "factorial" incidents, which are theminor incidents that pro
vide the necessary conditions for the happening of the major
incidents; e.g., if Desdemona must be strangled or smothered in
bed, she has got to be there, and Othello must enter there, and
all that; murderer and victim have got to be brought together.
3) "ornamental" incidents, which are introduced simply tomake
the action more pleasing; e.g., a progress of the king, in Eliza
bethan drama, or the introduction of famous historical charac
ters in modern movies dealing with biographical subjects; e.g.,
in Song to Remember, that awful Cornell Wilde job on Chopin,
the introduction of characters like Liszt and Kalkbrenner et al.
Make the student distinguish, not only so that he gets a clear
idea of what is basic to the plot, but so that he gets some notion
of characteristics of a dramatist's handling of the plot itself.
A good many value judgments are of course possible here: for
example, a bad plot-maker generally has too many factorial inci
$5
dents; a good one is usually very economical. Moreover, a bad
dramatistwill multiply his charactersunnecessarily,to bring
about the happening of the factorial incidents. A good case in
point is Bianca in Othello; she has about four or five different
jobs to do. . . a bad dramatist would have invented a lot of dif
ferent characters to perform them. Again, a good dramatist keeps
the factorialincidentsfrombeingmere continuity and fillerby
making them interestingand exciting in themselves,but never
letting them run away with themain show. They are for the sake
of the basic incidents and must always be kept under, without
going flat.
Having sketched out the basic incidents, the student can de
termine their causal connection as necessary or probable by dia
gramming the action. In such a diagram the basic incidents (fac
torial and ornamental) could be related to each other by arrows
indicatingchainsof necessityor probability."Necessary"in this
context,would mean "madeinevitable";"probable" would mean
"mademore likely than not."
Emotional effect of plot: The whole emotional effect of a
work is of course determined by the plot, character, and thought,
plus the diction,but the student should
plus the representation,
be made to think of the effect of the plot in itself. He must think,
first of all, of the basic emotional effect of the plot incidents
(always, of course, as involving the characters of the play) quite
apart from how these are represented; think of how the drama
tist has invented or adapted the incidents. For example, Cinthio's
tale ismere shilling-shocker sensationalism, a mere crime-story;
Shakespeare made Othello out of it, sometimes adapting, some
times omitting, sometimes inventing; what difference did he get
in re-making the characters and re-doing the actions? (I take it
that the effect he achieves is not mere sensationalism.)
In working a thing of this sort through, I always take the
"prime" incident of the basic plot. In tragedy, this is always the
tragic deed, in comedy the comic fraud, mistake, or ruse. Now
the tragic deed of Othello is of course the smothering, under de
86
lusion, of Desdemona; this is only sensationally conceived by
Cinthio, but is tragically conceived in Othello. For the deed
to be tragic, itmust be an irrevocable action, of great dreadful
ness, done by mistake (or some other compulsion), by a person
of more than ordinary stature to someone whom he should
greatly have cherished; thus, in this example, Desdemona had to
be re-conceived, so had Othello, for neither was of the proper
moral stature in Cinthio; and since two such lovers would have
remained absolutely static (Othello could never have been spon
taneously jealous enough to kill her) an outside agency of ex
treme malignancy and competency had to be invented; thus,
lago. I protest that Shakespeare invents lago; he is there, not
because of Cinthio's tale and its ensign, but because of the exi
gencies Shakespeare had to meet if the action was to be elevated
to tragic stature. Now, one works backward from the deed; if
it is to happen, such and such basic incidents have got to go
before; to make these continuous, as well as necessary or prob
able, the factorial incidents have got to be invented, and so until
theweb is spun. The student should try to estimate the emotions
aroused by each incident, basic or otherwise, as closely as he can.
(This is very hard at first, easy later; I shall presently make more
suggestionsaboutemotionaleffects.)
One more rough suggestion about plot: I forgot to tell you,
in talking of lines of action, that the student should try to dis
tinguish the lines in terms of magnitude. Thus your lines might
be two "grand-plot" lines, or you might have one "grand-plot"
line, the principal one, with a sub-plot of only episode-magni
tude, and so on. There is room for much discussion, of course,
of whether the lines are of the most effective magnitude or not;
for example, something very wrong with the Dryden-Lee Oedi
pus (among many other faults) is the "drowning" of the Oedi
pus-line amid awelter of other stuff, so that it doesn't stand out
properly. A plot can also be made of so many separate lines that
it is impossible to remember; e.g., Sidney's Arcadia. And it can
have lines of such length, as well, that it cannot be taken in as a
87
whole (Arcadia again.) Or the line can be so short as to fail
utterly.For example,Oedipus done thisway:
Chorus: We've got this plague because you murdered your
father and married your mother.
Oed. Heck. Well-I'll just tear out my eyes, then.
Joc. Think I'll go hang myself (Does.)
Chorus: Tough situation. Must be amoral here someplace.
Representation:
Obviously the audience reacts, in proportion as it knows, and
in accordance with what it conjectures on the basis of what it
knows.Now, the representationhas two functions: to supply
the audience with information (or to withhold it at certain
points) so as to control the emotional reactions, and to set parts
of the plot as vividly as possible before them (thus also control
ling theiremotions,so these two functionsmeet).
The representation should first of all be thoroughly studied in
terms of its relation to the plot. Does the representation begin
before the action, and if so,why? Sample answer: Hamlet, which
requires a full and vivid exposition of the highly complex situa
tion at Elsinore before the ghost's information can mean any
thing emotionally, naturally has to begin long before; Lear,
which grows merely out of Lear's quirky way of testing love, in
a very simple situation, begins almost immediately before the
initiating incident of the testing. Does the rep begin after, & if so
why? (This is the principleof festinareinmedias res, has the
effect, when feasible, of great dramatic abruptness and vivacity;
it never happens in Shkspr. Similar questions shd be asked about
the end. Again: what parts of the represented action are in the
plot, what are not; conversely, what parts of the plot are repre
sented, what are not, and of course why, to all this.
One should go into the question of scale of representation. Is a
scene "huddled over" (see Olson's Oedipus above) or dwelt on
at length? A beautiful case: why does Act I sc ii of Rich III
have to be exactly of the length it is? (I once heard Olivier do
it in short form on the radio, and it was awful; you need the
88
slow stages of Anne's persuasion, or it falls right apart, utterly
improbable). The scale should be thought of in terms of a) the
length needed to make the thing necessary or probable, b) to get
the audience into the right feeling, c) to produce the proper
amount of suspense or surprise (think of the suspense achieved
by Othello before D wakes!) and d) to make the scene fulfill
its proper function, and no more or less (a bad writer tries to
wring everythingdry).
Once all this isworked over, the student should be forced to
state precisely what he knows, not only act by act or scene by
scene, but speech by speech and part of speech by part of speech,
He should
although this somewhatcuts into diction-questions.
consider each item of information as causing him to frame this
conjecture or that, and as affecting his emotions accordingly.
Make 'em put a card over the text and slide it from word to
word; I do. The subtle dramatist does wonderful things thisway
with his audience. As these variations in feeling caused by varia
tions in knowledge (and by what is put vividly to the fore, what
is under-played) become clear, the student should be made to
ask whether the variations enhance the emotional effect, or
whether they run off into irrelevancies, etc.
Again, the degree and kind of emotion, produced by repre
sentation of the action, shd be roughly diagrammed, peaks for
the high excitement, valleys for the low, that sort of thing, with
discussion of why.
Also, make 'em discuss what's narrated, soliloquized, panto
mimed, etc.
As to characters:
Make the students distinguish between:
a) characters of representation simply. The "protactic" per
sons of Dryden are of this sort. The "ficelle" character of H.
James is amuch subtler version of this: a character brought in to
elicit a response from amajor character which could not other
wise be, or be so effectively, elicited.
89
b) "factorial characters." E.g., all characters inOthello except
Othello, Iago,Desdemona.
E.g., 0th, Iag,Des.
c) "essentialcharacters."
d) "ornamentalchars."
Make 'em deternine the peculiar function or functions of a
characterin a given scene,Stanislavsky-wise.
Make 'em state exactly what kind of character each is, and
show what reveals him as such, report of others, own particular
speech or action, etc. Make 'em set each of the speeches of a
given character together, throughout the play, and 1) trace the
gradual exposition of the character 2) the development of the
character (e.g., Macbeth's gradual coarsening) 3) the change
of knowledge or affection, etc. in the char (Ex: the speeches of
Albany or of Claudius, showing how each gradually "tumbles,")
4) changing relations of other characters to the character on the
basis of all this.
Take a given speech, make 'em trace the logic or emotion in it,
and explain it through the character and his situation at the mo
ment. Ex: The non-sequitur, highly indicative of Hamlet's char
acter, in the "Now I am alone" solil. A beautiful job can be done
of course with things like Antony's oration and the changes in
the rabble.
More on plot:
Plot is either simple or complex. Plot is complex if it involves a
reversal of fortune and if it involves discovery, e.g., of identity,
or of the commission of an act, etc., which materially affects the
relationsbetween protagonisticcharacters(essentialcharacters.
A species of simple plot is the "episodic plot," inwhich the epi
sodesarestrungtogetherwithout necessityandprobability (epi
sodes are always convertible in order in such plots, so one can
test thus.) The student shd indicate where discovery & reversal
take place, if they do.
The student should analyze the factors of the static situation at
the point before the intiating incident, e.g., the situation at Elsi
nore before the information of the ghost; any other events which
90
deternine the course of the action should also be worked out
carefully, especially those which lead to complication and reso
lution. A good way is to ask what would have happened had
eventX not occurred.
Another good thing is to take an event and work out the way
inwhich the possibilities diminish until the event becomes neces
sary or probable; e.g., theway inwhich one mode of escape from
assassination after another is eliminated in Jul. Caes. until Caesar's
assassination
becomes inevitable.
Character & Thought, odd hints:
Examine all cases in which a character makes a moral choice,
and exhibit themoral rules he assumes or cites inmaking choice.
Relate this to the state of the character's knowledge at the time
with respectto situation,personsinvolved,etc.
Examine all nouns, verbs, & epithets in a speech as clues to the
character's moral character and state of mind. Metaphors are
especially revealing in this way; ask the student what kind of
man inwhat situation & frame of mind would be likely to think
this resembled that, or to make this or that comparison. Other
figuresof speechare also revealing-especiallyhyperboles.Also
the form of the utterance,whether interrogative,declarative,
etc.; since these forms are also clues as to what the character
thinks and feels. This kind of diction analysis is particularly re
vealing when, say, two speeches are drawn from the early and
late portions of the play, and exhibit a change in the character.
E.g., Hamlet's "O that this too too solid flesh (I. ii) with his nar
rative to Horatio "Up from my cabin" (V. ii).
Must go now. Good luck!
E.
91

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A Letter on Teaching Drama

Author(s): Elder Olson

So you have to teach drama, and want advice. Well: do you

Mr. Olson is Professor of English at the University of Chicago. He is the

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