We are slowly emerging from the puppet-show conception of drama. Our
dramatists are beginning to do more than refurbish the old puppets,
and move them about the stage according to the rules of the
"well-made" play. They are not content, like their predecessors, to
leave their characters quite at the mercy of the actor who, in
"creating" them, gave them whatever small resemblance to humanity
they may have possessed. And as the play gains in vitality, the
playwright begins to feel the absolute necessity for writing decent
dialogue--not mere stage dialect that may be scamped and ranted _ad
libitum_ by the "star" to suit his own taste, or want of it, but
real dialogue, which, while ideally reflecting the colloquial
language of the day, taxes the intelligence and feeling of the actor
to deliver properly.
This means real progress; for the dialogue is the very life of the
play. It alone can bring out the essential import of the situation,
the relation of character to character, at any given moment. An
action, an incident, may have a thousand different shades of meaning
or motive. Language, tone, and gesture give it its precise value.
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