Te)! ey me Coe or ae A" bas « i ‘ 4 ei if x \ een es « " ‘» ww From the English journal Feb.1918 ° , BETTER HIGH-SCHOOL PLAYS GLADYS C. TIBBETTS High School, Port Clinton, Ohio Many valuable articles have been contributed to educational literature on the production of the amateur play. Their sugges- tions are original and stimulating, but in many cases they minimize the most important thing of all—the choosing of the school plays. _ The kind of play we ask our boys and girls to work on is vastly more important than the way that play is produced. As a matter of fact, the mechanics of stage production are quite simple. A few weeks’ study of the rules of stage deportment, exits, turns, and crosses, a sense of order, and, most important of all, a fair - amount of ingenuity will be ample equipment for the amateur “coach. What she needs most is a warning not to waste her energy, to present only what is worth the presenting, and not to lower the standard of her work by presenting a cheap play. The farce-comedies which seem to be most popular for high- school production are weak, silly, and utterly trivial. They do not begin to be worth the time and effort put into them. Think of high-school seniors working for weeks on slapstick stuff that it would be a waste of time to read. Think of them memorizing line after line of The Irishman’s Dilemma, Box and Cox, Mishaps of Mabel, A Howling Scream, and so on indefinitely. They memorize slipshod, ungrammatical sentences when they might be learning lines of beauty and rhythm. There is a directness and vigor in the literary style of a good play that is unequaled in any other branch of literature. It is a fine thing for boys and girls to learn the lines of such a play, but an utter waste of time to learn an inferior play. If we see Johnny reading a dime novel in school, we _ make him throw it into the wastebasket; but when Johnny gets to be a Senior, we make him work for three weeks on his part in An Arizona Rose. 98 THE IMPROVEMENT OF AMERICAN SPEECH 97 scientific thought. But the youth and the abuses of phonetics are no reasons why phonetic methods should not be used when they are practically effective. It does not follow because one studies speech phonetically that one must be a rabid advocate of spelling reform, of an international language, of colloquial speech as contrasted with formal speech, or of any theory for the alteration of speech. The phonetic method merely supplies the facts upon which a theory may be based, if one is moved to the building of theories. As to theories for improving speech, what was said at the begin- ning of this paper may be repeated here at the conclusion, that there is little one need or can do. Everyone knows how hard it is to get any half-dozen persons to agree upon a theory. It is hard enough © to get them to agree upon a fact, though there is at least some hope of doing this if the fact can be brought clearly enough into view. What we need in our attempts to improve American speech Is a greater knowledge of the facts. We are not yet ready for formal creeds and programs. If we know the facts, the theories and volun- tary decisions will take care of themselves. Publicity and informa- | tion are the great safeguards of health in language just as they are of sound morality in business and public affairs. The professional improver of speech who tries to palm off a fancy manufactured article upon the public as the real thing does not deserve well of his country. ‘The most he can do is to build up a speech-proud class who bear their speech about with them as the symbol of their superior excellence. They will always be found out, however, by the person who knows how to analyze speech, who is not put upon by a false glamor. It is the business of those interested in instruc- tion In speech, which we take to mean the improvement of it, to provide the honest seeker with the means of deciding questions for himself by showing him how speech is made. If he is honest he will not go wrong; or if he does he will soon set himself right. Sidney advised the poet who would write to look into his heart and write. The best advice that can be given to the man who would speak is to look into his mouth and speak. If anything is added to this to make it a complete golden rule, let it be that after you have looked into your own, look also into your neighbor’s mouth and see how he speaks. BETTER HIGH-SCHOOL PLAYS | 99 Why? Because we do not stop to consider whether the play is harmful or beneficial. We think of it solely as an entertainment. Usually the chief object in presenting a play is to make money. The class treasurer suddenly discovers a deficit. It must be met, so the class votes to put ona play. Or it may be the athletic asso- ciation, or the literary society. Every high school mothers some waif of an organization that is always clamoring for money to keep it alive. Or they may start on a campaign to raise money for the class gift. Wherever fifty or a hundred dollars is urgently needed, a class play is a welcome panacea. We see the high-school play 1s not put on for art’s sake, but for money’s sake. The teacher looks for something which will answer the purpose with the least possible effort and expense. She pores over catalogues of dramatic publishing houses, and finally selects a farce-comedy which is warranted to bea sure success for amateurs. She hears they put it on in a nearby town and it made a big hit, so she plunges into it with conviction. What creatures of imitation we all are at heart! You know the rest—the ups and downs of rehearsals, the wholesome fun of working together, the night, and the big success. Everyone is delighted, the young actors are flattered beyond measure, and the newspapers speak extravagantly of the work of pupils, teacher, and school. The school is a few dollars richer, but the boys and girls are considerably poorer for time and energy spent on trash. They have learned silly lines they will not forget for months and perhaps years. This sort of thing may entertain for the moment, but it has no lasting good. The significant thing is that the students have not the discern- ment to realize the triviality of what they are working on. They mistake horseplay for humor, and the smart talk of low comedy for clever repartee. Is it any wonder that when they leave high school they will be bored at Mantell’s Richelieu, and say, “Come on, let’s go see a musical comedy’”’ ? We should stop putting on plays solely for dollars and cents. If money must be raised, we can find plenty of other means that will not produce harmful results. When the high school can afford to present a play, let it be a good one—something they can study, and interpret, and mold into a production worth while. I0O THE ENGLISH JOURNAL The value of the good play in the high school cannot be over- emphasized. In the first place, it stimulates the appreciation of good literature as nothing else can do. ‘The spoken word thrills and inspires when the written word is passed over superficially. In acting, every line is significant, and the exact meaning of every word must be brought out. The sentence is a vital thing, and the actors must not only be sure that they understand and appreciate it, but they must try to make their audience understand and appre- ciate it also. Only occasionally will high-school boys have dramatic art to accomplish so much, but almost all will gain the appreciation themselves. He cannot fail to note the clarity and directness of style in plays. The dramatist never leaves a muddled sentence. He has no time to waste in confusing his audience. They have to get the point, and get it by hearing it just once, for they cannot order it repeated, nor can they complacently turn back a leaf and read the sentence over. ‘Then, too, he has a chance to study first hand the subtle, charming, and elusive thing we call humor. The dramatic — teacher will bring out all kinds in the play; as the French analyze it, the humor of situation, of character, and of repartee. In the play, humor is produced as scientifically as sodium chloride is in the laboratory. Further, he will study characterization. He will observe how a trait of character is suggested by words and action. Study of plays is quite superior to that of novels in this respect. When he reads a book he sees characters in his mind, but when he acts the character he zs the character. He voices the character’s thoughts and interprets his moods. Any boy who has acted the part of Petruchio will know how it feels to swagger around and knock over tables. He will know the character more thoroughly than if he spent a month studying it from the written page. And this analysis of people, this acquaintance with human nature, is the greatest study in the world. If we could teach that, many of our educa- tional problems would be solved. All this is lost with the cheap play. It would be senseless to take it seriously, because it is cheap. The amateurs simply learn lines. They cannot study it because there is nothing to study. BETTER HIGH-SCHOOL PLAYS IOI Secondly, the good play brings out personality. In assuming a role, the boy or girl forgets himself for the time and has to put on the temperament of a different character. He lets himself be broadened and strengthened for the part he is taking. In this way his sympathies are deepened and he gains a sensitiveness and response to things that will make his personality strong. He loses timidity, the sign of self-consciousness. In this respect, dramatic work does a vast amount of good to the class we teachers know well as the quiet, bright type—students who are naturally brilliant in intellect but reticent in manner. Such persons need to study self- expression. The type is much more common among girls than boys, and it is truly a problem to know how to bring it out. Athletics and the social life in the high school do a great deal for such girls, but we have found that parts in plays did more for our quiet girls than any other thing we have tried. A distinction should be noted here between the kind of work we give to boys and that we give to girls. Boys like plenty of action and characters they can draw in broad lines. Girls do better on quiet, more subtle scenes, and they like to work out little details in character. Another thing we have found by experimenting is that pupils get most good out of the play by taking parts which are not directly suited to them. For instance, instead of giving our quiet little girl the part of a demure maid, we assigned her the role of an active, garrulous old spinster. After practice she did surprisingly well and it gave her a great amount of confidence in herself. The maid fell to the lot of an overexuberant girl, and it was a surprise to see how attractive she was in a subdued state. It is a great temptation to give them parts that we know they can do well instead of parts that will do them most good. Avoid it. In urging the presentation of better plays, I have followed objections with interest. Invariably they hinge on the difficulty of the work (a bugbear to the inexperienced teacher) or the expense. So many teachers are afraid to put on a good play because it seems too pretentious a task. This is a delusion. From experience it is safe to say that standard comedies can be given more satisfactorily than plays of a lower class because there is more to them in plot and character to hold the interest of the audience. Crudities that THE ENGLISH JOURNAL I02 oS UIOpOfT 5 id LI eee . . . Ce ee ee oe ee ee er er ** GTnougtp) Saires ay T, oS¢ UIIpOT ¢ VI Oe 0 6 2-0 ore 6 . De 2. deh, Se pe. 68 Coe ber her ae et oe to oe *** 4090191] a4 T, Ser pee ; , JO UOISSIWIOg UINpOyT v v ee So aoe SRE (q104s) UOUVZYIALY SSL oS UWIIPO|, l ZI i i eae in a ee et a Sh oer oe JInsSaoT s suiddy Kpot\ Top. Se ee aot os ulopoy v ¢ Mee oT Reka G, SERRA Ne SMe Se WONT Deh e Was be ere Rees eee avy u1snoy { K d Sz UIOpop| - v 9 eel Qre Se el ane peep 8p oOilene.e) abe W Ale Beem ** y3rq-Kyuam J uanas Cate ee ar ate unysnsny ‘ATP ro) polsg I eo Ee ees (z10ys) ionsared) puowasy > fo 4ayD PY UNOtA 9YT | tt stosueiy ‘sedod ra) UIOpOfT ard ¢ = ee oe oe ee ee) (q10ys) 4aqysnog SUT pun JO1UB IAT o. 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