Dialogue

The next point to which we should direct our attention is to see how the dialogues are constructed. Given the characters, dramatic action can arise only from their interplay and mutual impact. Language being the medium through which the dramatist seeks to produce his artistic effect he is more or less precluded from having recourse to other types of action than the dialogue. Even when other types of action are made to take place on the stage they are sparingly done and are generally made to accompany language, which alone gives them meaning and expression. Thus dramatic action is necessarily restricted to the dialogues between different characters, the other connecting events being thrown behind the scenes by skilful dramatists. It is only when a dramatist who is not a master of language takes to the vocation of a play wright that he fills the stage with veritable actions of life which need very little expounding by means of language. The usage, however, of the great masters in the line is to throw most of those actions or events into the background and pitch only upon those which give ample scope for dramatic action, that is for the development of the dialogue. Outside events and occurrences may take place in the order of nature and a mere narration of them in the order of their occurrence or a mere exhibition of them by scenic representation will not fill them with dramatic interest. For this, such events and occurrences should be connected as cause or effect with human thoughts and feelings, human purposes and motives, human actions and sufferings and such connections could only be effected by means of the dialogue. Naturally, therefore, the dialogue has come to acquire the greatest importance with the dramatist and he should be a sorry dramatist indeed who has not known this first principle of his art. Next to characterisation, the construction of the dialogue gives us a clue as to the genius of the author. Here also he has to observe certain fundamental principles if his dialogues should have any artistic value. For instance, he should avoid platitudes and commonplaces at the one extreme as well as eccentricities and bizarre modes at the other. The purpose of a true dialogue will be defeated in both. He should not render his dialogues inappropriate to the character or occasion; nor can he make it artificial, stilted and unreal. They must be pitched in an appropriate, easy and natural key. Great care should also be taken not to allow a dialogue to drift unawares into a monologue or worse still into a conduit pipe for the author's pet theories to flow through. Another method of spoiling a dialogue is by the introduction of elaborate passages of description or narration of great poetic or rhetorical finish which will doubtless drag their tedious length along like a wounded serpent and prevent the dramatic action from progressing. Such digressions suitable in