Shortly before the death of William Dean Howells, he related the experience that he had had of being circularized by a correspondence school that offered to teach him the art of writing fiction in a phenomenally short time at a ridiculously low rate. In this instance, there was something wrong with the mailing list, but the fact remains that in universities successful courses in writing short-stories and plays are given and the best of these courses actually have turned out writers who achieve various degrees of success financially and artistically It is plain that a brief treatise like the present one makes no such pretensions; it means merely to suggest some of the most obvious points of departure for students in the drama who wish to exercise themselves in the composition of the one-act play, much as a student of poetry will try his hand at a ballade or a sonnet without taking himself or his metrical exercises too seriously.

In the famous Perse School in Cambridge, England, the boys begin at the age of twelve to practise playmaking as an aid to the fuller understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic workmanship, and this work is developed throughout the rest of the course. The boys, having learned that Shakespeare himself used stories that he found ready to hand, discover in their own reading a story that will lend itself to dramatization. The story is told and retold from every angle. The class is then divided up into committees to every one of which is entrusted some part of the dramatization. One little committee busies itself with the setting, another with the structure, another with the comic characters, another with the songs that are interspersed and so on. These committees prepare rough notes to be presented in class. These notes may propose an outline of successive scenes, present the part of some principal character, or the "business" (illustrative action) of some minor part. Lessons of this sort are followed by composition rehearsals, where the dramatic and literary value of the proposed plot, characterization, pantomime, and dialogue are tested, and subjected to the criticism of teacher and boys. In the next lessons, the teacher brings to bear on the special problems on which the boys are working all the criticism that his wider range of reading and experience can suggest. In the light of his suggestions the various points are debated and the boys then proceed to careful fashioning, shaping, and writing. A rehearsal of the nearly finished product is held, followed by a final revision of the text. The work then goes forward to a public performance given with all due ceremony. In the higher classes playmaking is taught more especially in connection with writing and the boys are trained to imitate the style of various dramatists. Synge was used as a model at one time for, as one of the masters of the school explained: "The style of Synge is easy to copy because it is so largely composed of a certain phraseology. The same words, phrases, and turns of sentence occur again and again. Here are a few taken at random; the reader will find them in a context on almost any page of the plays: It's myself—Is it me fight him?—I'm thinking—It's a poor (fine, great, hard, etc.) thing—A little path I have—Let you come—God help us all—Till Tuesday was a week—The end of time—The dawn of day—Let on—Kindly—Now, as in Walk out now—Surely—Maybe—Itself—At all—Afeard—Destroyed—It curse. Synge is also mighty fond of the words ditch and ewe. And there are certain forms of rhythm about Synge's prose which are used with equal frequency, and are quick and easy to catch. So far from this imitation of style being an artificial method, the fact is that once a boy of sixteen or over has read a play or two of Synge's, if he has any power of style in him, it will be all but impossible to stop him writing like Synge for a few weeks." Learning playwriting from models recalls the method of Benjamin Franklin and Robert Louis Stevenson who in their youth wrote slavish imitations of the great masters in order to form their own prose style. Of course, it is not claimed that this work at the Perse School makes playwrights, only that it gives the boys a deeper appreciation of dramatic workmanship and furnishes a new kind of intellectual game to add to the joy of school life.

The one-act plays contained in this collection are, as has been suggested in what has been said about their construction, illustrative of various kinds of workmanship. Certain of them are excellent models for those who are experimenting with playwriting. The one-act play, not nearly so difficult a form as the full-length play, offers undergraduates in school and college and inexperienced writers generally unlimited scope for experiment.

The testimony of Lord Dunsany is to the effect that his play is made when he has discovered a motive. Asked whether he always began with a motive, "'Not always,' he said; 'I begin with anything or next to nothing. Then suddenly, I get started, and go through in a hurry. The main point is not to interrupt a mood. Writing is an easy thing when one is going strong and going fast; it becomes a hard thing only when the onward rush is impeded. Most of my short plays have been written in a sitting or two.'"[16] This passage is quoted because insight (p. xxxvii) into the practice of professional writers is always helpful to amateurs. Dunsany uses "motive," it seems, as a convenient term for denoting the idea, the character, the incident or the mood that impels the dramatist to start writing a play. Such material is to be found everywhere. Many professional writers accumulate vast stores of such themes against the day when they may have the necessary leisure, energy, and insight to develop them.

It has been pointed out that there are only thirty-six possible dramatic situations in any case, and that no matter how the plot shapes itself, it is bound to classify itself somehow or other as one of the inescapable thirty-six. There is comfort also in the suggestion that Shakespeare drew practically all the dramatic material that he used so transcendently direct from the familiar and accessible narrative stores of his day. The young or inexperienced playwright need have no hesitation, then, in turning to such sources as the Greek myths for inspiration. Quite recently a highly successful one-act play of Phillip Moeller's proved that Helen of Troy is as eternally interesting as she is perennially beautiful. Maurice Baring draws on the old Greek stories, too, for several of his Diminutive Dramas. The Bible has proved dramatically suggestive to Lord Dunsany and to Stephen Phillips. The old ballads of Fair Annie and The Wife of Usher's Well have been found dramatically available. The myths of the old Norse Gods, used by Richard Wagner for his music dramas, contain much unmined dramatic gold. John Masefield and SigurjÓnsson have converted Saga material to the uses of the drama. In old English literature, in Widsith, in the Battle of Brunanburh, the seeking dramatist may find. The romances of the Middle Ages, the fairy lore of all peoples, and the old Hindu animal fables are fertile in suggestion to the intending dramatist. What a wonderful one-act play, steeped in the mellow atmosphere of the Renaissance in Italy, might be made out of Browning's My Last Duchess! At least one new literary precedent has recently been created by the author who wrote a sequel to Dombey and Son. Certainly many famous novels and plays may be conceived as calling out for similar treatment at the hands of the experimental playwright. Famous literary and historic characters offer themselves as promising dramatic material. When Robert Emmons Rogers, author of the well-known (p. xxxviii) play, Behind a Watteau Picture, was a sophomore at Harvard, he wrote the following charming little play on Shakespeare which is reprinted here, with the author's permission, as a pleasing example of a promising piece of apprentice work:[17]