How a play is produced/The First Beginnings

by Karel Čapek

Layout 2

PART I

The Preliminaries

The First Beginnings

 

IN its first embryonic and groping beginnings, a play comes to birth outside the theatre itself, on the writing-table of the aspiring dramatist; its first appearance in the theatre does not take place until the dramatist fondly imagines it to be ready. Of course, very soon—say in about six months or so—it is easily seen that it is not at all ready, for even under the most favourable of conditions it wanders back to the dramatist with the modest request that he should not only shorten it, but also rewrite the last act completely.

For some mysterious reason it is always the last act which requires alteration, just as it is always the last act which is sure to prove a failure on the stage, and it is always the last act which is picked out by the critics, with wonderful unanimity, as the one weak part of the play. It is really quite remarkable that in spite of this unfailing experience, dramatists do insist on having some sort of a last act. Last acts simply should not be written at all. Or they should be cut off on principle, just as the tails of bull-dogs are cut off to preserve their beauty. Or else plays should be played backwards, with the last act first, and the first act, which is always said to be the best one, at the end. In short, something should be done to free dramatists from the curse of the terrible last act.

When this troublesome last act has been shortened, and altered two or three times, and the play has been finally accepted, there begins for the dramatist an awful period of waiting and general hanging around. During this period he stops writing altogether, and does simply nothing at all; he is unable to read the newspapers, live in the clouds, sleep, or kill time in any way; for the poor man exists in a trance of waiting to know whether his play will be produced, when it will be produced, how it will be produced, etc., etc. It is no use talking to a dramatist who is undergoing this enforced period of waiting; only the very hardened ones manage to suppress their natural excitement, and are able to pretend sometimes that they are thinking of other matters besides the play which they have had accepted.

Perhaps the dramatist has fondly imagined that even before he has finished his play, a man from the theatre will be standing behind his chair, breathlessly beseeching him to hurry that last act along, and declaring that the first night is on the morrow, and that he dare not return to the theatre without the last act, etc., etc. Of course, in real life this does not happen. If a play has been accepted, it must lie about in the theatre for a certain period so that it may have time to mature, and become, as it were, saturated with theatrical atmosphere. (Another reason why it must lie about in the theatre for some time, is that it may be announced as an “eagerly awaited novelty.”) Some authors are foolish enough to attempt to interfere with this ripening process by personal intervention, which, fortunately, has no effect whatever. Things must be left to take their own natural course. When the play has lain about in the theatre sufficiently, it begins, as it were, to emit a certain odour, and must be brought out on to the stage itself, which means, first of all, into the rehearsal room.