Child Drama
I
CHILD drama differs from adult drama in having no audience. Everyone who is not allowed to take part immediately goes away. This is expected, and is provided for in the nature of the drama. If, for instance, several children want to stage a play, but are at the same time supposed to take care of the baby, a part is invented for the baby. An extra robin, or, if preferred, an elephant can always be introduced. A squirrel is always a welcome addition. A squirrel is so beloved that he is not felt to be out of place in any play. If the baby is bothering everyone, the rôle of a squirrel is assigned him, and he just runs around in the play, without any other connection with the plot. But he must be a squirrel, and not a baby, and anyone bumping into him must say, ‘Excuse me, Squirrel.’ A robin can be introduced into almost any play if someone comes along unexpectedly. A robin who justs stands around and hops or sings occasionally is an addition to any plot, even if not originally indicated.
A dancing part is always available. Dancing is a help in any situation. ‘What shall I do while the baby is being buried?' I heard a sorrowing but restless mother of six ask the manager, who had just announced the death of the last child in the family, from scarlet fever. ‘You can dance,’was the reply. Anyone coming in after the play has started may dance. And he can often simply duplicate a part. If, for instance, there is a villain who is a really good villain, why not two? Or, if there are already five children in the family, surely one more would only improve the situation. There are a great many group parts in child drama. Additional firemen; rescuers from sinking ships; dying children or parents; multitudes of fairies; unexpected but always welcome babies, who can be fed, spanked, and put to bed handily, whenever the plot lags a bit — all these parts help to make an audience entirely superfluous, and whoever does not like the play goes away. If someone in a leading part, such as Father, Mother, or Fairy Godmother, has to go home, or gets hungry all of a sudden and leaves, this does not disturb the plot, for the person who has been taking the part, say, of Mother simply says: ‘Now I’m the Fairy Godmother for a while, and Lucy can be the Mother.'
A great help in this adjustment of the cast to the plot is the usual lack of costuming. Children, when left to their own dramatic instincts, need no material aids. ‘This,’ I heard one small girl say impressively to another, as she pointed toward an empty space on the porch, ‘is your rocking-chair. Sit down on it and hold the Baby, while I go and get Tommy, to be run over by an automobile. It’s the only thing he’ll do. Here’s the Baby. Now don’t drop her, and don’t sing too loud.’ And for fully ten minutes the patient mother sat on a perfectly imaginary chair, with her arms around nothing at all, singing softly. ‘The Baby’s grown up while you were away,’ she announced to the manager of the play, at last returning with the starring Tommy. ‘She’s two years old now and she wants an apple.’ ‘All right,’ agreed the manager and author, glad of any assistance, — for one other difference between child drama and adult drama is that the former is always made up as it goes along, - and she made a gesture through the air, as of one handing out an apple.
And here the play went to pieces — or it would have done so without adult intervention. For at the age of seven the one inflexible rule of the drama is that a thing to eat must be something to eat. It need not be the thing mentioned in the play, but it must be something that can be eaten. The author of this essay herself rescued this particular production from failure. She appeared suddenly, silently laid three cookies on the table, and with a profoundly dramatic wave of her apron disappeared. So the play went on. ‘This is cake and ice cream,’ remarked the author and producer, arranging the cookies, ‘and since the Baby is two it must be her birfday.’
‘And I’m the Baby’s Brother,’ announced Bill, putting down his saw and coming over to the stage end of the porch at the sight of the three cookies.
II
No arduous analysis of child drama is needed to show that action, rather than speech, is its instinctive quality. Gesture is everywhere present. The Robin hops, and his hopping is far more important in the characterization than his speech, for it is his hopping rather than what he says which distinguishes him from the Squirrel, who quite evidently does not hop. What the Robin says might quite well be said by any Squirrel, or even by an Elephant, or by a Fairy Godmother. Gesture supplies the call for stage properties of any kind except something to eat. In a child dramatization of Cinderella, overheard by the writer, Cinderella was changed from a distinctly dowdy person in ashes to a radiant princess in cloth-of-gold with silver slippers by a few simple gestures of the hands of another seven-year-old; and, as she stood flushing with joy under the admiring eyes of her playmates, another of the cast stepped up to her, and saying, ‘Now there is a great, big, lovely red rose in your hair,’ with the touch of a forefinger added this last charm. It could not have been done without the gesture. Gesture will distinguish a rocking-chair from a plain chair, as it is quite evident that, if the person in it is rocking back and forth, the chair must be a rocking-chair. Gesture and position, far more than speech, will distinguish the Engine from the Baggage Car, although here, to be sure, the size of the actors plays a part, the smallest usually having to take the rôle of Baggage Car.
Speech is, of course, used in indicating stage properties. ‘You must put that back,’the writer was assured earnestly one day, as she presumed to take a pillow from the living-room sofa for her own use on the porch. ‘That’s the Baby.’ As she hesitated, some vague reminiscence of talks on discipline wandering over her consciousness, another of the cast stepped firmly up to her. ‘ You ‘d better put the Baby back quickly. She’s got ammonia and you might catch it.’ But gesture triumphed here, in the end, for presently one of the cast came out on the porch with the pillow. ‘You can have it now,’ said the actor. ‘When it came to dying, Susie said she’d be the Baby. Don’t you want to see her?’ Susie lay stretched out on the floor, a triumphant smile on her face, her eyes tightly closed and her two small arms held rigidly in the air, while her fellow actors, converted by sheer force of her genius into spectators, stood around in awed silence.
Gesture helps out in the interchangeability of the rôles, which is so necessary a feature in a drama that is constantly being interfered with. There is a certain simplicity about it, compared with the speaking parts of adult drama. If, for instance, the baby, who has been running around the stage in the purely companionable rôle of Squirrel, suddenly goes to sleep, he becomes merely a sleeping baby, and the play goes on. If Percival Junior has to go home to a ridiculously early supper, a gesture will change the sex of Susie, and, by clothing her in the appropriate garments, enable her to take the rôle of Father, and the play goes on. Speech is, of course, also used in indicating rôles, but generally in its simplest form, as, ‘Now, Mary, you have to be the Maid a minute, and let me be the Mother’; or, ‘ You need n’t think you can be Fairy Godmother in this play all the time. Everyone is going to have a turn.’
It will be seen that speech here takes the part of suggestion outside the play, rather than the true dramatic characterization of gesture within the play, in the profoundly necessary differentiation of rôles. The real proof, however, of the instinctive necessity of gesture lies in the different use of singing and dancing. Singing, although almost a reflex action, has nevertheless the association of spoken words and can be employed only under certain circumstances. Dancing, a pure gesture, on the other hand, may be introduced anywhere. Plays open with dancing, and plays as appropriately close with dancing. Any actor who has nothing to do for a while can be held to the cast by permitting him to dance while waiting. This does not interfere in any way with the movement of the play, and indeed the actor, if merely sitting still, drifts out of the drama altogether, and sometimes cannot be found when needed. It is only recently that adult art has discovered the real need of dancing, but in child drama dancing may always accompany the expression of emotion, and is often added to what would otherwise appear scanty expression, as, ‘Yes, Mother’ (the child dances round and round while speaking), or, ‘I ‘ll do it. Mother’ (the child here dances also). ‘If you can’t think of anything to say, dance!' is the oft-heard direction of irritable stage managers, desirous of maintaining as large a cast as possible.
As the bird flies, as the squirrel runs, and as, without these characteristic movements, no speech on their part seems complete, so the child accompanies his speech with dancing.
Occasionally there will be someone present who, though determined to take part, will not dance and does n’t know ‘anything to say.’ It is almost superfluous to indicate that this person is usually of the ‘opposite’ sex. He can, of course, be run over by something — a very important rôle in which only the most primitive forms of speech — like groans and yells — are needed. Nevertheless in the ever-present drama of family life a place must be made for him. Again the need of plenty of movement helps out. ‘You can spank the Baby,’ announced a small mother of seven, with ten children on her hands and, so far, no father in the cast. It was a difficult rôle, as it turned out. There were long intervals when the play went on without him. He had to spank the Baby enough and yet not too much. But some kind of father seemed needed. He was retained only by far more than his share of the seeded raisins with which the drama had been temporarily endowed.
Although spanking is primarily a gesture, and hence in itself important in the drama, it is a highly sophisticated action. The question of who is to be spanked arises, and it must be solved or the play cannot proceed. The person above mentioned was not really gifted for his rôle, or he would not have had to be detained by means of frequent refreshment. As a matter of fact, although the youngest and smallest of the cast is obliged, by very reason of his size, to be the person spanked, a profound sense of justice — and the fact that, though small, he can, even at that, run away — often assigns the larger part of whatever there may be to eat to the person who is spanked. ‘We’ll give you a whole little cake if you’ll be naughty and let us spank you,’ I once heard a whole cast telling an obdurate three-year-old, who was insisting on being good.
I wish to say here that, although corporal punishment is fast being discredited in adult reality, its hold on child drama is unshaken. To anyone who objects to spanking in the drama, I can reply only by leaving it to his own imagination to find an adequate substitute, and get it accepted by the actors. I have observed many remarkable instances of its use. I have seen a Mother spank a day-old Baby three times in ten minutes. I have seen a Father Kitty spank all his children, one after another, for apparently no reason at all. Spanking is one of the gestures of that rarest of persons in the child world, the actor with a sense of comedy. I was witness of a play of school life, enacted again and again and again in what was supposed to be the profound secrecy of a stage under the apple tree, whose whole charm lay in the sudden spanking of a grade teacher by the principal. Spanking in the drama has no basis in cruelty. One very sweet and earnest little girl, after a long summer afternoon spent in the profound recreation of dramatic production, went home and implored her mother to get a baby. ‘Then I can take care of him, she added, ‘and spank him. And this although spanking was unknown in any branch of the family.
I believe, myself, that the popularity of corporal punishment in the drama is due to a profound and troubling doubt in the heart of the average person of seven as to his or her place in the world. To be able, even in the drama, to inflict even imaginary punishment on someone else is reassuring, just as, at the age of six, one of the profoundest pleasures of life is looking back on one’s childhood. The introduction of a Baby into a play — a Baby doing all sorts of excessively foolish things, an absurd person, a helpless person; one who cannot speak (imagine it!) or walk — establishes definitely in the hearts of the rest of the cast the fact (otherwise somewhat clouded) that six and eight and ten are big — truly big. And only a large and strong and, above all else, an important person can inflict punishment on another. To anyone observing child drama this becomes evident in many ways. One small boy of four, with a very aggressive personality, was lured into taking the part of the spanked by the sight of a large cupcake with chocolate frosting. Having eaten the cake in the early part of the play, he began to make his rôle so unusual and interesting by the introduction of new grimaces and an entirely new vocalization of the conventional yells let out by the person spanked that the entire cast stood around him, carried away by admiration, and the person spanking threw away her ruler and, as manager of the play and owner of all the refreshments, demanded the part for herself.
III
Child drama needs no material aids. One adult mother, preparing at top speed for company, and hindered at every step by her two youngsters, finally locked them for an hour in an entirely empty room in the third story. Carried away by her own work, she forgot them completely for far more than the allotted time, and rushed repentantly to the stairs, calling to them. ‘We’ll be down as soon as we can,’ called back a little voice, sweetly, ‘but the Baby’s got a terrible cold. You might let us know,’ added the voice anxiously, ‘when it stops snowing downstairs.’ It was a lovely June day. Although only two children had been locked in, there were apparently at least three persons in the cast. The whole thing had the air of being highly imaginative. Yet when one comes to analyze child drama it will be found that its distinction from adult drama lies not so much in imaginative power as in the power to accept known facts and experiences in an unusual juxtaposition. This is brought about by an unconscious but simple and unvarying trick of technique. The experiences and facts of the drama are those of life, but the transitions known to the adult world are all omitted. The Baby is born, grows up, has a birthday, is married and has a Baby of her own. The Mother is poor; the children have no breakfast; they go to school, and on coming home they find a thousand dollar bill on the front porch. How simple, how natural! And then if, on going out with the thousand dollars to get something to eat for dinner, you get run over by an automobile, this too is one of the things that are constantly happening; and you are fortunate in having the thousand dollars along to give half of it to a poor old man who is standing on the street corner as you come out of the hospital, after having had ten bones set; and when you get home, why, there is a new Baby sitting in the high chair by the table, eating apple sauce.
To anyone who could object, we can only retort by a counter-question. Babies do sit in high chairs, don’t they? They do eat apple sauce, don’t they? Well?
The material of child drama is highly realistic. Children in their plays use all the simple material of the lives they see around them. The marrying and giving in marriage; the sicknesses, and accidents, and bereavements; the going to business, riding in trains and trolleys and automobiles; the cooking, and sweeping, and entertaining, within the walls of the home — all these are the material of drama. But the child who is one day to be grown-up does not fail to divine something behind the facts of life. Unhesitatingly he transfers it to his play. ‘Why, this is cake now!’ ejaculates the Father in the play, on whom his daily office trip is palling. ‘It was bread a minute ago.’ And no actor is so dull that he or she cannot take the cue. ‘Yes,’ is the simple reply, ‘the Fairy was here and turned all our bread to cake.’ In every play the Fairy comes and goes whenever needed. The Fairy leaves a million dollars on the top step of the porch of the Poor Woman, so that she finds it when she comes out to sweep. How exactly what one would expect from a Fairy!
This is one of the most desired of rôles, not only because of the Fairy’s social position, but because of the simple directness and ease of all her gestures. She speaks little or not at all. She never stays long. The essence of her character is in the act of her appearance. The proof of her worth and her reality is that she goes. But she leaves a Baby in the empty crib. Of course. Any Fairy would. Where else would she put it? She waves her wand, and the four walls within which the children play, and which are just beginning to get tiresome, part and let them into deep, winding, underground caves, where they can most delightfully shudder; or out upon the deck of a ship, plunging through most dangerous waves. Then she disappears. ‘Here comes your mother,’ I heard an annoyed voice say once as, with the best of intentions, I approached the stage under the apple tree, with a plate of sandwiches in my hand. Silently I set the refreshments down, and quickly I withdrew. ‘She’s a Fairy,’ I heard judgment pronounced as I disappeared; and I drew a breath of relief, for I had work of my own to do. From certain noises among the cast I knew they were getting hungry, and I wanted the play to go on a while longer. It was the most successful rôle that I have ever played on this stage called life; but once having played it, — having, as it were, committed myself, — I had to concede the one unvarying rule of child drama.
Even the smallest and the weakest, even the ones that play the part of being spanked and of being the Baggage Car, cannot be disqualified from playing the rôle of Fairy. ‘He’s been bad all morning,’ I heard one little girl defend her small brother from injustice. ‘Now he ought to be the Fairy.’
Child drama admits of no spectators. Everyone must get in on the cast or go away. But if you are gardening in the neighborhood of the stage under the apple tree, or if you are deeply absorbed in your sewing at the porch window, who can prevent your overhearing something? And what is the harm of overhearing children? They will never tell you anything directly. You are supposed to know. To them you are a child, grown tall and strong and strangely in the possession of authority. They do not know that manhood and womanhood mean the death of childhood — a strange and sorrowful death, hidden in the heart of each ‘grown’ person. They do not know that we do not know. They know we teach them; they know we study them; they know we sorrow over them. They do not know that to overhear them, as we work, is to us what the Fairy in their play is to them.