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Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting

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Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting John Howard Lawson Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting by John Howard Lawson is presented here thanks to the generosity of Jeffrey Lawson and Susan Amanda Lawson. © All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use is prohibited. August 2014 Revised March 2020 John Howard Lawson’s Theory and Technique of Playwriting was published in 1936. Thirteen years later he added several chapters about the history and craft of filmmaking, and presented to the world Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting (G.P. Putnam’s), what many consider to be one of the finest books ever written about dramatic construction. Long out-of-print, this unabridged online version has been scanned from an original copy. All that differs from the 1949 edition is the removal of the “Check List of Films” and the index. New pagination has been introduced. Additionally, included below is the introduction to Lawson’s 1960 edition of Theory and Technique of Playwriting (Hill and Wang). PDFs of Lawson’s Film: The Creative Process (second edition 1967, Hill and Wang) and his Theory and Technique of Playwriting (1960, Hill and Wang), as well as a fifteen-page selection of extracts from Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting, summarising Lawson’s ideas on dramatic construction, are available at www.johnhowardlawson.com. For details of Lawson’s life and work, readers are directed to Gerald Horne’s The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten (University of California Press, 2006). For analysis of his many plays and screenplays see Jonathan L. Chambers’ Messiah of the New Technique: John Howard Lawson, Communism, and American Theatre, 1923 – 1937 (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006) and Gary Carr’s The Left Side of Paradise: The Screenwriting of John Howard Lawson (UMI Research Press, 1984). © The Estate of John Howard Lawson 2 www.johnhowardlawson.com Contents Introduction to the 1949 edition 5 Introduction to the 1960 edition of Theory and Technique of Playwriting 10 Book One 31 Theory and Technique of Playwriting Part 1 History of Dramatic Thought 32 I. Aristotle 34 II. The Renaissance 40 III. The Eighteenth Century 49 IV. The Nineteenth Century 57 V. Ibsen 83 Part 2 The Theatre Today 99 I. Conscious Will and Social Necessity 102 II. Dualism of Modern Thought 111 III. George Bernard Shaw 118 IV. Critical and Technical Trends 124 V. Eugene O’Neill 136 VI. The Technique of the Modern Play 146 Part 3 Dramatic Structure 159 I. The Law of Conflict 162 II. Dramatic Action 167 III. Unity in Terms of Climax 172 IV. The Process of Selection 182 V. The Social Framework 192 Part 4 Dramatic Composition 207 I. Continuity 209 II. Exposition 219 III. Progression 228 VI. The Obligatory Scene 242 V. Climax 246 VI. Characterization 256 © The Estate of John Howard Lawson 3 www.johnhowardlawson.com VII. Dialogue 262 VIII. The Audience 272 Book Two 276 Theory and Technique of Screenwriting Part 1 The First Fifty Years 277 I. Nickel-Odeon 280 II. Vine Street and Europe 285 III. The World Market 291 IV. Picture Palace 299 V. The Coming of Sound 308 VI. Social Function 314 VII. Crisis 320 Part 2 Motion-Picture Structure 323 I. Conflict-in-Motion 325 II. Cinematic Action 336 III. Sound Track 340 IV. Unity in Terms of Climax 343 V. The Social Framework 348 Part 3 Motion-Picture Composition 351 I. Continuity 352 II. Exposition 357 III. Progression 362 IV. The Obligatory Scene 368 V. Climax 372 VI. Characterization 377 Postscript 381 Acknowledgements 382 © The Estate of John Howard Lawson 4 www.johnhowardlawson.com Introduction to the 1949 edition In preparing a new edition of this book, a little more than a decade after its first appearance, I have endeavored to make a sober estimate of its value and limitations. It seems proper to judge a study of the technique of play-writing in terms of its practical usefulness in the strident, rough-and-tumble, hurly-burly competition of the contemporary theatre. The young playwright, facing the alternative of a quick production of his work or the abandonment of a dramatic career, is likely to be more concerned about the managerial demand for plays in a single setting than about the splendor of the theatre’s past. If his play is accepted and produced, the furious tempo of a month’s rehearsals and the ordeal of the first night leave little time for historical and philosophic speculations Why, then, should a book that purports to serve as a guide to the working craftsman undertake an extensive survey of esthetic, social, and political problems? The question goes to the root of the book’s purpose. It explores the relationship between the practice of playwriting and the social forces that influence the contemporary drama, between the two hours of illusion in the darkened playhouse and the life that surges around the theatre’s walls. The extension of the book to include a study of the film is a continuation of its purpose, an enlargement of the original design. The structure and technique of the motion picture reflect a new stage in the historical evolution of dramatic forms. The theoretical approach rests on the general premise that the drama, like all modes of communication, reflects the customs, morals, lifeways of a given society. However, the reflection is not static; it is not a clear image in an untarnished mirror. The artist is himself caught in the movement of conflicting forces and shifting class relationships; he is a participant in the struggle which he seeks to interpret. His creative activity is both personal and social; his portrayal of the world around him is an extension of his own life, projecting social meanings, values, aspirations, hammered and shaped white-hot on the forge of living experience. In shaping the materials of his experience into a conscious work of art, the artist utilizes techniques and forms that have evolved in the course of history and that represent the community’s cultural heritage. For example, a poet may express intensely personal feeling in a sonnet, but the sonnet form is the inheritance of centuries, the crystallized social experience of many poets. In adapting his thought and feeling to the requirements of the sonnet, the poet gives his apparently unique emotion social meaning, and relates it to the human experience of which it is a part. If the emotion were unique in any absolute sense, it might logically demand a unique poetic form. In recent years, there have been many attempts to express the unique soul in forms that are necessarily unintelligible, because they are not clearly related to group experience. © The Estate of John Howard Lawson 5 www.johnhowardlawson.com The form of a work of art unites the creative activity of the individual with the historically evolved culture of the community in which he lives and works. Esthetic forms are undergoing continuous change and modification. The process is determined by the climate of culture and its changing function in the community life. Therefore, form is the key to the social meaning, or content, of a work of art. It is by no means accidental that modern criticism has tended to divorce form and content: the separation is inherent in the dominant philosophic tendencies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Philosophers insisted that the inner world of the spirit is unaffected by the greed and exploitation that characterize the external reality. The artist accepted the dualism: it provided a shield and buckler against the hazards of a hostile environment. The artist rejoiced that the content of his work – the essence, or creative spirit – remained inviolable. But since art is communication, the artist found himself in a contradictory position: he had to communicate his freedom from the bondage of communication, for otherwise he would be entirely deprived of self- expression, and would cease to exist as an artist. The creative impulse, deprived of fellowship and purpose, would curl up and die in the sealed tomb of the ego. Therefore, we find that the tendency to turn art inward and make it independent of reality does not give the artist the spiritual safety that he craves. His interest in his own feelings and sensations is inevitably transformed into a preoccupation with “pure form.” He has less and less to say and is more and more concerned with the way of saying it. This is the revenge that art takes on those who betray its social function. The artist pretends that he has control over the esthetic process for his private use and enjoyment. In order to maintain the illusion, he has to assert his control over form. Form is the link between the creator and the society he serves; the artist who wishes to go it alone without social responsibility must break the link. He must invent private modes of expression which seem to have no social function and thus prove his freedom from the social forces that shape cultural forms in terms of group experience and community needs. The increasing social pressures and tensions of the twentieth century brought an increasing emphasis on the primacy of form. Critical theory has elaborately endorsed the view that form is not designed to facilitate communication, but to establish a barrier between the creative spirit and the unfriendly environment. Unfortunately, many critics interested in the social function of art have accepted the spurious argument that form is determined by personal and esthetic considerations. They have searched for social meanings in the general attitude of the artist. They have assumed that his attitude, intentions, and feelings constitute what is vaguely called the content of his work.
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