half a dozen plays every day. It is wholly a matter of selecting a theme upon which we would like to write.
And in the selection of a theme we come to the second important phase of this discussion: the value of theme in the photoplay.
Francisque Sarcey, whom Brander Matthews has characterized as "the shrewdest of the nineteenth century theorists of the theatre," said this:
"A dramatic work, whatever it may be, is designed to be witnessed by a number of persons united and forming an audience; that is its very essence; that is one indispensable condition of its existence. The audience is the necessary and inevitable condition to which dramatic art must accommodate its means."
And in the selection of a workable theme, the photoplaywright can well heed this excellent advice. In commenting upon this thought of Sarcy's, Brander Matthews, in his book, "Principles of Playmaking," continues:
"As it is almost impossible to gather exactly the same audience two or three times in succession, and as no audience can be kept interested for more than a few hours at a sitting, it is a principle of playmaking that the dramatist must devise a dominating action and that he must condense his story, dealing only with its most interesting moments and presenting it, shorn of all negligible details. And as the audience is a crowd, composed of all sorts and conditions of men, the dramatist must deal with subjects appealing to collective human nature, and he must eschew themes of a more limited attraction."
Let me repeat that last sentence again: "And as the audience is a crowd, composed of all sorts and conditions
