u have become identified with him. The first step in your
delineation has been taken.

Visualize in your mind's eye--your imagination--the circumstances in
which that character is placed in the play. See yourself looking,
moving, acting as he would. Then talk as that character would in those
circumstances. Make him react as he would naturally in the situations
in which the dramatist has placed him.

Let us try to make this more definite. Suppose a boy is chosen to act
the part of an old man. An old man does not speak as rapidly as a boy
does. He will have to change the speed of his speech. But suppose the
old man is moved to wrath, would his words come slowly? Would he speak
distinctly or would he almost choke?

The girl who is delineating a foreign woman must picture her accent
and hesitation in speaking English. She would give to her face the
rather vacant questioning look such a woman would have as the English
speech flits about her, too quickly for her to comprehend all of it.

The girl who tries to present a British queen in a Shakespeare play
must not act as a pupil does in the school corridor. Yet if that queen
is stricken in her feelings as a mother, might not all the royal
dignity melt away, and her Majesty act like any sorrowing woman?

EXERCISES

You are sitting at a table or desk. The telephone rings. You pick up
the receiver. A person at the other end invites you to dinner. Deliver
your part of the conversation.

1. Speak in your own character.

2. Speak as a busy, quick-tempered old man in his disordered office.

3. Speak as a tired wife who hasn't had a relief for weeks from the
drudgery of house-work.

4. Speak as a young debutante who has been entertained every day for
weeks.

5. Speak as the office boy.

6. Speak as an over-polite foreigner.

7. Delineate some other kind of person.

Improvisations are here given first because such exercises depend upon
the pupil's original interpretation of a character. The pupil is
required to do so much clear thinking about the character he
represents that he really creates it.

Dialogues. As it is easier to get two people to speak naturally than
where more are involved we shall begin conversation with dialogues.
Each character will find the lines springing spontaneously from the
situation. In dramatic composition any speech delivered by a character
is called a line, no matter how short or long it is.

As you deliver the dialogues suggested by