Writing for Vaudeville
by Brett Page · English · Gutenberg #5328 · 842,244 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Writing for Vaudeville
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Writing for Vaudeville
Author: Brett Page
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #5328]
Most recently updated: December 28, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5328
Credits: This etext was produced by Steve Bonner
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE ***
This etext was produced by Steve Bonner.
WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE
WITH NINE COMPLETE EXAMPLES OF VARIOUS VAUDEVILLE FORMS BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, AARON HOFFMAN, EDGAR ALLAN WOOLF,
TAYLOR GRANVILLE, LOUIS WESLYN, ARTHUR DENVIR, AND JAMES
MADISON
BY BRETT PAGE
AUTHOR OF "CLOSE HARMONY," "CAMPING DAYS," "MEMORIES," ETC.
DRAMATIC EDITOR, NEWSPAPER FEATURE SERVICE, NEW YORK
THE WRITER'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY J. BERG ESENWEIN
FOREWORD
Can you be taught how to write for vaudeville? If you have the
native gift, what experienced writers say about its problems, what
they themselves have accomplished, and the means by which it has
been wrought, will be of help to you. So much this book offers,
and more I would not claim for it.
Although this volume is the first treatise on the subject of which
I know, it is less an original offering than a compilation. Growing
out of a series of articles written in collaboration with Mr.
William C. Lengel for The Green Book Magazine, the subject assumed
such bigness in my eyes that when I began the writing of this book,
I spent months harvesting the knowledge of others to add to my own
experience. With the warm-heartedness for which vaudevillians are
famous, nearly everyone whose aid I asked lent assistance gladly.
"It is vaudeville's first book," said more than one, deprecating
the value of his own suggestions, "and we want it right in each
slightest particular."
To the following kindly gentlemen I wish to express my especial
thanks: Aaron Hoffman, Edwin Hopkins, James Madison, Edgar Allan
Woolf, Richard Harding Davis--the foremost example of a writer who
made a famous name first in literature and afterward in
vaudeville--Arthur Hopkins, Taylor Granville, Junie McCree, Arthur
Denvir, Frank Fogarty, Irving Berlin, Charles K. Harris, L. Wolfe
Gilbert, Ballard MacDonald, Louis Bernstein, Joe McCarthy, Joseph
Hart, Joseph Maxwell, George A. Gottlieb, Daniel F. Hennessy,
Sime Silverman, Thomas J. Gray, William C. Lengel, Miss Nellie
Revell, the "big sister of vaudeville," and a host of others whose
names space does not permit my naming again here, but whose work
is evidenced in the following pages. To Alexander Black, the man
who made the first picture play twenty-one years ago, I owe thanks
for points in the discussion of dramatic values. And for many
helpful suggestions, and his kindly editing, I wish to express my
gratitude to Dr. J. Berg Esenwein. To these "friends indeed"
belongs whatever merit this book possesses.
BRETT PAGE
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
August 25, 1915
INTRODUCTION
It falls to the lot of few men in these days to blaze a new trail
in Bookland. This Mr. Brett Page has done, with firmness and
precision, and with a joy in every stroke that will beget in
countless readers that answering joy which is the reward of both
him who guides and him who follows. There is but one word for a
work so penetrating, so eductive, so clear--and that word is
_masterly_. Let no one believe the modest assertion that "Writing
for Vaudeville" is "less an original offering than a compilation."
I have seen it grow and re-grow, section by section, and never
have I known an author give more care to the development of his
theme in an original way. Mr. Page has worked with fidelity to
the convictions gained while himself writing professionally, yet
with deference for the opinions of past masters in this field.
The result is a book quite unexcelled among manuals of instruction,
for authority, full statement, analysis of the sort that leads the
reader to see what essentials he must build into his own structures,
and sympathetic helpfulness throughout. I count it an honor to
have been the editorial sponsor for a pioneer book which will be
soon known everywhere.
J. BERG ESENWEIN
WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE
CHAPTER I
THE WHY OF THE VAUDEVILLE ACT
1. The Rise of Vaudeville
A French workman who lived in the Valley of the Vire in the
fourteenth or fifteenth century, is said to be vaudeville's
grandparent. Of course, the child of his brain bears not even a
remote resemblance to its descendant of to-day, yet the line is
unbroken and the relationship clearer than many of the family trees
of the royal houses. The French workman's name was Oliver Bassel,
or Olivier Basselin, and in his way he was a poet. He composed
and sang certain sprightly songs which struck the popular fancy
and achieved a reputation not only in his own town but throughout
the country.
Bassel's success raised the usual crop of imitators and soon a
whole family of songs like his were being whistled in France. In
the course of time these came to be classed as a new and distinct
form of musical entertainment. They were given the name of
"Val-de-Vire" from the valley in which Bassel was born. This
name became corrupted, into "vaux-de-vire" in the time of Louis
XVI, and was applied to all the popular or topical songs sung on
the streets of Paris. Then the aristocrats took up these songs
and gave entertainments at their country seats. To these
entertainments they gave the name of "vaux-de-ville," the last
syllable being changed to honor Bassel's native town [1] And
gradually the x was dropped and the word has remained through the
years as it is to-day.
[1] Another version relates that these songs were sung on the Pont
Neuf in Paris, where stands the Hotel de Ville, or City Hall, and
thus the generic name acquired the different termination.
As the form of entertainment advanced, the word vaudeville expanded
in meaning. It came to comprise not only a collection of songs,
but also acrobatic feats and other exhibitions. Having no dramatic
sequence whatever, these unrelated acts when shown together achieved
recognition as a distinct form of theatrical entertainment. As
"vaudeville"--or "variety"--this form of entertainment became known
and loved in every country of the world.
Vaudeville was introduced into this country before 1820, but it
did not become a common form of entertainment until shortly before
the Civil War when the word 'variety' was at once adopted and
became familiar as something peculiarly applicable to the troubled
times. The new and always cheerful entertainment found the reward
of its optimism in a wide popularity. But as those days of war
were the days of men, vaudeville made its appeal to men only. And
then the war-clouds passed away and the show business had to
reestablish itself, precisely as every other commercial pursuit
had to readjust itself to changed conditions.
Tony Pastor saw his opportunity. On July 31, 1865, he opened "Tony
Pastor's Opera House" at 199-201 Bowery, New York. He had a theory
that a vaudeville entertainment from which every objectionable
word and action were taken away, and from which the drinking bar
was excluded, would appeal to women and children as well as men.
He knew that no entertainment that excluded women could long hold
a profitable place in a man's affections. So to draw the whole
family to his new Opera House, Tony Pastor inaugurated clean
vaudeville [1]. Pastor's success was almost instantaneous. It
became the fashion to go to Pastor's Opera House and later when
he moved to Broadway, and then up to Fourteenth Street, next to
Tammany Hall, he carried his clientele with him. And vaudeville,
as a form of entertainment that appealed to every member of the
home circle, was firmly established--for a while.
[1] In the New York Clipper for December 19, 1914, there is an
interesting article: "The Days of Tony Pastor," by Al. Fostelle,
an old-time vaudeville performer, recounting the names of the
famous performers who played for Tony Pastor in the early days.
It reads like a "who's who" of vaudeville history. Mr. Fostelle,
has in his collection a bill of an entertainment given in England
in 1723, consisting of singing, dancing, character impersonations,
with musical accompaniment, tight-rope walking, acrobatic feats,
etc.
For Pastor's success in New York did not at first seem to the
average vaudeville manager something that could be duplicated
everywhere. A large part of the profits of the usual place came
from the sale of drinks and to forego this source of revenue seemed
suicidal. Therefore, vaudeville as a whole continued for years
on the old plane. "Variety" was the name--in England vaudeville
is still called "variety"--that it held even more widely then.
And in the later seventies and the early eighties "variety" was
on the ebb-tide. It was classed even lower than the circus, from
which many of its recruits were drawn.
Among the men who came to vaudeville's rescue, because they saw
that to appear to the masses profitably, vaudeville must be clean,
were F. F. Proctor in Philadelphia, and B. F. Keith in Boston.
On Washington Street in Boston, B. F. Keith had opened a "store
show." The room was very small and he had but a tiny stage; still
he showed a collection of curiosities, among which were a two-headed
calf and a fat woman. Later on he added a singer and a serio-comic
comedian and insisted that they eliminate from their acts everything
that might offend the most fastidious. The result was that he
moved to larger quarters and ten months later to still more
commodious premised.
Continuous vaudeville--"eleven o'clock in the morning until eleven
at night"--had its birth on July 6, 1885. It struck the popular
fancy immediately and soon there was hardly a city of any importance
that did not possess its "continuous" house. From the "continuous"
vaudeville has developed the two-performances-a-day policy, for
which vaudeville is now so well known.
The vaudeville entertainment of this generation is, however, a
vastly different entertainment from that of even the nineties.
What it has become in popular affection it owes not only to Tony
Pastor, F. F. Proctor, or even to B. F. Keith--great as was his
influence--but to a host of showmen whose names and activities
would fill more space than is possible here. E. F. Albee, Oscar
Hammerstein, S. Z. Poli, William Morris, Mike Shea, James E. Moore,
Percy G. Williams, Harry Davis, Morris Meyerfeld, Martin Beck,
John J. Murdock, Daniel F. Hennessy, Sullivan and Considine,
Alexander Pantages, Marcus Loew, Charles E. Kohl, Max Anderson,
Henry Zeigler, and George Castle, are but a few of the many men
living and dead who have helped to make vaudeville what it is.
From the old variety show, made up of a singer of topical songs,
an acrobatic couple, a tight-rope walker, a sidewalk "patter" pair,
and perhaps a very rough comedy sketch, there has developed a
performance that sometimes includes as many as ten or twelve acts,
each one presented by an artist whose name is known around the
world. One of the laments of the old vaudeville performers is
that they have a place in vaudeville no more. The most famous
grand opera singers and the greatest actors and actresses appear
in their room. The most renowned dramatists write some of its
playlets. The finest composers cut down their best-known works
to fit its stage, and little operas requiring forty people and
three or four sets of scenery are the result. To the legitimate
[1] stage vaudeville has given some of its successful plays and
at least one grand opera has been expanded from a playlet. To-day
a vaudeville performance is the best thought of the world condensed
to fit the flying hour.
[1] _Legitimate_ is a word used in the theatrical business to
distinguish the full-evening drama, its actors, producers, and its
mechanical stage from those of burlesque and vaudeville. Originally
coined as a word of reproach against vaudeville, it has lost its
sting and is used by vaudevillians as well as legitimate actors
and managers.
2. Of What a Vaudeville Show is Made
There is no keener psychologist than a vaudeville manager. Not
only does he present the best of everything that can be shown upon
a stage, but he so arranges the heterogeneous elements that they
combine to form a unified whole. He brings his audiences together
by advertising variety and reputations, and he sends them away
aglow with the feeling that they have been entertained every minute.
His raw material is the best he can buy. His finished product is
usually the finest his brain can form. He engages Sarah Bernhardt,
Calve, a Sir James M. Barrie playlet, Ethel Barrymore, and Henry
Miller. He takes one of them as the nucleus of a week's bill.
Then he runs over the names of such regular vaudevillians as Grace
La Rue, Nat Wills, Trixie Friganza, Harry Fox and Yansci Dollie,
Emma Carus, Sam and Kitty Morton, Walter C. Kelly, Conroy and
LeMaire, Jack Wilson, Hyams and McIntyre, and Frank Fogarty. He
selects two or maybe three of them. Suddenly it occurs to him
that he hasn't a big musical "flash" for his bill, so he telephones
a producer like Jesse L. Lasky, Arthur Hopkins or Joe Hart and
asks him for one of his fifteen- or twenty-people acts. This he
adds to his bill. Then he picks a song-and-dance act and an
acrobatic turn. Suddenly he remembers that he wants--not for this
show, but for some future week--Gertrude Hoffman with her big
company, or Eva Tanguay all by herself. This off his mind, the
manager lays out his show--if it is the standard nine-act
bill--somewhat after the following plan, as George A. Gottlieb,
who books Keith's Palace Theatre, New York, shows--probably the
best and certainly the "biggest" vaudeville entertainments seen
in this country--has been good enough to explain.
"We usually select a 'dumb act' for the first act on the bill.
It may be a dancing act, some good animal act, or any act that
makes a good impression and will not be spoiled by the late arrivals
seeking their seats. Therefore it sometimes happens that we make
use of a song-and-dance turn, or any other little act that does
not depend on its words being heard.
"For number two position we select an interesting act of the sort
recognized as a typical 'vaudeville act.' It may be almost anything
at all, though it should be more entertaining than the first act.
For this reason it often happens that a good man-and-woman singing
act is placed here. This position on the bill is to 'settle' the
audience and to prepare it for the show.
"With number three position we count on waking up the audience.
The show has been properly started and from now on it must build
right up to the finish. So we offer a comedy dramatic sketch--a
playlet that wakens the interest and holds the audience every
minute with a culminative effect that comes to its laughter-climax
at the 'curtain,' or any other kind of act that is not of the same
order as the preceding turn, so that, having laid the foundations,
we may have the audience wondering what is to come next.
"For number four position we must have a 'corker' of an act--and
a 'name.' It must be the sort of act that will rouse the audience
to expect still better things, based on the fine performance of
the past numbers. Maybe this act is the first big punch of the
show; anyway, it must strike home and build up the interest for
the act that follows.
"And here for number five position, a big act, and at the same
time another big name, must be presented. Or it might be a big
dancing act--one of those delightful novelties vaudeville likes
so well. In any event this act must be as big a 'hit' as any on
the bill. It is next to intermission and the audience must have
something really worth while to talk over. And so we select one
of the best acts on the bill to crown the first half of the show.
"The first act after intermission, number six on the bill, is a
difficult position to fill, because the act must not let down the
carefully built-up tension of interest and yet it must not be
stronger than the acts that are to follow. Very likely there is
chosen a strong vaudeville specialty, with comedy well to the fore.
Perhaps a famous comedy dumb act is selected, with the intention
of getting the audience back in its seats without too many conspicuous
interruptions of what is going on on the stage. Any sort of act
that makes a splendid start-off is chosen, for there has been a
fine first half and the second half must be built up again--of
course the process is infinitely swifter in the second half of the
show--and the audience brought once more into a delighted-expectant
attitude.
"Therefore the second act after intermission--number seven--must
be stronger than the first. It is usually a full-stage act and
again must be another big name. Very likely it is a big playlet,
if another sketch has not been presented earlier on the bill. It
may be a comedy playlet or even a serious dramatic playlet, if the
star is a fine actor or actress and the name is well known. Or
it may be anything at all that builds up the interest and appreciation
of the audience to welcome the 'big' act that follows. "For here
in number eight position--next to closing, on a nine-act bill--the
comedy hit of the show is usually placed. It is one of the acts
for which the audience has been waiting. Usually it is one of the
famous 'single' man or 'single' women acts that vaudeville has
made such favorites.
"And now we have come to the act that closes the show. We count
on the fact that some of the audience will be going out. Many
have only waited to see the chief attraction of the evening, before
hurrying off to their after-theatre supper and dance. So we spring
a big 'flash.' It must be an act that does not depend for its
success upon being heard perfectly. Therefore a 'sight' act is
chosen, an animal act maybe, to please the children, or a Japanese
troupe with their gorgeous kimonos and vividly harmonizing stage
draperies, or a troupe of white-clad trapeze artists flying against
a background of black. Whatever the act is, it must be a showy
act, for it closes the performance and sends the audience home
pleased with the program to the very last minute.
"Now all the time a booking-manager is laying out his show, he has
not only had these many artistic problems on his mind, but also
the mechanical working of the show. For instance, he must consider
the actual physical demands of his stage and not place next each
other two full-stage acts. If he did, how would the stage hands
change the scenery without causing a long and tedious wait? In
vaudeville there must be no waits. Everything must run with
unbroken stride. One act must follow another as though it were
especially made for the position. And the entire show must be
dovetailed to the split seconds of a stop-watch.
"Therefore it is customary to follow an 'act in One' (See below)
with an act requiring Full Stage. Then after the curtain has
fallen on this act, an act comes on to play in One again. A show
can, of course, start with a full-stage act, and the alternation
process remains the same. Or there may be an act that can open
in One and then go into Full Stage--after having given the stage
hands time to set their scenery--or vice versa, close in One.
Briefly, the whole problem is simply this--acts must be arranged
not only in the order of their interest value, but also according
to their physical demands.
"But there is still another problem the manager must solve. 'Variety'
is vaudeville's paternal name--vaudeville must present a _varied_
bill and a show consisting of names that will tend to have a
box-office appeal. No two acts in a show should be alike. No two
can be permitted to conflict. 'Conflict' is a word that falls with
ominous meaning on a vaudeville performer's or manager's ears,
because it means death to one of the acts and injury to the show
as a whole. If two famous singing 'single' women were placed on
the same bill, very likely there would be odious comparisons--even
though they did not use songs that were alike. And however
interesting each might be, both would lose in interest. And yet,
sometimes we do just this thing--violating a minor rule to win a
great big box-office appeal.
"Part of the many sides of this delicate problem may be seen when
you consider that no two 'single' singing acts should be placed
next each other--although they may not conflict if they are placed
far apart on the bill. And no two 'quiet' acts may be placed
together. The tempo of the show must be maintained--and because
tragic playlets, and even serious playlets, are suspected of
'slowing up a show,' they are not booked unless very exceptional."
These are but a few of the many sides of the problem of what is
called "laying out a show." A command of the art of balancing a
show is a part of the genius of a great showman. It is a gift.
It cannot be analyzed. A born showman lays out his bill, not by
rule, but by feeling.
3. The Writer's Part in a Vaudeville Show
In preparing the raw material from which the manager makes up his
show, the writer may play many parts. He may bear much of the
burden of entertainment, as in a playlet, or none of the responsibility,
as in the average dumb act. And yet, he may write the pantomimic
story that pleases the audience most. Indeed, the writer may be
everything in a vaudeville show, and always his part is an important
one.
Of course the trained seals do not need a dramatist to lend them
interest, nor does the acrobat need his skill; but without the
writer what would the actress be, and without the song-smith, what
would the singer sing? And even the animal trainer may utilize
the writer to concoct his "line of talk." The monologist, who of
all performers seems the most independent of the author, buys his
merriest stories, his most up-to-the-instant jests, ready-made
from the writer who works like a marionette's master pulling the
strings. The two-act, which sometimes seems like a funny impromptu
fight, is the result of the writer's careful thinking. The
flirtatious couple who stroll out on the stage to make everyone
in the audience envious, woo Cupid through the brain of their
author. And the musical comedy, with its strong combination of
nearly everything; is but the embodied flight of the writer's
fancy. In fact, the writer supplies much of the life-blood of a
vaudeville show. Without him modern vaudeville could not live.
Thus, much of the present wide popularity of vaudeville is due to
the writer. It is largely owing to the addition of his thoughts
that vaudeville stands to-day as a greater influence--because it
has a wider appeal--than the legitimate drama in the make-believe
life of the land. Even the motion pictures, which are nearer the
eyes of the masses, are not nearer their hearts. Vaudeville was
the first to foster motion pictures and vaudeville still accords
the motion picture the place it deserves on its bills. For
vaudeville is the amusement weekly of the world--it gathers and
presents each week the best the world affords in entertainment.
And much of the best comes from the writer's brain.
Because mechanical novelties that are vaudeville-worth-while are
rare, and because acrobats and animal trainers are of necessity
limited by the frailties of the flesh, and for the reason that
dancers cannot forever present new steps, it remains for the writer
to bring to vaudeville the never-ceasing novelty of his thoughts.
New songs, new ideas, new stories, new dreams are what vaudeville
demands from the writer. Laughter that lightens the weary day is
what is asked for most.
It is in the fulfilling of vaudeville's fine mission that writers
all over the world are turning out their best. And because the
mission of vaudeville is fine, the writing of anything that is not
fine is contemptible. The author who tries to turn his talents
to base uses--putting an untrue emphasis on life's false values,
picturing situations that are not wholesome, using words that are
not clean--deserves the fate of failure that awaits him. As E.
F. Albee, who for years has been a controlling force in vaudeville,
wrote: [1] "We have no trouble in keeping vaudeville clean and
wholesome, unless it is with some act that is just entering, for
the majority of the performers are jealous of the respectable name
that vaudeville has to-day, and cry out themselves against
besmirchment by others."
[1] "The Future of the Show Business," by E. F. Albee, in The
Billboard for December 19, 1914.
Reality and truth are for what the vaudeville writer strives. The
clean, the fine, the wholesome is his goal. He finds in the many
theatres all over the land a countless audience eager to hear what
he has to say. And millions are invested to help him say it well.
CHAPTER II
SHOULD YOU TRY TO WRITE FOR VAUDEVILLE?
"I became a writer," George Bernard Shaw once said, "because I
wanted to get a living without working for it--I have since realized
my mistake." Anyone who thinks that by writing for vaudeville he
can get a living without working for it is doomed to a sad and
speedy awakening.
If I were called upon to give a formula for the creation of a
successful vaudeville writer, I would specify: The dramatic genius
of a Shakespere, the diplomatic craftiness of a Machiavelli, the
explosive energy of a Roosevelt, and the genius-for-long-hours of
an Edison: mix in equal proportions, add a dash of Shaw's impudence,
all the patience of Job, and keep boiling for a lifetime over the
seething ambition of Napoleon.
In other--and less extreme--words, if you contemplate writing for
vaudeville for your bread and butter, you must bring to the business,
if not genius, at least the ability to think, and if not boundless
energy, at any rate a determination never to rest content with the
working hours of the ordinary professions.
If you suppose that the mere reading of this book is going to make
you able to think, permit me gently to disillusion you; and if you
are imbued with the flattering faith that after studying these
chapters you will suddenly be able to sit down and write a successful
playlet, monologue, two-act, musical comedy libretto, or even a
good little "gag," in the words of classic vaudeville--forget it!
All this book can do for you--all any instruction can do--is to
show you the right path, show precisely _how_ others have successfully
essayed it, and wish you luck. Do you remember the brave lines
of W. E. Henley, the blind English poet:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
And again in the same poem, "Invictus":
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
There sings the spirit that will carry a writer to success in
vaudeville or in any other line of writing; and it is this inspired
attitude you should assume toward the present book of instruction.
These chapters, carefully designed and painstakingly arranged,
contain information and suggestions which, if studied and applied
by the right person, will help him to a mastery of vaudeville
writing. But they should be viewed not as laying down rules, only
as being suggestive. This book cannot teach you how to write--with
its aid you may be able to teach yourself.
Are you the sort of person likely to make a success of writing for
vaudeville? You, alone, can determine. But the following discussion
of some of the elements of equipment which anyone purposing to
write for vaudeville should possess, may help you find the answer.
1. Experience in Other Forms of Writing Valuable
Let us suppose that you have been engaged in writing for a newspaper
for years. You started as a reporter and because of your unusual
ability in the handling of political news have made politics your
specialty. You have been doing nothing but politics until politics
seems to be all you know. Suddenly the sporting editor falls ill,
and at the moment there is no one to take his place but you. Your
assistant takes over your work and you are instructed to turn out
a daily page of sporting news.
If you knew nothing at all about writing you would find the task
nearly impossible to accomplish. But you do know how to write and
therefore the mere writing does not worry you. And your experience
as a special writer on politics has taught you that there are
certain points all special newspaper work has in common and you
apply your knowledge to the task before you.
Still you are seriously handicapped for a time because you have
been thinking in terms of politics. But soon, by turning all your
energy and ability upon your new subject, you learn to think in
terms of sport. And, if you are a better thinker and a better
writer than the old sporting editor, it won't be long before you
turn out a better sporting page than he did. If you were the owner
of the newspaper, which, in the emergency, would you choose to be
your sporting editor: the untried man who has never demonstrated
his ability to write, the reporter who has no knowledge of special
writing, or the trained writer who has mastered one specialty and,
it may reasonably be supposed, will master another quickly? The
same care you would exercise in choosing another man to work for
you, you should exercise in choosing your own work for yourself.
Do you know how to write? Do you write with ease and find pleasure
in the work? If you do, class yourself with the reporter.
What success have you had in writing fiction? Have you written
successful novels or short-stories? If you have, class yourself
with the special writer. Did you ever write a play? Was your
full-evening play accepted and successful? If you have written a
play and if your play was a success, class yourself with the
sporting editor himself--but as one who has made a success in only
one specialty in the realm of sport.
For, those who have had some success in other forms of writing--even
the successful playwright--and those who never have written even
a salable joke, all have to learn the slightly different form of
the vaudeville act.
But, having once learned the form and become perfectly familiar
with vaudeville's peculiar requirements, the dramatist and the
trained fiction writer will outstrip the untrained novice. Remember
that the tortoise was determined, persistent, and energetic.
2. Ability to Think in Drama and Technical Knowledge of the Stage
Required
The dramatist and the trained fiction writer possess imagination,
they think in plots, they have learned how to picture vivid,
dramatic incidents, and they know a story when it comes up and
taps them on the shoulder. Furthermore, they know where to look
for ideas, and how to twist them to plot uses. In every one of
these points of special knowledge both the dramatist and the trained
fiction writer have the advantage over the untrained novice, for
the essence of all vaudeville writing lies in plot--which is
story--arrangement.
But there is a wide difference between being able to think in a
story-plot and in drama, and in this the playwright who has produced
a full-evening play has the advantage over even the trained fiction
writer when it comes to applying his dramatic knowledge to vaudeville.
Precisely what the difference is, and what drama itself is--especially
that angle of the art to be found in vaudeville--will be taken up
and explained as clearly as the ideas admit of explanation, in the
following pages. But not on one page, nor even in a whole chapter,
will the definition of drama be found, for pulsating life cannot
be bound by words. However, by applying the rules and heeding the
suggestions herein contained, you will be able to understand the
"why" of the drama that you feel when you witness it upon the
stage. The ability to think in drama means being able to see drama
and bring it fresh and new and gripping to the stage.
Of course drama is nothing more than story presented by a different
method than that employed in the short-story and the novel. Yet
the difference in methods is as great as the difference between
painting and sculpture. Indeed the novel-writer's methods have
always seemed to me analogous to those employed by the painter,
and the dramatist's methods similar to those used by the sculptor.
And I have marvelled at the nonchalant way in which the fiction
writer often rushes into the writing of a play, when a painter
would never think of trying to "sculpt" until he had learned at
least some of the very different processes employed in the strange
art-form of sculpture. The radical difference between writing and
playwrighting [1] has never been popularly understood, but some
day it will be comprehended by everybody as clearly as by those
whose business it is to make plays.
[1] Note the termination of the word _playwright_. A "wright" is
a workman in some mechanical business. Webster's dictionary says:
"Wright is used chiefly in compounds, as, figuratively, playwright."
It is significant that the playwright is compelled to rely for
nearly all his effects upon purely mechanical means.
An intimate knowledge of the stage itself is necessary for success
in the writing of plays. The dramatist must know precisely what
means, such as scenery, sound-effects, and lights--the hundred
contributing elements of a purely mechanical nature at his command--
he can employ to construct his play to mimic reality. In the
present commercial position of the stage such knowledge is
absolutely necessary, or the writer may construct an act that
cannot possibly win a production, because he has made use of
scenes that are financially out of the question, even if they are
artistically possible.
This is a fundamental knowledge that every person who would write
for the stage must possess. It ranks with the "a b c" course in
the old common school education, and yet nearly every novice
overlooks it in striving after the laurel wreaths of dramatic
success that are impossible without it. And, precisely in the
degree that stage scenery is different from nature's scenes, is
the way people must talk upon the stage different from the way
they talk on the street. The method of stage speech--_what_ is
said, not _how_ it is said--is best expressed in the definition
of all art, which is summed up in the one word "suppression." Not
what to put in, but what to leave out, is the knowledge the
playwright--in common with all other artists--must possess. The
difference in methods between writing a novel and writing a play
lies in the difference in the scenes and speeches that must be
left out, as well as in the descriptions of scenery and moods of
character that everyone knows cannot be expressed in a play by
words.
Furthermore, the playwright is working with _spoken_, not _written_,
words, therefore he must know something about the art of acting,
if he would achieve the highest success. He must know not only
how the words he writes will sound when they are spoken, but he
must also know how he can make gestures and glances take the place
of the volumes they can be made to speak.
Therefore of each one of the different arts that are fused into
the composite art of the stage, the playwright must have intimate
knowledge. Prove the truth of this statement for yourself by
selecting at random any play you have liked and inquiring into the
technical education of its author. The chances are scores to one
that the person who wrote that play has been closely connected
with the stage for years. Either he was an actor, a theatrical
press agent, a newspaper man, a professional play-reader for some
producer, or gained special knowledge of the stage through a
dramatic course at college or by continual attendance at the theatre
and behind the scenes. It is only by acquiring _special_ knowledge
of one of the most difficult of arts that anyone may hope to achieve
success.
3. A Familiar Knowledge of Vaudeville and its Special Stage Necessary
It is strange but true that a writer able to produce a successful
vaudeville playlet often writes a successful full-evening play,
but that only in rare instances do full-evening dramatists produce
successful vaudeville playlets. Clyde Fitch wrote more than
fifty-four long plays in twenty years, and yet his "Frederic
Lemaitre," used by Henry Miller in vaudeville, was not a true
vaudeville playlet--merely a short play--and achieved its success
simply because Fitch wrote it and Miller played it with consummate
art.
The vaudeville playlet and the play that is merely short, are
separate art forms, they are precisely and as distinctly different
as the short-story and the story that is merely short. It is only
within the last few years that Brander Matthews drew attention to
the artistic isolation of the short-story; and J. Berg Esenwein,
in his very valuable work [1], established the truth so that all
might read and know it. For years I have contended for the
recognition of the playlet as an art form distinct from the play
that is short.
[1] Writing the Short-Story, by J. Berg Esenwein, published uniform
with this volume, in, "The Writer's Library."
And what is true of the peculiar difference of the playlet form
is, in a lesser measure, true of the monologue, the two-act, and
the one-act musical comedy. They are all different from their
sisters and brothers that are found as integral parts of full-evening
entertainments.
To recognize these forms as distinct, to learn what material [2]
best lends itself to them and how it may be turned into the most
natural and efficient form, requires a special training different
from that necessary for the writing of plays for the legitimate
stage.
[2] The word _material_ in vaudeville means manuscript material.
To write vaudeville material is to write monologues and playlets
and the other forms of stage speech used in vaudeville acts.
But not only is there a vast difference between the material and
the art forms of the legitimate and the vaudeville stage, there
is also a great difference in their playing stages. The arrangements
of the vaudeville stage, its lights and scenery, are all unique,
as are even the playing spaces and mechanical equipment.
Therefore the author must know the mechanical aids peculiar to his
special craft, as well as possess a familiar knowledge of the
material that vaudeville welcomes and the unique forms into which
that material must be cast.
4. What Chance Has the Beginner?
The "gentle reader" who has read thus far certainly has not been
deterred by the emphasis--not undue emphasis, by the way--placed
on the value of proved ability in other forms of writing to one
who would write for vaudeville. That he has not been discouraged
by what has been said--if he is a novice--proves that he is not
easily downcast. If he has been discouraged--even if he has read
this far simply from curiosity--proves that he is precisely the
person who should not waste his time trying to write for vaudeville.
Such a person is one who ought to ponder his lack of fitness for
the work in hand and turn all his energies into his own business.
Many a good clerk, it has been truly said, has been wasted in a
poor writer.
But, while emphasis has been laid upon the value of training in
other forms of literary work, the emphasis has been placed not on
purely literary skill, but on the possession of ideas and the
training necessary to turn the ideas to account. It is "up to"
the ambitious beginner, therefore, to analyze the problem for
himself and to decide if he possesses the peculiar qualifications
that can by great energy and this special training place him upon
a par with the write who has made a success in other forms of
literary work. For there is a sense in which no literary training
is really necessary for success in vaudeville writing.
If the amateur has an imaginative mind, the innate ability to see
and turn to his own uses an interesting and coherent story, and
is possessed of the ability to think in drama, and, above all, has
the gift of humor, he can write good vaudeville material, even if
he has not education or ability to write an acceptable poem, article
or short-story. In other words, a mastery of English prose or
verse is not necessary for success in vaudeville writing. Some
of the most successful popular songs, the most successful playlets,
and other vaudeville acts, have been written by men unable to write
even a good letter.
But the constant advancement in excellence demanded of vaudeville
material, both by the managers and the public, is gradually making
it profitable for only the best-educated, specially-trained writers
to undertake this form of work. The old, illiterate, rough-and-ready
writer is passing, in a day when the "coon shouter" has given the
headline-place to Calve and Melba, and every dramatic star has
followed Sarah Bernhardt into the "two-a-day." [1]
[1] The _two-a-day_ is stage argot for vaudeville. It comes from
the number of performances the actor "does," for in vaudeville
there are two shows every day, six or seven days a week.
Nevertheless, in this sense the novice needs no literary training.
If he can see drama in real life and feels how it can be turned
into a coherent, satisfying story, he can learn how to apply that
story to the peculiar requirements of vaudeville. But no amount
of instruction can supply this inborn ability. The writer himself
must be the master of his fate, the captain of his own dramatic
soul.
CHAPTER III
THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE AND ITS DIMENSIONS
To achieve success in any art the artist must know his tools and
for what purposes they are designed. Furthermore, to achieve the
highest success, he must know what he cannot do as well as what
he can do with them.
The vaudeville stage--considered as a material thing--lends itself
to only a few definite possibilities of use, and its scenery,
lights and stage-effects constitute the box of tools the vaudeville
writer has at his command.
I. THE PHYSICAL PROPORTIONS OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE
The footlights are the equator of the theatre, separating the
"front of the house," or auditorium, from the "back of the house,"
or stage. The frame through which the audience views the stage
is the "proscenium arch." Flat against the stage side of the arch
run the "house curtain" and the asbestos curtain that are raised
at the beginning and lowered at the end of the performance.
That portion of the stage which lies between the curving footlights
and a line drawn between the bases of the proscenium arch is called
the "apron." The apron is very wide in old-fashioned theatres,
but is seldom more than two or three feet wide in recently built
houses.
1. One
Back of the proscenium arch--four feet or more behind it--you have
noticed canvas-covered wings painted in neutral-toned draperies
to harmonize with every sort of curtain, and you have noticed that
they are pushed forward or drawn back as it is found necessary to
widen or make narrow the stage opening. These first wings, called
"tormentors," [1] extend upward from the floor--anywhere from
18 to 25 feet,--to the "Grand Drapery" and "Working Drapery," or
first "border," which extend and hang just in front of them across
the stage and hide the stage-rigging from the audience. The space
lying between the tormentors and a line drawn between the bases
of the proscenium arch is called "One."
[1] No one of the score I have asked for the origin of the word
_tormentor_ has been able to give it. They all say they have asked
old-time stage-carpenters, but even they did not know.
It is in One that monologues, most "single acts"--that is, acts
presented by one person--and many "two-acts"--acts requiring but
two people--are played.
Behind the tormentors is a curtain called the "olio," which
fulfills the triple purpose of hiding the rest of the stage, serving
as scenery for acts in One and often as a curtain to raise and
lower on acts playing in the space back of One.
2. Two
Five, or six, or even seven feet behind the tormentors you have
noticed another set of wings which--extending parallel with the
tormentors--serve to mask the rest of stage. The space between
these wings and the line of the olio is called "Two."
In Two, acts such as flirtation-acts--a man and a woman playing
lover-like scenes--which use scenery or small "props," and all
other turns requiring but a small playing space, are staged.
3. Three
An equal number of feet back of the wings that bound Two, are wings
that serve as boundaries for "Three."
In Three, playlets that require but shallow sets, and other acts
that need not more than twelve feet for presentation, are played.
4. Four or Full Stage
Behind the wings that bound Three are another pair of wings, set
an equal number of feet back, which serve as the boundaries of
"Four." But, as there are rarely more than four entrances on any
stage, Four is usually called "Full Stage."
In Full Stage are presented all acts such as acrobatic acts, animal
turns, musical comedies, playlets and other pretentious acts that
require deep sets and a wide playing space.
5. Bare Stage
Sometimes the very point of a playlet depends upon showing not the
conventional stage, as it is commonly seen, but the real stage as
it is, unset with scenery; therefore sometimes the entire stage
is used as the playing stage, and then in the vernacular it is
called "Bare Stage." [1]
[1] The New Leader, written by Aaron Hoffman and played for so
many years by Sam Mann & Company, is an excellent example of a
Bare Stage act.
On the opposite page is a diagram of the stage of Keith's Palace
Theatre, New York City. A comparison of the preceding definitions
with this diagram should give a clear understanding of the vaudeville
playing stage.
II. THE WORKING DEPARTMENTS OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE
At audience-right--or stage-left--flat against the extended wall
of the proscenium arch in the First Entrance (to One) there is
usually a signal-board equipped with push buttons presided over
by the stage-manager. The stage-manager is the autocrat behind
the scenes. His duty is to see that the program is run smoothly
without the slightest hitch or wait between acts and to raise and
lower the olio, or to signal the act-curtain up or down, on
cues. [2]
[2] A _cue_ is a certain word or action regarded as the signal for
some other speech or action by another actor, or the signal for
the lights to change or a bell to ring or something to happen
during the course of a dramatic entertainment.
[diagram]
STAGE-DIAGRAM OF THE PALACE THEATRE, NEW YORK
The author wishes to express his thanks to Mr. Elmer F. Rogers,
house-manager, and Mr. William Clark, stage-manager, respectively,
of the Palace Theatre, for the careful measurements from which
this diagram was drawn.
When an act is ready to begin, the stage-manager pushes a button
to signal the olio up or raises it himself--if, that drop [1] is
worked from the stage--and on the last cue he pushes another button
to signal the curtain down, or lowers it himself, as the case may
be. He keeps time on the various acts and sees that the performers
are ready when their turn arrives. Under the stage-manager are
the various departments to which the working of scenery and effects
are entrusted.
[1] A _drop_ is the general name for a curtain of canvas--painted
to represent some scene and stretched on a batten--a long, thick
strip of wood--pocketed in the lower end to give the canvas the
required stability. _Sets of lines_ are tied to the upper batten
on which the drop is tied and thus the drop can be raised or lowered
to its place on the stage. There are sets of lines in the rear
boundaries of One, Two, Three and Four, and drops can be _hung_
on any desired set.
1. The Stage-Carpenter and His Flymen and Grips
As a rule the stage-manager is also the stage-carpenter. As such
he, the wizard of scenery, has charge of the men, and is able to
erect a palace, construct a tenement, raise a garden or a forest,
or supply you with a city street in an instant.
Up on the wall of the stage, just under a network of iron called
the "gridiron"--on which there are innumerable pulleys through
which run ropes or "lines" that carry the scenery--there is, in
the older houses, a balcony called the "fly-gallery." Into the
fly-gallery run the ends of all the lines that are attached to the
counter-weighted drops and curtains; and in the gallery are the
flymen who pull madly on these ropes to lift or lower the curtains
and drops when the signal flashes under the finger of the stage-manager
at the signal-board below. But in the newer houses nearly all
drops and scenery are worked from the stage level, and the
fly-gallery--if there is one--is deserted. When a "set" is to be
made, the stage-carpenter takes his place in the centre of the
stage and claps his hands a certain number of times to make his
men understand which particular set is wanted--if the sequence of
the sets has not yet been determined and written down for the
flymen to follow in definite order. Then the flymen lower a drop
to its place on the stage and the "grips" push out the "flats"
that make the wall of a room or the wings that form the scenery
of a forest--or whatever the set may be.
2. The Property-Man and His Assistants
Into the mimic room that the grips are setting comes the
Property-man--"Props," in stage argot--with his assistants, who
place in the designated positions the furniture, bric-a-brac,
pianos, and other properties, that the story enacted in this room
demands.
After the act has been presented and the curtain has been rung
down, the order to "strike" is given and the clearers run in and
take away all the furniture and properties, while the property-man
substitutes the new furniture and properties that are needed.
This is done at the same time the grips and fly men are changing
the scenery. No regiment is better trained in its duties. The
property-man of the average vaudeville theatre is a hard-worked
chap. Beside being an expert in properties, he must be something
of an actor, for if there is an "extra man" needed in a playlet
with a line or two to speak, it is on him that the duty falls.
He must be ready on the instant with all sorts of effects, such
as glass-crashes and wood-crashes, when a noise like a man being
thrown downstairs or through a window is required, or if a doorbell
or a telephone-bell must ring at a certain instant on a certain
cue, or the noise of thunder, the wash of the sea on the shore,
or any one of a hundred other effects be desired.
3. The Electrician
Upon the electrician fall all the duties of Jove in the delicate
matter of making the sun to shine or the moon to cast its pale
rays over a lover's scene. Next to the stage-manager's signal-board,
or in a gallery right over it, or perhaps on the other side of the
stage, stands the electric switch-board. From here all the stage
lights and the lights in the auditorium and all over the front of
the house are operated.
From the footlights with their red and white and blue and vari-tinted
bulbs, to the borders that light the scenery from above, the
bunch-lights that shed required lights through windows, the
grate-logs, the lamps and chandeliers that light the mimic rooms
themselves, and the spot-light operated by the man in the haven
of the gallery gods out front, all are under the direction of the
electrician who sits up in his little gallery and makes the moonlight
suddenly give place to blazing sunlight on a cue.
It is to the stage-manager and the stage-carpenter, the property-man
and the electrician, that are due the working of the stage miracles
that delight us in the theatres.
III. THE SCENERY OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE
In the ancient days before even candles were invented--the rush-light
days of Shakespere and his predecessors--plays were presented in
open court-yards or, as in France, in tennis-courts in the broad
daylight. A proscenium arch was all the scenery usually thought
necessary in these outdoor performances, and when the plays were
given indoors even the most realistic scenery would have been of
little value in the rush-lit semi-darkness. Then, indeed, the
play was the thing. A character walked into the STORY and out of
it again; and "place" was left to the imagination of the audience,
aided by the changing of a sign that stated where the story had
chosen to move itself.
As the centuries rolled along, improvements in lighting methods
made indoor theatrical presentations more common and brought scenery
into effective use. The invention of the kerosene lamp and later
the invention of gas brought enough light upon the stage to permit
the actor to step back from the footlights into a wider working-space
set with the rooms and streets of real life. Then with the electric
light came the scenic revolution that emancipated the stage forever
from enforced gloomy darkness, permitted the actor's expressive
face to be seen farther back from the footlights, and made of the
proscenium arch the frame of a picture.
"It is for this picture-frame stage that every dramatist is composing
his plays," Brander Matthews says; "and his methods are of necessity
those of the picture-frame stage; just as the methods of the
Elizabethan dramatic poet were of necessity those of the platform
stage." And on the same page: The influence of the realistic
movement of the middle of the nineteenth century imposed on the
stage-manager the duty of making every scene characteristic of the
period and of the people, and of relating the characters closely
to their environment." [1]
[1] The Study of the Drama, Brander Matthews.
On the vaudeville stage to-day, when all the sciences and the arts
have come to the aid of the drama, there is no period nor place,
nor even a feeling of atmosphere, that cannot be reproduced with
amazing truth and beauty of effect. Everything in the way of
scenery is artistically possible, from the squalid room of the
tenement-dweller to the blossoming garden before the palace of a
king--but artistic possibility and financial advisability are two
very different things.
If an act is designed to win success by spectacular appeal, there
is no doubt that it is good business for the producer to spend as
much money as is necessary to make his effects more beautiful and
more amazing than anything ever before seen upon the stage. But
even here he must hold his expenses down to the minimum that will
prove a good investment, and what he may spend is dependent on
what the vaudeville managers will pay for the privilege of showing
that act in their houses.
But it is not worth spectacular acts that the vaudeville writer
has particularly to deal. His problem is not compounded of
extravagant scenery, gorgeous properties, trick-scenes and
light-effects. Like Shakespere, for him the play--the story--is
the thing. The problem he faces is an embarrassment of riches.
With everything artistically possible, what is financially advisable?
1. The Successful Writer's Attitude toward Scenery
The highest praise a vaudevillian can conjure up out of his vast
reservoir of enthusiastic adjectives to apply to any act is, "It
can be played in the alley and knock 'em cold." In plain English
he means, the STORY is so good that it doesn't require scenery.
Scenery, in the business of vaudeville--please note the word
"business"--has no artistic meaning. If the owner of a dwelling
house could rent his property with the rooms unpapered and the
woodwork unpainted, he would gladly do so and pocket the saving,
wouldn't he? In precisely the same spirit the vaudeville-act owner
would sell his act without going to the expense of buying and
transporting scenery, if he could get the same price for it. To
the vaudevillian scenery is a business investment.
Because he can get more money for his act if it is properly mounted
in a pleasing picture, the vaudeville producer invests in scenery.
But he has to figure closely, just as every other business man is
compelled to scheme and contrive in dollars and cents, or the
business asset of scenery will turn into a white elephant and eat
up all his profits.
Jesse L. Lasky, whose many pleasing musical acts will be remembered,
had many a near-failure at the beginning of his vaudeville-producing
career because of his artistic leaning toward the beautiful in
stage setting. His subsequent successes were no less pleasing
because he learned the magic of the scenery mystery. Lasky is but
one example, and were it not that the names of vaudeville acts are
but fleeting memories, dimmed and eclipsed by the crowded impressions
of many acts seen at one sitting, there might be given an amazing
list of beautiful little entertainments that have failed because
of the transportation cost of the scenery they required.
When a producer is approached with a request to read a vaudeville
act he invariably asks, "What scenery?" His problem is in two
parts:
1. He must decide whether the merits of the act, itself, justify
him in investing his money in scenery on the gamble that the act
will be a success.
2. If the act proves a success, can the scenery be transported
from town to town at so low a cost that the added price he can get
for the act will allow a gross profit large enough to repay the
original cost of the scenery and leave a net profit?
An experience of my own in producing a very small act--small enough
to be in the primary class--may be as amusing as it is typical.
My partners and I decided to put out a quartet. We engaged four
good singers, two of them men, and two women. I wrote the little
story that introduced them in a humorous way and we set to work
rehearsing. At the same time the scenic artist hung three nice
big canvases on his paint frames and laid out a charming street-scene
in the Italian Quarter of Anywhere, the interior of a squalid
tenement and the throne room of a palace.
The first drop was designed to be hung behind the Olio--for the
act opened in One--and when the Olio went up, after the act's name
was hung out, the lights dimmed to the blue and soft green of
evening in the Quarter. Then the soprano commenced singing, the
tenor took up the duet, and they opened the act by walking
rhythmically with the popular ballad air to stage-centre in the
amber of the spot-light. When the duet was finished, on came the
baritone, and then the contralto, and there was a little comedy
before they sang their first quartet number.
Then the first drop was lifted in darkness and the scene changed
to the interior of the squalid tenement in which the pathos of the
little story unfolded, and a characteristic song was sung. At
length the scene changed to the throne room of the palace, where
the plot resolved itself into happiness and the little opera closed
with the "Quartet from Rigoletto."
The act was a success; it never received less than five bows and
always took two encores. But we paid three hundred and fifty
dollars for those miracles of drops, my partners and I, and we
used them only one week.
In the first place, the drops were too big for the stage on which
we "tried out" the act. We could not use them there and played
before the house street-drop and in the house palace set. The act
went very well. We shipped the drops at length-rates--as all
scenery is charged for by expressmen and railroads--to the next
town. There we used them and the act went better. It was a
question whether the bigger success was due to the smoother working
of the act or to the beautiful drops.
The price for which the act was playing at that breaking-in period
led me to ponder the cost of transporting the drops in their
rolled-up form on the battens. Therefore when I was informed that
the stage in the next town was a small one, I had a bright idea.
I ordered the stage-carpenter to take the drops from their battens,
discard the battens, and put pockets on the lower ends of the drops
and equip the upper ends with tie ropes so the drops could be tied
on the battens used in the various houses. The drops would then
fit small or large stages equally well and could be folded up into
a small enough space to tuck in a trunk and save all the excess
transportation charges.
Of course the drops folded up all right, but they unfolded in chips
of scaled-off paint. In the excitement, or the desire to "take a
chance," I had not given a thought to the plain fact that the drops
were not aniline. They were doomed to chip in time anyway, and
folding only hastened their end. Still, we received just as much
money for the act all the time we were playing it, as though we
had carried the beautiful drops.
Now comes the third lesson of this incident: Although we were
precisely three hundred and sixty-eight dollars "out" on account
of the drops, we really saved money in the end because we were
forced to discard them. The local union of the International
Association of Theatrical Stage Employees--Stage Hands' Union,
for short--tried to assess me in the town where we first used the
drops, for the salary of a stage-carpenter. According to their
then iron-clad rule, before which managers had to bow, the scenery
of every act carrying as many as three drops on battens had to be
hung and taken down by the act's own stage-carpenter--at forty
dollars a week. They could not collect from such an act today
because the rules have been changed, but our act was liable, under
the old rules, and I evaded it only by diplomacy. But even to-day
every act that carries a full set of scenery--such as a playlet
requiring a special set--must carry its own stage-carpenter.
Therefore, to the problem of original cost and transportation
expense, now add the charge of forty dollars a week against
scenery--and an average of five dollars a week extra railroad fare
for the stage-carpenter--and you begin to perceive why a vaudeville
producer asks, when you request him to read an act: "What scenery?"
There is no intention of decrying the use of special scenery in
vaudeville. Some of the very best and most profitable acts, even
aside from great scenic one-act dramas like "The System," [1] would
be comparatively valueless without their individual sets. And
furthermore the use of scenery, with the far-reaching possibilities
of the special set in all its beauty and--on this side of the
water--hitherto unrealized effectiveness, has not yet even approached
its noon. Together with the ceaseless advance of the art of
mounting a full-evening play on the legitimate stage [2] will go
the no less artistic vaudeville act. But, for the writer anxious
to make a success of vaudeville writing, the special set should
be decried. Indeed, the special set ought not to enter into the
writer's problem at all.
[1] See Appendix. [2] The Theatre of To-Day, Hiram Kelly Moderwell's
book on the modem theatre, will repay reading by anyone particularly
interested in the special set and its possibilities.
No scenery can make up for weakness of story. Rather, like a paste
diamond in an exquisitely chased, pure gold setting, the paste
story will appear at greater disadvantage: because of the very
beauty of its surroundings. The writer should make his story so
fine that it will sparkle brilliantly in any setting.
The only thought that successful vaudeville writers give to scenery
is to indicate in their manuscripts the surroundings that "relate
the characters closely to their environment."
It requires no ability to imagine startling and beautiful scenic
effects that cost a lot of money to produce--that is no "trick."
The vaudeville scenery magic lies in making use of simple scenes
that can be carried at little cost--or, better still for the new
writer, in twisting the combinations of drops and sets to be found
in every vaudeville house to new uses.
CHAPTER IV
THE SCENERY COMMONLY FOUND IN VAUDEVILLE THEATRES
1. The Olio
In every vaudeville theatre there is an Olio and, although the
scene which it is designed to represent may be different in each
house, the street Olio is common enough to be counted as universally
used. Usually there are two drops in "One," either of which may
be the Olio, and one of them is likely to represent a street, while
the other is pretty sure to be a palace scene.
2. Open Sets
Usually in Four--and sometimes in Three--there are to be found in
nearly every vaudeville theatre two different drops, which with
their matching wings [1] form the two common "open sets"--or scenes
composed merely of a rear drop and side wings, and not boxed in.
[1] A _wing_ is a double frame of wood covered with painted canvas
and set to stand as this book will when its covers are opened at
right angles to each other.
_The Wood Set_ consists of a drop painted to represent the interior
of a wood or forest, with wings painted in the same style. It is
used for knock-about acts, clown acts, bicycle acts, animal turns
and other acts that require a deep stage and can play in this sort
of scene.
_The Palace Set_, with its drop and wings, is painted to represent
the interior of a palace. It is used for dancing acts, acrobats
and other acts that require a deep stage and can appropriately
play in a palace scene.
3. The Box Sets
A "box set" is, as the name implies, a set of scenery that is
box-shaped. It represents a room seen through the fourth wall,
which has been removed. Sometimes with a, ceiling-piece, but
almost invariably with "borders"--which are painted canvas strips
hanging in front of the "border-lights" to mask them and keep the
audience from seeing the ropes and pulleys hanging from the
gridiron--the box set more nearly mimics reality than the open
set, which calls upon the imagination of the audience to supply
the realities that are entirely lacking or only hinted at.
The painted canvas units which are assembled to make the box set
are called "flats." A flat is a wooden frame about six feet six
inches wide and from twelve to eighteen feet long, covered with
canvas and, of course, painted with any scene desired. It differs
from a wing in being only one-half the double frame; therefore it
cannot stand alone.
Upon the upper end of each flat along the unpainted outer edge
there is fastened a rope as long as the flat. Two-thirds of the
way up from the bottom of the corresponding edge of the matching
flat there is a "cleat," or metal strip, into which the rope, or
"lash-line" is snapped. The two flats are then drawn tight together
so that their edges match evenly and the lash-line is lashed through
the framework to hold the flats firmly together.
While one flat may be a painted wall, the next may contain a doorway
and door, another a part of an ornamental arch, and still another
a window, so, when the various flats are assembled and set, the
box set will have the appearance of a room containing doors and
windows and even ornamental arches. The most varied scenes can
thus be realistically set up.
In the rear of open doors there are usually wings, or perhaps
flats, [1] painted to represent the walls of hallways and adjoining
rooms and they are called "interior backings." Behind a door
supposed to open out into the street or behind windows overlooking
the country, there are hung, or set, short drops or wings painted
to show parts of a street, a garden, or a country-side, and these
are called "exterior backings."
[1] When flats are used as backings they are made stable by the
use of the _stage-brace_, a device made of wood and capable of
extension, after the manner of the legs of a camera tripod. It
is fitted with double metal hooks on one end to hook into the
wooden cross-bar on the back of the flat and with metal eyes on
the other end through which _stage-screws_ are inserted and screwed
into the floor of the stage.
_The Centre-door Fancy_ is the most common of the box sets. Called
"fancy," because it has an arch with portieres and a rich-looking
backing, and because it is supposed to lead into the other palatial
rooms of the house, this set can be used for a less pretentious
scene by the substitution of a matched door for the arch.
In this plainer form it is called simply _The Parlor Set_. Sometimes
a parlor set is equipped with a French window, but this should not
be counted on. But there are usually a grate and mantelpiece, and
three doors. The doors are designed to be set, one in the rear
wall, and one in each of the right and left walls. A ceiling-piece
is rarely found, but borders are always to be had, and a chandelier
is customary.
_The Kitchen Set_ is, as the name implies, less pretentious than
the changeable parlor set. It usually is equipped with three
doors, possesses matching borders, may have an ordinary window,
and often has a fireplace panel.
Slightly altered in appearance, by changing the positions of the
doors and the not very common substitution of a "half-glass door"
in the rear wall, the kitchen set does duty as _The Office Set_.
It is in these two box sets--changed in minor details to serve as
four sets--that the vaudeville playlet is played.
On the following pages will be found eight diagrams showing how
the stock or house box sets can be set in various forms. A study
of these will show how two different acts using the same house set
can be given surroundings that appear absolutely different. These
diagrams should prove of great help to the playlet writer who
wishes to know how many doors he may use, where they are placed
and how his act will fit and play in a regulation set of scenery.
INTRODUCTION TO DIAGRAMS
The following diagrams, showing the scenic equipment of the average
vaudeville theatre, have been specially drawn for this volume and
are used here by courtesy of the Lee Lash Studios, New York. As
they are drawn to a scale of one-eighth of an inch to the foot,
the precise size of the various scenes may be calculated.
The diagrams are based on the average vaudeville stage, which
allows thirty or thirty-two feet between tormentors. The proscenium
arch _may_ be much greater, but the average vaudeville stage will
set the tormentors about thirty feet apart. All vaudeville stage
settings are made back of the tormentor line.
At the tormentor line there will be, of course, a Grand Drapery
and Working Drapery which will mask the first entrance overhead.
There will be either a set of borders for each scene, or else the
borders will be painted to use with any scene, to mask the stage
rigging. The borders are usually hung from six to seven feet
apart, so that in planning a scene this should be considered. In
a few of the larger houses, a ceiling-piece is found, but, as has
been said, this is so rare it should not be counted on.
Most houses have a floor cloth, and medallion or carpet, in addition
to the properties hereafter described. Reference to the diagrams
will show that the tormentors have a "flipper," which runs to the
proscenium arch wall; in the flipper is usually a door or a curtained
opening for the entrances and exits of acts in One.
If you will combine with the diagrams shown these elements which
cannot be diagrammed, you will have a clear idea of the way in
which any scene is constructed. Then if you will imagine the scene
you have in mind as being set up on a stage like that of the Palace
Theatre, shown in the last chapter, you will have a working
understanding of the vaudeville stage.
WHAT THE DIAGRAMS INCLUDE
A well-ordered vaudeville stage, as has been described, possesses
Drops for use in One, one or more Fancy Interiors, a Kitchen Set,
and Exterior Sets. The Drops in One are omitted from these diagrams,
because they would be represented merely by a line drawn behind
the tormentors.
The Fancy Interiors may include a Light Fancy, a Dark Fancy, an
Oak Interior, and a Plain Chamber set. As the differences are
largely of painting, the usual Centre-door Fancy is taken as the
basis for the variations--five different ways of setting it are
shown.
Two out of the many different ways of setting the Kitchen Set are
given.
The Exterior Set allows little or no variation; the only thing
that can be done is to place balustrades, vases, etc., in different
positions on the stage; therefore but one diagram is supplied.
DIAGRAM I.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 1
Showing the usual method of setting a "Fancy." It may be made
shallower by omitting a wing on either side.
DIAGRAM II.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 2
The double arch is thrown from the centre to the side, the landscape
drop being used to back the scene--the drop may be seen through
the window on stage-left. The window of the Fancy Interior is
always of the French type, opening full to the floor.
DIAGRAM III.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 3
This is a deeper and narrower set, approximating more closely a
room in an ordinary house. The double arch at the rear may be
backed with an interior backing or a conservatory backing. If the
interior backing is used, the conservatory backing may be used to
back the single four-foot arch at stage-left.
DIAGRAM IV.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 4
This shows the double arch flanked by a single arch on each side,
making three large openings looking out on the conservatory drop.
DIAGRAM V.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 5
The fireplace is here brought into prominence by setting it in a
corner with two "jogs" on each side. The window is backed with a
landscape or garden drop as desired.
DIAGRAM VI.--KITCHEN SET No. 1
This arrangement of a Kitchen Set makes use of three doors,
emphasizing the double doors in the centre of rear wall, which
open out on an interior backing or a wood or garden drop. In this
and the following setting a small window can be fitted into the
upper half of either of the single doors.
DIAGRAM VII.--KITCHEN SET No. 2
Two doors only are used in this setting; the double doors, in the
same relative position as in the preceding arrangement, open out
on a wood or landscape backing. The fireplace is brought out on
stage-right. The single door on stage-left opens on an interior
backing.
DIAGRAM VIII.--WOOD OR GARDEN SET
Many theatres have two sets of Exterior wings--one of Wood Wings
and one of Garden Wings. In some houses the Wood Wings are used
with the Garden Drop, set vases and balustrades being used to
produce the garden effect, as shown here. Some theatres also have
a Set House and Set Cottage, which may be placed on either side
of the stage; each has a practical door and a practical window.
With the Set House and Set Tree slight variations of exterior
settings may be contrived.
4. Properties
In the argot of the stage the word "property" or "prop" means any
article--aside from scenery--necessary for the proper mounting or
presentation of a play. A property may be a set of furniture, a
rug, a pair of portieres, a picture for the wall, a telephone, a
kitchen range or a stew-pan--indeed, anything a tall that is not
scenery, although serving to complete the effect and illusion of
a scene.
_Furniture_ is usually of only two kinds in a vaudeville playhouse.
There is a set of parlor furniture to go with the parlor set and
a set of kitchen furniture to furnish the kitchen set. But, while
these are all that are at the immediate command of the property-man,
he is usually permitted to exchange tickets for the theatre with
any dealer willing to lend needed sets of furniture, such as a
desk or other office equipment specially required for the use of
an act.
In this way the sets of furniture in the property room may be
expanded with temporary additions into combinations of infinite
variety. But, it is wise not to ask for anything out of the
ordinary, for many theatre owners frown upon bills for hauling,
even though the rent of the furniture may be only a pair of seats.
For the same reason, it is unwise to specify in the property-list--
which is a printed list of the properties each act requires--anything
in the way of rugs that is unusual. Though some theatres have
more than two kinds of rugs, the white bear rug and the carpet rug
are the most common. It is also unwise to ask for pictures to
hang on the walls. If a picture is required, one is usually
supplied set upon an easel.
Of course, every theatre is equipped with prop telephones and sets
of dishes and silver for dinner scenes. But there are few vaudeville
houses in the country that have on hand a bed for the stage,
although the sofa is commonly found.
A buffet, or sideboard, fully equipped with pitchers and wine
glasses, is customary in every vaudeville property room. And
champagne is supplied in advertising bottles which "pop" and sparkle
none the less realistically because the content is merely ginger
ale.
While the foregoing is not an exhaustive list of what the property
room of a vaudeville theatre may contain, it gives the essential
properties that are commonly found. Thus every ordinary requirement
of the usual vaudeville act can be supplied.
The special properties that an act may require must be carried by
the act. For instance, if a playlet is laid in an artist's studio
there are all sorts of odds and ends that would lend a realistic
effect to the scene. A painter's easel, bowls of paint brushes,
a palette, half-finished pictures to hang on the walls, oriental
draperies, a model's throne, and half a dozen rugs to spread upon
the floor, would lend an atmosphere of charming bohemian realism.
_Special Sound-Effects_ fall under the same common-sense rule.
For, while all vaudeville theatres have glass crashes, wood crashes,
slap-sticks, thunder sheets, cocoanut shells for horses' hoof-beats,
and revolvers to be fired off-stage, they could not be expected
to supply such little-called-for effects as realistic battle sounds,
volcanic eruptions, and like effects.
If an act depends on illusions for its appeal, it will, of course,
be well supplied with the machinery to produce the required sounds.
And those that do not depend on exactness of illusion can usually
secure the effects required by calling on the drummer with his
very effective box-of-tricks to help out the property-man.
5. The Lighting of the Vaudeville Stage
At the electrical switchboard centre all the lights of the theatre,
as well as those of the stage itself. Presided over by the
electrician, the switchboard, so far as the stage and its light
effects are concerned, commands two classes of lights. The first
of these is the arc light and the second the electric bulb.
_The Spot-lights_ are the lamps that depend upon the arc for their
illumination. If you have ever sat in the gallery of any theatre,
and particularly of a vaudeville theatre, you certainly have noticed
the very busy young man whose sole purpose in life appears to be
to follow the heroine around the stage with the focused spot of
light that shines like a halo about her. The lamp with which he
accomplishes this difficult feat is appropriately called a
"spot-light." While there are often spot-lights on the electrician's
"bridge," as his balcony is called, the gallery out front is the
surest place to find the spot-light.
_The Footlights_ are electric bulbs dyed amber, blue, and red--
or any other special shade desired--beside the well-known white,
set in a tin trough sunk in the stage and masked to shine only
upon the stage. By causing only one group of colors to light,
the electrician can secure all sorts of variations, and with the
aid of "dimmers" permit the lights to shine brilliantly or merely
to glow with faint radiance.
_The Border-lights_ are electric bulbs of varying colors set in
tin troughs a little longer than the proscenium opening and are
suspended above the stage behind the scenery borders. They shine
only downward. There are border-lights just in front of the drops
in One, Two, Three and Four, and they take the names of "first
border-light," "second border-light," and so on from the drops
they illuminate.
_Strip-lights_ are electric bulbs set in short strips of tin
troughs, that are equipped with hooks by which they can be hung
behind doors and out-of-the-way dark places in sets to illuminate
the backings.
_A Bunch-light_ is a box of tin set on a standard, which can be
moved about the stage the length of its electric cord, and has ten
or twelve electric bulbs inside that cast a brilliant illumination
wherever it is especially desired. Squares of gelatine in metal
frames can be slipped into the grooves in front of the bunch-light
to make the light any color or shade desired. These boxes are
especially valuable in giving the effect of blazing sunlight just
outside the doors or windows of a set, or to shine through the
windows in the soft hue of moonlight.
_Grate Logs_ are found in nearly every vaudeville house and are
merely iron painted to represent logs of wood, inside of which are
concealed lamps that shine up through red gelatine, simulating the
glow of a wood fire shining in the fireplace under the mantelpiece
usually found in the centre-door-fancy set.
_Special Light-effects_ have advanced so remarkably with the science
of stage illumination that practically any effect of nature may
be secured. If the producer wishes to show the water rippling on
the river drop there is a "ripple-lamp" at his command, which is
a clock-actuated mechanism that slowly revolves a ripple glass in
front of a "spot-lamp" and casts a realistic effect of water
rippling in the moonlight.
By these mechanical means, as well as others, the moon or the sun
can be made to shine through a drop and give the effect of rising
or of setting, volcanos can be made to pour forth blazing lava and
a hundred other amazing effects can be obtained. In fact, the
modern vaudeville stage is honeycombed with trapdoors and overhung
with arching light-bridges, through which and from which all manner
of lights can be thrown upon the stage, either to illuminate the
faces of the actors with striking effect, or to cast strange and
beautiful effects upon the scenery. Indeed, there is nothing to
be seen in nature that the electrician cannot reproduce upon the
stage with marvellous fidelity and pleasing effect.
But the purpose here, as in explaining all the other physical
departments of the vaudeville stage, is not to tell what has been
done and what can be done, interesting and instructive as such a
discussion would be, but to describe what is usually to be found in
a vaudeville theatre. The effects that are at ready command are
the only effects that should interest anyone about to write for
vaudeville. As was emphasized in the discussion of scenery, the
writer should not depend for success on the unusual. His aim
should be to make use of the common stage-effects that are found on
every vaudeville stage--if, indeed, he depends on any effects at all.
Here, then, we have made the acquaintance of the physical proportions
and aspects of the vaudeville stage and have inquired into all the
departments that contribute to the successful presentation of a
vaudeville entertainment. We have examined the vaudeville writer's
tool-box and have learned to know the uses for which each tool of
space, scenery, property, and light is specially designed. And
by learning what these tools can do, we have also learned what
they cannot do.
Now let us turn to the plans and specifications--called manuscripts--
that go to make up the entertaining ten or forty minutes during which
a vaudeville act calls upon these physical aids to make it live
upon the mimic stage, as though it were a breathing reality of the
great stage of life.
CHAPTER V
THE NATURE OF THE MONOLOGUE
The word monologue comes from the combination of two Greek words,
_monos_, alone, and _legein_, to speak. Therefore the word monologue
means "to speak alone"--and that is often how a monologist feels.
If in facing a thousand solemn faces he is not a success, no one
in all the world is more alone than he.
It appears easy for a performer to stroll into a theatre, without
bothersome scenery, props, or tagging people, and walk right out
on the stage alone and set the house a-roar. But, like most things
that appear easy, it is not. It is the hardest "stunt" in the
show business, demanding two very rare things: uncommon ability
in the man, and extraordinary merit in the monologue itself.
To arrive at a clear understanding of what a monologue is, the
long way around through the various types of "talking singles" may
be the shortest cut home to the definition.
1. Not a Soliloquy.
The soliloquy of the by-gone days of dramatic art was sometimes
called a monologue, because the person who spoke it was left alone
upon the stage to commune with himself in spoken words that described
to the audience what manner of man he was and what were the problems
that beset him. Hamlet's "To be or not to be," perhaps the most
famous of soliloquies, is, therefore, a true monologue in the
ancient sense, for Hamlet spoke alone when none was near him. In
the modern sense this, and every other soliloquy, is but a speech
in a play. There is a fundamental reason why this is so: A monologue
is spoken _to the audience_, while in a soliloquy (from the Latin
_solus_, alone, _loqui_, to talk) the actor communes _with himself_
for the "benefit" of the audience.
2. Not Merely an Entertainment by One Person
There are all sorts of entertaining talking acts in vaudeville
presented by a single person. Among them are the magician who
performs his tricks to the accompaniment of a running fire of talk
which, with the tricks themselves, raises laughter; and the person
who gives imitations and wins applause and laughter by fidelity
of speech, mannerisms and appearance to the famous persons imitated.
Yet neither of these can be classed as a monologist, because neither
depends upon speech alone to win success.
3. Not a Disconnected String of Stories
Nor, in the strictest vaudeville sense, is a monologue merely a
string of stories that possesses no unity as a whole and owns as
its sole reason of being that of amusement and entertainment. For
instance, apropos of nothing whatever an entertainer may say:
I visited Chinatown the other evening and took dinner in one of
the charming Oriental restaurants there. The first dish I ordered
was called Chop Suey. It was fine. They make it of several
kinds of vegetables and meats, and one dark meat in particular
hit my taste. I wanted to find out what it was, so I called the
waiter. He was a solemn-looking Chinaman, whose English I could
not understand, so I pointed to a morsel of the delicious dark
meat and, rubbing the place where all the rest of it had gone,
I asked:
"Quack-quack?"
The Chink grinned and said:
"No. No. Bow-wow."
Before the laughter has subsided the entertainer continues:
That reminds me of the deaf old gentleman at a dinner party who
was seated right next to the prettiest of the very young ladies
present. He did his best to make the conversation agreeable,
and she worked hard to make him understand what she said. But
finally she gave it up in despair and relapsed into a pained
silence until the fruit was passed. Then she leaned over and
said:
"Do you like bananas?"
A smile of comprehension crept over the deaf old man's face and
he exclaimed:
"No, I like the old-fashioned night-gowns best."
And so, from story to story the entertainer goes, telling his funny
anecdotes for the simple reason that they are funny and create
laughter. But funny as they are, they are disconnected and,
therefore, do not meet the requirement of unity of character, which
is one of the elements of the pure monologue.
4. Not a Connected Series of Stories Interspersed With Songs and
the Like
If the entertainer had told the stories of the Chinaman and the
deaf old gentleman as though they had happened to a single character
about whom all the stories he tells revolve, his act and his
material would more nearly approach the pure monologue form. For
instance:
Casey's a great fellow for butting into queer places to get a
bite to eat. The other evening we went down to Chinatown and
in one of those Oriantal joints that hand out Chop Suey in real
china bowls with the Jersey City dragoons on 'em, we struck a
dish that hit Casey just right.
"Mither av Moses," says Casey, "this is shure the atein fer ye;
but what's thot dilicate little tid-bit o' brown mate?"
"I don't know," says I.
"Oi'll find out," says Casey. "Just listen t'me spake that
heathen's language."
"Here, boy," he hollers, "me likee, what you call um?"
The Chink stares blankly at Casey. Casey looks puzzled, then
he winks at me. Rubbing his hand over the place where the rest
of the meat had gone, he says:
"Quack-quack?"
A gleam shot into the Chink's almond eyes and he says:
"No. No. Bow-wow."
It took seven of us to hold Casey, he felt that bad. But that
wasn't a patchin' to the time we had dinner with a rich friend
o' ours and Casey was seated right next to the nicest little old
lady y'ever saw. . . .
And so on until the banana story is told, with Casey the hero and
victim of each anecdote.
But an entertainer feels no necessity of making his entire offering
of related anecdotes only. Some monologists open with a song
because they want to get the audience into their atmosphere, and
"with" them, before beginning their monologue. The song merely
by its melody and rhythm helps to dim the vividness of impression
left by the preceding act and gives the audience time to quiet
down, serving to bridge the psychic chasm in the human mind that
lies between the relinquishing of one impression and the reception
of the next.
Or the monologist may have a good finishing song and knows that
he can depend on it for an encore that will bring him back to tell
more stories and sing another song. So he gives the orchestra
leader the cue, the music starts and off he goes into his song.
Or he may have some clever little tricks that will win applause,
or witty sayings that will raise a laugh, and give him a chance
to interject into his offering assorted elements of appeal that
will gain applause from different classes of people in his audience.
Therefore, as his purpose is to entertain, he sings his song,
performs his tricks, tells his witty sayings, or perhaps does an
imitation or two, as suits his talent best. And a few end their
acts with serious recitations of the heart-throb sort that bring
lumps into kindly throats and leave an audience in the satisfied
mood that always comes when a touch of pathos rounds off a hearty
laugh.
But by adding to his monologue unrelated offerings the monologist
becomes an "entertainer," an "impersonator," or whatever title
best describes his act. If he stuck to his stories only and told
them all on a single character, his offering would be a monologue
in the sense that it observes the unity of character, but still
it would not be a pure monologue in the vaudeville sense as we now
may define it--though a pure monologue might form the major part
of his "turn."
II. WHAT A MONOLOGUE IS
Having seen in what respects other single talking acts--the
soliloquy, the "talking single" that has no unity of material, the
disconnected string of stories, and the connected series of stories
interspersed with songs--differ from the pure monologue, it will
now be a much simpler task to make plain the elements that compose
the real vaudeville monologue.
The real monologue possesses the following eight characteristics:
1. It is performed by one person.
2. It is humorous.
3. It possesses unity of character.
4. It is not combined with songs, tricks or any
other entertainment form.
5. It takes from ten to fifteen minutes to deliver.
6. It is marked by compression.
7. It is distinguished by vividness.
8. It follows a definite form of construction.
Each of these eight characteristics has either been mentioned
already or will be taken up in detail later, so now we can combine
them into a single paragraphic definition:
The pure vaudeville monologue is a humorous talk spoken by one
person, possesses unity of character, is not combined with any
other entertainment form, is marked by compression, follows a
definite form of construction and usually requires from ten to
fifteen minutes for delivery.
It must be emphasized that because some single talking acts do not
meet every one of the requirements is no reason for condemning
them [1]. They may be as fine for entertainment purposes as the
pure monologue, but we must have some standard by which to work
and the only true standard of anything is its purest form.
Therefore, let us now take up the several parts that make up the
pure monologue as a whole, and later we shall consider the other
monologue variations that are permissible and often desirable.
[1] Frank Fogarty, "The Dublin Minstrel," one of the most successful
monologists in vaudeville, often opens with a song and usually
ends his offering with a serious heart-throb recitation. By making
use of the song and serious recitation Mr. Fogarty places his act
in the "entertainer" class, but his talking material is, perhaps,
the best example of the "gag"-anecdotal-monologue to be found in
vaudeville.
Mr. Fogarty won The New York Morning Telegraph contest to determine
the most popular performer in vaudeville in 1912, and was elected
President of "The White Rats"--the vaudeville actors' protective
Union--in 1914. [end footnote]
If you have not yet turned to the appendix and read Aaron Hoffman's
"The German Senator" do so now. (See Appendix.) It will be referred
to frequently to illustrate structural points.
III. THE MONOLOGUE'S NOTABLE CHARACTERISTICS
1. Humor
All monologues, whether of the pure type or not, possess one element
in common--humor. I have yet to hear of a monologist who did not
at least try to be funny. But there are different types of monologic
humor.
"Each eye," the Italians say, "forms its own beauty," so every
nation, every section, and each individual forms its own humor to
suit its own peculiar risibilities. Still, there are certain
well-defined kinds of stories and classes of points in which we
Americans find a certain delight.
What these are the reader knows as well as the writer and can
decide for himself much better than I can define them for him.
Therefore, I shall content myself with a mere mention of the basic
technical elements that may be of suggestive help.
(a) _The Element of Incongruity_. "The essence of all humor," it
has been said, "is incongruity," and in the monologue there is no
one thing that brings better laugh-results than the incongruous.
Note in the Appendix the closing point of "The German Senator."
Could there be any more incongruous thing than wives forming a
Union?
(b) _Surprise_. By surprise is meant leading the audience to
believe the usual thing is going to happen, and "springing" the
unusual--which in itself is often an incongruity, but not necessarily
so.
(c) _Situation_. Both incongruity and surprise are part and parcel
of the laughter of a situation. For instance; a meeting of two
people, one of whom is anxious to avoid the other--a husband, for
instance, creeping upstairs at three A. M. meeting his wife--or
both anxious to avoid each other--wife was out, too, and husband
overtakes wife creeping slowly up, doing her best not to awaken
him, each supposing the other in bed and asleep. The laughter
comes because of what is said at that particular moment in that
particular situation--"and is due," Freud says, "to the release
from seemingly unpleasant and inevitable consequences."
(d) _Pure Wit_. Wit exists for its own sake, it is detachable
from its context, as for example:
And what a fine place they picked out for Liberty to stand.
With Coney Island on one side and Blackwell's Island on the
other. [1]
[1] The German Senator. See Appendix.
(e) _Character_. The laughable sayings that are the intense
expression at the instant of the individuality of the person voicing
them, is what is meant by the humor of character. For instance:
the German Senator gets all "balled up" in his terribly long effort
to make a "regular speech," and he ends:
We got to feel a feeling of patriotic symptoms--we got to feel
patriotic symp--symps--you got to feel the patri--you can't help
it, you got to feel it.
These five suggestions--all, in the last analysis, depending on
the first, incongruity--may be of assistance to the novice in
analyzing the elements of humor and framing his own efforts with
intelligence and precision.
In considering the other elemental characteristics of the monologue,
we must bear in mind that the emphasizing of humor is the monologue's
chief reason for being.
2. Unity of Character
Unity of character does not mean unity of subject--note the variety
of subjects treated in "The German Senator"--but, rather, the
singleness of impression that a monologue gives of the "character"
who delivers it, or is the hero of it.
The German Senator, himself, is a politician "spouting," in a
perfectly illogical, broken-English stump speech, about the condition
of the country and the reason why things are so bad. Never once
do the various subjects stray far beyond their connection with the
country's deplorable condition and always they come back to it.
Furthermore, not one of the observations is about anything that a
politician of his mental calibre would not make. Also the
construction of every sentence is in character. This example is,
of course, ideal, and the precision of its unity of character one
of the great elements of a great monologue.
Next to humor, unity of character is the most important requirement
of the monologue. Never choose a subject, or write a joke, that
does not fit the character delivering the monologue. In other
words, if you are writing a pure monologue, do not, just because
it is humorous, drag in a gag [1] or a point [2] that is not in
character or that does not fit the subject. Make every turn of
phrase and every word fit not only the character but also the
subject.
[1] A _gag_ is the vaudeville term for any joke or pun.
[2] A _point_ is the laugh-line of a gag, or the funny observation
of a monologue.
3. Compression
We have long heard that "brevity is the soul of wit," and certainly
we realize the truth in a hazy sort of way, but the monologue
writer should make brevity his law and seven of his ten commandments
of writing. Frank Fogarty, who writes his own gags and delivers
them in his own rapid, inimitable way, said to me:
"The single thing I work to attain in any gag is brevity. I never
use an ornamental word, I use the shortest word I can and I tell
a gag in the fewest words possible. If you can cut out one word
from any of my gags and not destroy it, I'll give you five dollars,
and it'll be worth fifty to me to lose it. "You can kill the whole
point of a gag by merely an unnecessary word. For instance, let
us suppose the point of a gag is 'and he put the glass there';
well, you won't get a laugh if you say, 'and then he picked the
glass up and put it there.' Only a few words more--but words are
costly.
"Take another example. Here's one of my best gags, a sure-fire
laugh if told this way:
"O'Brien was engaged by a farmer to milk cows and do chores. There
were a hundred and fifty cows, and three men did the milking. It
was hard work, but the farmer was a kind-hearted, progressive man,
so when he went to town and saw some milking-stools he bought three
and gave 'em to the men to sit down on while at work. The other
two men came back delighted, but not O'Brien. At last he appeared,
all cut-up, and holding one leg of the stool.
"'What's the matter?' said the farmer.
"'Nothing, only I couldn't make the cow sit down on it.'
"When I tell it this way it invariably gets a big laugh. Now
here's the way I once heard a 'chooser' [1] do it.
[1] _Chooser_--one who chooses some part of another performer's act
and steals it for his own use.
"'O'Brien came to this country and looked around for work. He
couldn't get a job until at last a friend told him that a farmer
up in the country wanted a man to milk cows. So O'Brien got on a
trolley car and went out to the end of the line, took a side-door
pullman from there, was ditched and had to walk the rest of the
way to the farm. But at last he got to the farmer's place and
asked him for the job.
"'"Sure I can use you," said the farmer, "here's a milk pail and
a milking-stool. Take 'em and go out and milk the cows in the
barn."
"'Now O'Brien didn't know how to milk a cow, he'd never milked a
cow in his whole life, but he needed a job so he didn't tell the
farmer he hadn't ever milked a cow. He took the pail and the
milking-stool and went out to the barn. After half an hour he
came back to the farm house all cut-up, and he had one leg of the
milking-stool in his hand.
"'"What's the matter?" asked the farmer, "How'd you get all cut
up--been in a fight or something?"
"'"No," said O'Brien, "I couldn't get the cow to sit on it.'"
"See the difference? There's only one right way to tell any gag
and that's to make it brief, little--like the works of a watch
that'll fit in a thin watch case and be better and finer than a
big turnip of a pocket clock."
So, then, each point and gag in a monologue is told in the fewest,
shortest words possible and the monologue, as a whole, is marked
by compression. Remember, "brevity is the soul of wit"--never
forget it.
4. Vividness
If a successful monologue writer has in mind two gags that are
equally funny he will invariably choose the one that can be told
most vividly--that is, the one that can be told as if the characters
themselves were on the stage. For instance, the words, "Here stood
John and there stood Mary," with lively, appropriate gestures by
the monologist, make the characters and the scene seem living on
the stage before the very eyes of the audience. That is why the
monologist illustrates his points and gags with gestures that
picturize.
Every gag and every point of great monologues are told in words
that paint pictures. If the gag is supposititious, and the direct
right-here-they-stood method cannot be used, the point is worded
so strikingly, and is so comically striking in itself, that the
audience sees--visualizes--it. [1]
[1] Walter Kelly, "The Virginia Judge," offers a fine example of
the monologist who makes his words picturize. He "puts his stories
over" almost without a gesture.
Unlike the playlet, the monologue does not have flesh-and-blood
people on the stage to act the comic situation. The way a point
or gag is constructed, the words used, the monologist's gestures,
and his inflections, must make the comic situation live in vivid
pictures.
Therefore, in selecting material the monologue writer should choose
those gags and points that can be told in pictures, and every word
he uses should be a picture-word.
5. Smoothness and Blending
A monologue--like the thin-model watch mentioned--is made up of
many parts. Each part fits into, the other--one gag or point
blends perfectly into the following one--so that the entire monologue
seems not a combination of many different parts, but a smoothly
working, unified whole.
Count the number of different points there are in "The German
Senator" and note how each seemingly depends on the one before it
and runs into the one following; you will then see what is meant
by blending. Then read the monologue again, this time without the
Panama Canal point--plainly marked for this exposition--and you
will see how one part can be taken away and still leave a smoothly
reading and working whole.
It is to careful blending that the monologue owes its smoothness.
The ideal for which the writer should strive is so to blend his
gags and points that, by the use of not more than one short sentence,
he relates one gag or point to the next with a naturalness and
inevitableness that make the whole perfectly smooth.
We are now, I think, in a position to sum up the theory of the
monologue. The pure vaudeville monologue, which was defined as a
humorous talk spoken by one person, possesses unity of character,
is not combined with any other entertainment form, is marked by
compression, follows a definite form of construction, and usually
requires from ten to fifteen minutes for delivery. Humor is its
most notable characteristic; unity of the character delivering it,
or of its "hero," is its second most important requirement. Each
point, or gag, is so compressed that to take away or add even one
word would spoil its effect; each is expressed so vividly that the
action seems to take place before the eyes of the audience. Finally,
every point leads out of the preceding point so naturally, and
blends into the following point so inevitably, that the entire
monologue is a smooth and perfect whole.
CHAPTER VI
WRITING THE MONOLOGUE
I. CHOOSING A THEME
Before an experienced writer takes up his pencil he has formed
definitely in his mind just what he is going to write about--that
is the simple yet startling difference between the experienced
writer and the novice. Not only does the former know what his
subject is, but he usually knows how he is going to treat it, and
even some striking phrases and turns of sentences are ready in his
mind, together with the hundreds of minute points which, taken
together, make up the singleness of impression of the whole.
But just as it is impossible for the human mind--untrained, let
us say, in the art of making bricks--to picture at a glance the
various processes through which the clay passes before it takes
brick form, so it is identically as impossible for the mind of the
novice to comprehend in a flash the various purposes and half-purposes
that precede the actual work of writing anything.
True as this is of writing in general, it seems to me particularly
true of writing the monologue, for the monologue is one of those
precise forms of the art of writing that may best be compared to
the miniature, where every stroke must be true and unhesitating
and where all combine unerringly to form the composite whole.
In preparing monologue material the writer usually is working in
the _sounds_ of spoken--and mis-spoken--words, and the humor that
lies in the twisting of ideas into surprising conclusions. He
seldom deliberately searches for a theme--more often some
laugh-provoking incident or sentence gives him an idea and he
builds it into a monologue with its subject for the theme.
1. Themes to Avoid
Anything at all in the whole range of subjects with which life
abounds will lend itself for a monologue theme--provided the writer
can without straining twist it to the angle of humor; but propriety
demands that nothing blatantly suggestive shall be treated, and
common sense dictates that no theme of merely local interest shall
be used, when the purpose of the monologue is to entertain the
whole country. Of course if a monologue is designed to entertain
merely a certain class or the residents of a certain city or section
only, the very theme--for instance, some purely local happening
or trade interest--that you would avoid using in a monologue planned
for national use, would be the happiest theme that could be chosen.
But, as the ambitious monologue writer does not wish to confine
himself to a local or a sectional subject and market, let us
consider here only themes that have universal appeal.
II. A FEW THEMES OF UNIVERSAL INTEREST
Politics Woman Suffrage
Love Drink
Marriage Baseball
Woman's Dress Money
While there are many more themes that can be twisted to universal
interest--and anyone could multiply the number given--these few
are used in whole or in part in nearly every successful monologue
now being presented. And, they offer to the new writer the surest
ground to build a new monologue. That they have all been done
before is no reason why they should not be done again: the new
author has only to do them better--and a little different. It is
all a matter of fresh vision. What is there in any art that is
really new--but treatment?
Do not make the fatal mistake of supposing that these few themes
are the only themes possessing universal interest. Anything in
the whole wide world may be the subject for a monologue, when
transmuted by the magic of common sense and uncommon ability into
universal fun.
III. HOW TO BEGIN TO WRITE
As a monologue is a collection of carefully selected and smoothly
blended points or gags, with a suitable introduction to the routine
[1]--each point and gag being a complete, separate entity, and the
introduction being as truly distinct--the monologue writer, unlike
the playlet writer, may begin to write anywhere. He may even write
the last point or gag used in the routine before he writes the
first. Or he may write the twelfth point before he writes either
the first one or the last one. But usually, he writes his
introduction first.
[1] _Routine_--the entire monologue; but more often used to suggest
its arrangement and construction. A monologue with its gags and
points arranged in a certain order is one routine; a different
routine is used when the gags or points are arranged in a different
order. Thus _routine_ means _arrangement_. The word is also used to
describe the arrangement of other stage offerings--for instance, a
dance: the same steps arranged in a different order make a new
"dance routine."
1. The Introduction
A monologue introduction may be just one line with a point or a
gag that will raise a snicker, or it may be a long introduction
that stamps the character as a "character," and causes amusement
because it introduces the entire monologue theme in a bright way.
An example of the short introduction is:
"D'you know me friend Casey? He's the guy that put the sham in
shamrock," then on into the first gag that stamps Casey as a
sure-'nuff "character," with a giggle-point to the gag.
The very best example of the long introduction being done on the
stage today is the first four paragraphs of "The German Senator."
The first line, "My dear friends and falling Citizens," stamps the
monologue unquestionably as a speech. The second line, "My heart
fills up with vaccination to be disabled," declares the mixed-up
character of the oration and of the German Senator himself, and
causes amusement. And the end of the fourth paragraph--which you
will note is one long involved sentence filled with giggles--raises
the first laugh.
Nat Wills says the introduction to the gag-monologue may often
profitably open with a "local"--one about the town or some local
happening--as a local is pretty sure to raise a giggle, and will
cause the audience to think the monologist "bright" and at least
start their relations off pleasantly. He says: "Work for giggles
in your introduction, but don't let the audience get set--with a
big laugh--until the fifth or sixth joke."
The introduction, therefore, is designed to establish the monologist
with the audience as "bright," to stamp the character of the
"character" delivering it--or about whom the gags are told--and
to delay a big laugh until the monologist has "got" his audience.
2. The Development
The "point," you will recall, we defined as the funny observation
of a pure monologue--in lay-conversation it means the laugh line
of a joke; and "gag" we defined as a joke or a pun. For the sake
of clearness let us confine "point" to a funny observation in a
monologue, and "gag" to a joke in a connected series of stories.
It is impossible for anyone to teach you how to write a really
funny point or a gag. But, if you have a well-developed sense of
humor, you can, with the help of the suggestions for form given
here and the examples of humor printed in the appendix, and those
you will find in the funny papers and hear along the street or on
the stage, teach yourself to write saleable material. All that
this chapter can hope to do for you is to show you how the best
monologue writes and the most successful monologists work to achieve
their notable results, and thus put you in the right path to
accomplish, with the least waste of time and energy, what they
have done.
Therefore, let us suppose that you know what is humorous, have a
well-developed sense of humor, and can produce really funny points
and gags. Now, having your points and gags clearly framed in mind
and ready to set down on paper, you naturally ask, How shall I
arrange them? In what order shall I place them to secure the best
effect for the whole monologue?
Barrett Wendell, professor of English at Harvard University, [1]
has suggested an effective mechanical aid for determining the
clearest and best arrangement of sentences and paragraphs in English
prose, and his plan seems especially adapted to help the monologue
writer determine a perfect routine. Briefly his method may be
paraphrased thus:
[1] English Composition, page 165.
Have as many cards or slips of paper as you have points or gags.
Write only one point or gag on one card or slip of paper. On the
first card write "Introduction," and always keep that card first
in your hand. Then take up a card and read the point or gag on
it as following the introduction, the second card as the second
point or gag, and so on until you have arranged your monologue in
an effective routine.
Then try another arrangement. Let us say the tenth joke in the
first routine reads better as the first joke. All right, place
it in your new arrangement right after the introduction. Perhaps
the fourteenth point or gag fits in well after the tenth gag--fine,
make that fourteenth gag the second gag; and so on through your
cards until you have arranged a new routine.
Your first arrangement can invariably be improved--maybe even your
seventh arrangement can be made better; very good, by shuffiing
the cards you may make as many arrangements as you wish and
eventually arrive at the ideal routine. And by keeping a memorandum
of preceding arrangements you can always turn back to the older
routine--if that appears the best after all other arrangements
have been tried.
But what is really the ideal arrangement of a monologue? How may
you know which routine is really the best? Frankly, you cannot
_know_ until it has been tried out on an audience many, many
times--and has been proved a success by actual test. Arranging a
routine of untried points and gags on paper is like trying to solve
a cut-out puzzle with the key-piece missing. Only by actually
trying out a monologue before an audience and fitting the points
and gags to suit the monologist's peculiar style (indeed, this is
the real work of writing a monologue and will be described later
on) can you determine what really is the best routine. And even
then another arrangement may "go" better in another town. Still
there are a few suggestions--a very few--that can be given here
to aid the beginner.
Like ocean waves, monologic laughs should come in threes and
nines--proved, like most rules, by exceptions. Note the application
of this rule in "The German Senator."
Study the arrangement of the points in this great monologue and
you will see that each really big point is dependent on several
minor points that precede it to get its own big laugh. For instance,
take the following point:
And if meat goes any higher, it will be worth more than money.
Then there won't be any money.
Instead of carrying money in your pocket, you'll carry meat
around.
A sirloin steak will be worth a thousand dollar bill.
When you go down to the bank to make a deposit, instead of giving
the cashier a thousand dollar bill, you'll slip him a sirloin
steak.
If you ask him for change, he'll give you a hunk of bologny.
The first line blends this point with the preceding one about
the high cost of eggs. The second line awakens interest and
prepares for the next, "Instead of carrying money in your pocket,
you'll carry meat around," which is good for a grin. The next
line states the premise necessary for the first point-ending
"--you'll slip him a sirloin steak," which is always good for a
laugh. Then the last line, "If you ask him for change, he'll
give you a hunk of bologny," tops the preceding laugh.
From this example you see what is meant by monologic laughs coming
in threes and nines. The introduction of each new story--the line
after the blend-line--should awaken a grin, its development cause
a chuckle, and the point-line itself raise a laugh.
Each new point should top the preceding point until with the end
of that particular angle or situation, should come a roar of honest
laughter. Then back to the grin, the chuckle, and on to the laugh
again, building up to the next big roar.
With the end of the monologue should come complete satisfaction
in one great burst of laughter. This, of course, is the ideal.
3. How and Where to End
A monologue should run anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes. The
monologist can vary his playing time at will by leaving out points
and gags here and there, as necessity demands, so the writer should
supply at least a full fifteen minutes of material in his manuscript.
"How shall I time my manuscript?" is the puzzling problem the new
writer asks himself. The answer is that it is very difficult to
time a monologue exactly, because different performers work at
different speeds and laughs delay the delivery and, therefore,
make the monologue run longer. But here is a very rough counting
scale that may be given, with the warning that it is far from
exact:
For every one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and forty words
count one minute for delivery. This is so inexact, depending as
it does on the number of laughs and the monologist's speed of
delivery, that it is like a rubber ruler. At one performance it
may be too long, at another too short.
Having given a full fifteen minutes of material, filled, let us
hope, with good points made up of grins, chuckles and laughs, now
choose your very biggest laugh-point for the last. When you wrote
the monologue and arranged it into the first routine, that biggest
laugh may have been the tenth, or the ninth, or the fifteenth, but
you have spotted it unerringly as the very biggest laugh you
possess, so you blend it in as the final laugh of the completed
monologue.
It may now be worth while thus to sum up the ideal structure:
A routine is so arranged that the introduction stamps the monologist
as bright, and the character he is impersonating or telling about
as a real "character." The first four points or gags are snickers
and the fifth or sixth is a laugh. [1] Each point or gag blends
perfectly into the ones preceding and following it. The introduction
of each new story awakens a grin, its development causes a chuckle,
and the point-line itself raises a laugh. The final point or gag
rounds the monologue off in the biggest burst of honest laughter.
[1] It is true that some monologists strive for a laugh on the
very first point, but to win a big laugh at once is very rare.
IV. BUILDING A MONOLOGUE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE
When a writer delivers the manuscript of a monologue to a monologist
his work is not ended. It has just begun, because he must share
with the monologist the pains of delivering the monologue before
an audience. Dion Boucicault once said, "A play is not written,
but rewritten." True as this is of a play, it is, if possible,
even more true of a monologue.
Of course, not all beginners can afford to give this personal
attention to staging a monologue, but it is advisable whenever
possible. For, points that the author and the monologist himself
were sure would "go big," "die," while points and gags that neither
thought much of, "go big." It is for precisely this purpose of
weeding out the good points and gags from the bad that even famous
monologists "hide away," under other names, in very small houses
for try-outs. And while the monologist is working on the stage
to make the points and gags "get over," the author is working in
the audience to note the effect of points and finding ways to
change a phrase here and a word there to build dead points into
life and laughter. Then it is that they both realize that Frank
Fogarty's wise words are true: "There is only one way to tell a
gag. If you can cut one word out from any of my gags I'll give
you five dollars, for it's worth fifty to me. Words are costly."
Some entire points and gags will be found to be dead beyond
resurrection, and even whole series of gags and points must be
cast away and new and better ones substituted to raise the golden
laughs. So the monologue is changed and built performance after
performance, with both the monologist and the author working as
though their very lives depended on making it perfect.
Then, when it is "set" to the satisfaction of both, the monologist
goes out on the road to try it out on different audiences and to
write the author continually for new points and gags. It may be
said with perfect truth that a monologue is never finished. Nat
Wills, the Tramp Monologist, pays James Madison a weekly salary
to supply him with new jokes every seventh day. So, nearly every
monologist retains the author to keep him up to the minute with
material, right in the forefront of the laughter-of-the-hour.
V. OTHER SINGLE TALKING ACT FORMS
The discussion of the monologue form has been exhaustive, for the
pure monologue holds within itself all the elements of the other
allied forms. The only difference between a pure monologue and
any other kind is in the addition of entertainment features that
are not connected gags and points. Therefore, to cover the field
completely it is necessary only to name a few of the many different
kinds of single talking acts and to describe them briefly.
The most common talking singles--all of whom buy material from
vaudeville writers--are:
(a) _The Talking Magician_--who may have only a few little tricks
to present, but who plays them up big because he sprinkles his
work with laughter-provoking points.
(b) _The "Nut Comedian"_--who does all manner of silly tricks to
make his audience laugh, but who has a carefully prepared routine
of "nut" material.
(c) _The Parody Monologist_--who opens and closes with funny
parodies on the latest song hits and does a monologue routine
between songs.
(d) _The "Original Talk"_ Impersonator--who does impersonations
of celebrities, but adds to his offering a few clever points and
gags.
VI. A FINAL WORD
Before you seek a market [1] for your monologue, be sure that it
fulfills all the requirements of a monologue and that it is the very
best work you can do. Above all, make sure that every gag or point
you use is original with you, and that the angle of the subject you
have selected for your theme is honestly your own. For if you have
copied even one gag or point that has been used before, you have laid
your work open to suspicion and yourself to the epithet of "chooser."
[1] See Chapter XXIV, Manuscripts and Markets.
The infringer--who steals gags and points bodily--can be pursued
and punished under the copyright law, but the chooser is a kind
of sneak thief who works gags and points around to escape taking
criminal chances, making his material just enough different to
evade the law. A chooser damages the originator of the material
without himself getting very far. No one likes a chooser; no one
knowingly will have dealings with a chooser. Call a vaudeville
man a liar and he may laugh at you--call him a chooser and you'll
have to fight him.
There are, of course, deliberate choosers in the vaudeville business,
just as there are "crooks" in every line of life, but they never
make more than a momentary success. Here is why they invariably
fail:
When you sit in the audience, and hear an old gag or point, you
whisper, "Phew, that's old," or you give your companion a knowing
look, don't you? Well, half the audience is doing the very same
thing, and they, like you, receive the impression that all the
gags are old, and merely suppose that they haven't heard the other
ones before.
The performer, whose bread and butter depends on the audience
thinking him bright, cannot afford to have anything ancient in his
routine. Two familiar gags or points will kill at least twenty-five
percent of his applause. He may not get even one bow, and when
audiences do not like a monologist well enough to call him out for
a bow, he might as well say good-by to his chances of getting even
another week's booking. Therefore the performer watches the
material that is offered him with the strained attention of an
Asiatic potentate who suspects there is poison in his breakfast
food. He not only guards against old gags or points, but he takes
great care that the specific form of the subject of any routine
that he accepts is absolutely new.
Some of the deliberate choosers watch the field very closely and
as soon as anyone strikes a new vein or angle they proceed to work
it over. But taking the same subject and working around it--even
though each gag or point is honestly new--does not and cannot pay.
Even though the chooser secures some actor willing to use such
material, he fails ultimately for two reasons: In the first place,
the copier is never as good as the originator; and, in the second
place, the circuit managers do not look with favor upon copy-acts.
As the success of the performer depends on his cleverness and the
novelty of his material, in identically the same way the success
of a vaudeville theatre lies in the cleverness and novelty of the
acts it plays. Individual house managers, and therefore circuit
managers, cannot afford to countenance copy-acts. For this reason
a monologist or an act is often given exclusive rights to use a
precise kind of subject-material over a given circuit. A copy-act
cannot keep going to very long with only a few segregated house
willing to play his act.
Therefore before you offer your monologue to a possible buyer, be
sure--absolutely sure--that your theme and every one of your points
and gags are original.
CHAPTER VII
THE VAUDEVILLE TWO-ACT
The word "two-act" is used to describe any act played by two
people. It has nothing to do with the number of scenes or acts
of a drama. When two people present a "turn," it is called a
two-act. It is a booking-office term--a word made necessary by
the exigencies of vaudeville commerce.
If the manager of a theatre requires an acrobatic act to fill his
bill and balance his show he often inquires for an acrobatic
two-act. It may matter little to him whether the act plays in One
or Full Stage--he wants an acrobatic act, and one presented by two
people. If he requires any other kind of two-people-act, he
specifies the kind of two-act of which he is in need.
On the other hand, if a performer asks an author to write a
vaudeville two-act, an act of a certain definite character is
usually meant and understood. For, among writers, the vaudeville
two-act--or "act in One" as it is often called--has come to mean
a talking act presented by two persons; furthermore, a talking act
that has certain well-defined characteristics.
1. What a Vaudeville Two-Act Is
The most carefully constructed definition cannot describe even the
simplest thing with satisfying exactness. But the human mind is
so formed that it have a definition for a guide to learn anything
is new. Therefore let us set up this dogmatic definition:
A pure vaudeville two-act is a humorous talking act performed
by two persons. It possesses unity of the characters, is not
combined with songs, tricks or any other entertainment form, is
marked by compression, follows a definite form of construction,
and usually requires from ten to fifteen minutes for delivery.
You have noticed that this definition is merely that of the monologue
very slightly changed. It differs from it only in the number of
persons required for its delivery. But, like many such verbal
jugglings, the likeness of the two-act to the monologue is more
apparent than real.
2. How the Two-Act Differs from the Monologue
Turn to the Appendix and read "The Art of Flirtation," by Aaron
Hoffman. [1] It was chosen for publication in this volume as an
example of the vaudeville two-act, for two reasons: First, it is
one of the best vaudeville two-acts ever written; second, a careful
study of it, in connection with "The German Senator," will repay
the student by giving an insight into the difference in treatment
that the same author gives to the monologue and the two-act.
[1] The Art of Flirtation," by Aaron Hoffman, has been used in
vaudeville, on the burlesque stage, and in various musical comedies,
for years and has stood the test of time.
Aside from the merely physical facts that two persons deliver the
vaudeville two-act and but one "does" the monologue, you will
notice in reading "The Art of Flirtation," that the two-act depends
a surprising lot on "business" [1] to punch home its points and
win its laughs. This is the first instance in our study of
vaudeville material in which "acting" [2] demands from the writer
studied consideration.
[1] _Business_ means any movement an actor makes on the stage.
To walk across the stage, to step on a man's toes, to pick up a
telephone, to drop a handkerchief, or even to grimace--if done to
drive the spoken words home, or to "get over" a meaning without
words--are all, with a thousand other gestures and movements,
_stage business_.
[2] Acting is action. It comprises everything necessary to the
performing of a part in a play and includes business.
So large a part does the element of business play in the success
of the two-act that the early examples of this vaudeville form
were nearly all built out of bits of business. And the business
was usually of the "slap-stick" kind.
3. What Slap-Stick Humor Is
Slap-stick humor wins its laughs by the use of physical methods,
having received its name from the stick with which one clown hits
another.
A slap-stick is so constructed that when a person is hit a light
blow with it, a second piece of wood slaps the first and a
surprisingly loud noise, as of a hard blow, is heard. Children
always laugh at the slap-stick clowns and you can depend upon many
grown-ups, too, going into ecstasies of mirth.
Building upon this sure foundation, a class of comedians sprang
up who "worked up" the laughter by taking advantage of the human
delight in expectation. For instance: A man would lean over a
wall and gaze at some distant scene. He was perfectly oblivious
to what was going on behind him. The comedy character strolled
out on the stage with a stick in his hand. He nearly walked into
the first man, then he saw the seat of the man's trousers and the
provokingly tempting mark they offered. In the early days of the
use of the slap-stick, the comedian would have spanked the man at
once, got one big laugh and have run off the stage in a comic
chase. In the later days the comedian worked up his laugh into
many laughs, by spacing all of his actions in the delivery of the
blow.
As soon as the audience realized that the comedian had the opportunity
to spank the unsuspecting man, they laughed. Then the comedian
would make elaborate preparations to deliver the blow. He would
spit on his hands, grasp the stick firmly and take close aim--a
laugh. Then he would take aim again and slowly swing the stick
over his shoulder ready to strike--a breathless titter. Down would
come the stick--and stop a few inches short of the mark and the
comedian would say: "It's a shame to do it!" This was a roar, for
the audience was primed to laugh and had to give vent to its
expectant delight. A clever comedian could do this twice, or even
three times, varying the line each time. But usually on the third
preparation he would strike--and the house would be convulsed.
In burlesque they sometimes used a woman for the victim, and the
laughter was consequently louder and longer. It is an interesting
commentary on the advancement of all branches of the stage in
recent years that even in burlesque such extreme slap-stick methods
are now seldom used. In vaudeville such an elemental bit of
slap-stick business is rarely, if ever, seen. Happily, a woman
is now never the victim.
But it was upon such "sure-fire" [1] bits of business that the
early vaudeville two-acts--as well as many other acts--depended
for a large percentage of their laughs. It mattered little what
were the lines they spoke. They put their trust in business--and
invariably won. But their business was always of the same type
as that "bit" [2] of spanking the unsuspecting man. It depended
for its humor on the supposed infliction of pain. It was always
physical--although by no means always even remotely suggestive.
[1] Any act or piece of business or line in a speech that can be
depended on to win laughter at every performance is called
_sure-fire_.
[2] Anything done on the stage may be called a _bit_. A minor
character may have only a _bit_, and some one part of a scene that
the star may have, may be a _bit_. The word is used to describe a
successful little scene that is complete in itself.
Because such acts did not depend on lines but on slap-stick humor,
they became known as slap-stick acts. And because these vaudeville
two-acts--as we have elected to call them--were usually presented
by two men and worked in One, in front of a drop that represented
a street, they were called "sidewalk comedian slap-stick acts."
Their material was a lot of jokes of the "Who was that lady I saw
you with last night?"--"She weren't no lady, she was my wife,"
kind. Two performers would throw together an act made up of
sure-fire comedy bits they had used in various shows, interpolate
a few old "gags"--and the vaudeville writer had very little
opportunity.
But to-day--as a study of "The Art of Flirtation" will show--wit
and structural skill in the material itself is of prime importance.
Therefore the writer is needed to supply vaudeville two-acts. But
even to-day business still plays a very large part in the success
of the two-act. It may even be considered fundamental to the
two-act's success. Therefore, before we consider the structural
elements that make for success in writing the two-act, we shall
take up the matter of two-act business.
4. The "Business" of the Two-Act
The fact that we all laugh--in varying degrees--at the antics of
the circus clown, should be sufficient evidence of the permanence
of certain forms of humor to admit of a belief in the basic truth
that certain actions do in all times find a humorous response in
all hearts. Certain things are fundamentally funny, and have made
our ancestors laugh, just as they make us laugh and will make our
descendants laugh.
"There's no joke like an old joke," is sarcastically but nevertheless
literally true. There may even be more than a humorous
coincidence--perhaps an unconscious recognition of the sure-firedness
of certain actions--in the warnings received in childhood to "stop
that funny business."
5. Weber and Fields on Sure-Fire Business
However this may be, wherever actors foregather and talk about
bits of stage business that have won and always will win laughs
for them, there are a score or more points on which they agree.
No matter how much they may quarrel about the effectiveness of
laugh-bits with which one or another has won a personal success--due,
perhaps, to his own peculiar personality--they unite in admitting
the universal effectiveness of certain good old stand-bys.
Weber and Fields--before they made so much money that they retired
to indulge in the pleasant pastime of producing shows--presented
probably the most famous of all the sidewalk comedian slap-stick
acts. [1] They elevated the slap-stick sidewalk conversation act
into national popularity and certainly reduced the business of
their performance to a science--or raised it to an art. In an
article entitled "Adventures in Human Nature," published in The
Associated Sunday Mazagines for June 23, 1912, Joe Weber and Lew
Fields have this to say about the stage business responsible, in
large measure, for the success of their famous two-act:
The capitalizing of the audiences' laughter we have set down in
the following statistics, ranged in the order of their value.
An audience will laugh loudest at these episodes:
(1) When a man sticks one finger into another man's eye.
(2) When a man sticks two fingers into another man's eyes.
(3) When a man chokes another man and shakes his head from side
to side.
(4) When a man kicks another man.
(5) When a man bumps up suddenly against another man and knocks
him off his feet.
(6) When a man steps on another man's foot.
[1] The great success of the return of Weber and Fields to vaudeville
in 1915-16, with excerpts from their old successes, is only one
more proof of the perennial value of sure-fire business.
Human nature--as we have analyzed it, with results that will be
told you by the cashier at our bank--will laugh louder and oftener
at these spectacles, in the respective order we have chronicled
them, than at anything else one might name. Human nature here,
as before, insists that the object of the attacks--the other
man--be not really hurt.
Now, let us tell you how we arrived at our conclusions. The eye
is the most delicate part of the body. If a man, therefore,
pokes his two forefingers into the eyes of another man _without
hurting them_, then human nature will make you scream with mirth;
not at the sight of the poking of the fingers into the other
man's eyes (as you who have seen us do this trick night in and
night out have imagined), but because you get all the sensations
of such a dangerous act without there being any actual pain
involved in the case of the man you were watching. You laugh
because human nature tells you to. You laugh because the man
who had the fingers stuck into his eyes might have been hurt
badly, but wasn't.
The greatest laughter, the greatest comedy, is divided by a hair
from the greatest tragedy. Always remember that! As the chance
of pain, the proportion of physical misery, the proportion of
tragedy, becomes diminished (see the other items in the table),
so does the proportion of laughter become less and less. We
have often tried to figure out a way to do something to the
other's kneecap--second in delicacy only to the eye--but the
danger involved is too great. Once let us figure out the trick,
however, and we shall have capitalized another item that may be
listed high in our table. Here is how you can verify the truth
of our observations yourself:
You have seen those small imitation tacks made of rubber. Exhibit
one, put it on a chair, ask a stranger to sit down--and everybody
who is in on the joke will scream with mirth. Try it with a
real tack, and everybody will take on a serious face and will
want to keep the man from sitting down.
6. What George M. Cohan Has to Say
George M. Cohan spent his boyhood on the vaudeville stage as one
of "The Four Cohans." In collaboration with George J. Nathan, Mr.
Cohan published in McClure's Magazine for November, 1913, an article
entitled "The Mechanics of Emotion." Here is what he has to say
about some bits of business that are sure-fire laughs: [1]
[1] These sure-fire bits of business should be considered as being
equally effective when used in any form of stage work. Some of
them, however, lend themselves most readily to the vaudeville
two-act.
Here, then, are a few of the hundred-odd things that you constantly
laugh at on the stage, though, when you see them in cold type,
you will probably be ashamed of doing so.
(1) Giving a man a resounding whack on the back under the guise
of friendship. The laugh in this instance may be "built up"
steadily in a climacteric way by repeating the blow three times
at intervals of several minutes.
(2) A man gives a woman a whack on the back, believing in an
absent-minded moment that the woman (to whom he is talking) is
a man.
(3) One character steps on the sore foot of another character,
causing the latter to jump with pain.
(4) The spectacle of a man laden with many large bundles.
(5) A man or a woman starts to lean his or her elbow on a table
or the arm of a chair, the elbow slipping off abruptly and
suddenly precipitating him or her forward.
(6) One character imitating the walk of another character, who
is walking in front of him and cannot see him.
(7) A man consuming a drink of considerable size at one quick
gulp.
(8) A character who, on entering an "interior" or room scene,
stumbles over a rug. If the character in point be of the
"dignified" sort, the power of this laugh provoker is doubled.
(9) Intoxication in almost any form. [1]
[1] Intoxication, however, must never be revolting. To be welcomed,
it must always be funny; in rare instances, it may be pathetic.
(10) Two men in heated conversation. One starts to leave.
Suddenly, as if fearing the other will kick him while his back
is turned, this man bends his body inward (as if he actually had
been kicked) and sidles off.
(11) A man who, in trying to light his cigar or cigarette, strikes
match after match in an attempt to keep one lighted. If the man
throws each useless match vigorously to the floor with a muttered
note of vexation the laughter will increase.
(12) The use of a swear-word. [2]
[2] The use of swear-words is prohibited in most first-class
vaudeville theatres. On the walls of every B. F. Keith Theatre
is posted this notice: "The use of 'Damn' and 'Hell' is forbidden
on the stage of this theatre. If a performer cannot do without
using them, he need not open here."
(13) A man proclaims his defiance of his wife while the latter
is presumably out of hearing. As the man is speaking, his wife's
voice is heard calling him. Meekly he turns and goes to her.
This device has many changes, such as employer and employee.
All are equally effective.
(14) A pair of lovers who try several times to kiss, and each
time are interrupted by the entrance of some one or by the ringing
of the doorbell or telephone-bell or something of the sort.
(15) A bashful man and a not-bashful woman are seated on a bench
or divan. As the woman gradually edges up to the man, the man
just as gradually edges away from her.
All these "laugh-getters" are known to the experienced as "high
class"; that is, they may all be used upon the legitimate stage.
On the burlesque and vaudeville stages devices of a somewhat
lower intellectual plane have established a permanent standing
An authority on this phase of the subject is Mr. Frederick
Wyckoff, who catalogues the following as a few of the tricks
that make a vaudeville audience laugh:
Open your coat and show a green vest, or pull out your shirt
front and expose a red undershirt. Another excellent thing to
do is to wear a shirt without sleeves and pull off your coat
repeatedly. [1]
[1] Such ancient methods of winning laughs, however, belong to
vaudeville yesterdays. It should be remembered that Mr. Nathan,
who bore the labor of writing this excellent article, is blessed
with a satirical soul--which, undoubtedly, is the reason why he
is so excellent and so famous a dramatic critic.
Ask the orchestra leader if he is married.
Have the drummer put in an extra beat with the cymbals, then
glare at him.
Always use an expression which ends with the query, "Did he not?"
Then say, "He did not."
The men who elaborated this kind of thing into a classic are
Messrs. Weber and Fields. They are the great presiding deities
of "slap-stick" humor. They have capitalized it to enormous
financial profit. They claim that Mr. Fields' favorite trick
of poking his forefinger periodically in Mr. Weber's eye is worth
a large fortune in itself. A peculiarity of this kind of humor
is that it finds its basis in the inflicting of pain. A painful
situation apparently contains elements of the ridiculous so long
as the pain is not actually of a serious nature. Here, too, the
stage merely mirrors life itself. We laugh at the person who
falls on the ice, at the man who bumps against a chair or table
in the dark, at the headache of the "morning after," at the boy
who eats green apples and pays the abdominal penalty, at the
woman whose shoes are so tight they hurt her, at the person who
is thrown to the floor by a sudden lurch of a street-car, and
at the unfortunate who sits on a pin. A man chasing his rolling
hat in the street makes everybody laugh.
The most successful tricks or jokes are all based on the idea
of pain or embarrassment. Tacks made of rubber, matches that
explode or refuse to light, exploding cigars or cigarettes,
fountain-pens that smear ink over the fingers immediately they
are put to use, "electric" bells with pins secreted in their
push buttons, and boutonnieres that squirt water into the face
of the beholder, are a few familiar examples.
Here, then, we have the bits of business that three of the ablest
producers of the legitimate stage--all graduates from vaudeville,
by the way--agree upon as sure-fire for the vaudeville two-act.
Paradoxically, however, they should be considered not as instructive
of what you should copy, but as brilliant examples of what you
should avoid. They belong more to vaudeville's Past than to its
Present. Audiences laughed at them yesterday--they may not laugh
at them tomorrow. If you would win success, you must invent new
business in the light of the old successes. The principles
underlying these laugh-getters remain the same forever.
7. Sure-Fire Laughs Depend upon Action and Situation, Not on Words
If you will read again what Weber and Fields have to say about
their adventures in human nature, you will note that not once do
they mention the lines with which they accompanied the business
of their two-act. Several times they mention situation--which is
the result of action, when it is not its cause--but the words by
which they accompanied those actions and explained those situations
they did not consider of enough importance to mention. Every
successful two-act, every entertainment-form of which acting is
an element--the playlet and the full-evening play as well--prove
beyond the shadow of a doubt that what audiences laugh at--what
you and I laugh at--is not words, but actions and situations.
Later on, this most important truth--the very life-blood of stage
reality--will be taken up and considered at greater length in the
study of the playlet. But it cannot be mentioned too often. It
is a vital lesson that you must learn if you would achieve even
the most fleeting success in writing for the stage in general and
vaudeville in particular.
But by action is not meant running about the stage, or even wild
wavings of the arms. _There must be action in the idea--in the
thought_--even though the performers stand perfectly still.
So it is not with words, witty sayings, funny observations and
topsy-turvy language alone that the writer works, when he constructs
a vaudeville two-act. It is with clever ideas, expressed in
laughable situations and actions, that his brain is busy when he
begins to marshal to his aid the elements that enter into the
preparation of two-act material.
CHAPTER VIII
THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF TWO-ACT MATERIAL
It is very likely that in your study of "The German Senator" and
"The Art of Flirtation," there has crossed your mind this thought:
Both the monologue and the two-act are composed of points and gags.
The only difference--besides the merely physical difference of two
persons delivering the gags and the greater amount of business
used to "get them over" [1]--lies in the way the gags are constructed.
The very same gags--twisted just a little differently--would do
equally well for either the monologue or the two-act.
[1] To _get over_ a vaudeville line or the entire act, means to
make it a success--to make it get over the foot-lights so that the
audience may see and appreciate it, or "get" it.
I. THE INDIVIDUAL TWIST OF THE TWO-ACT
There is just enough truth in this to make it seem an illuminating
fact. For instance, take the "janitor point" in "The German
Senator." We may imagine the characters of a two-act working up
through a routine, and then one saying to the other:
A child can go to school for nothing, and when he grows up to
be a man and he is thoroughly educated he can go into the public
school and be a teacher and get fifty dollars a month.
The other swiftly saying:
And the janitor gets ninety-five.
There would be a big laugh in this arrangement of this particular
gag, without a doubt. But only a few points of "The German Senator"
could be used for a two-act, with nearly as much effect as in the
monologue form. For instance, take the introduction. Of course,
that is part and parcel of the monologue form, and therefore seems
hardly a fair example, yet it is particularly suggestive of the
unique character of much monologic material.
But take the series of points in "The German Senator," beginning:
"We were better off years ago than we are now." Picture the effect
if one character said:
Look at Adam in the Garden of Eat-ing.
2nd
Life to him was a pleasure.
1st
There was a fellow that had nothing to worry about.
2nd
Anything he wanted he could get.
1st
But the old fool had to get lonesome.
2nd
And that's the guy that started all our trouble etc. etc. etc.
Even before the fourth speech it all sounded flat and tiresome,
didn't it? Almost unconsciously you compared it with the brighter
material in "The Art of Flirtation." But, you may say: "If the
business had been snappy and funny, the whole thing would have
raised a laugh."
How could business be introduced in this gag--without having the
obvious effect of being lugged in by the heels? Business, to be
effective, must be the body of the material's soul. The material
must suggest the business, so it will seem to be made alive by it.
It must be as much the obvious result of the thought as when your
hand would follow the words, "I'm going to give you this. Here,
take it."
Herein lies the reason why two-act material differs from monologic
material. Experience alone can teach you to "feel" the difference
unerringly.
Yet it is in a measure true that some of the points and gags that
are used in many monologues--rarely the anecdotal gag, however,
which must be acted out in non-two-act form--would be equally
effective if differently treated in the two-act. But often this
is not due so much to the points themselves as to the fault of the
writer in considering them monologic points.
The underlying cause of many such errors may be the family likeness
discernible in all stage material. Still, it is much better for
the writer fully to recompense Peter, than to rob Peter to pay
Paul inadequately.
Nevertheless, aside from the "feel" of the material--its individual
adaptability--there is a striking similarity in the structural
elements of the monologue and the two-act. Everything in the
chapter on "The Nature of the Monologue" is as true of the two-act
as of the monologue, if you use discrimination. Refer to what was
said about humor, unity of character, compression, vividness,
smoothness and blending, and read it all again in the light of the
peculiar requirements of the two-act. They are the elements that
make for its success.
II. THINKING OUT THE TWO-ACT
The two-act--like all stage material in which acting plays a
part--is not written; it is constructed. You may write with the
greatest facility, and yet fail in writing material for the
vaudeville stage. The mere wording of a two-act means little, in
the final analysis. It is the action behind the words that suggests
the stage effect. It is the business--combined with the acting--that
causes the audience to laugh and makes the whole a success. So
the two-act, like every other stage form, must--before it is
written--be thought out.
In the preceding chapter, you read of the elements that enter into
the construction of a two-act. They are also some of the broad
foundation elements which underlie, in whole or in part, all other
stage-acting--material. A few of the two-act elements that have
to do more particularly with the manuscript construction have been
reserved for discussion in the paragraphs on development. In this
chapter we shall consider what you must have before you even begin
to think out your two-act--your theme.
1. Selecting a Theme
Imitation may be the sincerest flattery, but it is dangerous for
the imitator. And yet to stray too far afield alone is even more
hazardous. Successful vaudeville writers are much like a band of
Indians marching through an enemy's country--they follow one another
in single file, stepping in each other's footprints. In other
words, they obey the rules of their craft, but their mental strides,
like the Indians' physical footsteps, are individual and distinct.
2. Fundamental Themes
Experience has taught effective writers that certain definite
themes are peculiarly adaptable to two-act form and they follow
them. But success comes to them not because they stick to certain
themes only--they win because they vary these fundamental themes
as much as they can and still remain within the limits of proved
theatrical success.
(a) _The Quarrel Theme_. Search my memory as diligently as I may,
I cannot now recall a single successful two-act that has not had
somewhere in its routine a quarrel, while many of the most successful
two-acts I remember have been constructed with a quarrel as their
routine motives.
With this observation in mind, re-read "The Art of Flirtation" and
you will discover that the biggest laughs precede, arise from, or
are followed by quarrels. Weber and Fields in their list of the
most humorous business, cite not only mildly quarrelsome actions,
but actually hostile and seemingly dangerous acts. The more hostile
and the more seemingly dangerous they are, the funnier they are.
Run through the Cohan list and you will discover that nearly every
bit of business there reported is based on a quarrel, or might
easily lead to a fight.
(b) _The "Fool" Theme_. To quote again from Weber and Fields:
There are two other important items in human nature that we have
capitalized along with others to large profit. Human nature,
according to the way we analyzed it, is such a curious thing
that it will invariably find cause for extreme mirth in seeing
some other fellow being made a fool of, no matter who that fellow
may be, and in seeing a man betting on a proposition when he
cannot possibly win. We figured it out, in the first place,
that nothing pleased a man much more than when he saw another
man being made to look silly in the eyes of others.
For example, don't you laugh when you observe a dignified looking
individual strutting down the street wearing a paper tail that
has been pinned to his coat by some mischievous boys? [1]
[1] From the Weber and Fields article already quoted.
Note how the "fool" theme runs all through "The Art of Flirtation."
Go to see as many two-acts as you can and you will find that one
or another of the characters is always trying to "show up" the
other.
(c) _The "Sucker" Theme_.
As for the quirk in human nature that shows great gratification
at the sight of a man betting on something where he is bound to
be the loser: in inelegant language, this relates simply to the
universal impulse to laugh at a "sucker." It is just like
standing in front of a sideshow tent after you have paid your
good money, gone in, and been "stung," and laughing at everyone
else who pays his good money, comes out, and has been equally
"stung." You laugh at a man when he loses the money he has bet
on a race that has already been run when the wager has been
posted. You laugh at a man who bets a man ten dollars "receive"
is spelled "recieve," when you have just looked at the
dictionary and appreciate that he hasn't a chance. . . . Comedy
that lives year after year--no matter whether you choose to call
it "refined" or not--never comes to its exploiters by accident.
The intrinsic idea, the germ, may come accidentally; but the
figuring out of the elaboration and execution of the comedy takes
thinking and a pretty fair knowledge of your fellow men. [1]
[1] From the Weber and Fields article.
Although there are very many two-acts--among them "The Art of
Flirtation"--which do not make use of this third fundamental theme,
there are a great many that depend for their biggest laughs upon
this sure-fire subject.
In common with the "fool" theme, the "sucker" theme lends itself
to use as a part or bit of a two-act. And both these themes are
likely to be interspersed with quarrels.
There are, of course, other themes that might be classed with these
three fundamental themes. But they tend to trail off upon doubtful
ground. Therefore, as we are considering only those that are on
incontrovertible ground, let us now turn our attention to the act
themes which we will call:
3. Subject Themes
What can you bring to the vaudeville stage in the way of themes
that are new? That is what you should ask yourself, rather than
to inquire what has already been done.
Anything that admits of treatment on the lines of the two-act as
it has been spread before you, offers itself as a subject theme.
In the degree that you can find in it points that are bright,
clever, laughter-provoking and business-suggestive, does it recommend
itself to you as a theme.
Here is the merest skimming of the themes of the two-acts presented
in one large city during one week:
Flirting: done in a burlesque way. Our own example, "The Art of
Flirtation."
Quarrelsome musicians in search of a certain street. One is always
wrong. Gags all on this routine subject.
Getting a job: "sucker" theme. One character an Italian politician,
the other an Italian laborer.
Wives: one man is boss at home, the other is henpecked. Furthermore,
the wives don't agree. Quarrel theme.
Old times: two old schoolmates meet in the city. One a "fly guy,"
the other a simple, quiet country fellow. "Fool" theme, in the
old days and the present.
Note the variety of subjects treated. If my memory serves me
correctly, everyone of these acts had a quarrel either as its
entire subject, or the usual quarrels developed frequently in the
routine. These quarrels, as in most two-acts, were fundamental
to much of their humor. But no two of the acts had the same subject
theme.
It would seem, then, that in thinking out the two-act, the author
would do well to avoid every theme that has been used--if such a
thing is humanly possible, where everything seems to have been
done--and to attempt, at least, to bring to his two-act a new
subject theme.
But if this is impossible, the writer should bring to the old theme
a new treatment. Indeed, a new treatment with all its charm of
novelty will make any old theme seem new. One of the standard
recipes for success in any line of endeavor is: "Find out what
somebody else has done, and then do that thing--better." And one
of the ways of making an old theme appear new, is to invest it
with the different personalities of brand new characters.
III. TWO-ACT CHARACTERS
From the time when vaudeville first emerged as a commanding new
form of entertainment, distinct from its progenitor, the legitimate
stage, and its near relatives, burlesque and musical comedy, there
have been certain characters indissolubly associated with the
two-act. Among them are the Irish character, or "Tad"; the German,
or "Dutch," as they are often misnamed; the "black-face," or
"Nigger"; the farmer, or "Rube"; the Swedish, or "Swede"; the
Italian, or "Wop"; and the Hebrew, or "Jew."
Not much chance for a new character, you will say--but have you
thought about the different combinations you can make? There is
a wealth of ready humor waiting not only in varying combinations,
but in placing the characters in new businesses. For example,
doesn't a "Jew" aviator who is pestered by an insurance agent or
an undertaker, strike you as offering amusing possibilities?
But don't sit right down and think out your two-act on the lines
of the combination I have suggested on the spur of the moment.
Others are sure to be ahead of you. You can only win success with
new characters that are all your own. Then you are likely to be
the first in the field.
As a final warning, permit the suggestion that bizarre combinations
of characters very probably will be difficult to sell. Make your
combinations within the limits of plausibility, and use characters
that are seen upon the stage often enough to be hailed with at
least a pleasant welcome.
IV. THE TWO CHARACTER PARTS
"Comedy" and "Straight"
The characters of the two-act are technically called the "comedian"
and the "straight-man." The comedian might better be called the
"laugh-man," just as the straight is more clearly termed the
"feeder."
In the early days of the business the comedian was always
distinguishable by his comedy clothes. One glance would tell you
he was the comical cuss. The straight-man dressed like a "gent,"
dazzling the eyes of the ladies with his correct raiment. From
this fact the names "comedian" and "straight" arose.
But today you seldom can tell the two apart. They do not dress
extravagantly, either for comedy or for fashion effect. They often
dress precisely alike--that is, so far as telling their different
characters is concerned. Their difference in wealth and intelligence
may be reflected in their clothes, but only as such differences
would be apparent in real life. Indeed, the aim today is to mimic
reality in externals, precisely as the real characters themselves
are impersonated in every shade of thought and artistic inflection
of speech. There are, to be sure, exceptions to this modern
tendency.
The original purposes of their stage names, however, remain as
true today as they did when the two-act first was played. The
comedian has nearly all the laugh lines and the straight-man feeds
him.
Not only must you keep the characters themselves pure of any
violation of their unity, but you must also see to it that every
big laugh is given to the comedian. If the comedian is the one
"getting the worst of it"--as is almost invariably the case--he
must get the worst of it nearly every time. But that does not
influence the fact that he also gets almost all the laugh lines.
Note the working out of the laugh lines in "The Art of Flirtation."
You will see that only on the rarest of occasions does the
straight-man have a funny line given him.
The only time the feeder may be given a laugh line, is when the
laugh is what is called a "flash-back." For example, take the
point in "The Art of Flirtation" beginning:
COMEDIAN
And does she answer?
STRAIGHT
She's got to; it says it in the book.
COMEDIAN
Does she answer you with a handkerchief?
STRAIGHT
Yes, or she might answer you with an umbrella.
This is a flash-back. But, the comedian gets a bigger laugh on
the next line--worked up by a gesture:
COMEDIAN Over the head.
Or take this form of the flash-back, which may seem an even clearer
example:
COMEDIAN
Oh, I know how to be disagreeable to a lady. You ought to hear
me talk to my wife.
STRAIGHT
To your wife? Any man can be disagreeable to his wife. But
think--,
and so on into the introduction to the next point. It is always
a safe rule to follow that whenever you give the straight-man a
flash-back, top it with a bigger laugh for the comedian. How many
flash-backs you may permit in your two-act, depends upon the
character of the material, and also varies according to the bigness
of the roars that the business adds to the comedian's laughs. No
stated rule can be given you. In this, as in everything else, you
must carve your own way to win your own business.
CHAPTER IX
PUTTING THE TWO-ACT ON PAPER
You have selected your theme, chosen your characters, thought out
every angle of business, and mapped nearly all of your points, as
well as your big laugh-lines: now you are ready to put your two-act
on paper. Before "taking your pen in hand," stop for a moment of
self-analysis.
You can now determine how likely you are to succeed as a writer
of the two-act, by this simple self-examination:
How much of my two-act have I thought out clearly so that it is
playing before my very eyes?
If you have thought it all out, so that every bit of business moves
before your eyes, as every point rings in your ears, you are very
likely to turn out an acceptable two-act--if you have not played
a "chooser's" part, and your points are real points.
But do not imagine because you are positive that you have thought
everything out beforehand, and now have come to writing it down,
that your job of thinking is ended. Not at all; there are a few
things still to be thought out, while you are writing.
I. WHERE TO BEGIN
As in the monologue--because your material is made up of points--you
may begin nearly anywhere to write your two-act. And like the
monologue, you need not have a labored formal introduction.
The Introduction
Still, your introduction is no less comprehensively informing
because it has not the air of formality. If your characters by
their appearance stamp themselves for what they are, you may trust
complete characterization--as you should in writing every form of
stage material--to what each character does and says.
But in your very first line you should subtly tell the audience,
so there cannot possibly be any mistake, what your subject is.
Why are those two men out there on the stage?
What is the reason for their attitude toward each ther?
If they are quarreling, why are they quarreling?
If they are laughing, why are they laughing?
But don't make the mistake of trying to tell too much. To do that,
would be to make your introduction draggy. You must make the
audience think the characters are bright--precisely as the
introduction of the monologue is designed to make the audience
think the monologist is bright. Write your introduction in very
short speeches. Show the attitude of the characters clearly and
plainly, as the first speech of our two-act example shows the
characters are quarreling:
STRAIGHT
Say, whenever we go out together you always got a kick coming.
What's the matter with you?
Then get into your subject-theme quickly after you have given the
audience time to get acquainted and settled, with the memory of
the preceding act dimmed in their minds by the giggle-points of
your introduction.
The introduction of the two-act is designed to stamp the characters
as real characters, to establish their relations to each other,
to give the audience time to settle down to the new "turn," to
make them think the performers are "bright" and to delay the first
big laugh until the psychological moment has come to spring the
initial big point of the subject theme, after the act has "got"
the audience.
II. THE DEVELOPMENT
It would seem needless to repeat what has already been stated so
plainly in the chapters on the monologue, that no one can teach
you how to write excruciatingly funny points and gags, and that
no one can give you the power to originate laughter-compelling
situations. You must rise or fall by the force of your own ability.
There are, however, two suggestions that can be given you for the
production of a good two-act. One is a "don't," and the other a
"do." Don't write your points in the form of questions and answers.
The days of the "Why did the chicken cross the road?"--"Because
she wanted to get on the other side" sort of two-act, is past.
Write all your points in conversational style.
Never write:
What were you doing at Pat's dinner lathering your face with a
charlotte russe?
Write it:
So you were down at Pat's house for dinner, and you went and
lathered your face with a charlotte russe--I saw you.
Of course when a legitimate question is to be asked, ask it. But
do not deliberately throw your points into question form. Your
guide to the number of direct queries you would use should be the
usual conversational methods of real life.
Your subject, of course, in a large measure determines how many
questions you need to ask. For instance, if your theme is one
that develops a lot of fun through one character instructing the
other, a correspondingly large number of questions naturally would
be asked. But, as "The Art of Flirtation" plainly shows, you can
get a world of fun out of even an instruction theme, without the
use of a wearying number of inquiries. The two-act fashion today
is the direct, conversational style.
Now for the second suggestion:
Although some exceedingly successful two-acts have been written
with many themes scattered through their twelve or more minutes,
probably a larger number have won success through singleness of
subject. A routine with but one subject worked up to its most
effective height is often more likely to please.
Furthermore, for the reason that the two-act is breaking away from
the offering that is merely pieced together out of successful
bits--precisely as that class of act struggled away from the old
slap-stick turn--the single-routine now finds readier sale. The
present tendency of the two-act seems to be to present clever
characterization--and so to win by artistic acting, as before it
won by cruder methods.
Therefore, strive for unity of routine. Treat but one subject and
amplify that one subject with singleness of purpose.
The point, or the gag, of a two-act is very much like that of the
monologue. In so far as construction is concerned--by this I mean
laugh-wave construction--they are identical. Study "The Art of
Flirtation," and you will see how little laughs precede big laughs
and follow after, mounting into still bigger laughs that rise into
roars of laughter.
1. Introducing a Point
If you were telling a joke to a friend you would be sure to tell
him in your very first sentence all the things he would need in
order to understand the point of the joke, wouldn't you? You would
take great care not to leave out one salient bit of information
that would make him see the joke plainly--you would be as logical
as though you were trying to sell him a bill of goods. Take the
same attitude toward each point that you introduce into your
two-act. Remember, you are wholesaling your "jokes" to the
comedians, who must retail them to their audiences. Therefore,
introduce each new point as clearly and as briefly as you can.
Let us take a point from "The Art of Flirtation" and see how it
is constructed. The very first line the straight-man speaks when
he comes out on the stage unmistakably declares his relation to
the comedian. When he shows the book, he explains precisely what
it is. And while laugh after laugh is worked out of it, the precise
things that the book teaches are made clear.
STRAIGHT
No. It ain't ten cent love. It's fine love. (Opens book)
See--here is the destructions. Right oil the first page you
learn something. See--how to flirt with a handkerchief.
COMEDIAN
Who wants to flirt with a handkerchief? I want to flirt with a
woman.
STRAIGHT
Listen to what the book says. To a flirter all things have got
a language. According to this book flirters can speak with the
eye, with the fan, with the cane, with the umbrella, with the
handkerchief, with anything; this book tells you how to do it.
COMEDIAN
For ten cents.
Note that the straight-man does not say, "with the eye, cane,
umbrella--" and so on through the list. He says "With the eye,
with the fan, with the cane--." There can be no mistake--as there
might be if the items were enumerated swiftly. Each one is given
importance by the "with the eye, with the fan." The words "with
the" lend emphasis and a humorous weight.
STRAIGHT
Shut up. Now when you see a pretty woman coming along who wants
to flirt with you, what is the first thing a man should do?
COMEDIAN
Run the other way.
STRAIGHT
No, no. This is the handkerchief flirtation. . . .
You see precisely what the subject of this particular point is
because it is stated in unmistakable words.
STRAIGHT
. . .As soon as a pretty woman makes eyes at you, you put your
hands in your pockets.
COMEDIAN
And hold on to your money.
Now this is a big laugh at every performance--a sure-fire laugh
when it is well done. Note that it is the fourth line the comedian
has after the specific point introduction, ". . .See--how to flirt
with a handkerchief?" Now the line "Who wants to flirt with a
handkerchief? I want to flirt with a woman," is not intended to
be a real laugh-line. It serves as an audience settler, gives
emphasis to the explanation of just what the book tells and helps
to blend into the next line.
There's a first laugh on, "For ten cents." A bigger laugh comes
on, "Run the other way." And the bigest--in this point-division--
on the third laugh line "And hold on to your money."
2. Blending into the Following Point
When you have a big laugh, you must make the next line carry you
on smoothly into the succeeding lint. It matters not whether the
points are all related to the same general subject or not--although
we are considering here only the single-routine two-act--you must
take great care that each point blends into the following one with
logical sequence.
The line, "Who wants to flirt with a handkerchief? I want to flirt
with a woman," helps in the blending of the point division we have
just examined.
The straight-man's line following the big laugh line in that point
division, "No, you take out your handkerchief," (biz. [1]) is
another example of the blend-line. And it is the very first
introduction of the peculiar style of business that makes of "The
Art of Flirtation" so funny an act.
[1] _Biz._ is often used in vaudeville material for _bus._, the
correct contraction of _business_.
3. The Use of Business
Let us continue in the examination of this example.
COMEDIAN
Suppose you ain't got a handkerchief?
STRAIGHT
Every flirter must have a handkerchief. It says it in the book.
Now you shake the handkerchief three times like this. (Biz) Do
you know what that means?
COMEDIAN
(Biz. of shaking head.)
STRAIGHT
That means you want her to give you--
COMEDIAN
Ten cents.
The reason why these two words come with such humorous effect,
lies in two causes. First, "ten cents" has been used before with
good laugh results--as a "gag line," you recall--and this is the
comedian's magical "third time" use of it. It is a good example
of the "three-sequence mystery" which Weber and Fields mentioned,
and which has been used to advantage on the stage for many, many
years.
Second, the comedian had refused to answer the straight-man's
question. He simply stood there and shook his head. It was the
very simple business of shaking his head that made his interruption
come as a surprise and gave perfect setting for the "gag-line."
Read the speeches that follow and you will see how business is
used. Note particularly how the business makes this point stand
out as a great big laugh:
STRAIGHT
. . .Den you hold your handkerchief by the comer like dis.
COMEDIAN
Vat does that mean?
STRAIGHT
Meet me on the corner.
COMEDIAN
Och, dat's fine. (Takes handkerchief). . . Den if you hold it
dis way, dat means (biz.): "Are you on the square?"
This line reads even funnier than many laughs in the act that are
bigger, but its business cannot be explained in words. It seems
funnier to you because you can picture it. You actually see it,
precisely as it is done.
Then the next line blends it into the next point, which is clearly
introduced with a grin--is developed into a laugh, a bigger laugh
by effective business, and then into a roar.
Point after point follows--each point topping the preceding
point--until the end of the two-act is reached in the biggest laugh
of all.
III. HOW AND WHERE TO END
The business of the two-act, which secures its effects by actions
that are often wholly without words, makes the two-act more difficult
to time than a monologue. Furthermore, even if the time-consuming
bits of business were negligible, the precise timing of a two-act
by the author is not really necessary.
Precisely as a monologist can vary the length of his offering by
leaving out gags, the two-act performers can shorten their offering
at will--by leaving out points. Hence it is much better to supply
more points than time will permit to delivery in the finished
performance, than to be required to rewrite your material to stretch
the subject to fill out time. All you need do is to keep the
two-act within, say, twenty minutes. And to gauge the length
roughly, count about one hundred and fifteen words to a minute.
Therefore, having arranged your points upon separate cards, or
slips of paper, and having shuffied them about and tried them all
in various routines to establish the best, choose your very biggest
laugh for the last. [1] Wherever that biggest laugh may have been
in the sample routines you have arranged, take it out and blend
it in for your final big roar.
[1] See description of card system, Chapter VI, section III.
Remember that the last laugh must be the delighted roar that will
take the performers off stage, and bring them back again and again
for their bows.
IV. MAKING THE MANUSCRIPT A STAGE SUCCESS
The manuscript of a two-act is only a prophecy of what _may_ be.
It _may_ be a good prophecy or a bad prognostication--only actual
performance before an audience can decide. As we saw in the
monologue, points that the author thought would "go big"--"die";
and unexpectedly, little grins waken into great big laughs. There
is no way of telling from the manuscript.
When you have finished your two-act you must be prepared to construct
it all over again in rehearsal, and during all the performances
of its try-out weeks. Not only must the points be good themselves,
they must also fit the performers like the proverbial kid gloves.
More two-acts--and this applies to all other stage-offerings as
well--have started out as merely promising successes, than have
won at the first try-out. For this reason, be prepared to work
all the morning rehearsing, at the matinee and the night performances,
and after the theatre is dark, to conjure giggle points into great
big laughs, and lift the entire routine into the success your
ability and the performers' cleverness can make it.
Even after it has won its way into a contract and everybody is
happy, you must be prepared to keep your two-act up-to-the-minute.
While it is on the road, you must send to the performers all the
laughs you can think of--particularly if you have chosen for your
theme one that demands constant furbishing to keep it bright.
V. OTHER TWO-ACT FORMS
It is with direct purpose that the discussion of the two-act has
been confined to the kind of act that Weber and Fields made so
successful--and of which Mr. Hoffman's "The Art of Flirtation" is
a more up-to-date, mild and artistic form. There are other forms
of the two-act, of course, but the kind of two-act we have discussed
is peculiarly typical of two-act material. It holds within itself
practically all the elements of the two-act that the writer has
to consider. It is only necessary now to describe the other forms
briefly.
By "pure two-act form," I mean the two-act that is presented without
songs, tricks, or any other entertainment elements. Yet many of
the most successful two-acts open with a song, introduce songs or
parodies into the middle of their dialogue, or close with a song
or some novelty.
Do not imagine that a two-act in which songs are introduced cannot
be precisely as good as one that depends upon its talk alone. It
may be an even better act. If it pleases the audience better, it
is a better act. Remember that while we have been discussing the
two-act from the writer's view-point, it is the applause of the
audience that stamps every act with the final seal of approval.
But, whether a two-act makes use of songs or tricks or anything
else, does not change the principles on which all two-act points
and gags are constructed.
The more common talking two-acts are:
1. The Sidewalk Conversation or Gag Act
This form may or may not open and close with songs, and depends
upon skillfully blended, but not necessarily related, gags and
jokes.
2. The Parody Two-Act
This sort of act opens and closes with parodies on the latest
song-hits, and uses talk for short rests and humorous effect between
the parodies by which the act makes its chief appeal.
3. The Singing Two-Act
This type makes its appeal not by the use of songs, but because
the voices are very fine. Such an act may use a few gags and
unrelated jokes--perhaps of the "nut" variety--to take the act out
of the pure duet class and therefore offer wider appeal.
4. The Comedy Act for Two Women
Such acts may depend on precisely the same form of routine the
pure talking two-act for men uses. Of course, the treatment of
the subject themes is gentler and the material is all of a milder
character.
5. The Two-Act with Plot Interest
Acts of this character make use of a comedy, burlesque, melodramatic
or even a dramatic plot. This form of sketch seldom rises into
the playlet class. It is a two-act merely because it is played
by two persons. Often, however, this form of the two-act uses a
thread of plot on which to string its business and true two-act
points. It may or may not make use of songs, parodies, tricks or
other entertainment elements. We have now come to a form of two-act
which is of so popular a nature that it requires more than passing
mention. This is
6. The Flirtation Two-Act
Usually presented with songs making their appeal to sentiment,
almost always marked by at least one change of costume by the
woman, sometimes distinguished by a special drop and often given
more than a nucleus of plot, this very popular form of two-act
sometimes rises into the dignity of a little production. Indeed,
many two-acts of this kind have been so successful in their little
form they have been expanded into miniature musical comedies [1].
[1] See Chapter XXX, The One-Act Musical Comedy.
(a) _Romance_ is the chief source of the flirtation two-act's
appeal. It is the dream-love in the heart of every person in the
audience which makes this form of two-act "go" so well. Moonlight,
a girl and a man--this is the recipe.
(b) _Witty Dialogue_ that fences with love, that thrusts, parries
and--surrenders, is what makes the flirtation two-act "get over."
It is the same kind of dialogue that made Anthony Hope's "Dolly
Dialogues" so successful in their day, the sort of speeches which
we, in real life, think of afterward and wish we had made.
(c) _Daintiness of effect_ is what is needed in this form of
two-act. Dialogue and business, scenery, lights and music all
combine to the fulfillment of its purpose. The cruder touches of
other two-act forms are forgotten and the entire effort is
concentrated on making an appeal to the "ideal." Turn to the
Appendix, and read "After the Shower," and you will see how these
various elements are unified. This famous flirtation two-act has
been chosen because it shows practically all the elements we have
discussed.
CHAPTER X
THE PLAYLET AS A UNIQUE DRAMATIC FORM
The playlet is a very definite thing--and yet it is difficult to
define. Like the short-story, painting as we know it today,
photography, the incandescent lamp, the telephone, and the myriad
other forms of art and mechanical conveniences, the playlet did
not spring from an inventor's mind full fledged, but attained its
present form by slow growth. It is a thing of life--and life
cannot be bounded by words, lest it be buried in the tomb of a
hasty definition.
To attempt even the most cautious of definitions without having
first laid down the foundations of understanding by describing
some of the near-playlet forms to be seen on many vaudeville bills
would, indeed, be futile. For perhaps the surest way of learning
what a thing is, is first to learn what it is not. Confusion is
then less likely to creep into the conception, and the definition
comes like a satisfactory summing up of familiar points that are
resolved into clear words.
I. NEAR-DRAMATIC FORMS WHICH PRECEDED THE VAUDEVILLE PLAYLET
Even in the old music hall days, when a patron strolled in from a
hard day's work and sat down to enjoy an even harder evening's
entertainment, the skit or sketch or short play which eventually
drifted upon the boards--where it was seen through the mists of
tobacco smoke and strong drink--was _the_ thing. The admiration
the patrons had for the performers, whom they liberally treated
after the show, did not prevent them from actively driving from
the stage any offering that did not possess the required dramatic
"punch." [1] They had enjoyed the best of everything else the music
hall manager could obtain for their amusement and they demanded
that their bit of a play be, also, the very best of its kind.
[1] It is worthy of note in this connection that many of the
dramatic and particularly the comedy offerings seen in the music
halls of twenty years ago, and in the "Honkitonks" of Seattle and
other Pacific Coast cities during the Alaskan gold rush, have,
expurgated, furnished the scenarios of a score of the most successful
legitimate dramas and comedies of recent years. Some of our
greatest legitimate and vaudeville performers also came from this
humble and not-to-be-boasted-of school. This phase of the growth
of the American drama has never been written. It should be recorded
while the memories of "old timers" are still fresh.
No matter what this form of entertainment that we now know by the
name of vaudeville may be called, the very essence of its being
is variety. "Topical songs"--we call their descendants "popular
songs"--classic ballads, short concerts given on all sorts of
instruments, juggling, legerdermain, clowning, feats of balancing,
all the departments of dancing and of acrobatic work, musical
comedy, pantomime, and all the other hundred-and-one things that
may be turned into an amusing ten or twenty minutes, found eager
welcome on the one stage that made it, and still makes it, a
business to present the very newest and the very best of everything.
To complete its claim to the title of variety, to separate itself
from a likeness to the circus, to establish itself as blood brother
of the legitimate stage, and, most important of all, to satisfy
the craving of its audiences for _drama_, vaudeville tried many
forms of the short play before the playlet was evolved to fill the
want.
Everything that bears even the remotest likeness to a play found
a place and had a more or less fleeting--or lasting--popularity.
And not only was every form of play used, but forms of entertainment
that could not by reason of their very excellencies be made to
fill the crying want, were pressed into service and supplied with
ill-fitting plots in the vain attempt.
Musical acts, whose chief appeal was the coaxing of musical sounds
from wagon tires, drinking glasses, and exotic instruments, were
staged in the kitchen set. And father just home from work would
say, "Come, daughter, let's have a tune." Then off they would
start, give their little entertainment, and down would come the
curtain on a picture of never-to-be-seen domestic life. Even
today, we sometimes see such a hybrid act.
Slap-stick sidewalk conversation teams often would hire an author
to fit them with a ready-made plot, and, pushed back behind the
Olio into a centre-door fancy set, would laboriously explain why
they were there, then go through their inappropriate antics and
finish with a climax that never "climaxed." All kinds of two-acts,
from the dancing pair to the flirtatious couple, vainly tried to
give their offerings dramatic form. They did their best to make
them over into little plays and still retain the individual elements
that had won them success.
The futility of such attempts it took years to realize. It was
only when the stock opening, "I expect a new partner to call at
the house today in answer to my advertisement (which was read for
a laugh) and while I am waiting for him I might as well practice
my song," grew so wearisome that it had to be served with a special
notice in many vaudeville theatres, that these groping two-acts
returned to the pure forms from which they never should have
strayed. But even today you sometimes see such an act--with a
little less inappropriate opening--win, because of the extreme
cleverness of the performers.
II. DRAMATIC FORMS FROM WHICH THE PLAYLET EVOLVED
Among the dramatic forms--by which I mean acts depending on dialogue,
plot and "acting" for appeal--that found more or less success in
vaudeville, were sketches and short plays (not playlets) using
either comedy, farce, or dramatic plots, and containing either
burlesque or extravaganza. Let us take these dramatic forms in
their order of widest difference from the playlet and give to each
the explanatory word it deserves.
1. Extravaganza Acts
Extravaganza is anything out of rule. It deals comically with the
impossible and the unreal, and serves its purpose best when it
amazes most. Relying upon physical surprises, as well as extravagant
stage-effects, the extravaganza act may be best explained, perhaps,
by naming a famous example--"Eight Bells." The Byrne Brothers
took the elements of this entertainment so often into
vaudeville and out of it again into road shows that it is difficult
to remember where it originated. The sudden appearances of the
acrobatic actors and their amazing dives through seemingly solid
doors and floors, held the very essence of extravaganza. Uncommon
nowadays even in its pure form, the extravaganza act that tries
to ape the play form is seldom if ever seen.
2. Burlesque Acts
Burlesque acts, however, are not uncommon today and are of two
different kinds. First, there is the burlesque that is travesty,
which takes a well-known and often serious subject and hits off
its famous features in ways that are uproariously funny. "When
Caesar Sees Her," took the famous meeting between Cleopatra and
Marc Antony and made even the most impressive moment a scream. [1]
And Arthur Denvir's "The Villain Still Pursued Her" (See Appendix),
an exceptionally fine example of the travesty, takes the well-
remembered melodrama and extracts laughter from situations that
once thrilled.
[1] In musical comedy this is often done to subjects and personalities
of national interest. The Ziegfeld perennial Follies invariably
have bits that are played by impersonators of the national figure
of the moment. Sometimes in musical revues great dramatic successes
are travestied, and the invariable shouts of laughter their
presentation provokes are an illuminating exemplification of the
truth that between tragedy and comedy there is but a step.
Second, there are the acts that are constructed from bits of comedy
business and depend for their success not on dialogue, but on
action. Merely a thread of plot holds them together and on it is
strung the elemental humor of the comedy bits, which as often as
not may be slap-stick. The purpose being only to amuse for the
moment, all kinds of entertainment forms may be introduced. One
of the most successful examples of the burlesque tab, [2] James
Madison's "My Old Kentucky Home" (See Appendix), serves as the
basic example in my treatment of this vaudeville form.
[2] _Tab_ is short for tabloid. There may be tabloid musical
comedies--running forty minutes or more--as well as _burlesque
tabs_.
3. Short Plays
Short plays, as the name implies, are merely plays that are short.
They partake of the nature of the long play and are simply short
because the philosophic speeches are few and the number of scenes
that have been inserted are not many. The short play may have
sub-plots; it may have incidents that do not affect the main design;
its characters may be many and some may be introduced simply to
achieve life-like effect; and it usually comes to a leisurely end
after the lapse of from twenty minutes to even an hour or more.
Again like the full-evening play, the one-act play that is merely
short paints its characters in greater detail than is possible in
the playlet, where the strokes are made full and broad. Furthermore,
while in the playlet economy of time and attention are prime
requisites, in the short play they are not; to take some of the
incidents away from the short play might not ruin it, but to take
even one incident away from a playlet would make it incomplete.
For many years, however, the following tabloid forms of the
legitimate drama were vaudeville's answer to the craving of its
audiences for drama.
(a) _Condensed Versions, "Big" Scenes and Single Acts of Long
Plays_. For example--an example which proves three points in a
single instance: the need for drama in vaudeville, vaudeville's
anxiety for names, and its willingness to pay great sums for what
it wants--Joseph Jefferson was offered by F. F. Proctor, in 1905,
the then unheard-of salary of $5,000 a week for twelve consecutive
weeks to play "Bob Acres" in a condensed version of "The Rivals."
Mr. Jefferson was to receive this honorarium for himself alone,
Mr. Proctor agreeing to furnish the condensed play, the scenery
and costumes, and pay the salaries of the supporting cast. The
offer was not accepted, but it stood as the record until Martin
Beck paid Sarah Bernhardt the sum of $7,500 a week for herself and
supporting players during her famous 1913 tour of the Orpheum
Circuit. In recent years nearly every legitimate artist of national
and international reputation has appeared in vaudeville in some
sort of dramatic vehicle that had a memory in the legitimate.
But that neither a condensed play, nor one "big" scene or a single
act from a long play, is not a playlet should be apparent when you
remember the impression of inadequacy left on your own mind by
such a vehicle, even when a famous actor or actress has endowed
it with all of his or her charm and wonderful art.
(b) _The Curtain-Raiser_. First used to supplement or preface a
short three-act play so as to eke out a full evening's entertainment,
the little play was known as either an "afterpiece" or a
"curtain-raiser"; usually, however, it was presented before the
three-act drama, to give those who came early their full money's
worth and still permit the fashionables, who "always come late,"
to be present in time to witness the important play of the evening.
Then it was that "curtain-raiser" was considered a term of reproach.
But often in these days a curtain-raiser, like Sir James M. Barrie's
"The Twelve Pound Look," proves even more entertaining and worth
while than the ambitious play it precedes.
That Ethel Barrymore took "The Twelve Pound Look" into vaudeville
does not prove, however, that the curtain-raiser and the vaudeville
playlet are like forms. As in the past, the curtain-raiser of
today usually is more kin to the long play than to the playlet.
But it is nevertheless true that in some recent curtain-raisers
the compact swiftness and meaningful effect of the playlet form
has become more apparent--they differ from the vaudeville playlet
less in form than in legitimate feeling.
Historically, however, the curtain-raiser stands in much the same
position in the genealogy of the playlet that the forms discussed
in the preceding section occupy. As in the other short plays,
there was no sense of oneness of plot and little feeling of
coming-to-the-end that mark a good playlet.
Therefore, since the short play could not fully satisfy the
vaudeville patron's natural desire for drama, the sketch held the
vaudeville stage unchallenged until the playlet came.
4. Vaudeville Sketches
The vaudeville sketch in the old days was almost anything you might
care to name, in dramatic form. Any vaudeville two-act that stepped
behind the Olio and was able to hold a bit of a plot alive amid
its murdering of the King's English and its slap-stick ways, took
the name of "a sketch." But the "proper sketch," as the English
would say--the child of vaudeville and elder half-brother to the
playlet--did not make use of other entertainment forms. It depended
on dialogue, business and acting and a more or less consistent
plot or near-plot for its appeal. Usually a comedy--yet sometimes
a melodrama--the vaudeville sketch of yesterday and of today rarely
makes plot a chief element. The _story_ of a sketch usually means
little in its general effect. The general effect of the sketch
is--general. That is one of the chief differences between it and
the playlet.
The purpose of the sketch is not to leave a single impression of
a single story. It points no moral, draws no conclusion, and
sometimes it might end quite as effectively anywhere before the
place in the action at which it does terminate. It is built for
entertainment purposes only, and furthermore, for entertainment
purposes that end the moment the sketch ends. When you see a
sketch you carry away no definite impression, save that of
entertainment, and usually you cannot remember what it was that
entertained you. Often a sketch might be incorporated into a
burlesque show or a musical comedy and serve for part of an act,
without suffering, itself, in effect. [1] And yet, without the
sketch of yesterday there would be no playlet today.
[1] Not so many years ago, a considerable number of vaudeville
sketches were used in burlesque; and vice versa, many sketches
were produced in burlesque that afterward had successful runs in
vaudeville. Yet they were more than successful twenty-minute
"bits," taken out of burlesque shows. They had a certain completeness
of form which did not lose in effect by being transplanted.
(a) _The Character Sketch_. Some sketches, like Tom Nawn's "Pat
and the Geni," and hi
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/5328