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 his other "Pat" offerings, so long a famous vaudeville feature, are merely character sketches. Like the near-short-story character-sketch, the vaudeville sketch often gives an admirable exposition of character, without showing any change in the character's heart effected by the incidents of the story. "Pat" went through all sorts of funny and startling adventures when he opened the brass bottle and the Geni came forth, but he was the very same Pat when he woke up and found it all a dream. [1]

[1] The Ryan and Richfield acts that have to do with Haggerty and his society-climbing daughter Mag, may be remembered. For longer than my memory runs, Mag Haggerty has been trying to get her father into society, but the Irish brick-layer will never "arrive." The humor lies in Haggerty's rich Irishness and the funny mistakes he always makes. The "Haggerty" series of sketches and the "Pat" series show, perhaps better than any others, the closeness of the character-sketch short-story that is often mistaken for the true short-story, to the vaudeville sketch that is so often considered a playlet.

Indeed, the vaudeville sketch was for years the natural vehicle and "artistic reward" for clever actors who made a marked success in impersonating some particular character in burlesque or in the legitimate. The vaudeville sketch was written around the personality of the character with which success had been won and hence was constructed to give the actor opportunity to show to the best advantage his acting in the character. And in the degree that it succeeded it was and still is a success—and a valuable entertainment form for vaudeville.

(b) The Narrative Sketch. Precisely as the character sketch is not a playlet, the merely narrative sketch is not a true playlet. No matter how interesting and momentarily amusing or thrilling may be the twenty-minute vaudeville offering that depends upon incident only, it does not enlist the attention, hold the sympathy, or linger in the memory, as does the playlet.

Character revelation has little place in the narrative sketch, a complete well-rounded plot is seldom to be found, and a change in the relations of the characters rarely comes about. The sketch does not convince the audience that it is complete in itself—rather it seems an incident taken out of the middle of a host of similar experiences. It does not carry the larger conviction of reality that lies behind reality.

(1) The Farce Sketch. Nevertheless such excellent farce sketches as Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Drew, Rice and Cohen, Homer Mason and Margaret Keeler, and other sterling performers have presented in vaudeville, are well worth while. The fact that many of the minor incidents that occur in such finely amusing sketches as Mason and Keeler's "In and Out" [1] do not lend weight to the ending, but seem introduced merely to heighten the cumulative effect of the farce-comedy, does not prove them, or the offering, to be lacking in entertainment value for vaudeville. Rather, the use of just such extraneous incidents makes these sketches more worth while; but the introduction of them and the dependence upon them, for interest, does mark such offerings as narrative sketches rather than as true playlets.

[1] By Porter Emerson Brown, author of A Fool There Was, and other full-evening plays.

(2) The Straight Dramatic and Melodramatic Sketch. In identically the same way the introduction into one-act dramas and melodramas of "bits" that are merely added to heighten the suspense and make the whole seem more "creepy," without having a definite—an inevitable—effect upon the ending makes and marks them as narrative dramas and melodramas and not true playlet forms.

From the foregoing examples we may now attempt

5. A Definition of a Vaudeville Sketch

A Vaudeville Sketch is a simple narrative, or a character sketch, presented by two or more people, requiring usually about twenty minutes to act, having little or no definite plot, developing no vital change in the relations of the characters, and depending on effective incidents for its appeal, rather than on the singleness of effect of a problem solved by character revelation and change.

It must be borne in mind that vaudeville is presenting today all sorts of sketches, and that nothing in this definition is levelled against their worth. All that has been attempted so far in this chapter has been to separate for you the various forms of dramatic and near-dramatic offerings to be seen in vaudeville. A good sketch is decidedly worth writing. And you should also remember that definitions and separations are dangerous things. There are vaudeville sketches that touch in one point or two or three the peculiar requirements of the playlet and naturally, in proportion as these approach closely the playlet form, hair-splitting separations become nearly, if not quite, absurd.

Furthermore, when an experienced playwright sits down to write a vaudeville offering he does not consider definitions. He has in his mind something very definite that he plans to produce and he produces it irrespective of definitions. He is not likely to stop to inquire whether it is a sketch or a playlet. [1] The only classifications the professional vaudeville writer considers, are failures and successes. He defines a success by the money it brings him.

[1] In discussing this, Arthur Hopkins said: "When vaudeville presents a very good dramatic offering, 'playlet' is the word used to describe it. If it isn't very fine, it is called a 'sketch.'"

But today there is a force abroad in vaudeville that is making for a more artistic form of the one-act play. It is the same artistic spirit that produced out of short fiction the short-story. This age has been styled the age of the short-story and of vaudeville—it is, indeed, the age of the playlet.

The actor looking for a vaudeville vehicle today is not content with merely an incident that will give him the opportunity to present the character with which he has won marked success on the legitimate stage. Nor is he satisfied with a series of incidents, however amusing or thrilling they may be. He requires an offering that will lift his work into a more artistic sphere. He desires a little play that will be remembered after the curtain has been rung down.

This is the sort of vehicle that he must present to win success in vaudeville for any length of time. While vaudeville managers may seem content to book an act that is not of the very first rank, because it is played by someone whose ability and whose name glosses over its defects, they do not encourage such offerings by long contracts. Even with the most famous of names, vaudeville managers—reflecting the desires of their audiences—demand acceptable playlets.

III. HOW THE VAUDEVILLE SKETCH AND THE PLAYLET DIFFER

Edgar Allan Woolf, one of the day's most successful playlet writers who has won success year after year with vaudeville offerings that have been presented by some of the most famous actors of this country and of England, said when I asked him what he considered to be the difference between the sketch and the playlet:

"There was a time when the vaudeville sketch was moulded on lines that presented less difficulties and required less technique of the playwright than does the playlet of today. The curtain generally rose on a chambermaid in above-the-ankle skirts dusting the furniture as she told in soliloquy form that her master and mistress had sent for a new butler or coachman or French teacher. How the butler, coachman or French teacher might make her happier was not disclosed.

"Then came a knock on the door, followed by the elucidating remark of the maid, 'Ah, this must be he now.' A strange man thereupon entered, who was not permitted to say who he was till the piece was over or there would have been no piece. The maid for no reason mistook him for the butler, coachman or French teacher, as the case may have been, and the complications ensuing were made hilarious by the entrance of the maid's husband who, of course, brought about a comedy chase scene, without which no 'comedietta' was complete. Then all characters met—hasty explanations—and 'comedy curtain.'

"Today, all these things are taboo. A vaudeville audience resents having the 'protiasis' or introductory facts told them in monologue form, as keenly as does the 'legitimate' audience. Here, too, the actor may not explain his actions by 'asides.' And 'mistaken identity' is a thing of the past.

"Every trivial action must be thoroughly motivated, and the finish of the playlet, instead of occurring upon the 'catabasis,' or general windup of the action, must develop the most striking feature of the playlet, so that the curtain may come down on a surprise, or at least an event toward which the entire action has been progressing.

"But the most important element that has developed in the playlet of today is the problem, or theme. A little comedy that provokes laughter yet means nothing, is apt to be peddled about from week to week on the 'small time' and never secure booking in the better houses. In nearly all cases where the act has been a 'riot' of laughter, yet has failed to secure bookings, the reason is to be found in the fact that it is devoid of a definite theme or central idea.

"The booking managers are only too eager to secure playlets—and now I mean precisely the playlet—which are constructed to develop a problem, either humorous or dramatic. The technique of the playlet playwright is considered in the same way that the three-act playwright's art of construction is analyzed by the dramatic critic."

IV. WHAT A PLAYLET IS

We have seen what the playlet is not. We have considered the various dramatic and near-dramatic forms from which it differs. And now, having studied its negative qualities, I may assemble its positive characteristics before we embark once more upon the troubled seas of definition. The true playlet is marked by the following ten characteristics:

1—A clearly motivated opening—not in soliloquy form.

2—A single definite and predominating problem or theme.

3—A single preeminent character.

4—Motivated speeches.

5—Motivated business and acting.

6—Unity of characters.

7—Compression.

8—Plot.

9—A finish that develops the most striking feature into a surprise—or is an event toward which every speech and every action has been progressing.

10—Unity of impression [1]

[1] See page 30, Writing the Short-Story, by J. Berg Esenwein, published in "The Writer's Library," uniform with this volume. Note the seven characteristics of the short-story and compare them with the playlet's ten characteristics. You will find a surprising similarity between the short-story and the playlet in some points of structure. A study of both in relation to each other may give you a clearer understanding of each.

Each of these characteristics has already been discussed in our consideration of the dramatic forms—either in its negative or positive quality—or will later be taken up at length in its proper place. Therefore, we may hazard in the following words

A Definition of a Playlet

A Playlet is a stage narrative taking usually about twenty minutes to act, having a single chief character, and a single problem which predominates, and is developed by means of a plot so compressed and so organized that every speech and every action of the characters move it forward to a finish which presents the most striking features; while the whole is so organized as to produce a single impression.

You may haunt the vaudeville theatres in a vain search for a playlet that will embody all of these characteristics in one perfect example. [1] But the fact that a few playlets are absolutely perfect technically is no reason why the others should be condemned. Remember that precise conformity to the rules here laid down is merely academic perfection, and that the final worth of a playlet depends not upon adherence to any one rule, or all—save as they point the way to success—but upon how the playlet as a whole succeeds with the audience.

[1] Study the playlet examples in the Appendix and note how closely each approaches technical perfection.

Yet there will be found still fewer dramatic offerings in vaudeville that do not conform to some of these principles. Such near-playlets succeed not because they evade the type, but mysteriously in spite of their mistakes. And as they conform more closely to the standards of what a playlet should be, they approach the elements that make for lasting success.

But beyond these "rules"—if rules there really are—and far above them in the heights no rules can reach, lies that something which cannot be defined, which breathes the breath of life into words and actions that bring laughter and tears. Rules cannot build the bridge from your heart to the hearts of your audiences. Science stands abashed and helpless before the task. All that rules can suggest, all that science can point out—is the way others have built their bridges

For this purpose only, are these standards of any value to you.



CHAPTER XI

KINDS OF PLAYLET

The kind of playlet is largely determined by its characters and their surroundings, and on these there are practically no limits. You may have characters of any nationality; you may treat them reverently, or—save that you must never offend—you may make them as funny as you desire; you may give them any profession that suits your purpose; you may place them in any sort of house or on the open hills or in an air-ship high in the sky; you may show them in any country of the earth or on the moon or in the seas under the earth—you may do anything you like with them. Vaudeville wants everything—everything so long as it is well and strikingly done. Therefore, to attempt to list the many different kinds of playlet to be seen upon the vaudeville stage would, indeed, be a task as fraught with hazard as to try to classify minutely the divers kinds of men seen upon the stage of life. And of just as little practical value would it be to have tables showing the scores of superficial variations of character, nationality, time and place which the years have woven into the playlets of the past.

In the "art" of the playlet there are, to be sure, the same three "schools"—more or less unconsciously followed in nearly every vaudeville instance—which are to be found in the novel, the short-story, painting, and the full-length play. These are, of course, realism, romance, and idealism. [1] These distinctions, however, are—in vaudeville—merely distinctions without being valuable differences. You need never give thought as to the school to which you are paying allegiance in your playlet; your work will probably be neither better nor worse for this knowledge or its lack. Your playlet must stand on its own legs, and succeed or fail by the test of interest. Make your playlet grip, that is the thing.

[1] Should you wish to dally with the mooted question of the difference between realism and romanticism—in the perplexing mazes of which many a fine little talent has been snuffed out like a flickering taper in a gust of wind—there are a score or more volumes that you will find in any large library, in which the whole matter is thrashed out unsatisfactorily. However, if you wish to spend a half-hour profitably and pleasantly, read Robert Louis Stevenson's short chapter, A Note on Realism, to be found in his suggestive and all-too-few papers on The Art of Writing. In the collection of his essays entitled Memories and Portraits will be found an equally delightful and valuable paper, A Gossip on Romance. A brief technical discussion will also be found in Writing the Short-Story, by J. Berg Esenwein, pp. 64-67.

But do not confuse the word "romance," as it is used in the preceding paragraph, with love. Love is an emotional, not a technical element, and consorts equally well with either romance or realism in writing. Love might be the heading of one of those tables we have agreed not to bother with. Into everything that is written for vaudeville love may stray. Or it may not intrude, if your purpose demands that love stay out. Yet, like the world, what would vaudeville be, if love were left out? And now we come to those broad types of playlet which you should recognize instinctively. Unless you do so recognize them—and the varying half-grounds that lie between, where they meet and mingle quite as often as they appear in their pure forms—you will have but little success in writing the playlet.

In considering the broad types of playlet you should remember that words are said to denote definitely the ideas they delineate, and to connote the thoughts and emotions they do not clearly express but arouse in the hearer or reader. For example, what do "farce," "comedy," "tragedy" and "melodrama" connote to you? What emotions do they suggest? This is an important matter, because all great artistic types are more or less fully associated with a mood, a feeling, an atmosphere.

Webster's dictionary gives to them the following denotations, or definitions:

Farce: "A dramatic composition, written without regularity, and differing from comedy chiefly in the grotesqueness, extravagance and improbability of its characters and incidents; low comedy."

Arthur Denvir's "The Villain Still Pursued Her" is one of the best examples of the travesty vaudeville has produced. [1] James Madison's "My Old Kentucky Home" is a particularly fine example of burlesque in tabloid form. [1] These two acts have been chosen to show the difference between two of the schools of farce.

[1] See Appendix.

Comedy: "A dramatic composition or representation, designed for public amusement and usually based upon laughable incidents, or the follies or foibles of individuals or classes; a form of the drama in which humor and mirth predominate, and the plot of which usually ends happily; the opposite of tragedy."

Edgar Allan Woolf's "The Lollard" is an exceptionally good example of satirical comedy. [1]

Tragedy: "A dramatic composition, representing an important event or a series of events in the life of some person or persons in which the diction is elevated, the movement solemn and stately, and the catastrophe sad; a kind of drama of a lofty or mournful cast, dealing with the dark side of life and character." Richard Harding Davis's "Blackmail" is a notable example of tragedy. [1]

[1] See Appendix.

Melodrama: "A romantic [connoting love] play, generally of a serious character, in which effect is sought by startling incidents, striking situations, exaggerated sentiment and thrilling denouement, aided by elaborate stage effects. The more thrilling passages are sometimes accentuated by musical accompaniments, the only surviving relic of the original musical character of the melodrama."

Taylor Granville's "The System" is one of the finest examples of pure melodrama seen in vaudeville. [2]

[2] Written by Taylor Granville, Junie MacCree and Edward Clark; see Appendix.

There are, of course, certain other divisions into which these four basic kinds of playlet—as well as the full-length play—may be separated, but they are more or less false forms. However, four are worthy of particular mention:

The Society Drama: The form of drama in which a present-day story is told, and the language, dress and manners of the actors are those of polite modern society. [1] You will see how superficial the distinction is, when you realize that the plot may be farcical, comic, tragic or melodramatic.

[1] As the dramas of the legitimate stage are more often remembered by name than are vaudeville acts, I will mention as example of the society drama Clyde Fitch's The Climbers. This fine satire skirted the edge of tragedy.

The same is true of

The Problem Drama: The form of drama dealing with life's "problems"—of sex, business, or what not. [2]

[2] Ibsen's Ghosts; indeed, nearly every one of the problem master's plays offer themselves as examples of the problem type.

And the same is likewise true of

The Pastoral-Rural Drama: The form of drama dealing with rustic life. [3]

[3] The long play Way Down East is a fine example of the pastoral—or rural—drama of American life.

And also of

The Detective Drama: [4] The form of drama dealing with the detection of crime and the apprehension of the criminal. I cannot recollect a detective playlet—or three-act play, for that matter—that is not melodramatic. When the action is not purely melodramatic, the lines and the feeling usually thrill with melodrama. [5] "The System," which is a playlet dealing with the detection of detectives, is but one example in point.

[4] Mr. Charlton Andrews makes a series of interesting and helpful discriminations among the several dramatic forms, in his work The Technique of Play Writing, published uniform with this volume in "The Writer's Library."

[5] Sherlock Holmes, William Gillette's masterly dramatization of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective stories, is melodramatic even when the action is most restrained.

Here, then, we have the four great kinds of playlet, and four out of the many variations that often seem to the casual glance to possess elemental individuality.

Remember that this chapter is merely one of definitions and that a definition is a description of something given to it after—not before—it is finished. A definition is a tag, like the label the entomologist ties to the pin after he has the butterfly nicely dead. Of questionable profit it would be to you, struggling to waken your playlet into life, to worry about a definition that might read "Here Lies a Polite Comedy."

Professor Baker says that the tragedies of Shakespere may have seemed to the audiences of their own day "not tragedies at all, but merely more masterly specimens of dramatic story-telling than the things that preceded them." [1] If Shakespere did not worry about the precise labels of the plays he was busy writing and producing, you and I need not. Forget definitions—forget everything but your playlet and the grip, the thrill, the punch, the laughter of your plot.

[1] Development of Shakespere as a Dramatist, by Prof. Baker of Harvard University.

To sum up: The limits of the playlet are narrow, its requirements are exacting, but within those limits and those requirements you may picture anything you possess the power to present. Pick out from life some incident, character, temperament—whatever you will—and flash upon it the glare of the vaudeville spot-light; breathe into it the breath of life; show its every aspect and effect; dissect away the needless; vivify the series of actions you have chosen for your brief and trenchant crisis; lift it all with laughter or touch it all with tears. Like a searchlight your playlet must flash over the landscape of human hearts and rest upon some phase of passion, some momentous incident, and make it stand out clear and real from the darkness of doubt that surrounds it.



CHAPTER XII

HOW PLAYLETS ARE GERMINATED

Where does a playlet writer get his idea? How does he recognize a playlet idea when it presents itself to him? How much of the playlet is achieved when he hits on the idea? These questions are asked successful playlet writers every day, but before we proceed to find their answers, we must have a paragraph or two of definition.

I. THE THEME-PROBLEM AND ITS RANGE

Whenever the word "problem" is used—as, "the problem of a playlet"—I do not mean it in the sense that one gathers when he hears the words "problem play"; nothing whatever of sex or the other problems of the day is meant. What I mean is grasped at first glance better, perhaps, by the word "theme." Yet "theme" does not convey the precise thought I wish to associate with the idea.

A theme is a subject—that much I wish to convey—but I choose "problem" because I wish to connote the fact that the theme of a playlet is more than a subject: it is precisely what a problem in mathematics is. Given a problem in geometry, you must solve it—from its first statement all the way through to the "Q.E.D." Each step must bear a plain and logical relation to that which went before and what follows. Your playlet theme is your problem, and you must choose for a theme or subject only such a problem as can be "proved" conclusively within the limits of a playlet.

Naturally, you are inclined to inquire as a premise to the questions that open this chapter, What are the themes or subjects that offer themselves as best suited to playlet requirements? In other words, what make the best playlet problems? Here are a few that present themselves from memory of playlets that have achieved exceptional success:

A father may object to his son's marrying anyone other than the girl whom he has chosen for him, but be won over by a little baby—"Dinkelspiel's Christmas," by George V. Hobart.

A slightly intoxicated young man may get into the wrong house by mistake and come through all his adventures triumphantly to remain a welcome guest—"In and Out," by Porter Emerson Brown.

A "crooked" policeman may build up a "system," but the honest policemen will hunt him down, even letting the lesser criminal escape to catch the greater—"The System," by Taylor Granville, Junie MacCree and Edward Clark.

Youth that lies in the mind and not in the body or dress may make a grandmother act and seem younger than her granddaughter—"Youth," by Edgar Allan Woolf.

A foolish young woman may leave her husband because she has "found him out," yet return to him again when she discovers that another man is no better than he is—"The Lollard," by Edgar Allan Woolf.

A man may do away with another, but escape the penalty because of the flawless method of the killing—"Blackmail," by Richard Harding Davis.

A wide range of themes is shown in even these few playlets, isn't there? Yet the actual range of themes from which playlet problems may be chosen is not even suggested. Though I stated the problems of all the playlets that were ever presented in vaudeville, the field of playlet-problem possibilities would not be even adequately suggested. Anything, everything, presents itself for a playlet problem—if you can make it human, interesting and alive.

What interests men and women? Everything, you answer. Whatever interests you and your family, and your neighbor and his family, and the man across the street and his wife's folks back home—is a subject for a playlet. Whatever causes you to stop and think, to laugh or cry, is a playlet problem. "Art is life seen through a personality," is as true of the playlet as of any other art form.

Because some certain subject or theme has never been treated in a playlet, does not mean that it cannot be. It simply means that that particular subject has never yet appealed to a man able to present it successfully. Vaudeville is hungering for writers able to make gripping playlets out of themes that never have been treated well. To such it offers its largest rewards. What do you know better than anyone else—what do you feel keener than anyone else does—what can you present better than anyone else? That is the subject you should choose for your playlet problem.

And so you see that a playlet problem is not merely just "an idea"; it is a subject that appeals to a writer as offering itself with peculiar credentials—as the theme that he should select. It is anything at all—anything that you can make your own by your mastery of its every angle.

1. What Themes to Avoid

(a) Unfamiliar Themes. If a subject of which you have not a familiar knowledge presents itself to you, reject it. Imagine how a producer, the actors and an audience—if they let the thing go that far—would laugh at a playlet whose premises were false and whose incidents were silly, because untrue. Never give anyone an opportunity to look up from a manuscript of yours and grin, as he says: "This person's a fool; he doesn't know what he's writing about."

(b) "Cause" Themes. Although more powerful than the "stump" or the pulpit today, and but little less forceful than the newspaper as a means of exposing intolerable conditions and ushering in new and better knowledge, the stage is not the place for propaganda. The public goes to the theatre to be entertained, not instructed—particularly is this true of vaudeville—and the writer daring enough to attempt to administer even homeopathic doses of instruction, must be a master-hand to win. Once in a generation a Shaw may rise, who, by a twist of his pen, can make the public think, while he wears a guileful smile as he propounds philosophy from under a jester's cap; but even then his plays must be edited—as some of Shaw's are—of all but the most dramatic of his belligerently impudent notions.

If you have a religious belief, a political creed, a racial propagandum—in short, a "cause"—either to defend or to forward, don't write it in a drama. The legitimate stage might be induced to present it, if someone were willing to pay the theatre's losses, but vaudeville does not want it. Choose any form of presentation—a newspaper article, a magazine story, anything at all—save a playlet for polemic or "cause" themes.

(c) Hackneyed Themes. What has been "done to death" in vaudeville? You know as well as the most experienced playlet-writer, if you will only give the subject unbiased thought. What are the things that make you squirm in your seat and the man next you reach for his hat and go out? A list would fill a page, but there are two that should be mentioned because so many playlets built upon them are now being offered to producers without any hope of acceptance. There is the "mistaken identity" theme, in which the entire action hinges on one character's mistaking another for someone else—one word spoken in time would make the entire action needless, but the word is never spoken—or there would be no playlet. And the "henpecked husband," or the mistreated wife, who gets back at the final curtain, is a second. Twenty years hence either one of these may be the theme of the "scream" of the season, for stage fashions change like women's styles, but, if you wish your playlet produced today, don't employ them.

(d) Improper Themes. Any theme that would bring a blush to the cheek of your sister, of your wife, of your daughter, you must avoid. No matter how pure your motive might be in making use of such a theme, resolutely deny it when it presents itself to you. The fact that the young society girl who offered me a playlet based on, to her, an amazing experience down at the Women's Night Court—where she saw the women of the streets brought before the judge and their "men" paying the fines—was a clean-minded, big-hearted girl anxious to help better conditions, did not make her theme any cleaner or her playlet any better.

Of course, I do not mean that you must ignore such conditions when your playlet calls for the use of such characters. I mean that you should not base your playlet entirely on such themes—you should never make such a theme the chief reason of your playlet's being.

2. What Themes to Use

You may treat any subject or play upon any theme, whatsoever it may be, provided it is not a "cause," is not hackneyed, is not improper for its own sake and likely to bring a blush to the cheeks of those you love, is familiar to you in its every angle, and is a subject that forms a problem which can be proved conclusively within the requirements of a playlet.

II. WHERE PLAYLET WRITERS GET THEIR IDEAS

1. The Three Forms of Dramatic Treatment

It is generally accepted by students of the novel and the short-story that there are three ways of constructing a narrative:

(a) Characters may be fitted with a story.

(b) A sequence of events may be fitted with characters.

(c) An interesting atmosphere may be expressed by characters and a sequence of events.

In other words, a narrative may be told by making either the characters or the events or the atmosphere peculiarly and particularly prominent.

It should be obvious that the special character of vaudeville makes the last-named—the story of atmosphere—the least effective; indeed, as drama is action—by which I mean a clash of wills and the outcome—no audience would be likely to sit through even twenty minutes of something which, after all, merely results in a "feeling." Therefore the very nature of the pure story of atmosphere eliminates it from the stage; next in weakness of effect is the story of character; while the strongest—blood of its blood and bone of its bone—is the story of dramatic events. This is for what the stage is made and by which it lives. To be sure, character and atmosphere both have their places in the play of dramatic action, but for vaudeville those places must be subordinate.

These last two ways of constructing a story will be taken up and discussed in detail later on, in their proper order; they are mentioned here to help make clear how a playwright gets an idea.

2. Themes to fit Certain Players

It is not at all uncommon for a playlet writer to be asked to fit some legitimate star, about to enter vaudeville, with a playlet that shall have for its hero or its heroine the particular character in which the star has had marked success. [1] And often a man and wife who have achieved a reputation in vaudeville together will order a new playlet that shall have characters modeled on the lines of those in the old playlet. Or, indeed, as I have know in many instances, three performers will order a playlet in which there must be characters to fit them all. When a writer receives such an order it would seem that at least a part of his task is already done for him; but this is not the case, he still must seek that most important things—a story.

[1] In precisely the same way writers of the full-evening play for the legitimate stage are forever fashioning vehicles for famous stars. The fact that the chief consideration is the star and that the play is considered merely as a "vehicle" is one of the reasons why our plays are not always of the best. Where you consider a personality greater than a story, the story is likely to suffer. Can you name more than one or two recent plays so fashioned that have won more than a season's run?

3. Themes Born in the Mind of the Writer

The beginner, fortunately, is not brought face to face with this problem; he is foot-free to wander wherever his fancy leads. And yet he may find in his thoughts a character or two who beg to serve him so earnestly that he cannot deny them. So he takes them, knowing them so well that he is sure he can make them live—and he constructs a story around them.

Or there may first pop into his mind a story in its entirety, full fledged, with beginning, middle and ending—that is; thoroughly motivated in every part and equipped with characters that live and breathe. Unhappily this most fortunate of occurrences usually happens only in the middle of the night, when one must wake up next morning and sadly realize it was but a dream.

4. The Newspaper as a Source of Ideas.

A playwright, let us say, reads in the newspapers of some striking characters, or of an event that appeals to him as funny or as having a deep dramatic import. There may be only a few bald lines telling the news. features of the story in one sentence, or there may be an entire column, discussing the case from every angle. Whatever it is, the bit of news appeals to him, and maybe of all men to him only, so he starts thinking about the possibilities it offers for a playlet.

5. Happenings of which the Playwright is Told or Which Occur under his Notice

Some striking incident rises out of the life about the playwright and he sees it or hears about it, and straightway comes the thought: This is a playlet idea. A large number of playlets have been germinated so.

6. Experiences that Happen to the Playwright

Some personal experience which wakens in the mind of the playwright the thought, Here's something that'll make a good playlet, is one of the fruitful sources of playlet-germs.

But however the germ idea comes to him—whether as a complete story, or merely as one striking incident, or just a situation that recommends itself to him as worth while fitting with a story—he begins by turning it over in his mind and casting it into dramatic form.

III. A SUPPOSITITIOUS EXAMPLE OF GERM-DEVELOPMENT

For the purpose of illustration, let us suppose that Taylor Granville, who conceived the idea of "The System," had read in the New York newspapers about the Becker case and the startling expose of the alleged police "system" that grew out of the Rosenthal murder, here is how his mind, trained to vaudeville and dramatic conventions, might have evolved that excellent melodramatic playleet. [1]

[1] As a matter of fact, Mr. Granville had the first draft of the playlet in his trunk many months before the Rosenthal murder occurred, and Mr. MacCree and Mr. Clark were helping him with the final revisions when the fatal shot was fired.

In this connection it should be emphasized that the Becker case did not make The System a great playlet; the investigation of the New York Police Department only gave it the added attraction of timeliness and, therefore, drew particular attention to it. Dozens of other playlets and many long plays that followed The System on the wave of the same timely interest failed. Precisely as Within the Law, Bayard Veiller's great play, so successful for the Selwyn Company, was given a striking timeliness by the Rosenthal murder, The System reaped merely the brimming harvest of lucky accident. And like Within the Law, this great playlet would be as successful today as it was then—because it is "big" in itself. [end footnote]

The incidents of "the Becker Case" were these: Herman Rosenthal, a gambler of notorious reputation, one day went to District Attorney Whitman with the story that he was being hounded by the police—at the command of a certain Police Lieutenant. Rosenthal asserted that he had a story to tell which would shake up the New York Police Department. He was about to be called to testify to his alleged story when he was shot to death in front of the Metropole Hotel on Forty-third Street and the murderer or murderers escaped in an automobile. Several notorious underworld characters were arrested, charged with complicity in the murder, and some, in the hope, it has been said, of receiving immunity, confessed and implicated Police Lieutenant Becker, who was arrested on the charge of being the instigator of the crime. [1] These are the bare facts as every newspaper in New York City told them in glaring headlines at the time. Merely as incidents of a striking story, Mr. Granville would, it is likely, have turned them over in his mind with these thoughts:

[1] Becker's subsequent trial, conviction, sentence to death and execution occurred many months later and could not have entered into the playwright's material, therefore they are not recounted here.

"If I take these incidents as they stand, I'll have a grewsome ending that'll 'go great' for a while—if the authorities let me play it—and then the playlet will die with the waning interest. There isn't much that's dramatic in a gambler shown in the District Attorney's Office planning to 'squeal,' and then getting shot for it, even though the police in the playlet were made to instigate the murder. It'd make a great 'movie,' perhaps, but there isn't enough time in vaudeville to go through all the motions: I've got to recast it into drama.

"I must 'forget' the bloody ending, too—it may be great drama, but it isn't good vaudeville. The two-a-day wants the happy ending, if it can get it.

"And even if the Becker story's true in every detail, Rosenthal isn't a character with whom vaudeville can sympathize—I'll have to get a lesser offender, to win sympathy—a 'dip's' about right— 'The Eel.'

"There isn't any love-interest, either—where's the girl that sticks to him through thick and thin? I'll add his sweetheart, Goldie. And I'll give The Eel more sympathy by making Dugan's motive the attempt to win her.

"Then there's got to be the square Copper—the public knows that the Police force is fundamentally honest—so the Department has got to clean itself up, in my playlet; fine, there's McCarthy, the honest Inspector."

Here we have a little more, perhaps, than a bare germ idea, but it is probably the sort of thing that came into Mr. Granville's mind with the very first thought of "The System." Even more might have come during the first consideration of his new playlet, and—as we are dealing now not with a germ idea only but primarily with how a playwright's mind works—let us follow his supposititious reasoning further:

"All right; now, there's got to be an incident that'll give Dugan his chance to 'railroad' The Eel, and a money-society turn is always good, so we have Mrs. Worthington and the necklace, with Goldie, the suspected maid, who casts suspicion on The Eel. Dugan 'plants' it all, gets the necklace himself, tries to lay it to The Eel, and win Goldie besides—but a dictograph shows him up. Now a man-to-man struggle between Dugan and The Eel for good old melodrama. The Eel is losing, in comes the Inspector and saves him—Dugan caught—triumph of the honest police—and Goldie and The Eel free to start life anew together. That's about it—for a starter, anyway.

"Re-read these dramatic incidents carefully, compare them with the incidents of the suggestive case as the newspapers reported them, and you will see not only where a playwright may get a germ idea, but how his mind works in casting it into stage form.

The first thing that strikes you is the dissimilarity of the two stories; the second, the greater dramatic effectiveness of the plot the playlet-writer's mind has evolved; third, that needless incidents have been cut away; fourth, that the very premise of the story, and all the succeeding incidents, lead you to recognize them in the light of the denouement as the logical first step and succeeding steps of which the final scene is inevitably the last; fifth, however many doubts may hover around the story of the suggesting incident, there is no cloud of doubt about the perfect justice of the stage story; and, sixth, that while you greet the ending of the suggesting story with a feeling of repugnance, the final scene of the stage story makes the whole clearly, happily and pleasantly true—truer than life itself, to human hearts which forever aspire after what we sometimes sadly call "poetic justice."

Now, in a few short paragraphs, we may sum up the answer to the question which opens this chapter, and answer the other two questions as well. A playlet writer may get the germ of a playlet idea: from half-ideas suggested by the necessity of fitting certain players; directly from his own imagination; from the newspapers; from what someone tells him, or from his observation of incidents that come under his personal notice; from experiences that happen to him—in fact, from anywhere.

IV. HOW A PLAYLET WRITER RECOGNIZES A PLAYLET IDEA

A playlet writer recognizes that the character or characters, the incident or incidents, possess a funny, serious or tragic grip, and the fact that he, himself, is gripped, is evidence that a playlet is "there," if—IF—he can trust his own dramatic instinct. A playlet writer recognizes an idea as a playlet idea, because he is able so to recognize such an idea; there is no escape from this: YOU MUST POSSESS DRAMATIC INSTINCT [1] to recognize playlet ideas and write playlets.

[1] See the following chapter on "The Dramatic—the Vital Element of Plot."

V. HOW MUCH OF THE PLAYLET IS ACHIEVED WITH THE IDEA

No two persons in this world act alike, and certainly no two persons think alike. How much of a playlet is achieved when the germ idea is found and recognized, depends somewhat upon the idea—whether it is of characters that must be fitted with a story, a series of incidents, or one incident only—but more upon the writer. I have known playlets which were the results of ideas that originated in the concepts of clever final situations, the last two minutes of the playlet serving as the incentive to the construction of the story that led inevitably up to the climax. I have also known playlets whose big scenes were the original ideas—the opening and finish being fitted to them. One or two writers have told me of playlets which came almost entirely organized and motivated into their minds with the first appearance of the germ idea. And others have told me of the hours of careful thinking through which they saw, in divers half-purposes of doubt, the action and the characters emerge into a definite, purposeful whole.

What one writer considers a full-fledged germ idea, may be to another but the first faint evidence that an idea may possibly be there. The skilled playlet-writer will certainly grasp a germ idea, and appraise its worth quicker than the novice can. In the eager acceptance of half-formed ideas that speciously glitter, lies the pitfall which entraps many a beginner. Therefore, engrave on the tablets of your resolution this determination and single standard:

Never accept a subject as a germ idea and begin to write a playlet until you have turned its theme over in your mind a sufficient length of time to establish its worth beyond question. Consider it from every angle in the light of the suggestions in this chapter, and make its characters and its action as familiar to you as is the location of every article in your own room. Then, when your instinct for the dramatic tells you there is no doubt that here is the germ idea of a playlet, state it in one short sentence, and consider that statement as a problem that must be solved logically, clearly and conclusively, within the requirements of the playlet form.

With the germ idea the entire playlet may flood into the writer's mind, or come in little waves that rise continually, like the ever advancing tide, to the flood that touches high-water mark. But, however complete the germ idea may be, it depends upon the writer alone whether he struggles like a novice to keep his dramatic head above water, or strikes out with the bold, free strokes of the practised swimmer.



CHAPTER XIII

THE DRAMATIC—THE VITAL ELEMENT OF PLOT

What the dramatic is—no matter whether it be serious or comic in tone—requires some consideration in a volume such as this, even though but a brief discussion is possible and only a line of thought may be pointed out.

This discussion is placed here in the sequence of chapters, because it first begins to trouble the novice after he has accepted his germ idea, and before he has succeeded in casting it into a stage story. Indeed, at that moment even the most self-sure becomes conscious of the demands of the dramatic. Yet this chapter will be found to overlap some that precede it and some that follow—particularly the chapter on plot structure, of which this discussion may be considered an integral part—as is the case in every attempt to put into formal words, principles separate in theory, but inseparable in application.

In the previous chapter, the conscious thought that precedes even the acceptance of a germ idea was insisted on—it was "played up," as the stage phrase terms a scene in which the emotional key is pitched high—with the purpose of forcing upon your attention the prime necessity of thinking out—not yet writing—the playlet. Emphasis was also laid on the necessity for the possession of dramatic instinct—a gift far different from the ability to think—by anyone who would win success in writing this most difficult of dramatic forms. But now I wish to lay an added stress—to pitch even higher the key of emphasis—on one fundamental, this vital necessity: Anyone who would write a playlet must possess in himself, as an instinct—something that cannot be taught and cannot be acquired—the ability to recognize and grasp the dramatic.

No matter if you master the technic by which the great dramatists have built their plays, you cannot achieve success in writing the playlet if you do not possess an innate sense of what is dramatic. For, just as a man who is tone-deaf [1] might produce musical manuscripts which while technically faultless would play inharmoniously, so the man who is drama-blind might produce "perfect" playlet manuscripts that would play in dramatic discords.

[1] Not organically defective, as were the ears of the great composer, Beethoven, but tone-deaf, as a person may be color-blind.

1. What Dramatic Instinct Is

When you witness a really thrilling scene in a play you find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat; you clench your hands until the nails sink into your flesh; tears roll down your cheeks at other scenes, until you are ashamed of your emotion and wipe them furtively away; and you laugh uproariously at still other scenes. But your quickened heart-beats, your tears, and your laughter are, however, no evidence that you possess dramatic instinct—they are a tribute to the possession of that gift in the person who wrote the play. So do not confuse appreciation—the ultimate result of another's gift—with the ability to create: they are two very different things.

No more does comprehension of a dramatist's methods—a sort of detached and often cold appreciation—indicate the possession of gifts other than those of the critic.

Dramatic instinct is the ability to see the dramatic moments in real life; to grasp the dramatic possibilities; to pick out the thrills, the tears and the laughter, and to lift these out from the mass and set them—combined, coherent and convincing—in a story that seems truer than life itself, when unfolded on the stage by characters who are more real than reality. [1]

[1] Arniel in his Journal says: "The ideal, after all, is truer than the real; for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things; it is their type, their sum, their 'raison d'etre,' their formula in the book of the Creator, and therefore at once the most exact and the most condensed expression of them."

Elizabeth Woodbridge in her volume, The Drama, says: "It is in finding the mean between personal narrowness which is too selective, and photographic impersonality that is not selective at all, that the individuality of the artist, his training, and his ideals, are tested. It is this that determines how much his work shall possess of what we may call poetic, or artistic, truth." [end footnote]

Yet, true as it is that dramatic ability inevitably shines through finished drama when it is well played upon the stage, there are so many determining factors of pleasing theme, acting, production and even of audience—and so many little false steps both in manuscript and presentation; which might be counted unfortunate accident—that the failure of a play is not always a sure sign that the playwright lacks dramatic instinct. If it were, hardly one of our successful dramatists of today would have had the heart to persevere—for some wrote twenty full-evening plays before one was accepted by a manager, and then plodded through one or more stage failures before they were rewarded with final success. If producing managers could unerringly tell who has dramatic instinct highly developed and who has it not at all, there would be few play failures and the show-business would cease to be a gamble that surpasses even horse-racing for hazard.

Not only is it impossible for anyone to weigh the quantity or to assay the quality of dramatic instinct—whether in his own or another's breast—but it is as nearly impossible for anyone to decide from reading a manuscript whether a play will succeed or fail. Charles Frohman is reported to have said: "A man who could pick out winners would be worth a salary of a million dollars a year."

And even when a play is put into rehearsal the most experienced men in the business cannot tell unerringly whether it will succeed or fail before an audience. An audience—the heart of the crowd, the intellect of the mass, whatever you wish to call it—is at once the jury that tries a play and the judge who pronounces sentence to speedy death or a long and happy life. It is an audience, the "crowd," that awards the certificate of possession of dramatic instinct. [1]

[1] [four paragraphs:]

From three of the ablest critics of the "theatre crowd" I quote a tabloid statement:

"The theatre is a function of the crowd," says Brander Matthews, "and the work of the dramatist is conditioned by the audience to which he meant to present it. In the main, this influence is wholesome, for it tends to bring about a dealing with themes of universal interest. To some extent, it may be limiting and even harmful—but to what extent we cannot yet determine in our present ignorance of that psychology of the crowd which LeBon has analyzed so interestingly."

Here is M. LeBon's doctrine neatly condensed by Clayton Hamilton: "The mental qualities in which men differ from one another are the acquired qualities of intellect and character; but the qualities in which they are one are basic passions of the race. A crowd, therefore, is less intellectual and more emotional than the individuals that compose it. It is less reasonable, less judicious, less disinterested, more credulous, more primitive, more partisan; and hence, a man, by the mere fact that he forms a part of an organized crowd, descends several rungs on the ladder of civilization. Even the most cultured and intellectual of men, when he forms an atom of a crowd, loses consciousness of his acquired mental qualities, and harks back to his primal nakedness of mind. The dramatist, therefore, because he writes for the crowd, writes for an uncivilized and uncultivated mind, a mind richly human, vehement in approbation, violent in disapproval, easily credulous, eagerly enthusiastic, boyishly heroic, and carelessly thinking."

And Clayton Hamilton himself adds that, ". . .both in its sentiments and in its opinions, the crowd is hugely commonplace. It is incapable of original thought and of any but inherited emotion. It has no speculation in its eyes. What it feels was felt before the flood; and what it thinks, its fathers thought before it. The most effective moments in the theatre are those that appeal to commonplace emotions—love of women, love of home, love of country, love of right, anger, jealousy, revenge, ambition, lust and treachery."

[end footnote]

2. What "Good Drama" Is

By what standards, then, do producers decide whether a play has at least a good chance of success? How is it possible for a manager to pick a successful play even once in a while? Why is it that managers do not produce failures all the time?

Leaving outside of our consideration the question of changeable fashions in themes, and the commercial element (which includes the number of actors required, the scenery, costumes and similar factors), let us devote our attention, as the manager does, to the determining element—the story.

Does the story grip? Does it thrill? Does it lure to laughter? Does it touch to tears? Is it well constructed—that is, does it interest every minute of the time? Is every word, is every action, thoroughly motivated? Is the dialogue fine? Are the characters interesting, lovable, hateable, laughable, to be remembered? Does it state its problem clearly, so that everyone can comprehend it, develop its angle absorbingly, and end, not merely stop, with complete satisfaction? Could one little scene be added, or even one little passage be left out, without marring the whole? Is it true to life—truer than life? If it is all this, it is good drama.

Good drama is therefore more than plot. It is more than story plus characters, dialogue, acting, costumes, scenery—it is more than them all combined. Just as a man is more than his body, his speech, his dress, his movings to and fro in the scenes where he plays out his life, and even more than his deeds, so is a play more than the sum of all its parts. Every successful play, every great playlet, possesses a soul—a character, if you like—that carries a message to its audiences by means which cannot be analyzed.

But the fact that the soul of a great play cannot be analyzed does not prevent some other dramatist from duplicating the miracle in another play. And it is from a study of these great plays that certain mechanics of the drama—though, of course, they cannot explain the hidden miracle—have been laid down as laws.

3. What is Dramatic?

These few observations upon the nature of drama, which have scarcely been materially added to since Aristotle laid down the first over two thousand years ago, will be taken up and discussed in their relation to the playlet in the chapter on plot construction. Here they have no place, because we are concerned now not with how the results are obtained, but with what they are.

Let us approach our end by the standard definition route. The word "drama" is defined by Webster as, "A composition in poetry or prose, or both, representing a picture of human life, arranged for action, and having a plot, developed by the words and actions of its characters, which culminates in a final situation of human interest. It is usually designed for production on the stage, with the accessories of costumes, scenery, music, etc."

"Dramatic," is defined as, "Of or pertaining to the drama; represented by action; appropriate to or in the form of a drama; theatrical. Characterized by the force and fidelity appropriate to the drama."

In this last sentence we have the first step to what we are seeking: anything to be dramatic must be forceful, and it also must be faithful to life. And in the preceding sentence, "dramatic. . . is theatrical," we have a second step.

But what is "forceful," and why does Webster define anything that is dramatic as "theatrical"? To define one shadow by the name of another shadow is not making either clearer. However, the necessary looseness of the foregoing definitions is why they are so valuable to us—they are most suggestive.

If the maker of a dictionary, [1] hampered by space restrictions, finds it necessary to define "dramatic" by the word "theatrical," we may safely assume that theatrical effect has a foundation in the very heart of man. How many times have you heard someone say of another's action, "Oh, he did that just for theatrical effect"? Instantly you knew that the speaker was accusing the other of a desire to impress you by a carefully calculated action, either of the fineness of his own character or of the necessity and righteousness of your doing what he suggested so forcefully. We need not go back several thousand years to Aristotle to determine what is dramatic. In the promptings of our own hearts we can find the answer. [2]

[1] Webster's Dictionary was chosen because it is, historically, closely associated with American life, and therefore would seem to reflect the best American thought upon the peculiar form of our own drama.

[2] Shelley, in his preface to Cenci, says: "The highest moral purpose aimed at in the highest species of the drama is the teaching of the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself."

What is dramatic, is not what falls out as things ordinarily occur in life's flow of seemingly disconnected happenings; it is what occurs with precision and purpose, and with results which are eventually recognizable as being far beyond the forces that show upon its face. In an illuminating flash that reveals character, we comprehend what led up to that instant and what will follow. It is the revealing flash that is dramatic. Drama is a series of revealing flashes.