At the very beginning of a playlet the dialogue must be especially clear, vividly informing and condensed. By "condensed," I meant the dialogue must be tense, and supported by swift action—it must without delay have done with the unavoidable explanations, and quickly get into the rising movement of events.

(b) Dialogue Brings out the Incidents Clearly. Never forgetting that action makes dialogue but that dialogue never makes action, let us take the admirable surprise ending of "The System," for an example:

The Inspector has left, after giving The Eel and Goldie their freedom and advising them to clear out and start life anew. The audience knows they are in hard straits financially. How are they going to secure the money to get away from town? Goldie expresses it concisely: "Well, we're broke again (tearfully). We can't go West now, so there's no use packing." This speech is like a sign-post that points out the condition the events have made them face. And then like a sign-post that points the other way, it adds emphasis to the flash of the surprise and the solution when The Eel, stealthily making sure no one will see him and no one can hear him, comes down to Goldie, sitting forlornly on the trunk, taps her on the shoulder and shows her Dugan's red wallet. Of course, the audience knows that the wallet spells the solution of all their problems, but The Eel clinches it by saying, "Go right ahead and pack."

Out of this we may draw one observation which is at least interesting, if not illuminating: When an audience accepts the premises of a playlet without question, it gives over many of its emotions and most of its reasoning power into the author's hands. Therefore the author must think for his audience and keenly suggest by dialogue that something is about to happen, show it as happening, and make it perfectly clear by dialogue that it has actually happened. This is the use to which dialogue is put most tellingly—bringing out the incidents in clear relief and at the very same time interpreting them cunningly.

(c) Dialogue Reveals Character Humanly. Character is tried, developed and changed not by dialogue, but by action; yet the first intimate suggestion of character is shown in dialogue; and its trials, development and change are brought into clear relief—just as events, of which character-change is the vital part, are made unmistakably clear—by the often illuminating word that fits precisely. As J. Berg Esenwein says, "Just as human interest is the heart of the narrative, so human speech is its most vivid expression. In everyday life we do not know a man until we have heard him speak. Then our first impressions are either confirmed, modified, or totally upset." [1]

[1] Writing the Short-Slory, page 247.

It is by making all of his characters talk alike that the novice is betrayed, whereas in giving each character individuality of speech as well as of action the master dramatist is revealed. While it is permissible for two minor characters to possess a hazy likeness of speech, because they are so unimportant that the audience will not pay much attention to them, the playlet writer must give peculiar individuality to every word spoken by the chief characters. By this I do not mean that, merely to show that a character is different, a hero or heroine should be made to talk with a lisp or to use some catch-word—though this is sometimes done with admirable effect. What I mean is that the words given to the chief characters must possess an individuality rising from their inner differences; their speech should show them as not only different from each other, but also different from every other character in the playlet—in the whole world, if possible—and their words should be just the words they and no others would use in the circumstances.

If you will remember that you must give to the dialogue of your chief characters a unity as complete as you must give to plot and character as shown through action, you will evade many dialogue dangers. This will not only help you to give individuality to each character, but also save you from making a character use certain individual expressions at one time and then at another talk in the way some other character has spoken. Furthermore, strict observance of this rule should keep you from putting into the mouth of a grown man, who is supposed to be most manly, expressions only a "sissy" would use; or introducing a character as a wise man and permitting him to talk like a fool. As in life, so in dialogue—consistency is a test of worth.

Keep your own personality out of the dialogue. Remember that your characters and not you are doing the talking. You have laid down a problem in your playlet, and your audience expects it to fulfill its promise dramatically—that is, by a mimicry of life. So it does not care to listen to one man inhabiting four bodies and talking like a quartet of parrots. It wants to hear four different personalities talk with all the individuality that life bestows so lavishly—in life.

You will find little difficulty in keeping your individuality out of dialogue if you will only remember that you cannot write intelligently of characters you do not know. Make use of the characters nearest you, submerge yourself in their individualities, and you will then be so interested in them that you will forget yourself and end by making the characters of your playlet show themselves in their dialogue as individual, enthrallingly entertaining, new, and—what is the final test of all dialogue—convincing.

(d) Dialogue Wins Laughter. There are three sources from which laughter rises out of dialogue. First, from the word that is a witticism, existing for its own sake. Second, from the word that is an intensely individual expression of character—the character-revealing phrase. Third, the word that is funny because it is spoken at the right instant in the action. All three have a place in the playlet, but the last, the dialogue that rises out of and illuminates a situation, is productive of the best results. This is but another way of saying what cannot be too often repeated, that the playlet is plot. [1]

[1] See Chapter V, in which humor was discussed in relation to the monologue.

Even in dialect, dialogue does not bother with anything much but plot-expression of character. Indicate the odd twist of a character's thoughts as clearly as you can, but never try to reproduce all his speech phonetically. If you do, you will end disastrously, for your manuscript will look like a scrambled alphabet which nobody can decipher. In writing dialect merely suggest the broken English here and there—follow the method so clearly shown in "The German Senator." Remember that the actor who will be engaged to play the part has studied the expression of that particular type all his life. His method of conveying what you intend is likely to be different from your method. Trust him—for you must.

(e) Dialogue Advances the Action and Rounds Out the Plot. Precisely in the way that incidents are brought out clearly by dialogue, dialogue advances the action and rounds out the plot at the curtain. Clear as I hope the method has been made, I wish to point out two dialogue peculiarities which come with the rise of emotion.

First, as the action quickens, there inevitably occurs a compression inherent in the dramatic that is felt by the dialogue. Joe Maxwell's epitome of vaudeville as he once expressed it to me in a most suggestive discussion of the two-a-day, illustrates this point better, perhaps, than a chapter would explain: "Vaudeville is meat," he said, "the meat of action, the meat of words." There is no time in vaudeville climaxes for one word that does not point out, or clinch home the action. Here action speaks louder than words. Furthermore, in the speed of bodily movement there is actually no time for words. If two men are grappling in a life and death struggle they can't stop for speech.

And second, as the playlet nears its ending there is no need for explanatory words—if the preceding action has been dramatic. Every new situation rises out of the old, the audience knows it all now, they even foresee the climax, and, in a well constructed playlet, they feel the coming-to-an-end thrill that is in the air. What need is there for dialogue? Only a need for the clearing, clinching kind, and for

The Finish Line. While the last-speech of a playlet is bone of the bone and blood of the blood of plot, the finish line is peculiarly a part of dialogue. It is here, in the last line, that the tragic has a strangely illuminating force and the comic must be given full play. Indeed, a comedy act that does not end in a "scream" is hardly worth anything. And, as comedy acts are most in demand in vaudeville, I shall relate this discussion solely to the comic ending. Here it is, then, in the last line of a comedy act, that the whole action is rounded neatly off with a full play of fancy—with emphasis on the use of wit.

Of course I do not mean that the last line may be permitted to stray away from the playlet and crack an unrelated joke. But the last line, being a completing line, may return to some incident earlier than the closing action. It may with full profit even go back to the introduction, as "The Lollard's" last line takes Miss Carey back to her interrupted sleep with, "Now, thank Gawd, I'll get a little sleep."

Or it may be merely a quaint line, like that which ended a very successful playlet which has stuck in my memory, but whose title I have forgotten. Here the sweethearts were brought together, they flew into each other's arms, they kissed. Naturally the curtain was on that kiss, but no—they drew apart and the girl rubbed her lips with the back of her hand. "Aw," said the boy, "what you rubbing it off for?" And the girl, half-crying, half-laughing, answered, "I ain't rubbing it off; I'm rubbing it in!"

Or the last line may be a character line, rounding back to the opening, perhaps, but having its mainspring in character, like the last line of "The Village Lawyer": "Well," he sighs—as he watches the money with which he could have satisfied his longing to buy a clarionet, disappear—"Maybe I couldn't play the darned thing anyway!" [1]

[1] Chapter XV, section I.

Example after example might be quoted to illustrate every possible variation, yet in the end we would come to the very same conclusions these four instances reveal. The finish line is the concluding thought of the action. It may round back to the opening plainly; bring out sharply the most prominent point developed; vividly present a pleasing side-light with a punch; illuminate a character point; take some completing element and twist it into a surprise— indeed, the finish line may present anything at all, so long as it thrills with human interest and laughter.

3. Fit and Becoming Dialogue

In playlet dialogue there is as much need of the dramatic spirit as in the playlet plot. Not what is said in real life, but what must be said to express the action concisely, is its aim. Playlet dialogue cannot take time to reproduce small talk. It must connote, not denote, even the big things. To omit is more important than to include. A whole life must be compressed into a single speech and entire stages of progression be epitomized in a single sentence. True enough, in really big scenes a character may rise to lofty expression; but of all playlet moments, here sane selection and compression are most vital. The wind of talk must be made compressed air.

Conversation for conversation's sake is the one thing, above all others that stamps a playlet as in vain. I have seen producing manager after producing manager run through manuscripts to select for careful reading the ones with short speeches. Those weighty with long speeches were returned unread. Why? Because experience had taught them that a playlet filled with long speeches is likely to be filled with little else. They realize that conversation as an art died the day the first automobile did the mile in sixty flat. Speed is what the playlet needs, and talk slows the track. In the classic words of vaudeville, if you must talk, "hire a hall."

Where is it you hear more clever lines than anywhere else? In vaudeville. Where is it that slang hits the hardest? In vaudeville. On what stage do people talk more nearly like you and I talk? The vaudeville stage. For vaudeville is up-to-the-minute—vaudeville is the instant's dramatic review.

And it is this speech of the instant that playlet dialogue needs— the short, sharp, seemingly thoughtless but vividly pulsating words of everyday life. If today men talked in long speeches filled with grandiloquent periods, the playlet would mimic their length and tone, but men today do not speak that way and the playlet must mimic today's shortness and crispness. As Alexander Black says, "The language of the moment is the bridge; that carries us straight to the heart of the whole world, and all the past. Life or fancy that comes in the language of the moment comes to us translated. Fantastically, the language of the street is always close to the bones of art. It is always closer to the Bible and to all the big fellows than the language of the drawing rooms. Art is only the expression of ideas. Ideas, emotions, impulses, are more important than the medium, just as religion is more important than theology. There is just as much excuse for saying 'theology for its own sake' as for saying 'art for art's sake.' The joy of a new word should make us grateful for the fertility of the street out of which most of the really strong words come. The street doesn't make us fine, but it keeps us from being too sweet and thin. It loves the punch. And the punch clears the path." It is the punch in dialogue that the playlet demands.

Before we agree upon what is fit and becoming dialogue, I think it advisable to condense into a few words all that I have said on the subject. In its final analysis a playlet is a pantomime. Dialogue is primarily employed to add emphasis to the plot. It does this by conveying information of basic events at the opening; by bringing out the succeeding incidents clearly; by revealing character humanly; by winning laughter; by advancing the action; and by rounding out the plot in a finish line which thrills with human interest and, in the comedy playlet, with laughter. And now, what is fit and becoming dialogue? Fit dialogue is—what fits the plot exactly. Becoming dialogue is—what makes the plot seem even better. But dialogue cannot make plot better, it can only make it seem better—it can only dress it. Remember that.



CHAPTER XVII

"BUSINESS" IN THE PLAYLET

In considering the "business" of the playlet, we have come to the place where it would seem that writing must be left behind and the function of the producer entered upon. For business is the detail of stage action and movement. But, while it is the peculiar function of the producer to invent and to incorporate into the playlet little bits of everyday movements of the characters to lend the effect of real life to the mimic picture, it is the province of the writer—in reducing his words to the lowest possible number, in an effort to secure that "economy of attention" which is the foundation of all art—to tell as much of his story as he can by actions that speak even louder than words. Every great playwright is as much a producer as he is a writer.

As we saw in Chapter VII, "business" includes every movement an actor makes while he is on the stage. Thus a facial expression may be called "business," if it lends a peculiar significance to a line. And a wild leap of a man on horseback through a window—this has actually been done in a vaudeville act—is also called business. In fact everything, from "mugging," [1] walking about, sitting down, picking up a handkerchief, taking off or putting on a coat, to the wordless scenes into which large parts of the story are condensed and made clear solely by situation—everything is called "business." But to differentiate the actor's part from the work of the playwright, I shall arbitrarily call every action which is as indivisible from acting as facial play, "pantomime"; while I shall employ the word "business" to express the use of movement by the playwright for the purpose of condensing large parts of the story and telling it wordlessly.

[1] "Mugging," considered by some to be one of the lowest forms of comedy, is bidding for laughter by facial contortions unrelated to the action or the lines—making the scene subservient to the comical faces made by the actor.

1. The Part Business Plays in the Dramatic [2]

[2] The impossibility of keeping separate the designing and the writing of business, will be seen as the chapter progresses, therefore I shall treat both freely in one.

Let us turn to that part of the third scene of "The System" where The Eel and Goldie—who have been given their liberty "with a string to it" by Inspector McCarthy in his anxiety to catch Officer Dugan red-handed—are "up against it" in their efforts to get away from town. They have talked it all over in Goldie's flat and The Eel has gone out to borrow the money from Isaacson, the "fence." Now when The Eel closes Goldie's door and runs downstairs, Goldie listens intently until the outer door slams, then begins to pack. She opens the trunk first, gets her jacket from the couch where she has thrown it, puts it in the trunk and then goes up into the bedroom and gets a skirt. She shakes the skirt as she comes down stage. Then a long, low whistle is heard—then the rapping of a policeman's club.

"Bulls!" she gasps. Looking up at the light burning, she turns it out and closes the trunk at the same time. And she stands still until she sees the shadow of a man's hand cast by the moonlight on the wall. Then she gives a frightened exclamation and cowers on the sofa.

Here we have packed into little more than sixty seconds a revelation of the fear in which all crooks live, the unthinking faith and love Goldie bears The Eel, and a quiet moment which emphasizes the rush of the preceding events—a space also adding punch to the climax of incidents which follow hot upon its heels. When the long, low whistle sounds and the policeman's club raps out its alarm, the audience feels that the action is filled with tense meaning—The Eel has been caught. That hand on the wall is like a coming event casting its shadow before, and when Goldie gives her frightened exclamation and cowers on the couch, her visible fear—coming in contrast to her commonplace packing to get away—builds up the scene into a thrill that is capped by the meaningful window entrance of Dugan. "Ah!" says the audience, "here's the first time they've gotten together alone. It's the first time we've really seen that Dugan is behind it all. Something big is going to happen."

All of these revealing flashes, which illumine like searchlights, are told by movement. The only word that is spoken is Goldie's cry "Bulls!" The only other sounds are the whistle and the rapping of the club. But if Goldie had taken up the time with telling the audience how glad she was to pack and get away with The Eel to a new life, and if she had expressed her fear by bewailing the hardness of fate—the dramatic effect would have been lost. Do you see how words can kill and soundless movements vivify?

In "The Lollard," when Miss Carey wants to disillusionize Angela, she does not sit down and argue her out of her insane infatuation for Fred; nor does she tell Angela that Fred is a "lollard" and weakly unmask him by describing his "lollard " points. She cries "Fire! Fire! Fire!" Whereupon Fred dashes out on the stage and Angela and the audience with their own eyes behold Fred as a "lollard." Here the whole problem of the playlet is solved in a flash. Not one word of explanatory dialogue is needed.

In "Three of a Kind," a comedy playlet produced by Roland West, two crooks fleece a "sucker" and agree to leave the money in a middle room while they sleep in opposite rooms. They say they trust each other implicitly, but each finds a pretext to sit up and watch that money himself. The comedy rises from their movements around the room as they try to outmaneuver each other.

These three examples plainly show how movement, unexplained by dialogue, may be used to condense a middle action, a climax, and an opening. Now, if you will turn to the surprise ending of "The System"—which has been discussed before in its relation to dialogue—you will see how business may condense an ending. Indeed, the very essence of the surprise ending lies in this dramatic principle. Of course, how the condensation of story into movement is to be made in any given case depends upon the material, and the writer's purpose. But as a part of the problem let us see

2. How Pantomime Helps to Condense Story and Illumine Character

Consider the inimitable gesture the Latins use when they wish to express their helplessness. The shoulders shrug until the man seems folding into himself, his hands come together approaching his face and then he drops them despairingly to his side as if he would say: "But what can I do?" A gesture such as this reveals in a flash the depths of a human soul. Volumes could say no more.

This is what the actor may bring to your playlet, and what you, with the greatest caution, may sometimes—though rarely—indicate in your manuscript.

"Walk up stage," said David Belasco to an actor who was proving "difficult," "and when you turn your back, get some meaning into it. Make your back express—the whole play, if you can." Most certainly you would not write this in the directions for a playlet—the producer would laugh at it and the actor would be indignant. But you might with the greatest helpfulness direct that the character turn his back—and this is the point of the problem—if, by turning his back on some one, the character conveys, say, contempt for or fearlessness of an enemy's bravado. Every direction for acting in your playlet must be of such a kind that anyone can convey the meaning—because the emphasis is inherent in the situation. A stage direction ought not to depend for its value on the actor's ability. If this were not so, play writing would consist chiefly in engaging fine actors.

When an actor receives a part he studies it not only to learn the lines, but with the desire to familiarize himself with the character so thoroughly that he may not seem to be playing it. He hopes to make the audience feel that the character is alive. For this reason, it is not amiss to indicate characteristic actions once in a while. A good example of this is found in "The Lollard," where Angela says to Miss Carey: "But—excuse me—how do you know so many different kinds of men if you've never been married?"

"Boarders," says Miss Carey quickly. "To make ends meet, I've always had to have a male boarder since I was left an orphan." "She rises—turns her back to audience—gives a touch to her pigtail, during laugh on this line. This business always builds laugh," say the directions. It is such little touches that stamp a character as individual; and therefore they are just the little touches the playwright may add to his manuscript by way of suggestion to the actor. They may be very helpful, indeed, but they should be made with great care and discretion. For the actor, if he is a capable performer, is ready when rehearsal begins with many suggestions of a like nature. He will often suggest something that will not only exhibit character clearly, but will also condense story by eliminating needless words and movement.

For instance: F. F. Mackay was rehearsing to play the French count in the famous old play, "One of Our Girls." Mr. Bronson Howard had directed in his manuscript that the count, when struck across the face with a glove by an English officer, should become very violent and angry, in accordance with the popular notion of an excitable Frenchman's character. "But Mr. Mackay," says Daniel Frohman, "argued that the French count, having been shown in the play to be an expert duellist with both the rapier and the pistol, and having faced danger frequently, was not liable to lose control of himself. Mr. Howard readily saw the point. The result was one of the most striking situations in the American drama; for the Frenchman received the insult without the movement of a muscle. He stood rigid. Only the flash of the eye for an instant revealed his emotion. Then the audience saw his face grow red, and then pale. This was followed by the quiet announcement from the count that he would send his seconds to see the Englishman.

"This exhibition of facial emotion betrayed by the visible rush of blood to the actor's face was frequently noted at the time. It was a muscular trick, Mr. Mackay told me. He put on a tight collar for the scene and strained his neck against it until the blood tame, and when he released the pressure, and the blood receded, the effect was reached. It was a splendid moment, and it is one of the many effects that have been studied out during the progress and development of a play during rehearsals."

It is for the great majority of such little touches, therefore, that the playwright must depend on the actor and the producer to add to his playlet. However, the playwright may help to the limit of his ability, by giving very short, very carefully thought out directions in his manuscript. But it is much better for the novice to disregard suggestions to the actor for character analysis and even to be sparing with his hints for facial expressions or slight movements—and to content himself with an effort to condense his story in the broader ways.

3. How Tediously Long Speeches may be Broken up by Movement

As the playlet is primarily action, and as the audience expects the playlet to keep moving all the time, it is a common practise to try to trick the audience into believing every speech is vibrant with emotional force, by keeping the actors moving about the stage. But the fact that a really vital speech may be killed by a movement which distracts the attention of the audience ought to be proof positive that needless movements about the stage are merely a confession of poverty in the playlet. Nevertheless, as a long explanatory speech seems sometimes unavoidable, I devote two or three short paragraphs to what has saved some playlets from absolute failure.

If you are unable to tell every bit of your story by dramatic means and therefore face a long speech that may seem tiresomely wordy, break it up with natural movements which lend a feeling of homely reality to the scene. For instance, don't let the character who is delivering that long speech tell it all uninterruptedly from the chair in which he is sitting. Let him rise after he has spoken two or three sentences and cross to the other character, or do something that will illustrate a point in his story, or have the one who is listening interrupt now and then. Inject motive into the interruptions if you can; but in any event, keep your characters moving.

But make the movements natural. To this end, study the movements of the men and women about you. Try to invent new ways of expressing the old things in movement. Strive not so much to be "different," as to be vividly interesting. You can make the movements of your characters about the stage as brilliant as dialogue.

Above all, make sure that you do not let your characters wander about the stage aimlessly. To make it a complete unity every little scene demands as careful thought as does the entire playlet. A playlet may be suggestively defined as a number of minute-long playlets moving vividly one after the other to make a vivid whole. Remember this, and you may be able to save a tiresome scene from ruining the entire effect of your playlet.

4. Why Business is More Productive of Comedy than Dialogue

As a playlet is nothing if it is not action, so a comedy playlet is nothing if its comedy does not develop from situations. By "action," as the word is used here, I mean that the story of the playlet is told by the movements of its characters. In real life, you know, comedy and tragedy do not come from what persons say they are going to do—but from what they actually do. Therefore, the merry jests that one character perpetrates upon another must be told not in words, but by showing the character actually perpetrating them on the victim. In a comedy playlet, the playwright must be a practical joker. Every funny happening in a playlet is a "scene that must be shown."

For instance, in "Billy's Tombstones," the football player who is in love with the girl, whom he has followed half around the world, is shown first as losing his "tombstones"—his false teeth, made necessary by the loss of his real ones in a famous college game; then he is shown in his wild efforts to pronounce his sweetheart's name without the dental help. Much of the comedy arises from his efforts to pronounce that loved name—and the climax comes when the lost tombstones are found and Billy proposes to her in perfect speech that lingers fondly on her name.

In farce—particularly in the old farces which depended on mistaken identity, a motive force considered hardly worthy of use today—the comedy arises very rarely from a witty saying in itself. The fun usually depends upon the humorous situations that develop. "The New Coachman"—one of those old farcical "screams"—contained an exceptionally fine example of this point and is pertinent to-day because it had no relation to mistaken identity in this humorous scene. Here the best fun of the comedy came from the use of a stepladder by the supposed coachman, who got all tangled up in it. After the first misstep with that stepladder, there was never any time for more than a word here and there. Of course, such a scene depends upon the actor almost entirely, and therefore cannot be indicated in the business by the playwright, but I use it for an example because it is a peculiarly brilliant instance of the fact that hearty laughter depends not on hearing, but on seeing.

But do not make the mistake of trying to patch together a comedy playlet from the bits of funny stage business you have seen in other acts. If you present such a manuscript to a producer you may be very sure it will be refused, for there are plenty of producers and performers in vaudeville who can supply such an act at a moment's notice from memory.

The sort of comedy expected from the playwright is comedy that develops from situation. It is in the invention of new situations and new business to fit these situations that the playlet writer finds his reward in production and profit.

5. Entrances, Exits and the Stage-Cross

Among the many definitions of drama—frequently misleading, but equally often helpful—there is one which holds the whole art of play writing lies in getting the characters on the stage naturally and effectively and getting them off again—naturally and effectively. But, even the most daring of definition makers has not yet told us how this is to be accomplished in all cases. The fact is, no one can tell us, because a method that would be natural and effective in a given playlet, would very likely be most unnatural and ineffective in another. All that can be said is that the same dramatic sense with which you have constructed the story of your playlet will carry you forward in the inevitable entrances and exits. How these moments are to be effective, lies in the very nature of the story you are telling. This is boldly begging the question, but it is all that may with honest helpfulness be said.

However, regarding the stage-cross, and allied movements of the actors, there are two suggestions that may be helpful. The first is founded on the old theory that a scene ought to be "dressed" all the time—that is, if one character moves across the stage, the other ought to move a little up stage to give him room to cross and should then move down on the opposite side, to keep the scene dressed or "balanced." But no hard and fast rule can be given, even for the stage-cross. If it seems the easy and natural thing for the characters to do this, all well and good. But you should feel no compulsion about it and really should give to the matter but little thought.

The second is based on the common-sense understanding at which you yourself will arrive if you will take the trouble to notice how the slightest movement made by one of two persons to whom you are telling a story distracts the other's attention. Briefly, never indicate business for a character during the moments when short and vitally important speeches are conveying information to the audience.

Both of these minor suggestions may be summed up in this sentence with which I shall dismiss the subject: The box sets in which the playlet is played in vaudeville are usually not very deep and are so arranged that every part of the scene is in plain view from practically every seat in the house, therefore you may forget that your story is being played in a mimic room and may make your characters move as if the room were real. If you will only keep in mind you should have little trouble.

6. How "Business" is Indicated in Manuscript

In the old days before the boxed set, the manuscript of a play bristled with such cryptic signs as R. U. E., and L. F. E., meaning, when reduced to everyday English, "right upper entrance," "left first entrance," and the like. But as the old "entrances" of the stage have been lost with the introduction of the box set, which closely mimics a real room—being, indeed, a room with the fourth wall removed—the modern stage directions are much simpler. "Right door," "centre door," "left door," are the natural directions to be found in a playlet manuscript today.

It is a good general rule to avoid in your stage directions expressions which show you are dealing with a stage scene and not a scene of real life. In the first place, if you attempt to be technical, you are very likely to be over-technical and confusing. In the second place, you will be more likely to produce a life-like playlet if you are not forever groping among strange terms, which make you conscious all the time that you are dealing with unreality. Therefore choose the simplest directions, expressed in the fewest possible words, to indicate the effects you have carefully thought out: Never forget that reality and simplicity go hand in hand.

And now it may be of advantage to sum up what has been said about stage business in this chapter. We have seen how business may be used to condense the story of a playlet; how business is often—though not always—the very heart of the dramatic; how pantomime may be skillfully used to condense salient parts of the playlet story and illumine character; how business may be employed to break up a clumsy but necessarily long speech—thus sometimes saving a playlet from the failure of the tedious;—and why business is more productive of comedy than is dialogue. We have concluded that the playlet writer must not ape what has already been done, but can win success only in the measure he succeeds in bringing to his playlet new business which makes his new situations all the more vivid and vital. Finally, we have seen that entrances and exits must be natural and effective, and that all stage business should be conceived and thought of and indicated in the manuscript as simple expressions of reality.

With this chapter, the six elements of a successful playlet have been discussed from the angle of exposition. In the next chapter I shall make use of all this expository material and shall endeavor to show how playlets are actually written.



CHAPTER XVIII

WRITING THE PLAYLET

While it is plain that no two writers ever have, nor ever will, go about writing a playlet in precisely the same way, and impossible as it is to lay down rules which may be followed with precision to inevitable success, I shall present some suggestions, following the logical order of composition.

First, however, I must point out that you should study the vaudeville stage of this week, not of last year or even of last month, before you even entertain a germ idea for a playlet. You should be sure before you begin even to think out your playlet, that its problem is in full accord with the very best, and that it will fit into vaudeville's momentary design with a completeness that will win for it an eager welcome.

You should inquire of yourself first, "Is this a comedy or a serious playlet I am about to write?" And if the latter, "Should I write a serious playlet?"

One of vaudeville's keenest observers, Sime Silverman, editor of Variety, said when we were discussing this point: "Nobody ought to write a tragic or even a serious playlet who can write anything else. There are two or three reasons why. First, vaudeville likes laughter, and while it may be made to like tears, a teary playlet must be exceedingly well done to win. Second, the serious playlet must be so well done and so well advertised that usually a big name is necessary to carry it to success; and the 'name' demands so much money that it is sometimes impossible to engage an adequate supporting cast. Third, the market for tragic and serious playlets is so small that there is only opportunity for the playlet master; of course, there sometimes comes an unknown with a great success, like 'War Brides,' [1] but only rarely. Therefore, I would advise the new writer to write comedy."

[1] Written by Miss Marion Craig Wentworth, and played by Olga Nazimova.

Miss Nellie Revell, whom B. F. Keith once called "The Big Sister of Vaudeville," and who was Vaudeville Editor of the New York Morning Telegraph before becoming General Press Representative of the Orpheum Circuit, summed up her years of experience as a critic in these words:

"The new writer should first try his hand at a comedy playlet. Then after he has made a success of comedy, or if he is sure he can't write anything but sobby playlets, let him try to make an audience weep. Vaudeville, like any other really human thing, would rather laugh than cry, yet if you make vaudeville cry finely, it will still love you. But a serious playlet must be mighty well done to get over—therein lies a stumbling block sometimes. A few great artists can make vaudeville sob finely—but only a few. Comedy, good comedy, always gets by.

"How many comedy playlets are there to one serious playlet in vaudeville? I should say about ten to one. That ought to convince anybody that comedy is the thing to write for vaudeville."

There have been many hybrid playlets which have combined tragedy and comedy to give some particular star an opportunity to show versatility in acting. [1] But some of these playlets have been merely vehicles for a personality, and therefore cannot be considered in this discussion.

[1] See Chapter XII, section II, topic 2.

On the other hand, there have been some serious playlets which have had comedy twists, or a light turn, which brought the curtain down amid laughter that was perfectly logical and in good taste. An example of the surprise ending that lightens the gloom is found in "The Bomb," finely played by Wilton Lackaye, in which the Italian who so movingly confesses to the outrage is merely a detective in disguise, trapping the real bomb thrower—and suddenly he unmasks. If a serious playlet can be made to end with a light touch that is fitting, it will have a better chance in vaudeville. But this is one of the most difficult and dangerous effects to attempt. The hazard is so great that success may come but once in many efforts. [2]

[2] See Chapter XIV, section II, topic 3.

Since comedy should be the new writer's aim, the following discussion, while conceived with the broad view to illustrate the writing of the playlet in general, brings into particular prominence the writing of comedy.

I. WHEN TO BEGIN

When should you begin to write your playlet? Assuming that you already have a germ idea, the next step is to express your theme in a single short sentence, and consider it as your playlet problem, which must be proved logically, clearly and conclusively. To do this you must dovetail your incidents into a playlet plot; but how far should you think out your playlet before beginning to set it down on paper?

1. The Use of the Scenario

Nearly all the playlet writers with whom I have talked during a period of more than five years have with surprising unanimity declared in favor of beginning with the scenario, the summary of the dramatic action. But they disagree as to the completeness with which the scenario should be drawn up.

Some merely sketch the main outlines of the plot and leave to the moment of actual writing the details that often make it a success. Others write out a long scenario, boiling it down to the essence for the stage version. Still other playlet writers carry their scenarios just far enough to make sure that they will not have to think about the details of plot when they set about writing the dialogue—they see that there is an effective reason for the entrance of each character and a clear motive for exit. But, however they disagree as to the completeness the scenario should show, they all agree that the plot should be firmly fixed in its general outlines before pen is set to paper.

It may be of suggestive value as well as of interest to point out that in olden times the scenario was the only part of the play the playwright wrote. The groundwork of the plot was fixed beyond change, and then the actors were permitted to do as they pleased within these limits. Even today, in the construction of hurried entertainments for club nights at the various actors' club-houses, often only the scenario or general framework of the act is typewritten and handed to the performers who are to take part. All that this tells them is that on some given cue they are to enter and work opposite so-and-so, and are, in turn, to give an agreed-upon cue to bring on such-and-such a performer. In a word, the invaluable part of any dramatic entertainment is the scenario.

One valuable aid to the making of a clear and effective scenario is the use of a diagram of the set in which the act is to be played. Reference to Chapter IV, "The Scenery Commonly Found in Vaudeville Theatres," will place in your hands a wide—if not an exhaustive— range of variations of the commonly found box sets. Within the walls of any one of these diagrams you may carefully mark the exact location of chairs, tables and any other properties your action demands. Then, knowing the precise room in which your characters must work, you can plot the details of their movements exactly from entrances to exits and give to your playlet action a clearness and preciseness it might not otherwise possess.

2. The Scenario not an Unalterable Outline

But there is one point I feel the necessity of emphasizing, whose application each one must determine for himself: While you ought to consider your scenario as directive and as laying down the line that should be followed, you ought not to permit your playlet to become irrevocably fixed merely because you have written your scenario. It is often the sign of a dramatic mind, and of a healthy problem too, that the playlet changes and develops as the theme is carefully considered. To produce the very best work, a scenario must be thought of as clay to be molded, rather than as iron that must be scrapped and melted again to be recast.

II. POINTS TO BRING OUT PROMINENTLY

This section is so arranged that the elements of writing discussed in the preceding chapters are summarized, and the vital elements which could not be considered before are all given their proper places in a step-by-step scheme of composition. The whole forms a condensed standard for review to refresh your memory before writing, and by which to test your playlet after it is written.

Every playlet must have a beginning, a middle and an ending. The beginning must state the premises of the problem clearly and simply; the middle must develop the problem logically and solve the entanglement in a "big" scene, and the ending must round out the whole satisfyingly—with a surprise, if fitting.

1. Points the Beginning Must Emphasize

Because the total effect of a playlet is complete oneness, there lie in the "big" scene and in the ending certain results of which the beginning must be the beginning or immediate cause. Such causes are what you must show clearly.

(a) The Causes before the Curtain Rose. If the causes lie far back in events that occurred before the curtain rose, you must have those events carefully and clearly stated. But while you convey this necessary exposition as dramatically as possible, be sure to make the involved dramatic elements subservient to clearness.

(b) The Causes that Occur after the Curtain Rises. If the causes do not lie in the past, but occur after the curtain rises, you must show them as clearly occurring right then and there. They must be as plain as dawn, or the rest of the playlet will be shrouded in the darkness of perplexing doubts.

(c) The Character Motive from which the Complication Rises. If the causes lie in character, you must show the motive of the person of the playlet from whose peculiar character the complication rises like a spring from its source. You must expose the point of character plainly.

But in striving to make your premises clear do not make the mistake of being prolix—or you will be tedious. Define character sharply. Tell in quick, searching dialogue the facts that must be told and let your opening scenes on which the following events depend, come with a snap and a perfectly adequate but nevertheless, have-done-with-it feeling.

2. Points that Must Be Brought out in the Middle

In every scene of your playlet you must prepare the minds of your audience to accept gladly what follows—and to look forward to it eagerly. You must not only plainly show what the causes of every action are, but you must also make the audience feel what they imply. Thus you will create the illusion which is the chief charm of the theatre—a feeling of superiority to the mimic characters which the gods must experience as they look down upon us. This is the inalienable right of an audience.

(a) The Scenes that Make Suspense. But while foreshadowing plainly, you must not forestall your effect. One of the most important elements of playlet writing is to let your audience guess what is going to happen—but keep them tensely interested in how it is going to happen. This is what creates the playlet's enthralling power—suspense.

It is so important to secure suspense in a playlet that an experienced writer who feels that he has not created it out of the body of his material, will go back to the beginning and insert some point that will pique the curiosity of the audience, leaving it unexplained until the end. He keeps the audience guessing, but he satisfies their curiosity finely in the finish—this is the obligation such a suspense element carries with it.

(b) The Points that Balance the Preparation with the Result. Nothing could be more disastrous than to promise with weighty preparation some event stupendously big with meaning and then to offer a weak little result. And it would be nearly as unfortunate to foreshadow a weak little fulfillment and then to present a tremendous result. Therefore, you must so order your events that you balance the preparation with the result, to the shade of a dramatic hair.

But take care to avoid a too obvious preparation. If you disclose too plainly what you are aiming at your end is defeated in advance, because your audience is bound to lapse into a cynically smiling does-this-fellow-take-us-for-babies? attitude.

The art of the dramatic is the art that conceals art. The middle of your playlet must conceal just enough to keep the stream of suspense flowing eagerly toward the end, which is dimly seen to be inevitably approaching.

(c) The One Event that Makes the Climax Really Big. From the first speech, through every speech, and in every action, your playlet has moved toward this one event, and now you must bring it out so prominently that everything else sinks into insignificance. This event is: The change in the relations of the characters.

This is the planned-for result of all that has gone before. Bear firmly in mind that you have built up a suspense which this change must crown. Keep foremost the fact that what you have hidden before you must now disclose. Lay your cards on the table face up—all except one. This last card takes the final trick, completing the hand you have laid down, and everyone watches with breathless interest while you play:

3. The Single Point of the Finish

If you can make this final event a surprise, all the better. But if you cannot change the whole result in one dramatic disclosure, you must be content to lay down your last card, not as a point in itself surprising, but nevertheless dramatically.

The Finish must be Complete—and Completely Satisfy. You have sprung your climax; you have disclosed what it is that changes the relations of your characters; now you must show that those relations have been changed. And at the same time you bring forward the last strand of plot that is loose and weave it into the now complete design. You must account for everything here in the finish, and do it with speed.

III. PUTTING PUNCH INTO THE IDEA

Now let us say that you have expanded the first draft of your plastic scenario into a nearly perfect manuscript. But as you read it over, you are not content. You feel that it lacks "punch." What is "punch," and how are you going to add it when it is lacking?

Willard Mack says: "'Punch' is the most abused word I know. The dramatic punch is continually confused with the theatrical trick. Critics said the third act of 'Kick In' [1]—in which the detective is overpowered in a hand-to-hand fight after a hypodermic has been jabbed into his wrist—had a punch. It didn't. What it really had was a theatric trick. But the human punch was in the second act, when the little frightened girl of the slums comes to see her wounded lover—who is really dead. If the needle should suddenly be lost in playing the third act the scene would be destroyed. But the other moment would have its appeal regardless of theatrical detail."

[1] Developed into a long play from the vaudeville act of the same name.

Punch comes only from a certain strong human appeal in the story. Punch is the thing that makes the pulse beat a little quicker, because the heart has been touched. Punch is the precise moment of the dramatic. It is the second in which the revelation flashes upon the audience.

While whatever punch you may be able to add must lie in the heart of your material—which no one but yourself can know—there are three or four ways by which you may go about finding a mislaid punch.

If you have turned the logical order of writing about and let your playlet drag you instead of your driving it, you may find help in asking yourself whether you should keep your secret from the audience.

1. Have You Kept Your Audience in Ignorance Too Long?

While it is possible to write a most enthralling novel of mystery or a detective short-story which suddenly, at the very last moment, may disclose the trick by which it has all been built up, such a thing is not successfully possible in a playlet. You must not conceal the identity of anyone of your characters from the audience. Conceal his identity from every other character and you may construct a fine playlet, but don't conceal his motive from the audience.

The very nature of the drama—depending as it does on giving to the spectator the pleasure of feeling omniscient—precludes the possibility of "unheralded surprise." For instance, if you have a character whom the audience has never seen before and of whom they know nothing suddenly spring up from behind a sofa where he has overheard two other characters conspiring—the audience may think he is a stage-hand. How would they know he was connected with the other characters in the playlet if you neglected to tell them beforehand? They could not know. The sudden appearance of the unknown man from behind the sofa would have much the effect of a disturbance in the rear of the theatre, distracting attention from the characters on the stage and the plot of the playlet.

If your plot calls for an eavesdropper behind a sofa—though I hope you will never resort to so ancient a device—you must first let the audience know who he is and why he wants to eavesdrop; and second you must show him going behind that sofa. The audience must be given the god-like pleasure of watching the other two characters approach the sofa and sit down on it, in ignorance that there is an enemy behind it into whose hands they are delivering themselves.

This is only a simple instance, but it points out how far the ramifications to which this problem of not keeping a secret from the audience may extend. Moreover, it should suggest that it is possible that your playlet lacks the required punch—because you have kept something secret that you ought to have disclosed. Therefore, go through your playlet carefully and try to discover just what you have not treated with dramatic frankness.

On the other hand, of course, if you decide you must keep a secret—some big mystery of plot—you must be sure that it is worth keeping. If you build up a series of mysterious incidents, the solution must be adequate to the suspense. But, I have treated this angle of secret-keeping in "preparation versus result," so I shall now direct your attention to the other side of the problem of dramatic frankness—which may be the cause of the lack of punch:

2. Have You been too Frank at the Beginning?

Go back through the early moments of your playlet and see if you have not given the whole thing away at the very beginning. If you have, you have, as we saw, killed your suspense, which is the road on which punch lies in wait. The way to remedy this defect is to condense the preparation and so express it in action and by dialogue that you leave opportunity for a revealing flash.

In going over your manuscript you must strive to attain the correct balance between the two. The whole art lies in knowing just what to disclose and it when to disclose it—and what not and when not to disclose.

3. Have You Been Too "Talky"?

Remember that vaudeville has no time for "fine speeches." Cut even the lines you have put in for the purpose of disclosing character, and—save in rare instances—depend chiefly on character revelation through action.

4. Have You Lost Your Singleness of Effect by Mixing Playlet Genres?

One of the most common reasons why playlets lack the effect of vital oneness is to be found in the fault of mixing the kinds: for example, making the first half a comedy and the second half a tragedy. It is as if a song began with one air and suddenly switched to a totally different melody. If your playlet is a comedy, make it a comedy throughout; it if is a deeply human story, let it end as it began; [1] if you are writing a straight drama or a melodrama, keep your playlet straight drama or melodrama all the way through. Go over your playlet with the eye of a relentless critic and make sure that you have not mixed your genres, which only in the rarest cases can be done effectively.

[1] See Chapter XIV, section II, topic 3.

5. Are You Sure Your Action Is All Vital?

Finally, if every other investigation has failed to develop the needed punch, go over your playlet again to see if it is possible that you have erred in the first principle of the art. If you have permitted even one tiny scene to creep in that does not hold a vital meaning to the single point of your climax, you have lost by so much the possibility of the punch. Remember, here, that a great playlet can be played without a single word being spoken and still be vividly clear to everyone. Realizing this, chop every second of action that is not vital.

6. The Punch Secured.

But long before you have exhausted these suggestions you will have developed your punch. Your punch has risen out of your material— if you possess the sense of the dramatic. If the punch has not developed—with a series of minor punches that all contribute to the main design of the "heart wallop"—there is something wrong with your material.

But even a realization of this ought not to discourage you, for there are instances every day of well-known playwrights who have chosen the wrong material. We all have seen these plays. You must do as they do—cast your playlet aside and begin anew with new material. The man who keeps at it is the only one who wins—but he must keep at it with the right stuff.

IV. SELECTING A PROPER TITLE

When you have trimmed your playlet by cutting off all the trimmings, your thoughts naturally turn to a title. More than likely you have selected your title long before you have written "curtain"—it is possible a title sprang into your mind out of the germ idea. But even then, you ought now to select the proper title.

1. What is a Proper Title?

A proper title is one that both names a playlet and concisely suggests more than it tells. For instance, "The System" suggests a problem vital to all big cities—because the word "system" was on everybody's tongue at the time. "The Lollard" piques curiosity—what is a "lollard," you are inclined to want to know; it also carries a suggestion of whimsicality. "The Villain Still Pursued Her," tells as plainly as a whole paragraph could that the playlet is a travesty, making fun of the old blood-and-thunder melodrama. "In and Out" is a short, snappy, curiosity-piquing name; it is a title that hangs out a sign like a question mark. "Kick In" is of the same class, but with the added touch of slang. "War Brides" is another luring title, and one that attracts on frankly dramatic and "problem" grounds. "Youth" is a title that suggests much more than it tells—it connotes almost anything. "Blackmail" has the punch of drama and suggests "atmosphere" as well. But these are enough to establish the fact that a good title is one which suggests more than it tells. A good title frankly advertises the wares within, yet wakens eager curiosity to see what those wares are.

2. What is an Improper Title?

An improper title, first, is one that does not precisely fit a playlet as a name; or second, that tells too much. For instance, "Sweets to the Sweet" is the title of a playlet whose only reason for being so named is because the young man brings the girl a box of candy—it does not name the playlet at all precisely, its connotation is misleading. Do not choose a title just because it is pretty. Make your title really express the personality of your playlet. But more important still, do not let your title tell too much. If "The Bomb" were called "The Trap," much of the effect of the surprise would be discounted, and the unmasking of the detective who confesses to throwing the bomb to trap the real criminal would come as something expected. In a word, be most careful not to select a title that "gives it all away."

3. Other Title Considerations

A short title seems to be the playlet fashion today; but tomorrow the two- or three-word title may grow to a four- or five-word name. Yet it will never be amiss to make a title short.

This same law of good use points to a similar variation in the context of even the short title—I mean that every little while there develops a fad for certain words. There may at any time spring up a wide use of words like "girl," or "fun," or color words, like "red " or "purple" or "blond." But your close study of the vaudeville of the moment will show you when these fad-words may be used advantageously in a title.

You need never worry over-long about a title for your playlet if you put the emphasis in your own mind upon the fact that your title is an advertisement.

V. MAKING THE PLAYLET A HIT

But when you have a playlet manuscript that is full of laughter and vibrant with dramatic thrills, and even after you have sold it to a manager who has produced it, your work as a playlet writer is not done. You still must cut and polish it until it is a flawless gem that flashes from the stage. As Edgar Allan Woolf expressed it to me in one of our conversations:

"The work of the author of a one-act comedy is not over until, after several weeks of playing, his playlet has been so reshaped and altered by him that not a single dull spot remains. Individual lines must be condensed so that they are as short as they possibly can be made. The elimination of every unnecessary word or phrase is essential. Where a line that develops the plot can be altered so that it will still serve its purpose, and also score a laugh on its own account, it must be so changed. Where lines cannot be changed, bits of comedy business may perhaps be inserted to keep the audience from lapsing into listlessness. For it is a deplorable fact that a vaudeville audience that is not laughing outright at a comedy becomes listless. Vaudeville managers never book a playlet that makes an audience smile—for while the humor that brings a smile may be more brilliant than the comedy that gets a laugh, it must always be remembered that vaudeville audiences come to laugh and not to smile. Some of the biggest laughs in every one of my many acts I put in after the acts had been playing some weeks. And I attribute whatever success they have had later in the best vaudeville theatres to the improvements I have made during their 'breaking in' periods."

To sum up: While no two writers ever have written and never will write a playlet in precisely the same way, the wise beginner chooses for his first playlet a comedy theme. Your germ idea you express in a single short sentence which you consider as the problem of your playlet, to be solved logically, clearly and conclusively. Instinct for the dramatic leads you to lift out from life's flowing stream of events the separate incidents you require and to dovetail them into a plot which tells the story simply by means of characters and dialogue skillfully blended into an indivisible whole, flashing with revealing meaning and ending with complete satisfaction.

After you have thought out your playlet, you set down so much of it as you feel is necessary in the form of a scenario. But you do not consider this scenario as unchangeable. Rather you judge the value of the idea by the freedom with which it grows in effectiveness. And while this process is going on, you carefully select the basic points in the beginning of the story that must be brought out prominently.

Then you develop the story by making the points that foreshadow your "big" scene stand out so as to weave the enthralling power of suspense. You let your audience guess what is going to happen, but keep them tensely interested in how it is going to happen. And you prepare your audience by a carefully preserved balance between the promise and the performance for the one big point of the climax which changes the relations of the characters to each other.

After you have shown the change as happening, you punch home the fact that it has happened, and withhold your completing card until the finish. In your finish you play the final card and account for the last loose strand of the plot, with a speed that does not detract from your effect of complete satisfaction.

In seeking to "punch up" your playlet, you go over every word, every bit of characterization, every moment of action, and eliminate single words, whole speeches, entire scenes, to cut down the playlet to the meat, seeking for lost punches particularly in the faults of keeping secrets that should be instantly disclosed, and in the too frank disclosures of secrets that ought to be kept in the beginning. And out of this re-writing there rises into view the "heart wallop" which first attracted you.

Finally, when your playlet is finished, you decide on a proper title. Remembering that a title is an advertisement, you choose a short name that both names and lures. And then you prepare the manuscript for its market—which is discussed in a later chapter.

But when you have written your playlet and have sold it to a manager who has produced it, your work is not yet done. You watch it in rehearsal, and during the "breaking in" weeks you cut it here, change it there, make a plot-line do double duty as a laugh-line in this spot, take away a needless word from another—until your playlet flashes a flawless gem from the stage. The final effect in the medium of expression for which you write it is UNITY. Every part—acting, dialogue, action—blends in a perfect whole. Not even one word may be taken away without disturbing the total effect of its vital oneness.



CHAPTER XIX

THE ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL ONE-ACT MUSICAL COMEDY

If you were asked, "What is a one-act musical comedy?" you might answer: "Let's see, a one-act musical comedy is—is—. Well, all I remember is a lot of pretty girls who changed their clothes every few minutes, two lovers who sang about the moon, a funny couple and a whole lot of music."

Hazy? Not at all. This is really a clear and reasonably correct definition of the average one-act musical colnedy, for this type of act is usually about fifty per cent. girl, twenty per cent. costumes and scenery, twenty-five per cent. music, and usually, but not always, five per cent. comedy. A musical comedy, therefore, is not music and comedy—it is girls and music. That is why the trade name of this, one of the most pleasing of vaudeville acts, is—a girl-act."

It was the girl-act, perhaps more than any other one style of act, that helped to build vaudeville up to its present high standing. On nearly every bill of the years that are past there was a girl-act. It is a form of entertainment that pleases young and old, and coming in the middle or toward the end of a varied program, it lends a touch of romance and melody without which many vaudeville bills would seem incomplete.

A girl-act is a picture, too. Moreover, it holds a touch of bigness, due to the number of its people, their changing costumes, and the length of time the act holds the stage. With its tuneful haste, its swiftly moving events, its rapid dialogue, its succession of characters, and its ever-changing, colorful pictures, the one-act musical comedy is not so much written as put together.

1. The Musical Elements

Technically known as a girl-act, and booked by managers who wish a "flash"—a big effect—the one-act musical comedy naturally puts its best foot foremost as soon as the curtain rises. And, equally of course, it builds up its effects into a concluding best-foot.

The best-foot of a musical comedy is the ensemble number, in which all the characters—save the principals, sometimes—join in a rousing song. The ensemble is musical comedy, and one-act musical comedy is—let this exaggeration clinch the truth—the ensemble. [1]

[1] Of course, I am discussing the usual musical comedy—the flash of a bill—in pointing out so forcefully the value of the ensemble. There have been some fine one-act musical comedies in which the ensemble was not used at all. Indeed, the musical comedy in one act without any ensemble offers most promising possibilities.

Between the opening and the closing ensembles there is usually one other ensemble number, and sometimes two. And between these three or four ensembles there are usually one or two single numbers—solos by a man or a woman—and a duet, or a trio, or a quartet. These form the musical element of the one-act musical comedy.

2. Scenery and Costumes—The Picture-Elements

While the one-act musical comedy may be played in one set of scenery only, it very often happens that there are two or three different scenes. The act may open in One, as did Joe Hart's "If We Said What We Thought," and then go into Full Stage; or it may open in Full Stage, go into One for a little musical number, and then go back into a different full-stage scene for its finish. It may even be divided into three big scenes—each played in a different set—with two interesting numbers in One, if time permits, or the act be planned to make its appeal by spectacular effects.

Very often, as in Lasky's "A Night on a Houseboat," a big set-piece or a trick scene is used to give an effect of difference, although the entire act is played without dropping a curtain.

To sum up the idea behind the use of musical comedy scenery: it is designed to present an effect of bigness—to make the audience feel they are viewing a "production."

The same thought is behind the continual costume changes which are an integral part of the one-act musical comedy effect. For each ensemble number the girls' costumes are changed. If there are three ensembles there are three costumes, and four changes if there are four ensembles. Needless to say, it sometimes keeps the girls hustling every minute the act is in progress, changing from one costume to another, and taking that one off to don a third or a fourth.

The result in spectacular effect is as though a scene were changed every time an ensemble number is sung. Furthermore, the lights are so contrived as to add to this effect of difference, and the combination of different colors playing over different costumes, moving about in different sets, forms an ever-changing picture delightfully pleasing and big.

Now, as the musical comedy depends for its appeal upon musical volume, numbers of people, sometimes shifting scenery, a kaleidoscopic effect of pretty girls in ever changing costumes and dancing about to catchy music, it does not have to lean upon a fascinating plot or brilliant dialogue, in order to succeed. But of course, as we shall see, a good story and funny dialogue make a good musical comedy better.

3. The Element of Plot

If your memory and my recollection of numerous musical comedies of both the one-act and the longer production of the legitimate stage are to be trusted, a plot is something not vital to the success of a musical comedy. Indeed, it is actually true that many a musical comedy has failed because the emphasis was placed on plot rather than on a skeleton of a story which showed the larger elements to the best advantage. Therefore I present the plot element of the average one-act musical comedy thus:

Whereas the opening and the finish of the playlet are two of its most difficult parts to write, in the musical comedy the beginning and the finish are ready-made to the writer's hand. However anxious he may be to introduce a novel twist of plot at the end, the writer is debarred from doing so, because he must finish with an ensemble number where the appeal is made by numbers of people, costumes, pretty girls and music. At the beginning, however, the writer may be as unconventional as he pleases—providing he does not take too long to bring on his first ensemble, and so disappoint his audience, who are waiting for the music and the girls. Therefore the writer must be content to "tag on" his plot to an opening nearly always— if not always—indicated, and to round his plot out into an almost invariably specified ending.

Between the opening and the closing ensembles the writer has to figure on at least one, and maybe more, ensembles, and a solo and a duet, or a trio and a quartet, or other combinations of these musical elements. These demands restrict his plot still further. He must indeed make his plot so slight that it will lead out from and blend into the overshadowing stage effects. Necessarily, his plot must first serve the demands of scenery and musical numbers— then and only then may his plot be whatever he can make it.

The one important rule for the making of a musical comedy plot is this: The plot of a one-act musical comedy should be considered as made up of story and comedy elements so spaced that the time necessary for setting scenery and changing costumes is neither too long nor too short.

More than one dress rehearsal on the night before opening has been wisely devoted to the precise rehearsing of musical numbers and costume changes only. The dialogue was never even hastily spoken. The entire effort was directed to making the entrances and exits of the chorus and principals on time. "For," the producer cannily reasons, "if they slip up on the dialogue they can fake it—but the slightest wait on a musical number will seem like a mortal wound."

If you recall any of Jesse L. Lasky's famous musical acts, "A Night at the Country Club," "At the Waldorf," "The Love Waltz," "The Song Shop" (these come readily to mind, but for the life of me I cannot recall even one incident of any of their plots), you will realize how important is the correct timing of musical numbers. You will also understand how unimportant to a successful vaudeville musical comedy is its plot.

4. Story Told by Situations, Not by Dialogue

As there is no time for studied character analysis and plot exposition, and little time for dialogue, the story of a musical comedy must be told by broad strokes. When you read "A Persian Garden," selected for full reproduction in the Appendix because it is one of the best examples of a well-balanced musical comedy plot ever seen in vaudeville, you will understand why so careful a constructionist as Edgar Allan Woolf begins his act with the following broad stroke:

The opening chorus has been sung, and instantly an old man's voice is heard off stage. Then all the chorus girls run up and say, "Oh, here comes the old Sheik now."

Again, when Paul wishes to be alone with Rose, Mr. Woolf makes Paul turn to Phil and say, "What did I tell you to do?" Then Phil seizes Mrs. Schuyler and runs her off the stage into the house.

Mr. Woolf's skill built this very broad stroke up into a comedy exit good for a laugh, but you and I have seen other exits where the comedy was lacking and the mechanics stood out even more boldly.

So we see that the same time-restriction which makes a musical comedy plot a skeleton, also makes the exits and entrances and the dialogue and every happening structurally a skeleton so loosely jointed that it would rattle horribly—were it not for the beautiful covering of the larger effects of costumes, scenery and music. Therefore the overshadowing necessity for speed makes admissible in the musical comedy broad strokes that would not be tolerated anywhere else.

It is by willingly granting this necessary license that the audience is permitted to enjoy many single musical numbers and delightful ensembles within the time-limits vaudeville can afford for anyone act. So we see why it is—to return to the bald expository statement with which this division begins—that the writer must consider his story and his comedy scenes only as time-fillers to make the waits between musical numbers pleasantly interesting and laughter-worthwhile.

5. The Comedy Element

Plainly recognizing the quickness with which one character must be brought on the stage and taken off again, and thoroughly appreciating that whatever is done between the musical numbers must be speedily dismissed, let us now see what forms of comedy are possible.

Obviously the comedy cannot depend upon delicate shades. It must be the sort of comedy that is physical rather than mental. Slap-stick comedy would seem to be the surest to succeed.

But while this is true, there is no need to depend entirely on the slap-stick brand of humor. For instance, while we find in "A Persian Garden" one whole comedy scene built on the killing of mosquitoes on Phil's face—certainly the slap-stick brand, even though a hand delivers the slap—we also have the comedy of character in Mrs. Schuyler's speeches.

Comedy rising directly out of and dependent upon plot, however, is not the sort of comedy that usually gives the best results, because plot is nearly always subservient to the musical and picture making elements. But the comedy element of plot may be made to run throughout and can be used with good effect, if it is the kind that is easily dismissed and brought back. This is why so many musical comedies have made use of plots hinged on mistaken identity, Kings and Princesses in masquerade, and wives and husbands anxiously avoiding each other and forever meeting unexpectedly.

Still, plot-comedy may be depended upon for at least one big scene, if the idea is big enough. For instance, the internationally successful "The Naked Truth" possessed a plot that was big enough to carry the musical comedy on plot-interest alone, if that were necessary. Indeed, it might have been used as a good farce without music. The whole act hung on a magic statue in whose presence nothing but the truth could be told, on pain of parting from one's clothes. And the comedy scenes that developed out of it carried a series of twists and turns of real plot-interest that made the musical numbers all the more delightful and the whole act a notable success. The musical element of this delightful vaudeville form makes certain other humorous acts fit into the musical comedy structure. For instance, if the comedy character is left alone on the stage, he can with perfect propriety deliver a short monologue. Or he may do anything else that will win laughter and applause.

And the two-act, even more perfectly than the monologue, fits into the musical comedy. No matter what the two-act is, if it is short and humorous, it may be used for one of the ornamental time-gap stoppers. A quarrel scene may be just what is needed to fill out and advance the plot. But more often, the flirtation two-act is the form that best suits, for the nature of the musical comedy seems best expressed by love and its romantic moments. Indeed, the flirtation two-act is often a little musical comedy in itself, minus a background of girls. As an example, take Louis Weslyn's very successful two-act, "After the Shower." [1] You can easily imagine all the other girls in the camping party appearing, to act as the chorus. Then suppply a talkative chaperon, and you have only to add her comical husband to produce a fine musical comedy offering.

[1] See the Appendix.

So we see once more that the one-act musical comedy is the result of assembling, rather than of writing. There is no need of adding even one instruction paragraph here.

Before we take up the one or two hints on writing that would seem to present themselves in helpful guise, you should read Edgar Allan Woolf's "A Persian Garden." Turn to the Appendix and this act will show you clearly how the writer welds these different vaudeville forms into one perfect whole.



CHAPTER XX

PUTTING TOGETHER THE ONE-ACT MUSICAL COMEDY WITH HINTS ON MAKING THE BURLESQUE TAB

Unless you have a definite order to write a one-act musical comedy, it would seem, from the comparatively small part the writer has in the final effect, that the novice had better not write the musical comedy at all. Although this would appear to be clear from the discussion of the elements in the preceding chapter, I want to make it even more emphatic by saying that more than once I have written a musical comedy act for the "small time" in a few hours—and have then spent weeks dovetailing it to fit the musical numbers introduced and whipping the whole act into the aspect of a "production."

But there is one time when even the amateur may write a musical comedy—when he has a great idea. But I do not mean the average musical comedy idea—I mean such an idea as that which made "The Naked Truth" so successful. And in the hope that you may possess such an idea, I offer a few hints that may prove helpful in casting your idea into smooth musical comedy form.

As I have already discussed plot in the chapters devoted to the playlet, and have taken up the structure of the monologue and the two-act in the chapters on those forms, there is now no need for considering "writing" at all save for a single hint. Yet even this one suggestion deals less with the formal "writing" element than with the "feel" of the material. It is stated rather humorously by Thomas J. Gray, who has written many successful one-act musical comedies, varying in style from "Gus Edwards' School Boys and Girls" to "The Vaudeville Revue of 1915"—a musical travesty on prevailing ideas—and the books of a few long musical successes, from comedy scenes in "Watch your Step" to "Ned Wayburn's Town Topics," that "Musical comedy, from a vaudeville standpoint, and a 'Broadway' or two-dollar standpoint, are two different things. A writer has to treat them in entirely different ways, as a doctor would two different patients suffering from the same ailment. In vaudeville an author has to remember that nearly everyone in the audience has some one particular favorite on the bill—you have to write something funny enough to: please the admirers of the acrobat, the magician, the dancer, the dramatic artist, the rag-time singer and the moving pictures. But in 'Broadway' musical comedy it is easier to please the audiences because they usually know what the show is about before they buy their tickets, and they know what to expect. That's why you can tell 'vaudeville stuff' in a 'Broadway' show—it's the lines the audience laugh at.

"To put it in a different way, let me say that while in two-dollar musical comedy you can get by with 'smart lines' and snickers, in vaudeville musical comedy you have to go deeper than the lip-laughter. You must waken the laughter that lies deep down and rises in appreciative roars. It is in ability to create situations that will produce this type of laughter that the one-act musical comedy writer's success lies."

1. An Average One-Act Musical Comedy Recipe

While it is not absolutely necessary to open a musical comedy with an ensemble number, many fine acts do so open. And the ensemble finish seems to be the rule. Therefore let us assume that you wish to form your musical comedy on this usual style. As your act should run anywhere from thirty to fifty minutes, and as your opening number will consume scarcely two minutes, and your closing ensemble perhaps three, you have—on a thirty-five minute basis— thirty minutes in which to bring in your third ensemble, your other musical numbers and your dialogue.

The third ensemble—probably a chorus number, with the tenor or the ingenue, or both, working in front of the chorus—will consume anywhere from five to seven minutes. Then your solo will take about three minutes. And if you have a duet or a trio, count four minutes more. So you have about eighteen minutes for your plot and comedy—including specialties.

While these time hints are obviously not exact, they are suggestive of the fact that you should time everything which enters into your act. And having timed your musical elements by some such rough standard as this—or, better still, by slowly reading your lyrics as though you were singing—you should set down for your own guidance a schedule that will look something like this:

Opening ensemble............. 2 minutes

Dialogue Introducing Plot, First Comedy Scenes....... 4 "

Solo......................... 3 "

Dialogue Comedy and Specialties.... 5 "

Ensemble number.............. 5 "

Dialogue Specialties, Comedy. Plot climax—perhaps a "big" love scene, leading into.............. 7 "

Duet......................... 4 "

Dialogue Plot Solution—the final arrangement of characters............. 2 "

Closing ensemble............. 3 " ———- 35 "

Of course this imaginary schedule is not the only schedule that can be used; also bear firmly in mind that you may make any arrangement of your elements that you desire, within the musical comedy form. Let me repeat what I am never tired of saying, that a rigid adherence to any existing form of vaudeville act is as likely to be disastrous as a too wild desire to be original. Be as unconventional as you can be within the necessary conventional limits. This is the way to success.

You have your big idea, and you have the safe, conventional ensemble opening, or a semi-ensemble novelty opening. Also you have a solo number for the tenor or the ingenue, with the chorus working behind them. Finally you have your ensemble ending. Now, within these boundaries, arrange your solo and duet—or dispense with them, as you feel best fits your plot and your comedy. Develop your story by comedy situations—don't depend upon lines. Place your big scene in the last big dialogue space—the seven minutes of the foregoing schedule—and then bring your act to an end with a great big musical finish.

2. Timing the Costume Changes

Although the schedule given allows plenty of time for costume changes, you must not consider your schedule as a ready-made formula. Read it and learn the lesson it points out—then cast it aside. Test every minute of your act by the test of time. Be especially careful to give your chorus and your principal characters time to make costume changes.

In gauging the minutes these changes will take, time yourself in making actual changes of clothing. Remember that you must allow one minute to get to the dressing room and return to the stage. But do not make the mistake of supposing that the first test you make in changing your own clothes will be the actual time it will take experienced dressers to change. You yourself can cut down your time record by practice—and your clothes are not equipped with time-saving fasteners. Furthermore, it often happens that the most complicated dress is worn in the first scene and a very quick change is prepared for by under-dressing—that is, wearing some of the garments of the next change under the pretentious over-garments of the preceding scene. These are merely stripped off and the person is ready dressed to go back on the stage in half a minute.

But precise exactness in costume changes need not worry you very much. If you have been reasonably exact, the producer—upon whom the costume changes and the costumes themselves depend—will add a minute of dialogue here or take away a minute there, to make the act run as it should.

3. The Production Song

Certain songs lend themselves more readily to effective staging, and these are called "production songs." For instance: "Alexander's Ragtime Band" could be—and often was—put on with a real band. The principal character could sing the first verse and the chorus alone. Then the chorus girls could come out in regimentals, each one "playing" some instrument—the music faked by the orchestra or produced by "zobos"—and when they were all on the stage, the chorus could be played again with rousing effect. During the second verse, sung as a solo, the girls could act out the lines. Then with the repetitioin of the chorus, they could produce funny characteristic effects on the instruments. And then they could all exit—waiting for the audience to bring them back for the novelties the audience would expect to be introduced in an encore.

This is often the way a "popular song" is "plugged" in cabarets, musical comedies, burlesque, and in vaudeville. It is made so attractive that it is repeated again and again—and so drummed into the ears of the audience that they go out whistling it. Ned Wayburn demonstrated this in his vaudeville act "Staging an Act." He took a commonplace melody and built it up into a production—then the audience liked it. George Cohan did precisely the same thing in his "Hello, Broadway"; taking a silly lyric and a melody, he told the audience he was going to make 'em like it; and he did—by "producing it."

But not every "popular song" lends itself to production treatment. For instance, how would you go about producing "When it Strikes Home"? How would you stage "When I Lost You"? Or—to show you that serious songs are not the only ones that may not be producible— how would you put on "Oh, How that German Could Love"? Of course you could bring the chorus on in couples and have them sing such a sentimental song to each other—but that would not, in the fullest sense, be producing it.

Just as not every "popular song" can be produced, so not every production song can be made popular. You have never whistled that song produced in "Staging an Act," nor have you ever whistled Cohan's song from "Hello, Broadway." If they ever had any names I have forgotten them, but the audience liked them immensely at the time.

As many production songs are good only for stage purposes, and therefore are not a source of much financial profit to their writers, there is no need for me to describe their special differences and the way to go about writing them. Furthermore, their elements are precisely the same as those of any other song—with the exception that each chorus is fitted with different catch lines in the place of the regular punch lines, and there may be any number of different verses. [1] Now having your "big" idea, and having built it up with your musical elements carefully spaced to allow for costume changes, perhaps having made your comedy rise out of the monologue and the two-act to good plot advantage, and having developed your story to its climax in the last part of your act, you assemble all your people, join the loose plot ends and bring your musical comedy to a close with a rousing ensemble finish.

[1] See Chapter XXII.

HINTS ON MAKING THE BURLESQUE TAB

The word "tab" is vaudeville's way of saying "tabloid," or condensed version. While vaudeville is in itself a series of tabloid entertainments, "tab" is used to identify the form of a musical comedy act which may run longer than the average one-act musical comedy. Although a tabloid is almost invariably in one act, it is hardly ever in only one scene. There are usually several different sets used, and the uninterrupted forty-five minutes, or even more than an hour, are designed to give a greater effect of bigness to the production.

But the greatest difference between the one-act musical comedy and the burlesque tab does not lie in playing-time, nor bigness of effect. While a one-act musical comedy is usually intended to be made up of carefully joined and new humorous situations, the burlesque tab—you will recall the definition of burlesque—depends upon older and more crude humor.

James Madison, whose "My Old Kentucky Home" [1] has been chosen as showing clearly the elements peculiar to the burlesque tab, describes the difference in this way:

"Burlesque does not depend for success upon smoothly joined plot, musical numbers or pictorial effects. Neither does it depend upon lines. Making its appeal particularly to those who like their humor of the elemental kind, the burlesque tab often uses slap-stick comedy methods. Frankly acknowledging this, vaudeville burlesque nevertheless makes a clean appeal. It does not countenance either word or gesture that could offend. Since its purpose is to raise uproarious laughter, it does not take time to smooth the changes from one comedy bit to the next, but one bit follows another swiftly, with the frankly avowed purpose to amuse, and to amuse for the moment only. Finally, the burlesque tab comes to an end swiftly: it has made use of a plot merely for the purpose of stringing on comedy bits, and having come toward the close, it boldly states that fact, as it were, by a swift rearrangement of characters—and then ends."

[1] See the Appendix

While the burlesque tab nearly always opens with an ensemble number, and almost invariably ends with an ensemble, there may be more solos, duets, trios, quartets and ensembles than are used by the musical comedy—if the act is designed to run for a longer time. But as its appeal is made by humor rather than by musical or pictorial effect, the burlesque tab places the emphasis on the humor. It does this by giving more time to comedy and by making its comedy more elemental, more uproarious.

In a burlesque tab, the comedy bits are never barred by age—providing they are sure-fire—and therefore they are sometimes reminiscent. [2] The effort to give them freshness and newness is to relate the happenings to different characters, and to introduce the bits in novel ways.

[2] Mr. Madison informed me that the "statuary bit" in "My Old Kentucky Home" is one of the oldest "bits" in the show business. It is even older than Weber and Field's first use of it a generation ago.

Therefore, it would seem obvious that the writing of the burlesque tab is not "writing" at all. It is stage managing. And as the comedy bits are in many cases parts of the history of the stage—written down in the memories of actor and producer—the novice had better not devote his thoughts to writing burlesque. However, if he can produce bits of new business that will be sure-fire, he may find the burlesque tab for him the most profitable of all opportunities the vaudeville stage has to offer. That, however, is a rare condition for the beginner.



CHAPTER XXI

THE MUSICAL ELEMENTS OF THE POPULAR SONG

The easiest thing in the world is to write a song; the most difficult, to write a song that will be popular. I do not mean a "popular" song, but a song everybody will whistle—for few songs written for the populace really become songs of the people. The difference between poverty and opulence in the business of song-writing is—whistling.

What is the difference, then, between the man who can "write songs" and the one who can write songs everybody will whistle? Wherein lies the magic? Here is the difference, unexplained it is true, but at least clearly stated:

There are hundreds of men and women all over the land who can rhyme with facility. Anyone of them can take almost any idea you suggest off hand, and on the instant sing you a song that plays up that idea. These persons are the modern incarnations of the old time minstrels who wandered over the land and sang extemporaneous ditties in praise of their host for their dinners. But, remarkable as the gift is, many of these modern minstrels cannot for the life of them put into their songs that something which makes their hearers whistle it long after they leave. The whistle maker is the one who can rhyme with perhaps no more ease than these others, but into his song he is able to instil the magic—sometimes.

But what is this magic that makes of song-writing a mystery that even the genius cannot unerringly solve each time he tries? Not for one moment would I have you believe that I can solve the mystery for you. If I could, I should not be writing this chapter—I should be writing a song that could not fail of the greatest sale in history. Still, with the kind assistance of the gentlemen in the profession—as the prestidigitator used to say in the old town hall when he began his entertainment—I may be able to lift the outer veils of the unknown, and you may be able I to face the problem with clearer-seeing eyes.