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Writing for Vaudeville

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3. The Electrician

Upon the electrician fall all the duties of Jove in the delicate
matter of making the sun to shine or the moon to cast its pale
rays over a lover's scene. Next to the stage-manager's signal-board,
or in a gallery right over it, or perhaps on the other side of the
stage, stands the electric switch-board. From here all the stage
lights and the lights in the auditorium and all over the front of
the house are operated.

From the footlights with their red and white and blue and vari-tinted
bulbs, to the borders that light the scenery from above, the
bunch-lights that shed required lights through windows, the
grate-logs, the lamps and chandeliers that light the mimic rooms
themselves, and the spot-light operated by the man in the haven
of the gallery gods out front, all are under the direction of the
electrician who sits up in his little gallery and makes the moonlight
suddenly give place to blazing sunlight on a cue.

It is to the stage-manager and the stage-carpenter, the property-man
and the electrician, that are due the working of the stage miracles
that delight us in the theatres.

III. THE SCENERY OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE

In the ancient days before even candles were invented--the rush-light
days of Shakespere and his predecessors--plays were presented in
open court-yards or, as in France, in tennis-courts in the broad
daylight. A proscenium arch was all the scenery usually thought
necessary in these outdoor performances, and when the plays were
given indoors even the most realistic scenery would have been of
little value in the rush-lit semi-darkness. Then, indeed, the
play was the thing. A character walked into the STORY and out of
it again; and "place" was left to the imagination of the audience,
aided by the changing of a sign that stated where the story had
chosen to move itself.

As the centuries rolled along, improvements in lighting methods
made indoor theatrical presentations more common and brought scenery
into effective use. The invention of the kerosene lamp and later
the invention of gas brought enough light upon the stage to permit
the actor to step back from the footlights into a wider working-space
set with the rooms and streets of real life. Then with the electric
light came the scenic revolution that emancipated the stage forever
from enforced gloomy darkness, permitted the actor's expressive
face to be seen farther back from the footlights, and made of the
proscenium arch the frame of a picture.

"It is for this picture-frame stage that every dramatist is composing
his plays," Brander Matthews says; "and his methods are of necessity
those of the picture-frame stage; just as the methods of the
Elizabethan dramatic poet were of necessity those of the platform
stage." And on the same page: The influence of the realistic
movement of the middle of the nineteenth century imposed on the
stage-manager the duty of making every scene characteristic of the
period and of the people, and of relating the characters closely
to their environment." [1]

[1] The Study of the Drama, Brander Matthews.

On the vaudeville stage to-day, when all the sciences and the arts
have come to the aid of the drama, there is no period nor place,
nor even a feeling of atmosphere, that cannot be reproduced with
amazing truth and beauty of effect. Everything in the way of
scenery is artistically possible, from the squalid room of the
tenement-dweller to the blossoming garden before the palace of a
king--but artistic possibility and financial advisability are two
very different things.

If an act is designed to win success by spectacular appeal, there
is no doubt that it is good business for the producer to spend as
much money as is necessary to make his effects more beautiful and
more amazing than anything ever before seen upon the stage. But
even here he must hold his expenses down to the minimum that will
prove a good investment, and what he may spend is dependent on
what the vaudeville managers will pay for the privilege of showing
that act in their houses.

But it is not worth spectacular acts that the vaudeville writer
has particularly to deal. His problem is not compounded of
extravagant scenery, gorgeous properties, trick-scenes and
light-effects. Like Shakespere, for him the play--the story--is
the thing. The problem he faces is an embarrassment of riches.
With everything artistically possible, what is financially advisable?


1. The Successful Writer's Attitude toward Scenery

The highest praise a vaudevillian can conjure up out of his vast
reservoir of enthusiastic adjectives to apply to any act is, "It
can be played in the alley and knock 'em cold." In plain English
he means, the STORY is so good that it doesn't require scenery.

Scenery, in the business of vaudeville--please note the word
"business"--has no artistic meaning. If the owner of a dwelling
house could rent his property with the rooms unpapered and the
woodwork unpainted, he would gladly do so and pocket the saving,
wouldn't he? In precisely the same spirit the vaudeville-act owner
would sell his act without going to the expense of buying and
transporting scenery, if he could get the same price for it. To
the vaudevillian scenery is a business investment.

Because he can get more money for his act if it is properly mounted
in a pleasing picture, the vaudeville producer invests in scenery.
But he has to figure closely, just as every other business man is
compelled to scheme and contrive in dollars and cents, or the
business asset of scenery will turn into a white elephant and eat
up all his profits.

Jesse L. Lasky, whose many pleasing musical acts will be remembered,
had many a near-failure at the beginning of his vaudeville-producing
career because of his artistic leaning toward the beautiful in
stage setting. His subsequent successes were no less pleasing
because he learned the magic of the scenery mystery. Lasky is but
one example, and were it not that the names of vaudeville acts are
but fleeting memories, dimmed and eclipsed by the crowded impressions
of many acts seen at one sitting, there might be given an amazing
list of beautiful little entertainments that have failed because
of the transportation cost of the scenery they required.

When a producer is approached with a request to read a vaudeville
act he invariably asks, "What scenery?" His problem is in two
parts:

1. He must decide whether the merits of the act, itself, justify
him in investing his money in scenery on the gamble that the act
will be a success.

2. If the act proves a success, can the scenery be transported
from town to town at so low a cost that the added price he can get
for the act will allow a gross profit large enough to repay the
original cost of the scenery and leave a net profit?

An experience of my own in producing a very small act--small enough
to be in the primary class--may be as amusing as it is typical.
My partners and I decided to put out a quartet. We engaged four
good singers, two of them men, and two women. I wrote the little
story that introduced them in a humorous way and we set to work
rehearsing. At the same time the scenic artist hung three nice
big canvases on his paint frames and laid out a charming street-scene
in the Italian Quarter of Anywhere, the interior of a squalid
tenement and the throne room of a palace.

The first drop was designed to be hung behind the Olio--for the
act opened in One--and when the Olio went up, after the act's name
was hung out, the lights dimmed to the blue and soft green of
evening in the Quarter. Then the soprano commenced singing, the
tenor took up the duet, and they opened the act by walking
rhythmically with the popular ballad air to stage-centre in the
amber of the spot-light. When the duet was finished, on came the
baritone, and then the contralto, and there was a little comedy
before they sang their first quartet number.

Then the first drop was lifted in darkness and the scene changed
to the interior of the squalid tenement in which the pathos of the
little story unfolded, and a characteristic song was sung. At
length the scene changed to the throne room of the palace, where
the plot resolved itself into happiness and the little opera closed
with the "Quartet from Rigoletto."

The act was a success; it never received less than five bows and
always took two encores. But we paid three hundred and fifty
dollars for those miracles of drops, my partners and I, and we
used them only one week.

In the first place, the drops were too big for the stage on which
we "tried out" the act. We could not use them there and played
before the house street-drop and in the house palace set. The act
went very well. We shipped the drops at length-rates--as all
scenery is charged for by expressmen and railroads--to the next
town. There we used them and the act went better. It was a
question whether the bigger success was due to the smoother working
of the act or to the beautiful drops.

The price for which the act was playing at that breaking-in period
led me to ponder the cost of transporting the drops in their
rolled-up form on the battens. Therefore when I was informed that
the stage in the next town was a small one, I had a bright idea.
I ordered the stage-carpenter to take the drops from their battens,
discard the battens, and put pockets on the lower ends of the drops
and equip the upper ends with tie ropes so the drops could be tied
on the battens used in the various houses. The drops would then
fit small or large stages equally well and could be folded up into
a small enough space to tuck in a trunk and save all the excess
transportation charges.

Of course the drops folded up all right, but they unfolded in chips
of scaled-off paint. In the excitement, or the desire to "take a
chance," I had not given a thought to the plain fact that the drops
were not aniline. They were doomed to chip in time anyway, and
folding only hastened their end. Still, we received just as much
money for the act all the time we were playing it, as though we
had carried the beautiful drops.

Now comes the third lesson of this incident: Although we were
precisely three hundred and sixty-eight dollars "out" on account
of the drops, we really saved money in the end because we were
forced to discard them. The local union of the International
Association of Theatrical Stage Employees--Stage Hands' Union,
for short--tried to assess me in the town where we first used the
drops, for the salary of a stage-carpenter. According to their
then iron-clad rule, before which managers had to bow, the scenery
of every act carrying as many as three drops on battens had to be
hung and taken down by the act's own stage-carpenter--at forty
dollars a week. They could not collect from such an act today
because the rules have been changed, but our act was liable, under
the old rules, and I evaded it only by diplomacy. But even to-day
every act that carries a full set of scenery--such as a playlet
requiring a special set--must carry its own stage-carpenter.

Therefore, to the problem of original cost and transportation
expense, now add the charge of forty dollars a week against
scenery--and an average of five dollars a week extra railroad fare
for the stage-carpenter--and you begin to perceive why a vaudeville
producer asks, when you request him to read an act: "What scenery?"

There is no intention of decrying the use of special scenery in
vaudeville. Some of the very best and most profitable acts, even
aside from great scenic one-act dramas like "The System," [1] would
be comparatively valueless without their individual sets. And
furthermore the use of scenery, with the far-reaching possibilities
of the special set in all its beauty and--on this side of the
water--hitherto unrealized effectiveness, has not yet even approached
its noon. Together with the ceaseless advance of the art of
mounting a full-evening play on the legitimate stage [2] will go
the no less artistic vaudeville act. But, for the writer anxious
to make a success of vaudeville writing, the special set should
be decried. Indeed, the special set ought not to enter into the
writer's problem at all.

[1] See Appendix. [2] The Theatre of To-Day, Hiram Kelly Moderwell's
book on the modem theatre, will repay reading by anyone particularly
interested in the special set and its possibilities.

No scenery can make up for weakness of story. Rather, like a paste
diamond in an exquisitely chased, pure gold setting, the paste
story will appear at greater disadvantage: because of the very
beauty of its surroundings. The writer should make his story so
fine that it will sparkle brilliantly in any setting.

The only thought that successful vaudeville writers give to scenery
is to indicate in their manuscripts the surroundings that "relate
the characters closely to their environment."

It requires no ability to imagine startling and beautiful scenic
effects that cost a lot of money to produce--that is no "trick."
The vaudeville scenery magic lies in making use of simple scenes
that can be carried at little cost--or, better still for the new
writer, in twisting the combinations of drops and sets to be found
in every vaudeville house to new uses.



CHAPTER IV

THE SCENERY COMMONLY FOUND IN VAUDEVILLE THEATRES


1. The Olio

In every vaudeville theatre there is an Olio and, although the
scene which it is designed to represent may be different in each
house, the street Olio is common enough to be counted as universally
used. Usually there are two drops in "One," either of which may
be the Olio, and one of them is likely to represent a street, while
the other is pretty sure to be a palace scene.

2. Open Sets

Usually in Four--and sometimes in Three--there are to be found in
nearly every vaudeville theatre two different drops, which with
their matching wings [1] form the two common "open sets"--or scenes
composed merely of a rear drop and side wings, and not boxed in.

[1] A _wing_ is a double frame of wood covered with painted canvas
and set to stand as this book will when its covers are opened at
right angles to each other.

_The Wood Set_ consists of a drop painted to represent the interior
of a wood or forest, with wings painted in the same style. It is
used for knock-about acts, clown acts, bicycle acts, animal turns
and other acts that require a deep stage and can play in this sort
of scene.

_The Palace Set_, with its drop and wings, is painted to represent
the interior of a palace. It is used for dancing acts, acrobats
and other acts that require a deep stage and can appropriately
play in a palace scene.

3. The Box Sets

A "box set" is, as the name implies, a set of scenery that is
box-shaped. It represents a room seen through the fourth wall,
which has been removed. Sometimes with a, ceiling-piece, but
almost invariably with "borders"--which are painted canvas strips
hanging in front of the "border-lights" to mask them and keep the
audience from seeing the ropes and pulleys hanging from the
gridiron--the box set more nearly mimics reality than the open
set, which calls upon the imagination of the audience to supply
the realities that are entirely lacking or only hinted at.

The painted canvas units which are assembled to make the box set
are called "flats." A flat is a wooden frame about six feet six
inches wide and from twelve to eighteen feet long, covered with
canvas and, of course, painted with any scene desired. It differs
from a wing in being only one-half the double frame; therefore it
cannot stand alone.

Upon the upper end of each flat along the unpainted outer edge
there is fastened a rope as long as the flat. Two-thirds of the
way up from the bottom of the corresponding edge of the matching
flat there is a "cleat," or metal strip, into which the rope, or
"lash-line" is snapped. The two flats are then drawn tight together
so that their edges match evenly and the lash-line is lashed through
the framework to hold the flats firmly together.

While one flat may be a painted wall, the next may contain a doorway
and door, another a part of an ornamental arch, and still another
a window, so, when the various flats are assembled and set, the
box set will have the appearance of a room containing doors and
windows and even ornamental arches. The most varied scenes can
thus be realistically set up.

In the rear of open doors there are usually wings, or perhaps
flats, [1] painted to represent the walls of hallways and adjoining
rooms and they are called "interior backings." Behind a door
supposed to open out into the street or behind windows overlooking
the country, there are hung, or set, short drops or wings painted
to show parts of a street, a garden, or a country-side, and these
are called "exterior backings."

[1] When flats are used as backings they are made stable by the
use of the _stage-brace_, a device made of wood and capable of
extension, after the manner of the legs of a camera tripod. It
is fitted with double metal hooks on one end to hook into the
wooden cross-bar on the back of the flat and with metal eyes on
the other end through which _stage-screws_ are inserted and screwed
into the floor of the stage.

_The Centre-door Fancy_ is the most common of the box sets. Called
"fancy," because it has an arch with portieres and a rich-looking
backing, and because it is supposed to lead into the other palatial
rooms of the house, this set can be used for a less pretentious
scene by the substitution of a matched door for the arch.

In this plainer form it is called simply _The Parlor Set_. Sometimes
a parlor set is equipped with a French window, but this should not
be counted on. But there are usually a grate and mantelpiece, and
three doors. The doors are designed to be set, one in the rear
wall, and one in each of the right and left walls. A ceiling-piece
is rarely found, but borders are always to be had, and a chandelier
is customary.

_The Kitchen Set_ is, as the name implies, less pretentious than
the changeable parlor set. It usually is equipped with three
doors, possesses matching borders, may have an ordinary window,
and often has a fireplace panel.

Slightly altered in appearance, by changing the positions of the
doors and the not very common substitution of a "half-glass door"
in the rear wall, the kitchen set does duty as _The Office Set_.

It is in these two box sets--changed in minor details to serve as
four sets--that the vaudeville playlet is played.

On the following pages will be found eight diagrams showing how
the stock or house box sets can be set in various forms. A study
of these will show how two different acts using the same house set
can be given surroundings that appear absolutely different. These
diagrams should prove of great help to the playlet writer who
wishes to know how many doors he may use, where they are placed
and how his act will fit and play in a regulation set of scenery.

INTRODUCTION TO DIAGRAMS

The following diagrams, showing the scenic equipment of the average
vaudeville theatre, have been specially drawn for this volume and
are used here by courtesy of the Lee Lash Studios, New York. As
they are drawn to a scale of one-eighth of an inch to the foot,
the precise size of the various scenes may be calculated.

The diagrams are based on the average vaudeville stage, which
allows thirty or thirty-two feet between tormentors. The proscenium
arch _may_ be much greater, but the average vaudeville stage will
set the tormentors about thirty feet apart. All vaudeville stage
settings are made back of the tormentor line.

At the tormentor line there will be, of course, a Grand Drapery
and Working Drapery which will mask the first entrance overhead.

There will be either a set of borders for each scene, or else the
borders will be painted to use with any scene, to mask the stage
rigging. The borders are usually hung from six to seven feet
apart, so that in planning a scene this should be considered. In
a few of the larger houses, a ceiling-piece is found, but, as has
been said, this is so rare it should not be counted on.

Most houses have a floor cloth, and medallion or carpet, in addition
to the properties hereafter described. Reference to the diagrams
will show that the tormentors have a "flipper," which runs to the
proscenium arch wall; in the flipper is usually a door or a curtained
opening for the entrances and exits of acts in One.

If you will combine with the diagrams shown these elements which
cannot be diagrammed, you will have a clear idea of the way in
which any scene is constructed. Then if you will imagine the scene
you have in mind as being set up on a stage like that of the Palace
Theatre, shown in the last chapter, you will have a working
understanding of the vaudeville stage.

WHAT THE DIAGRAMS INCLUDE

A well-ordered vaudeville stage, as has been described, possesses
Drops for use in One, one or more Fancy Interiors, a Kitchen Set,
and Exterior Sets. The Drops in One are omitted from these diagrams,
because they would be represented merely by a line drawn behind
the tormentors.

The Fancy Interiors may include a Light Fancy, a Dark Fancy, an
Oak Interior, and a Plain Chamber set. As the differences are
largely of painting, the usual Centre-door Fancy is taken as the
basis for the variations--five different ways of setting it are
shown.

Two out of the many different ways of setting the Kitchen Set are
given.

The Exterior Set allows little or no variation; the only thing
that can be done is to place balustrades, vases, etc., in different
positions on the stage; therefore but one diagram is supplied.


DIAGRAM I.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 1

Showing the usual method of setting a "Fancy." It may be made
shallower by omitting a wing on either side.


DIAGRAM II.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 2

The double arch is thrown from the centre to the side, the landscape
drop being used to back the scene--the drop may be seen through
the window on stage-left. The window of the Fancy Interior is
always of the French type, opening full to the floor.


DIAGRAM III.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 3

This is a deeper and narrower set, approximating more closely a
room in an ordinary house. The double arch at the rear may be
backed with an interior backing or a conservatory backing. If the
interior backing is used, the conservatory backing may be used to
back the single four-foot arch at stage-left.


DIAGRAM IV.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 4

This shows the double arch flanked by a single arch on each side,
making three large openings looking out on the conservatory drop.


DIAGRAM V.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 5

The fireplace is here brought into prominence by setting it in a
corner with two "jogs" on each side. The window is backed with a
landscape or garden drop as desired.


DIAGRAM VI.--KITCHEN SET No. 1

This arrangement of a Kitchen Set makes use of three doors,
emphasizing the double doors in the centre of rear wall, which
open out on an interior backing or a wood or garden drop. In this
and the following setting a small window can be fitted into the
upper half of either of the single doors.


DIAGRAM VII.--KITCHEN SET No. 2

Two doors only are used in this setting; the double doors, in the
same relative position as in the preceding arrangement, open out
on a wood or landscape backing. The fireplace is brought out on
stage-right. The single door on stage-left opens on an interior
backing.


DIAGRAM VIII.--WOOD OR GARDEN SET

Many theatres have two sets of Exterior wings--one of Wood Wings
and one of Garden Wings. In some houses the Wood Wings are used
with the Garden Drop, set vases and balustrades being used to
produce the garden effect, as shown here. Some theatres also have
a Set House and Set Cottage, which may be placed on either side
of the stage; each has a practical door and a practical window.
With the Set House and Set Tree slight variations of exterior
settings may be contrived.

4. Properties

In the argot of the stage the word "property" or "prop" means any
article--aside from scenery--necessary for the proper mounting or
presentation of a play. A property may be a set of furniture, a
rug, a pair of portieres, a picture for the wall, a telephone, a
kitchen range or a stew-pan--indeed, anything a tall that is not
scenery, although serving to complete the effect and illusion of
a scene.

_Furniture_ is usually of only two kinds in a vaudeville playhouse.
There is a set of parlor furniture to go with the parlor set and
a set of kitchen furniture to furnish the kitchen set. But, while
these are all that are at the immediate command of the property-man,
he is usually permitted to exchange tickets for the theatre with
any dealer willing to lend needed sets of furniture, such as a
desk or other office equipment specially required for the use of
an act.

In this way the sets of furniture in the property room may be
expanded with temporary additions into combinations of infinite
variety. But, it is wise not to ask for anything out of the
ordinary, for many theatre owners frown upon bills for hauling,
even though the rent of the furniture may be only a pair of seats.

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