Unkown - "Vergil's Aeneid in Latin"

Thomas Paine - "The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol. II"

Joel Chandler Harris - "Uncle Remus His Songs and His Sayings"

William Shakespeare - "King Henry the Eigth"

Writing for Vaudeville

B >> Brett Page >> Writing for Vaudeville




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

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

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

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

From the foregoing examples we may now attempt

5. A Definition of a Vaudeville Sketch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III. HOW THE VAUDEVILLE SKETCH AND THE PLAYLET DIFFER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV. WHAT A PLAYLET IS

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

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

2--A single definite and predominating problem or theme.

3--A single preeminent character.

4--Motivated speeches.

5--Motivated business and acting.

6--Unity of characters.

7--Compression.

8--Plot.

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

10--Unity of impression [1]

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

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

A Definition of a Playlet

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XI

KINDS OF PLAYLET


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1] See Appendix.

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

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

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

[1] See Appendix.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The same is true of

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

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

And the same is likewise true of

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

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

And also of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XII

HOW PLAYLETS ARE GERMINATED


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


I. THE THEME-PROBLEM AND ITS RANGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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