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Title: Writing for Vaudeville

Author: Brett Page

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WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE

WITH NINE COMPLETE EXAMPLES OF VARIOUS VAUDEVILLE FORMS BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, AARON HOFFMAN, EDGAR ALLAN WOOLF,
TAYLOR GRANVILLE, LOUIS WESLYN, ARTHUR DENVIR, AND JAMES
MADISON

BY BRETT PAGE

AUTHOR OF "CLOSE HARMONY," "CAMPING DAYS," "MEMORIES," ETC.

DRAMATIC EDITOR, NEWSPAPER FEATURE SERVICE, NEW YORK

THE WRITER'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY J. BERG ESENWEIN



FOREWORD


Can you be taught how to write for vaudeville?  If you have the
native gift, what experienced writers say about its problems, what
they themselves have accomplished, and the means by which it has
been wrought, will be of help to you.  So much this book offers,
and more I would not claim for it.

Although this volume is the first treatise on the subject of which
I know, it is less an original offering than a compilation.  Growing
out of a series of articles written in collaboration with Mr.
William C. Lengel for The Green Book Magazine, the subject assumed
such bigness in my eyes that when I began the writing of this book,
I spent months harvesting the knowledge of others to add to my own
experience.  With the warm-heartedness for which vaudevillians are
famous, nearly everyone whose aid I asked lent assistance gladly.
"It is vaudeville's first book," said more than one, deprecating
the value of his own suggestions, "and we want it right in each
slightest particular."

To the following kindly gentlemen I wish to express my especial
thanks:  Aaron Hoffman, Edwin Hopkins, James Madison, Edgar Allan
Woolf, Richard Harding Davis--the foremost example of a writer who
made a famous name first in literature and afterward in
vaudeville--Arthur Hopkins, Taylor Granville, Junie McCree, Arthur
Denvir, Frank Fogarty, Irving Berlin, Charles K. Harris, L. Wolfe
Gilbert, Ballard MacDonald, Louis Bernstein, Joe McCarthy, Joseph
Hart, Joseph Maxwell, George A. Gottlieb, Daniel F. Hennessy,
Sime Silverman, Thomas J. Gray, William C. Lengel, Miss Nellie
Revell, the "big sister of vaudeville," and a host of others whose
names space does not permit my naming again here, but whose work
is evidenced in the following pages.  To Alexander Black, the man
who made the first picture play twenty-one years ago, I owe thanks
for points in the discussion of dramatic values.  And for many
helpful suggestions, and his kindly editing, I wish to express my
gratitude to Dr. J. Berg Esenwein.  To these "friends indeed"
belongs whatever merit this book possesses.


BRETT PAGE
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
August 25, 1915



INTRODUCTION


It falls to the lot of few men in these days to blaze a new trail
in Bookland.  This Mr. Brett Page has done, with firmness and
precision, and with a joy in every stroke that will beget in
countless readers that answering joy which is the reward of both
him who guides and him who follows.  There is but one word for a
work so penetrating, so eductive, so clear--and that word is
_masterly_.  Let no one believe the modest assertion that "Writing
for Vaudeville" is "less an original offering than a compilation."
I have seen it grow and re-grow, section by section, and never
have I known an author give more care to the development of his
theme in an original way.  Mr. Page has worked with fidelity to
the convictions gained while himself writing professionally, yet
with deference for the opinions of past masters in this field.
The result is a book quite unexcelled among manuals of instruction,
for authority, full statement, analysis of the sort that leads the
reader to see what essentials he must build into his own structures,
and sympathetic helpfulness throughout.  I count it an honor to
have been the editorial sponsor for a pioneer book which will be
soon known everywhere.

J. BERG ESENWEIN



WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE



CHAPTER I

THE WHY OF THE VAUDEVILLE ACT


1. The Rise of Vaudeville

A French workman who lived in the Valley of the Vire in the
fourteenth or fifteenth century, is said to be vaudeville's
grandparent.  Of course, the child of his brain bears not even a
remote resemblance to its descendant of to-day, yet the line is
unbroken and the relationship clearer than many of the family trees
of the royal houses.  The French workman's name was Oliver Bassel,
or Olivier Basselin, and in his way he was a poet.  He composed
and sang certain sprightly songs which struck the popular fancy
and achieved a reputation not only in his own town but throughout
the country.

Bassel's success raised the usual crop of imitators and soon a
whole family of songs like his were being whistled in France.  In
the course of time these came to be classed as a new and distinct
form of musical entertainment.  They were given the name of
"Val-de-Vire" from the valley in which Bassel was born.  This
name became corrupted, into "vaux-de-vire" in the time of Louis
XVI, and was applied to all the popular or topical songs sung on
the streets of Paris.  Then the aristocrats took up these songs
and gave entertainments at their country seats.  To these
entertainments they gave the name of "vaux-de-ville," the last
syllable being changed to honor Bassel's native town [1] And
gradually the x was dropped and the word has remained through the
years as it is to-day.

[1] Another version relates that these songs were sung on the Pont
Neuf in Paris, where stands the Hotel de Ville, or City Hall, and
thus the generic name acquired the different termination.

As the form of entertainment advanced, the word vaudeville expanded
in meaning.  It came to comprise not only a collection of songs,
but also acrobatic feats and other exhibitions.  Having no dramatic
sequence whatever, these unrelated acts when shown together achieved
recognition as a distinct form of theatrical entertainment.  As
"vaudeville"--or "variety"--this form of entertainment became known
and loved in every country of the world.

Vaudeville was introduced into this country before 1820, but it
did not become a common form of entertainment until shortly before
the Civil War when the word 'variety' was at once adopted and
became familiar as something peculiarly applicable to the troubled
times.  The new and always cheerful entertainment found the reward
of its optimism in a wide popularity.  But as those days of war
were the days of men, vaudeville made its appeal to men only.  And
then the war-clouds passed away and the show business had to
reestablish itself, precisely as every other commercial pursuit
had to readjust itself to changed conditions.

Tony Pastor saw his opportunity.  On July 31, 1865, he opened "Tony
Pastor's Opera House" at 199-201 Bowery, New York.  He had a theory
that a vaudeville entertainment from which every objectionable
word and action were taken away, and from which the drinking bar
was excluded, would appeal to women and children as well as men.
He knew that no entertainment that excluded women could long hold
a profitable place in a man's affections.  So to draw the whole
family to his new Opera House, Tony Pastor inaugurated clean
vaudeville [1]. Pastor's success was almost instantaneous.  It
became the fashion to go to Pastor's Opera House and later when
he moved to Broadway, and then up to Fourteenth Street, next to
Tammany Hall, he carried his clientele with him.  And vaudeville,
as a form of entertainment that appealed to every member of the
home circle, was firmly established--for a while.

[1] In the New York Clipper for December 19, 1914, there is an
interesting article:  "The Days of Tony Pastor," by Al.  Fostelle,
an old-time vaudeville performer, recounting the names of the
famous performers who played for Tony Pastor in the early days.
It reads like a "who's who" of vaudeville history.  Mr. Fostelle,
has in his collection a bill of an entertainment given in England
in 1723, consisting of singing, dancing, character impersonations,
with musical accompaniment, tight-rope walking, acrobatic feats,
etc.

For Pastor's success in New York did not at first seem to the
average vaudeville manager something that could be duplicated
everywhere.  A large part of the profits of the usual place came
from the sale of drinks and to forego this source of revenue seemed
suicidal.  Therefore, vaudeville as a whole continued for years
on the old plane.  "Variety" was the name--in England vaudeville
is still called "variety"--that it held even more widely then.
And in the later seventies and the early eighties "variety" was
on the ebb-tide.  It was classed even lower than the circus, from
which many of its recruits were drawn.

Among the men who came to vaudeville's rescue, because they saw
that to appear to the masses profitably, vaudeville must be clean,
were F. F. Proctor in Philadelphia, and B. F. Keith in Boston.
On Washington Street in Boston, B. F. Keith had opened a "store
show."  The room was very small and he had but a tiny stage; still
he showed a collection of curiosities, among which were a two-headed
calf and a fat woman.  Later on he added a singer and a serio-comic
comedian and insisted that they eliminate from their acts everything
that might offend the most fastidious.  The result was that he
moved to larger quarters and ten months later to still more
commodious premised.

Continuous vaudeville--"eleven o'clock in the morning until eleven
at night"--had its birth on July 6, 1885.  It struck the popular
fancy immediately and soon there was hardly a city of any importance
that did not possess its "continuous" house.  From the "continuous"
vaudeville has developed the two-performances-a-day policy, for
which vaudeville is now so well known.

The vaudeville entertainment of this generation is, however, a
vastly different entertainment from that of even the nineties.
What it has become in popular affection it owes not only to Tony
Pastor, F. F.  Proctor, or even to B. F. Keith--great as was his
influence--but to a host of showmen whose names and activities
would fill more space than is possible here.  E. F. Albee, Oscar
Hammerstein, S. Z. Poli, William Morris, Mike Shea, James E. Moore,
Percy G. Williams, Harry Davis, Morris Meyerfeld, Martin Beck,
John J. Murdock, Daniel F. Hennessy, Sullivan and Considine,
Alexander Pantages, Marcus Loew, Charles E. Kohl, Max Anderson,
Henry Zeigler, and George Castle, are but a few of the many men
living and dead who have helped to make vaudeville what it is.

From the old variety show, made up of a singer of topical songs,
an acrobatic couple, a tight-rope walker, a sidewalk "patter" pair,
and perhaps a very rough comedy sketch, there has developed a
performance that sometimes includes as many as ten or twelve acts,
each one presented by an artist whose name is known around the
world.  One of the laments of the old vaudeville performers is
that they have a place in vaudeville no more.  The most famous
grand opera singers and the greatest actors and actresses appear
in their room.  The most renowned dramatists write some of its
playlets.  The finest composers cut down their best-known works
to fit its stage, and little operas requiring forty people and
three or four sets of scenery are the result.  To the legitimate
[1] stage vaudeville has given some of its successful plays and
at least one grand opera has been expanded from a playlet.  To-day
a vaudeville performance is the best thought of the world condensed
to fit the flying hour.

[1] _Legitimate_ is a word used in the theatrical business to
distinguish the full-evening drama, its actors, producers, and its
mechanical stage from those of burlesque and vaudeville.  Originally
coined as a word of reproach against vaudeville, it has lost its
sting and is used by vaudevillians as well as legitimate actors
and managers.

2. Of What a Vaudeville Show is Made

There is no keener psychologist than a vaudeville manager.  Not
only does he present the best of everything that can be shown upon
a stage, but he so arranges the heterogeneous elements that they
combine to form a unified whole.  He brings his audiences together
by advertising variety and reputations, and he sends them away
aglow with the feeling that they have been entertained every minute.
His raw material is the best he can buy.  His finished product is
usually the finest his brain can form.  He engages Sarah Bernhardt,
Calve, a Sir James M. Barrie playlet, Ethel Barrymore, and Henry
Miller.  He takes one of them as the nucleus of a week's bill.
Then he runs over the names of such regular vaudevillians as Grace
La Rue, Nat Wills, Trixie Friganza, Harry Fox and Yansci Dollie,
Emma Carus, Sam and Kitty Morton, Walter C.  Kelly, Conroy and
LeMaire, Jack Wilson, Hyams and McIntyre, and Frank Fogarty.  He
selects two or maybe three of them.  Suddenly it occurs to him
that he hasn't a big musical "flash" for his bill, so he telephones
a producer like Jesse L. Lasky, Arthur Hopkins or Joe Hart and
asks him for one of his fifteen- or twenty-people acts.  This he
adds to his bill.  Then he picks a song-and-dance act and an
acrobatic turn.  Suddenly he remembers that he wants--not for this
show, but for some future week--Gertrude Hoffman with her big
company, or Eva Tanguay all by herself.  This off his mind, the
manager lays out his show--if it is the standard nine-act
bill--somewhat after the following plan, as George A. Gottlieb,
who books Keith's Palace Theatre, New York, shows--probably the
best and certainly the "biggest" vaudeville entertainments seen
in this country--has been good enough to explain.

"We usually select a 'dumb act' for the first act on the bill.
It may be a dancing act, some good animal act, or any act that
makes a good impression and will not be spoiled by the late arrivals
seeking their seats.  Therefore it sometimes happens that we make
use of a song-and-dance turn, or any other little act that does
not depend on its words being heard.

"For number two position we select an interesting act of the sort
recognized as a typical 'vaudeville act.' It may be almost anything
at all, though it should be more entertaining than the first act.
For this reason it often happens that a good man-and-woman singing
act is placed here.  This position on the bill is to 'settle' the
audience and to prepare it for the show.

"With number three position we count on waking up the audience.
The show has been properly started and from now on it must build
right up to the finish.  So we offer a comedy dramatic sketch--a
playlet that wakens the interest and holds the audience every
minute with a culminative effect that comes to its laughter-climax
at the 'curtain,' or any other kind of act that is not of the same
order as the preceding turn, so that, having laid the foundations,
we may have the audience wondering what is to come next.

"For number four position we must have a 'corker' of an act--and
a 'name.' It must be the sort of act that will rouse the audience
to expect still better things, based on the fine performance of
the past numbers.  Maybe this act is the first big punch of the
show; anyway, it must strike home and build up the interest for
the act that follows.

"And here for number five position, a big act, and at the same
time another big name, must be presented.  Or it might be a big
dancing act--one of those delightful novelties vaudeville likes
so well.  In any event this act must be as big a 'hit' as any on
the bill.  It is next to intermission and the audience must have
something really worth while to talk over.  And so we select one
of the best acts on the bill to crown the first half of the show.

"The first act after intermission, number six on the bill, is a
difficult position to fill, because the act must not let down the
carefully built-up tension of interest and yet it must not be
stronger than the acts that are to follow.  Very likely there is
chosen a strong vaudeville specialty, with comedy well to the fore.
Perhaps a famous comedy dumb act is selected, with the intention
of getting the audience back in its seats without too many conspicuous
interruptions of what is going on on the stage.  Any sort of act
that makes a splendid start-off is chosen, for there has been a
fine first half and the second half must be built up again--of
course the process is infinitely swifter in the second half of the
show--and the audience brought once more into a delighted-expectant
attitude.

"Therefore the second act after intermission--number seven--must
be stronger than the first.  It is usually a full-stage act and
again must be another big name.  Very likely it is a big playlet,
if another sketch has not been presented earlier on the bill.  It
may be a comedy playlet or even a serious dramatic playlet, if the
star is a fine actor or actress and the name is well known.  Or
it may be anything at all that builds up the interest and appreciation
of the audience to welcome the 'big' act that follows.  "For here
in number eight position--next to closing, on a nine-act bill--the
comedy hit of the show is usually placed.  It is one of the acts
for which the audience has been waiting.  Usually it is one of the
famous 'single' man or 'single' women acts that vaudeville has
made such favorites.

"And now we have come to the act that closes the show.  We count
on the fact that some of the audience will be going out.  Many
have only waited to see the chief attraction of the evening, before
hurrying off to their after-theatre supper and dance.  So we spring
a big 'flash.' It must be an act that does not depend for its
success upon being heard perfectly.  Therefore a 'sight' act is
chosen, an animal act maybe, to please the children, or a Japanese
troupe with their gorgeous kimonos and vividly harmonizing stage
draperies, or a troupe of white-clad trapeze artists flying against
a background of black.  Whatever the act is, it must be a showy
act, for it closes the performance and sends the audience home
pleased with the program to the very last minute.

"Now all the time a booking-manager is laying out his show, he has
not only had these many artistic problems on his mind, but also
the mechanical working of the show.  For instance, he must consider
the actual physical demands of his stage and not place next each
other two full-stage acts.  If he did, how would the stage hands
change the scenery without causing a long and tedious wait?  In
vaudeville there must be no waits.  Everything must run with
unbroken stride.  One act must follow another as though it were
especially made for the position.  And the entire show must be
dovetailed to the split seconds of a stop-watch.

"Therefore it is customary to follow an 'act in One' (See below)
with an act requiring Full Stage.  Then after the curtain has
fallen on this act, an act comes on to play in One again.  A show
can, of course, start with a full-stage act, and the alternation
process remains the same.  Or there may be an act that can open
in One and then go into Full Stage--after having given the stage
hands time to set their scenery--or vice versa, close in One.
Briefly, the whole problem is simply this--acts must be arranged
not only in the order of their interest value, but also according
to their physical demands.

"But there is still another problem the manager must solve. 'Variety'
is vaudeville's paternal name--vaudeville must present a _varied_
bill and a show consisting of names that will tend to have a
box-office appeal.  No two acts in a show should be alike.  No two
can be permitted to conflict. 'Conflict' is a word that falls with
ominous meaning on a vaudeville performer's or manager's ears,
because it means death to one of the acts and injury to the show
as a whole.  If two famous singing 'single' women were placed on
the same bill, very likely there would be odious comparisons--even
though they did not use songs that were alike.  And however
interesting each might be, both would lose in interest.  And yet,
sometimes we do just this thing--violating a minor rule to win a
great big box-office appeal.

"Part of the many sides of this delicate problem may be seen when
you consider that no two 'single' singing acts should be placed
next each other--although they may not conflict if they are placed
far apart on the bill.  And no two 'quiet' acts may be placed
together.  The tempo of the show must be maintained--and because
tragic playlets, and even serious playlets, are suspected of
'slowing up a show,' they are not booked unless very exceptional."

These are but a few of the many sides of the problem of what is
called "laying out a show."  A command of the art of balancing a
show is a part of the genius of a great showman.  It is a gift.
It cannot be analyzed.  A born showman lays out his bill, not by
rule, but by feeling.

3. The Writer's Part in a Vaudeville Show

In preparing the raw material from which the manager makes up his
show, the writer may play many parts.  He may bear much of the
burden of entertainment, as in a playlet, or none of the responsibility,
as in the average dumb act.  And yet, he may write the pantomimic
story that pleases the audience most.  Indeed, the writer may be
everything in a vaudeville show, and always his part is an important
one.

Of course the trained seals do not need a dramatist to lend them
interest, nor does the acrobat need his skill; but without the
writer what would the actress be, and without the song-smith, what
would the singer sing?  And even the animal trainer may utilize
the writer to concoct his "line of talk."  The monologist, who of
all performers seems the most independent of the author, buys his
merriest stories, his most up-to-the-instant jests, ready-made
from the writer who works like a marionette's master pulling the
strings.  The two-act, which sometimes seems like a funny impromptu
fight, is the result of the writer's careful thinking.  The
flirtatious couple who stroll out on the stage to make everyone
in the audience envious, woo Cupid through the brain of their
author.  And the musical comedy, with its strong combination of
nearly everything; is but the embodied flight of the writer's
fancy.  In fact, the writer supplies much of the life-blood of a
vaudeville show.  Without him modern vaudeville could not live.

Thus, much of the present wide popularity of vaudeville is due to
the writer.  It is largely owing to the addition of his thoughts
that vaudeville stands to-day as a greater influence--because it
has a wider appeal--than the legitimate drama in the make-believe
life of the land.  Even the motion pictures, which are nearer the
eyes of the masses, are not nearer their hearts.  Vaudeville was
the first to foster motion pictures and vaudeville still accords
the motion picture the place it deserves on its bills.  For
vaudeville is the amusement weekly of the world--it gathers and
presents each week the best the world affords in entertainment.
And much of the best comes from the writer's brain.

Because mechanical novelties that are vaudeville-worth-while are
rare, and because acrobats and animal trainers are of necessity
limited by the frailties of the flesh, and for the reason that
dancers cannot forever present new steps, it remains for the writer
to bring to vaudeville the never-ceasing novelty of his thoughts.
New songs, new ideas, new stories, new dreams are what vaudeville
demands from the writer.  Laughter that lightens the weary day is
what is asked for most.

It is in the fulfilling of vaudeville's fine mission that writers
all over the world are turning out their best.  And because the
mission of vaudeville is fine, the writing of anything that is not
fine is contemptible.  The author who tries to turn his talents
to base uses--putting an untrue emphasis on life's false values,
picturing situations that are not wholesome, using words that are
not clean--deserves the fate of failure that awaits him.  As E.
F. Albee, who for years has been a controlling force in vaudeville,
wrote:  [1] "We have no trouble in keeping vaudeville clean and
wholesome, unless it is with some act that is just entering, for
the majority of the performers are jealous of the respectable name
that vaudeville has to-day, and cry out themselves against
besmirchment by others."

[1] "The Future of the Show Business," by E. F. Albee, in The
Billboard for December 19, 1914.

Reality and truth are for what the vaudeville writer strives.  The
clean, the fine, the wholesome is his goal.  He finds in the many
theatres all over the land a countless audience eager to hear what
he has to say.  And millions are invested to help him say it well.

CHAPTER II

SHOULD YOU TRY TO WRITE FOR VAUDEVILLE?


"I became a writer," George Bernard Shaw once said, "because I
wanted to get a living without working for it--I have since realized
my mistake."  Anyone who thinks that by writing for vaudeville he
can get a living without working for it is doomed to a sad and
speedy awakening.

If I were called upon to give a formula for the creation of a
successful vaudeville writer, I would specify:  The dramatic genius
of a Shakespere, the diplomatic craftiness of a Machiavelli, the
explosive energy of a Roosevelt, and the genius-for-long-hours of
an Edison:  mix in equal proportions, add a dash of Shaw's impudence,
all the patience of Job, and keep boiling for a lifetime over the
seething ambition of Napoleon.

In other--and less extreme--words, if you contemplate writing for
vaudeville for your bread and butter, you must bring to the business,
if not genius, at least the ability to think, and if not boundless
energy, at any rate a determination never to rest content with the
working hours of the ordinary professions.

If you suppose that the mere reading of this book is going to make
you able to think, permit me gently to disillusion you; and if you
are imbued with the flattering faith that after studying these
chapters you will suddenly be able to sit down and write a successful
playlet, monologue, two-act, musical comedy libretto, or even a
good little "gag," in the words of classic vaudeville--forget it!
All this book can do for you--all any instruction can do--is to
show you the right path, show precisely _how_ others have successfully
essayed it, and wish you luck.  Do you remember the brave lines
of W. E. Henley, the blind English poet:

Out of the night that covers me,
  Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
  For my unconquerable soul.

And again in the same poem, "Invictus":

I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul.

There sings the spirit that will carry a writer to success in
vaudeville or in any other line of writing; and it is this inspired
attitude you should assume toward the present book of instruction.

These chapters, carefully designed and painstakingly arranged,
contain information and suggestions which, if studied and applied
by the right person, will help him to a mastery of vaudeville
writing.  But they should be viewed not as laying down rules, only
as being suggestive.  This book cannot teach you how to write--with
its aid you may be able to teach yourself.

Are you the sort of person likely to make a success of writing for
vaudeville?  You, alone, can determine.  But the following discussion
of some of the elements of equipment which anyone purposing to
write for vaudeville should possess, may help you find the answer.

1. Experience in Other Forms of Writing Valuable

Let us suppose that you have been engaged in writing for a newspaper
for years.  You started as a reporter and because of your unusual
ability in the handling of political news have made politics your
specialty.  You have been doing nothing but politics until politics
seems to be all you know.  Suddenly the sporting editor falls ill,
and at the moment there is no one to take his place but you.  Your
assistant takes over your work and you are instructed to turn out
a daily page of sporting news.

If you knew nothing at all about writing you would find the task
nearly impossible to accomplish.  But you do know how to write and
therefore the mere writing does not worry you.  And your experience
as a special writer on politics has taught you that there are
certain points all special newspaper work has in common and you
apply your knowledge to the task before you.

Still you are seriously handicapped for a time because you have
been thinking in terms of politics.  But soon, by turning all your
energy and ability upon your new subject, you learn to think in
terms of sport.  And, if you are a better thinker and a better
writer than the old sporting editor, it won't be long before you
turn out a better sporting page than he did.  If you were the owner
of the newspaper, which, in the emergency, would you choose to be
your sporting editor:  the untried man who has never demonstrated
his ability to write, the reporter who has no knowledge of special
writing, or the trained writer who has mastered one specialty and,
it may reasonably be supposed, will master another quickly?  The
same care you would exercise in choosing another man to work for
you, you should exercise in choosing your own work for yourself.

Do you know how to write?  Do you write with ease and find pleasure
in the work?  If you do, class yourself with the reporter.

What success have you had in writing fiction?  Have you written
successful novels or short-stories?  If you have, class yourself
with the special writer.  Did you ever write a play?  Was your
full-evening play accepted and successful?  If you have written a
play and if your play was a success, class yourself with the
sporting editor himself--but as one who has made a success in only
one specialty in the realm of sport.

For, those who have had some success in other forms of writing--even
the successful playwright--and those who never have written even
a salable joke, all have to learn the slightly different form of
the vaudeville act.

But, having once learned the form and become perfectly familiar
with vaudeville's peculiar requirements, the dramatist and the
trained fiction writer will outstrip the untrained novice.  Remember
that the tortoise was determined, persistent, and energetic.

2. Ability to Think in Drama and Technical Knowledge of the Stage
Required

The dramatist and the trained fiction writer possess imagination,
they think in plots, they have learned how to picture vivid,
dramatic incidents, and they know a story when it comes up and
taps them on the shoulder.  Furthermore, they know where to look
for ideas, and how to twist them to plot uses.  In every one of
these points of special knowledge both the dramatist and the trained
fiction writer have the advantage over the untrained novice, for
the essence of all vaudeville writing lies in plot--which is
story--arrangement.

But there is a wide difference between being able to think in a
story-plot and in drama, and in this the playwright who has produced
a full-evening play has the advantage over even the trained fiction
writer when it comes to applying his dramatic knowledge to vaudeville.
Precisely what the difference is, and what drama itself is--especially
that angle of the art to be found in vaudeville--will be taken up
and explained as clearly as the ideas admit of explanation, in the
following pages.  But not on one page, nor even in a whole chapter,
will the definition of drama be found, for pulsating life cannot
be bound by words.  However, by applying the rules and heeding the
suggestions herein contained, you will be able to understand the
"why" of the drama that you feel when you witness it upon the
stage.  The ability to think in drama means being able to see drama
and bring it fresh and new and gripping to the stage.

Of course drama is nothing more than story presented by a different
method than that employed in the short-story and the novel.  Yet
the difference in methods is as great as the difference between
painting and sculpture.  Indeed the novel-writer's methods have
always seemed to me analogous to those employed by the painter,
and the dramatist's methods similar to those used by the sculptor.
And I have marvelled at the nonchalant way in which the fiction
writer often rushes into the writing of a play, when a painter
would never think of trying to "sculpt" until he had learned at
least some of the very different processes employed in the strange
art-form of sculpture.  The radical difference between writing and
playwrighting [1] has never been popularly understood, but some
day it will be comprehended by everybody as clearly as by those
whose business it is to make plays.

[1] Note the termination of the word _playwright_.  A "wright" is
a workman in some mechanical business.  Webster's dictionary says:
"Wright is used chiefly in compounds, as, figuratively, playwright."
It is significant that the playwright is compelled to rely for
nearly all his effects upon purely mechanical means.

An intimate knowledge of the stage itself is necessary for success
in the writing of plays.  The dramatist must know precisely what
means, such as scenery, sound-effects, and lights--the hundred
contributing elements of a purely mechanical nature at his command--
he can employ to construct his play to mimic reality.  In the
present commercial position of the stage such knowledge is
absolutely necessary, or the writer may construct an act that
cannot possibly win a production, because he has made use of
scenes that are financially out of the question, even if they are
artistically possible.

This is a fundamental knowledge that every person who would write
for the stage must possess.  It ranks with the "a b c" course in
the old common school education, and yet nearly every novice
overlooks it in striving after the laurel wreaths of dramatic
success that are impossible without it.  And, precisely in the
degree that stage scenery is different from nature's scenes, is
the way people must talk upon the stage different from the way
they talk on the street.  The method of stage speech--_what_ is
said, not _how_ it is said--is best expressed in the definition
of all art, which is summed up in the one word "suppression."  Not
what to put in, but what to leave out, is the knowledge the
playwright--in common with all other artists--must possess.  The
difference in methods between writing a novel and writing a play
lies in the difference in the scenes and speeches that must be
left out, as well as in the descriptions of scenery and moods of
character that everyone knows cannot be expressed in a play by
words.

Furthermore, the playwright is working with _spoken_, not _written_,
words, therefore he must know something about the art of acting,
if he would achieve the highest success.  He must know not only
how the words he writes will sound when they are spoken, but he
must also know how he can make gestures and glances take the place
of the volumes they can be made to speak.

Therefore of each one of the different arts that are fused into
the composite art of the stage, the playwright must have intimate
knowledge.  Prove the truth of this statement for yourself by
selecting at random any play you have liked and inquiring into the
technical education of its author.  The chances are scores to one
that the person who wrote that play has been closely connected
with the stage for years.  Either he was an actor, a theatrical
press agent, a newspaper man, a professional play-reader for some
producer, or gained special knowledge of the stage through a
dramatic course at college or by continual attendance at the theatre
and behind the scenes.  It is only by acquiring _special_ knowledge
of one of the most difficult of arts that anyone may hope to achieve
success.

3. A Familiar Knowledge of Vaudeville and its Special Stage Necessary

It is strange but true that a writer able to produce a successful
vaudeville playlet often writes a successful full-evening play,
but that only in rare instances do full-evening dramatists produce
successful vaudeville playlets.  Clyde Fitch wrote more than
fifty-four long plays in twenty years, and yet his "Frederic
Lemaitre," used by Henry Miller in vaudeville, was not a true
vaudeville playlet--merely a short play--and achieved its success
simply because Fitch wrote it and Miller played it with consummate
art.

The vaudeville playlet and the play that is merely short, are
separate art forms, they are precisely and as distinctly different
as the short-story and the story that is merely short.  It is only
within the last few years that Brander Matthews drew attention to
the artistic isolation of the short-story; and J. Berg Esenwein,
in his very valuable work [1], established the truth so that all
might read and know it.  For years I have contended for the
recognition of the playlet as an art form distinct from the play
that is short.

[1] Writing the Short-Story, by J. Berg Esenwein, published uniform
with this volume, in, "The Writer's Library."

And what is true of the peculiar difference of the playlet form
is, in a lesser measure, true of the monologue, the two-act, and
the one-act musical comedy.  They are all different from their
sisters and brothers that are found as integral parts of full-evening
entertainments.

To recognize these forms as distinct, to learn what material [2]
best lends itself to them and how it may be turned into the most
natural and efficient form, requires a special training different
from that necessary for the writing of plays for the legitimate
stage.

[2] The word _material_ in vaudeville means manuscript material.
To write vaudeville material is to write monologues and playlets
and the other forms of stage speech used in vaudeville acts.

But not only is there a vast difference between the material and
the art forms of the legitimate and the vaudeville stage, there
is also a great difference in their playing stages.  The arrangements
of the vaudeville stage, its lights and scenery, are all unique,
as are even the playing spaces and mechanical equipment.

Therefore the author must know the mechanical aids peculiar to his
special craft, as well as possess a familiar knowledge of the
material that vaudeville welcomes and the unique forms into which
that material must be cast.

4. What Chance Has the Beginner?

The "gentle reader" who has read thus far certainly has not been
deterred by the emphasis--not undue emphasis, by the way--placed
on the value of proved ability in other forms of writing to one
who would write for vaudeville.  That he has not been discouraged
by what has been said--if he is a novice--proves that he is not
easily downcast.  If he has been discouraged--even if he has read
this far simply from curiosity--proves that he is precisely the
person who should not waste his time trying to write for vaudeville.
Such a person is one who ought to ponder his lack of fitness for
the work in hand and turn all his energies into his own business.
Many a good clerk, it has been truly said, has been wasted in a
poor writer.

But, while emphasis has been laid upon the value of training in
other forms of literary work, the emphasis has been placed not on
purely literary skill, but on the possession of ideas and the
training necessary to turn the ideas to account.  It is "up to"
the ambitious beginner, therefore, to analyze the problem for
himself and to decide if he possesses the peculiar qualifications
that can by great energy and this special training place him upon
a par with the write who has made a success in other forms of
literary work.  For there is a sense in which no literary training
is really necessary for success in vaudeville writing.

If the amateur has an imaginative mind, the innate ability to see
and turn to his own uses an interesting and coherent story, and
is possessed of the ability to think in drama, and, above all, has
the gift of humor, he can write good vaudeville material, even if
he has not education or ability to write an acceptable poem, article
or short-story.  In other words, a mastery of English prose or
verse is not necessary for success in vaudeville writing.  Some
of the most successful popular songs, the most successful playlets,
and other vaudeville acts, have been written by men unable to write
even a good letter.

But the constant advancement in excellence demanded of vaudeville
material, both by the managers and the public, is gradually making
it profitable for only the best-educated, specially-trained writers
to undertake this form of work.  The old, illiterate, rough-and-ready
writer is passing, in a day when the "coon shouter" has given the
headline-place to Calve and Melba, and every dramatic star has
followed Sarah Bernhardt into the "two-a-day." [1]

[1] The _two-a-day_ is stage argot for vaudeville.  It comes from
the number of performances the actor "does," for in vaudeville
there are two shows every day, six or seven days a week.

Nevertheless, in this sense the novice needs no literary training.
If he can see drama in real life and feels how it can be turned
into a coherent, satisfying story, he can learn how to apply that
story to the peculiar requirements of vaudeville.  But no amount
of instruction can supply this inborn ability.  The writer himself
must be the master of his fate, the captain of his own dramatic
soul.

CHAPTER III

THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE AND ITS DIMENSIONS


To achieve success in any art the artist must know his tools and
for what purposes they are designed.  Furthermore, to achieve the
highest success, he must know what he cannot do as well as what
he can do with them.

The vaudeville stage--considered as a material thing--lends itself
to only a few definite possibilities of use, and its scenery,
lights and stage-effects constitute the box of tools the vaudeville
writer has at his command.


I. THE PHYSICAL PROPORTIONS OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE

The footlights are the equator of the theatre, separating the
"front of the house," or auditorium, from the "back of the house,"
or stage.  The frame through which the audience views the stage
is the "proscenium arch."  Flat against the stage side of the arch
run the "house curtain" and the asbestos curtain that are raised
at the beginning and lowered at the end of the performance.

That portion of the stage which lies between the curving footlights
and a line drawn between the bases of the proscenium arch is called
the "apron."  The apron is very wide in old-fashioned theatres,
but is seldom more than two or three feet wide in recently built
houses.

1. One

Back of the proscenium arch--four feet or more behind it--you have
noticed canvas-covered wings painted in neutral-toned draperies
to harmonize with every sort of curtain, and you have noticed that
they are pushed forward or drawn back as it is found necessary to
widen or make narrow the stage opening.  These first wings, called
"tormentors," [1] extend upward from the floor--anywhere from
18 to 25 feet,--to the "Grand Drapery" and "Working Drapery," or
first "border," which extend and hang just in front of them across
the stage and hide the stage-rigging from the audience.  The space
lying between the tormentors and a line drawn between the bases
of the proscenium arch is called "One."

[1] No one of the score I have asked for the origin of the word
_tormentor_ has been able to give it.  They all say they have asked
old-time stage-carpenters, but even they did not know.

It is in One that monologues, most "single acts"--that is, acts
presented by one person--and many "two-acts"--acts requiring but
two people--are played.

Behind the tormentors is a curtain called the "olio," which
fulfills the triple purpose of hiding the rest of the stage, serving
as scenery for acts in One and often as a curtain to raise and
lower on acts playing in the space back of One.

2. Two

Five, or six, or even seven feet behind the tormentors you have
noticed another set of wings which--extending parallel with the
tormentors--serve to mask the rest of stage.  The space between
these wings and the line of the olio is called "Two."

In Two, acts such as flirtation-acts--a man and a woman playing
lover-like scenes--which use scenery or small "props," and all
other turns requiring but a small playing space, are staged.

3. Three

An equal number of feet back of the wings that bound Two, are wings
that serve as boundaries for "Three."

In Three, playlets that require but shallow sets, and other acts
that need not more than twelve feet for presentation, are played.

4. Four or Full Stage

Behind the wings that bound Three are another pair of wings, set
an equal number of feet back, which serve as the boundaries of
"Four."  But, as there are rarely more than four entrances on any
stage, Four is usually called "Full Stage."

In Full Stage are presented all acts such as acrobatic acts, animal
turns, musical comedies, playlets and other pretentious acts that
require deep sets and a wide playing space.

5. Bare Stage

Sometimes the very point of a playlet depends upon showing not the
conventional stage, as it is commonly seen, but the real stage as
it is, unset with scenery; therefore sometimes the entire stage
is used as the playing stage, and then in the vernacular it is
called "Bare Stage." [1]

[1] The New Leader, written by Aaron Hoffman and played for so
many years by Sam Mann & Company, is an excellent example of a
Bare Stage act.

On the opposite page is a diagram of the stage of Keith's Palace
Theatre, New York City.  A comparison of the preceding definitions
with this diagram should give a clear understanding of the vaudeville
playing stage.

II.  THE WORKING DEPARTMENTS OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE

At audience-right--or stage-left--flat against the extended wall
of the proscenium arch in the First Entrance (to One) there is
usually a signal-board equipped with push buttons presided over
by the stage-manager.  The stage-manager is the autocrat behind
the scenes.  His duty is to see that the program is run smoothly
without the slightest hitch or wait between acts and to raise and
lower the olio, or to signal the act-curtain up or down, on
cues. [2]

[2] A _cue_ is a certain word or action regarded as the signal for
some other speech or action by another actor, or the signal for
the lights to change or a bell to ring or something to happen
during the course of a dramatic entertainment.

                      [diagram]

STAGE-DIAGRAM OF THE PALACE THEATRE, NEW YORK

The author wishes to express his thanks to Mr. Elmer F. Rogers,
house-manager, and Mr. William Clark, stage-manager, respectively,
of the Palace Theatre, for the careful measurements from which
this diagram was drawn.

When an act is ready to begin, the stage-manager pushes a button
to signal the olio up or raises it himself--if, that drop [1] is
worked from the stage--and on the last cue he pushes another button
to signal the curtain down, or lowers it himself, as the case may
be.  He keeps time on the various acts and sees that the performers
are ready when their turn arrives.  Under the stage-manager are
the various departments to which the working of scenery and effects
are entrusted.

[1] A _drop_ is the general name for a curtain of canvas--painted
to represent some scene and stretched on a batten--a long, thick
strip of wood--pocketed in the lower end to give the canvas the
required stability. _Sets of lines_ are tied to the upper batten
on which the drop is tied and thus the drop can be raised or lowered
to its place on the stage.  There are sets of lines in the rear
boundaries of One, Two, Three and Four, and drops can be _hung_
on any desired set.

1. The Stage-Carpenter and His Flymen and Grips

As a rule the stage-manager is also the stage-carpenter.  As such
he, the wizard of scenery, has charge of the men, and is able to
erect a palace, construct a tenement, raise a garden or a forest,
or supply you with a city street in an instant.

Up on the wall of the stage, just under a network of iron called
the "gridiron"--on which there are innumerable pulleys through
which run ropes or "lines" that carry the scenery--there is, in
the older houses, a balcony called the "fly-gallery."  Into the
fly-gallery run the ends of all the lines that are attached to the
counter-weighted drops and curtains; and in the gallery are the
flymen who pull madly on these ropes to lift or lower the curtains
and drops when the signal flashes under the finger of the stage-manager
at the signal-board below.  But in the newer houses nearly all
drops and scenery are worked from the stage level, and the
fly-gallery--if there is one--is deserted.  When a "set" is to be
made, the stage-carpenter takes his place in the centre of the
stage and claps his hands a certain number of times to make his
men understand which particular set is wanted--if the sequence of
the sets has not yet been determined and written down for the
flymen to follow in definite order.  Then the flymen lower a drop
to its place on the stage and the "grips" push out the "flats"
that make the wall of a room or the wings that form the scenery
of a forest--or whatever the set may be.

2. The Property-Man and His Assistants

Into the mimic room that the grips are setting comes the
Property-man--"Props," in stage argot--with his assistants, who
place in the designated positions the furniture, bric-a-brac,
pianos, and other properties, that the story enacted in this room
demands.

After the act has been presented and the curtain has been rung
down, the order to "strike" is given and the clearers run in and
take away all the furniture and properties, while the property-man
substitutes the new furniture and properties that are needed.
This is done at the same time the grips and fly men are changing
the scenery.  No regiment is better trained in its duties.  The
property-man of the average vaudeville theatre is a hard-worked
chap.  Beside being an expert in properties, he must be something
of an actor, for if there is an "extra man" needed in a playlet
with a line or two to speak, it is on him that the duty falls.
He must be ready on the instant with all sorts of effects, such
as glass-crashes and wood-crashes, when a noise like a man being
thrown downstairs or through a window is required, or if a doorbell
or a telephone-bell must ring at a certain instant on a certain
cue, or the noise of thunder, the wash of the sea on the shore,
or any one of a hundred other effects be desired.

3. The Electrician

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

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

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

III.  THE SCENERY OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


1. The Successful Writer's Attitude toward Scenery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER IV

THE SCENERY COMMONLY FOUND IN VAUDEVILLE THEATRES


1. The Olio

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

2. Open Sets

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

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

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

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

3. The Box Sets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INTRODUCTION TO DIAGRAMS

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT THE DIAGRAMS INCLUDE

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

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

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

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


DIAGRAM I.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 1

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


DIAGRAM II.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 2

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


DIAGRAM III.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 3

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


DIAGRAM IV.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 4

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


DIAGRAM V.--FANCY INTERIOR No. 5

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


DIAGRAM VI.--KITCHEN SET No. 1

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


DIAGRAM VII.--KITCHEN SET No. 2

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


DIAGRAM VIII.--WOOD OR GARDEN SET

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

4. Properties

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

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

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

For the same reason, it is unwise to specify in the property-list--
which is a printed list of the properties each act requires--anything
in the way of rugs that is unusual.  Though some theatres have
more than two kinds of rugs, the white bear rug and the carpet rug
are the most common.  It is also unwise to ask for pictures to
hang on the walls.  If a picture is required, one is usually
supplied set upon an easel.

Of course, every theatre is equipped with prop telephones and sets
of dishes and silver for dinner scenes.  But there are few vaudeville
houses in the country that have on hand a bed for the stage,
although the sofa is commonly found.

A buffet, or sideboard, fully equipped with pitchers and wine
glasses, is customary in every vaudeville property room.  And
champagne is supplied in advertising bottles which "pop" and sparkle
none the less realistically because the content is merely ginger
ale.

While the foregoing is not an exhaustive list of what the property
room of a vaudeville theatre may contain, it gives the essential
properties that are commonly found.  Thus every ordinary requirement
of the usual vaudeville act can be supplied.

The special properties that an act may require must be carried by
the act.  For instance, if a playlet is laid in an artist's studio
there are all sorts of odds and ends that would lend a realistic
effect to the scene.  A painter's easel, bowls of paint brushes,
a palette, half-finished pictures to hang on the walls, oriental
draperies, a model's throne, and half a dozen rugs to spread upon
the floor, would lend an atmosphere of charming bohemian realism.

_Special Sound-Effects_ fall under the same common-sense rule.
For, while all vaudeville theatres have glass crashes, wood crashes,
slap-sticks, thunder sheets, cocoanut shells for horses' hoof-beats,
and revolvers to be fired off-stage, they could not be expected
to supply such little-called-for effects as realistic battle sounds,
volcanic eruptions, and like effects.

If an act depends on illusions for its appeal, it will, of course,
be well supplied with the machinery to produce the required sounds.
And those that do not depend on exactness of illusion can usually
secure the effects required by calling on the drummer with his
very effective box-of-tricks to help out the property-man.

5. The Lighting of the Vaudeville Stage

At the electrical switchboard centre all the lights of the theatre,
as well as those of the stage itself.  Presided over by the
electrician, the switchboard, so far as the stage and its light
effects are concerned, commands two classes of lights.  The first
of these is the arc light and the second the electric bulb.

_The Spot-lights_ are the lamps that depend upon the arc for their
illumination.  If you have ever sat in the gallery of any theatre,
and particularly of a vaudeville theatre, you certainly have noticed
the very busy young man whose sole purpose in life appears to be
to follow the heroine around the stage with the focused spot of
light that shines like a halo about her.  The lamp with which he
accomplishes this difficult feat is appropriately called a
"spot-light."  While there are often spot-lights on the electrician's
"bridge," as his balcony is called, the gallery out front is the
surest place to find the spot-light.

_The Footlights_ are electric bulbs dyed amber, blue, and red--
or any other special shade desired--beside the well-known white,
set in a tin trough sunk in the stage and masked to shine only
upon the stage.  By causing only one group of colors to light,
the electrician can secure all sorts of variations, and with the
aid of "dimmers" permit the lights to shine brilliantly or merely
to glow with faint radiance.

_The Border-lights_ are electric bulbs of varying colors set in
tin troughs a little longer than the proscenium opening and are
suspended above the stage behind the scenery borders.  They shine
only downward.  There are border-lights just in front of the drops
in One, Two, Three and Four, and they take the names of "first
border-light," "second border-light," and so on from the drops
they illuminate.

_Strip-lights_ are electric bulbs set in short strips of tin
troughs, that are equipped with hooks by which they can be hung
behind doors and out-of-the-way dark places in sets to illuminate
the backings.

_A Bunch-light_ is a box of tin set on a standard, which can be
moved about the stage the length of its electric cord, and has ten
or twelve electric bulbs inside that cast a brilliant illumination
wherever it is especially desired.  Squares of gelatine in metal
frames can be slipped into the grooves in front of the bunch-light
to make the light any color or shade desired.  These boxes are
especially valuable in giving the effect of blazing sunlight just
outside the doors or windows of a set, or to shine through the
windows in the soft hue of moonlight.

_Grate Logs_ are found in nearly every vaudeville house and are
merely iron painted to represent logs of wood, inside of which are
concealed lamps that shine up through red gelatine, simulating the
glow of a wood fire shining in the fireplace under the mantelpiece
usually found in the centre-door-fancy set.

_Special Light-effects_ have advanced so remarkably with the science
of stage illumination that practically any effect of nature may
be secured.  If the producer wishes to show the water rippling on
the river drop there is a "ripple-lamp" at his command, which is
a clock-actuated mechanism that slowly revolves a ripple glass in
front of a "spot-lamp" and casts a realistic effect of water
rippling in the moonlight.

By these mechanical means, as well as others, the moon or the sun
can be made to shine through a drop and give the effect of rising
or of setting, volcanos can be made to pour forth blazing lava and
a hundred other amazing effects can be obtained.  In fact, the
modern vaudeville stage is honeycombed with trapdoors and overhung
with arching light-bridges, through which and from which all manner
of lights can be thrown upon the stage, either to illuminate the
faces of the actors with striking effect, or to cast strange and
beautiful effects upon the scenery.  Indeed, there is nothing to
be seen in nature that the electrician cannot reproduce upon the
stage with marvellous fidelity and pleasing effect.

But the purpose here, as in explaining all the other physical
departments of the vaudeville stage, is not to tell what has been
done and what can be done, interesting and instructive as such a
discussion would be, but to describe what is usually to be found in
a vaudeville theatre.  The effects that are at ready command are
the only effects that should interest anyone about to write for
vaudeville.  As was emphasized in the discussion of scenery, the
writer should not depend for success on the unusual.  His aim
should be to make use of the common stage-effects that are found on
every vaudeville stage--if, indeed, he depends on any effects at all.

Here, then, we have made the acquaintance of the physical proportions
and aspects of the vaudeville stage and have inquired into all the
departments that contribute to the successful presentation of a
vaudeville entertainment.  We have examined the vaudeville writer's
tool-box and have learned to know the uses for which each tool of
space, scenery, property, and light is specially designed.  And
by learning what these tools can do, we have also learned what
they cannot do.

Now let us turn to the plans and specifications--called manuscripts--
that go to make up the entertaining ten or forty minutes during which
a vaudeville act calls upon these physical aids to make it live
upon the mimic stage, as though it were a breathing reality of the
great stage of life.



CHAPTER V

THE NATURE OF THE MONOLOGUE


The word monologue comes from the combination of two Greek words,
_monos_, alone, and _legein_, to speak.  Therefore the word monologue
means "to speak alone"--and that is often how a monologist feels.
If in facing a thousand solemn faces he is not a success, no one
in all the world is more alone than he.

It appears easy for a performer to stroll into a theatre, without
bothersome scenery, props, or tagging people, and walk right out
on the stage alone and set the house a-roar.  But, like most things
that appear easy, it is not.  It is the hardest "stunt" in the
show business, demanding two very rare things:  uncommon ability
in the man, and extraordinary merit in the monologue itself.

To arrive at a clear understanding of what a monologue is, the
long way around through the various types of "talking singles" may
be the shortest cut home to the definition.

1. Not a Soliloquy.

The soliloquy of the by-gone days of dramatic art was sometimes
called a monologue, because the person who spoke it was left alone
upon the stage to commune with himself in spoken words that described
to the audience what manner of man he was and what were the problems
that beset him.  Hamlet's "To be or not to be," perhaps the most
famous of soliloquies, is, therefore, a true monologue in the
ancient sense, for Hamlet spoke alone when none was near him.  In
the modern sense this, and every other soliloquy, is but a speech
in a play.  There is a fundamental reason why this is so:  A monologue
is spoken _to the audience_, while in a soliloquy (from the Latin
_solus_, alone, _loqui_, to talk) the actor communes _with himself_
for the "benefit" of the audience.

2. Not Merely an Entertainment by One Person

There are all sorts of entertaining talking acts in vaudeville
presented by a single person.  Among them are the magician who
performs his tricks to the accompaniment of a running fire of talk
which, with the tricks themselves, raises laughter; and the person
who gives imitations and wins applause and laughter by fidelity
of speech, mannerisms and appearance to the famous persons imitated.
Yet neither of these can be classed as a monologist, because neither
depends upon speech alone to win success.

3. Not a Disconnected String of Stories

Nor, in the strictest vaudeville sense, is a monologue merely a
string of stories that possesses no unity as a whole and owns as
its sole reason of being that of amusement and entertainment.  For
instance, apropos of nothing whatever an entertainer may say:

  I visited Chinatown the other evening and took dinner in one of
  the charming Oriental restaurants there.  The first dish I ordered
  was called Chop Suey.  It was fine.  They make it of several
  kinds of vegetables and meats, and one dark meat in particular
  hit my taste.  I wanted to find out what it was, so I called the
  waiter.  He was a solemn-looking Chinaman, whose English I could
  not understand, so I pointed to a morsel of the delicious dark
  meat and, rubbing the place where all the rest of it had gone,
  I asked:

    "Quack-quack?"
    
    The Chink grinned and said:
    
    "No.  No.  Bow-wow."


Before the laughter has subsided the entertainer continues:

  That reminds me of the deaf old gentleman at a dinner party who
  was seated right next to the prettiest of the very young ladies
  present.  He did his best to make the conversation agreeable,
  and she worked hard to make him understand what she said.  But
  finally she gave it up in despair and relapsed into a pained
  silence until the fruit was passed.  Then she leaned over and
  said:

  "Do you like bananas?"

  A smile of comprehension crept over the deaf old man's face and
  he exclaimed:

  "No, I like the old-fashioned night-gowns best."

And so, from story to story the entertainer goes, telling his funny
anecdotes for the simple reason that they are funny and create
laughter.  But funny as they are, they are disconnected and,
therefore, do not meet the requirement of unity of character, which
is one of the elements of the pure monologue.

4. Not a Connected Series of Stories Interspersed With Songs and
the Like

If the entertainer had told the stories of the Chinaman and the
deaf old gentleman as though they had happened to a single character
about whom all the stories he tells revolve, his act and his
material would more nearly approach the pure monologue form.  For
instance:

  Casey's a great fellow for butting into queer places to get a
  bite to eat.  The other evening we went down to Chinatown and
  in one of those Oriantal joints that hand out Chop Suey in real
  china bowls with the Jersey City dragoons on 'em, we struck a
  dish that hit Casey just right.

  "Mither av Moses," says Casey, "this is shure the atein fer ye;
  but what's thot dilicate little tid-bit o' brown mate?"
  
  "I don't know," says I.

  "Oi'll find out," says Casey.  "Just listen t'me spake that
  heathen's language."

  "Here, boy," he hollers, "me likee, what you call um?"

  The Chink stares blankly at Casey.  Casey looks puzzled, then
  he winks at me.  Rubbing his hand over the place where the rest
  of the meat had gone, he says:

  "Quack-quack?"

  A gleam shot into the Chink's almond eyes and he says:
  
  "No.  No.  Bow-wow."

  It took seven of us to hold Casey, he felt that bad.  But that
  wasn't a patchin' to the time we had dinner with a rich friend
  o' ours and Casey was seated right next to the nicest little old
  lady y'ever saw. . . .


And so on until the banana story is told, with Casey the hero and
victim of each anecdote.

But an entertainer feels no necessity of making his entire offering
of related anecdotes only.  Some monologists open with a song
because they want to get the audience into their atmosphere, and
"with" them, before beginning their monologue.  The song merely
by its melody and rhythm helps to dim the vividness of impression
left by the preceding act and gives the audience time to quiet
down, serving to bridge the psychic chasm in the human mind that
lies between the relinquishing of one impression and the reception
of the next.

Or the monologist may have a good finishing song and knows that
he can depend on it for an encore that will bring him back to tell
more stories and sing another song.  So he gives the orchestra
leader the cue, the music starts and off he goes into his song.

Or he may have some clever little tricks that will win applause,
or witty sayings that will raise a laugh, and give him a chance
to interject into his offering assorted elements of appeal that
will gain applause from different classes of people in his audience.
Therefore, as his purpose is to entertain, he sings his song,
performs his tricks, tells his witty sayings, or perhaps does an
imitation or two, as suits his talent best.  And a few end their
acts with serious recitations of the heart-throb sort that bring
lumps into kindly throats and leave an audience in the satisfied
mood that always comes when a touch of pathos rounds off a hearty
laugh.

But by adding to his monologue unrelated offerings the monologist
becomes an "entertainer," an "impersonator," or whatever title
best describes his act.  If he stuck to his stories only and told
them all on a single character, his offering would be a monologue
in the sense that it observes the unity of character, but still
it would not be a pure monologue in the vaudeville sense as we now
may define it--though a pure monologue might form the major part
of his "turn."

II.  WHAT A MONOLOGUE IS

Having seen in what respects other single talking acts--the
soliloquy, the "talking single" that has no unity of material, the
disconnected string of stories, and the connected series of stories
interspersed with songs--differ from the pure monologue, it will
now be a much simpler task to make plain the elements that compose
the real vaudeville monologue.

The real monologue possesses the following eight characteristics:

1. It is performed by one person.
2. It is humorous.
3. It possesses unity of character.
4. It is not combined with songs, tricks or any
   other entertainment form.
5. It takes from ten to fifteen minutes to deliver.
6. It is marked by compression.
7. It is distinguished by vividness.
8. It follows a definite form of construction.

Each of these eight characteristics has either been mentioned
already or will be taken up in detail later, so now we can combine
them into a single paragraphic definition:

  The pure vaudeville monologue is a humorous talk spoken by one
  person, possesses unity of character, is not combined with any
  other entertainment form, is marked by compression, follows a
  definite form of construction and usually requires from ten to
  fifteen minutes for delivery.

It must be emphasized that because some single talking acts do not
meet every one of the requirements is no reason for condemning
them [1]. They may be as fine for entertainment purposes as the
pure monologue, but we must have some standard by which to work
and the only true standard of anything is its purest form.
Therefore, let us now take up the several parts that make up the
pure monologue as a whole, and later we shall consider the other
monologue variations that are permissible and often desirable.

[1] Frank Fogarty, "The Dublin Minstrel," one of the most successful
monologists in vaudeville, often opens with a song and usually
ends his offering with a serious heart-throb recitation.  By making
use of the song and serious recitation Mr. Fogarty places his act
in the "entertainer" class, but his talking material is, perhaps,
the best example of the "gag"-anecdotal-monologue to be found in
vaudeville.

Mr. Fogarty won The New York Morning Telegraph contest to determine
the most popular performer in vaudeville in 1912, and was elected
President of "The White Rats"--the vaudeville actors' protective
Union--in 1914.    [end footnote]

If you have not yet turned to the appendix and read Aaron Hoffman's
"The German Senator" do so now.  (See Appendix.)  It will be referred
to frequently to illustrate structural points.

III.  THE MONOLOGUE'S NOTABLE CHARACTERISTICS

1. Humor

All monologues, whether of the pure type or not, possess one element
in common--humor.  I have yet to hear of a monologist who did not
at least try to be funny.  But there are different types of monologic
humor.

"Each eye," the Italians say, "forms its own beauty," so every
nation, every section, and each individual forms its own humor to
suit its own peculiar risibilities.  Still, there are certain
well-defined kinds of stories and classes of points in which we
Americans find a certain delight.

What these are the reader knows as well as the writer and can
decide for himself much better than I can define them for him.
Therefore, I shall content myself with a mere mention of the basic
technical elements that may be of suggestive help.

(a) _The Element of Incongruity_.  "The essence of all humor," it
has been said, "is incongruity," and in the monologue there is no
one thing that brings better laugh-results than the incongruous.
Note in the Appendix the closing point of "The German Senator."
Could there be any more incongruous thing than wives forming a
Union?

(b) _Surprise_.  By surprise is meant leading the audience to
believe the usual thing is going to happen, and "springing" the
unusual--which in itself is often an incongruity, but not necessarily
so.

(c) _Situation_.  Both incongruity and surprise are part and parcel
of the laughter of a situation.  For instance; a meeting of two
people, one of whom is anxious to avoid the other--a husband, for
instance, creeping upstairs at three A. M. meeting his wife--or
both anxious to avoid each other--wife was out, too, and husband
overtakes wife creeping slowly up, doing her best not to awaken
him, each supposing the other in bed and asleep.  The laughter
comes because of what is said at that particular moment in that
particular situation--"and is due," Freud says, "to the release
from seemingly unpleasant and inevitable consequences."

(d) _Pure Wit_.  Wit exists for its own sake, it is detachable
from its context, as for example:

  And what a fine place they picked out for Liberty to stand.
  With Coney Island on one side and Blackwell's Island on the
  other. [1]

[1] The German Senator.  See Appendix.

(e) _Character_.  The laughable sayings that are the intense
expression at the instant of the individuality of the person voicing
them, is what is meant by the humor of character.  For instance:
the German Senator gets all "balled up" in his terribly long effort
to make a "regular speech," and he ends:

  We got to feel a feeling of patriotic symptoms--we got to feel
  patriotic symp--symps--you got to feel the patri--you can't help
  it, you got to feel it.

These five suggestions--all, in the last analysis, depending on
the first, incongruity--may be of assistance to the novice in
analyzing the elements of humor and framing his own efforts with
intelligence and precision.

In considering the other elemental characteristics of the monologue,
we must bear in mind that the emphasizing of humor is the monologue's
chief reason for being.

2. Unity of Character

Unity of character does not mean unity of subject--note the variety
of subjects treated in "The German Senator"--but, rather, the
singleness of impression that a monologue gives of the "character"
who delivers it, or is the hero of it.

The German Senator, himself, is a politician "spouting," in a
perfectly illogical, broken-English stump speech, about the condition
of the country and the reason why things are so bad.  Never once
do the various subjects stray far beyond their connection with the
country's deplorable condition and always they come back to it.
Furthermore, not one of the observations is about anything that a
politician of his mental calibre would not make.  Also the
construction of every sentence is in character.  This example is,
of course, ideal, and the precision of its unity of character one
of the great elements of a great monologue.

Next to humor, unity of character is the most important requirement
of the monologue.  Never choose a subject, or write a joke, that
does not fit the character delivering the monologue.  In other
words, if you are writing a pure monologue, do not, just because
it is humorous, drag in a gag [1] or a point [2] that is not in
character or that does not fit the subject.  Make every turn of
phrase and every word fit not only the character but also the
subject.

[1] A _gag_ is the vaudeville term for any joke or pun.

[2] A _point_ is the laugh-line of a gag, or the funny observation
of a monologue.

3. Compression

We have long heard that "brevity is the soul of wit," and certainly
we realize the truth in a hazy sort of way, but the monologue
writer should make brevity his law and seven of his ten commandments
of writing.  Frank Fogarty, who writes his own gags and delivers
them in his own rapid, inimitable way, said to me:

"The single thing I work to attain in any gag is brevity.  I never
use an ornamental word, I use the shortest word I can and I tell
a gag in the fewest words possible.  If you can cut out one word
from any of my gags and not destroy it, I'll give you five dollars,
and it'll be worth fifty to me to lose it.  "You can kill the whole
point of a gag by merely an unnecessary word.  For instance, let
us suppose the point of a gag is 'and he put the glass there';
well, you won't get a laugh if you say, 'and then he picked the
glass up and put it there.' Only a few words more--but words are
costly.

"Take another example.  Here's one of my best gags, a sure-fire
laugh if told this way:

"O'Brien was engaged by a farmer to milk cows and do chores.  There
were a hundred and fifty cows, and three men did the milking.  It
was hard work, but the farmer was a kind-hearted, progressive man,
so when he went to town and saw some milking-stools he bought three
and gave 'em to the men to sit down on while at work.  The other
two men came back delighted, but not O'Brien.  At last he appeared,
all cut-up, and holding one leg of the stool.

"'What's the matter?' said the farmer.

"'Nothing, only I couldn't make the cow sit down on it.'

"When I tell it this way it invariably gets a big laugh.  Now
here's the way I once heard a 'chooser' [1] do it.

[1] _Chooser_--one who chooses some part of another performer's act
and steals it for his own use.

"'O'Brien came to this country and looked around for work.  He
couldn't get a job until at last a friend told him that a farmer
up in the country wanted a man to milk cows.  So O'Brien got on a
trolley car and went out to the end of the line, took a side-door
pullman from there, was ditched and had to walk the rest of the
way to the farm.  But at last he got to the farmer's place and
asked him for the job.

"'"Sure I can use you," said the farmer, "here's a milk pail and
a milking-stool.  Take 'em and go out and milk the cows in the
barn."

"'Now O'Brien didn't know how to milk a cow, he'd never milked a
cow in his whole life, but he needed a job so he didn't tell the
farmer he hadn't ever milked a cow.  He took the pail and the
milking-stool and went out to the barn.  After half an hour he
came back to the farm house all cut-up, and he had one leg of the
milking-stool in his hand.

"'"What's the matter?" asked the farmer, "How'd you get all cut
up--been in a fight or something?"

"'"No," said O'Brien, "I couldn't get the cow to sit on it.'"

"See the difference?  There's only one right way to tell any gag
and that's to make it brief, little--like the works of a watch
that'll fit in a thin watch case and be better and finer than a
big turnip of a pocket clock."

So, then, each point and gag in a monologue is told in the fewest,
shortest words possible and the monologue, as a whole, is marked
by compression.  Remember, "brevity is the soul of wit"--never
forget it.

4. Vividness

If a successful monologue writer has in mind two gags that are
equally funny he will invariably choose the one that can be told
most vividly--that is, the one that can be told as if the characters
themselves were on the stage.  For instance, the words, "Here stood
John and there stood Mary," with lively, appropriate gestures by
the monologist, make the characters and the scene seem living on
the stage before the very eyes of the audience.  That is why the
monologist illustrates his points and gags with gestures that
picturize.

Every gag and every point of great monologues are told in words
that paint pictures.  If the gag is supposititious, and the direct
right-here-they-stood method cannot be used, the point is worded
so strikingly, and is so comically striking in itself, that the
audience sees--visualizes--it. [1]

[1] Walter Kelly, "The Virginia Judge," offers a fine example of
the monologist who makes his words picturize.  He "puts his stories
over" almost without a gesture.

Unlike the playlet, the monologue does not have flesh-and-blood
people on the stage to act the comic situation.  The way a point
or gag is constructed, the words used, the monologist's gestures,
and his inflections, must make the comic situation live in vivid
pictures.

Therefore, in selecting material the monologue writer should choose
those gags and points that can be told in pictures, and every word
he uses should be a picture-word.

5. Smoothness and Blending

A monologue--like the thin-model watch mentioned--is made up of
many parts.  Each part fits into, the other--one gag or point
blends perfectly into the following one--so that the entire monologue
seems not a combination of many different parts, but a smoothly
working, unified whole.

Count the number of different points there are in "The German
Senator" and note how each seemingly depends on the one before it
and runs into the one following; you will then see what is meant
by blending.  Then read the monologue again, this time without the
Panama Canal point--plainly marked for this exposition--and you
will see how one part can be taken away and still leave a smoothly
reading and working whole.

It is to careful blending that the monologue owes its smoothness.
The ideal for which the writer should strive is so to blend his
gags and points that, by the use of not more than one short sentence,
he relates one gag or point to the next with a naturalness and
inevitableness that make the whole perfectly smooth.

We are now, I think, in a position to sum up the theory of the
monologue.  The pure vaudeville monologue, which was defined as a
humorous talk spoken by one person, possesses unity of character,
is not combined with any other entertainment form, is marked by
compression, follows a definite form of construction, and usually
requires from ten to fifteen minutes for delivery.  Humor is its
most notable characteristic; unity of the character delivering it,
or of its "hero," is its second most important requirement.  Each
point, or gag, is so compressed that to take away or add even one
word would spoil its effect; each is expressed so vividly that the
action seems to take place before the eyes of the audience.  Finally,
every point leads out of the preceding point so naturally, and
blends into the following point so inevitably, that the entire
monologue is a smooth and perfect whole.



CHAPTER VI

WRITING THE MONOLOGUE


I. CHOOSING A THEME

Before an experienced writer takes up his pencil he has formed
definitely in his mind just what he is going to write about--that
is the simple yet startling difference between the experienced
writer and the novice.  Not only does the former know what his
subject is, but he usually knows how he is going to treat it, and
even some striking phrases and turns of sentences are ready in his
mind, together with the hundreds of minute points which, taken
together, make up the singleness of impression of the whole.

But just as it is impossible for the human mind--untrained, let
us say, in the art of making bricks--to picture at a glance the
various processes through which the clay passes before it takes
brick form, so it is identically as impossible for the mind of the
novice to comprehend in a flash the various purposes and half-purposes
that precede the actual work of writing anything.

True as this is of writing in general, it seems to me particularly
true of writing the monologue, for the monologue is one of those
precise forms of the art of writing that may best be compared to
the miniature, where every stroke must be true and unhesitating
and where all combine unerringly to form the composite whole.

In preparing monologue material the writer usually is working in
the _sounds_ of spoken--and mis-spoken--words, and the humor that
lies in the twisting of ideas into surprising conclusions.  He
seldom deliberately searches for a theme--more often some
laugh-provoking incident or sentence gives him an idea and he
builds it into a monologue with its subject for the theme.

1. Themes to Avoid

Anything at all in the whole range of subjects with which life
abounds will lend itself for a monologue theme--provided the writer
can without straining twist it to the angle of humor; but propriety
demands that nothing blatantly suggestive shall be treated, and
common sense dictates that no theme of merely local interest shall
be used, when the purpose of the monologue is to entertain the
whole country.  Of course if a monologue is designed to entertain
merely a certain class or the residents of a certain city or section
only, the very theme--for instance, some purely local happening
or trade interest--that you would avoid using in a monologue planned
for national use, would be the happiest theme that could be chosen.
But, as the ambitious monologue writer does not wish to confine
himself to a local or a sectional subject and market, let us
consider here only themes that have universal appeal.

II.  A FEW THEMES OF UNIVERSAL INTEREST

      Politics                 Woman Suffrage
      Love                     Drink
      Marriage                 Baseball
      Woman's Dress            Money

While there are many more themes that can be twisted to universal
interest--and anyone could multiply the number given--these few
are used in whole or in part in nearly every successful monologue
now being presented.  And, they offer to the new writer the surest
ground to build a new monologue.  That they have all been done
before is no reason why they should not be done again:  the new
author has only to do them better--and a little different.  It is
all a matter of fresh vision.  What is there in any art that is
really new--but treatment?

Do not make the fatal mistake of supposing that these few themes
are the only themes possessing universal interest.  Anything in
the whole wide world may be the subject for a monologue, when
transmuted by the magic of common sense and uncommon ability into
universal fun.

III.  HOW TO BEGIN TO WRITE

As a monologue is a collection of carefully selected and smoothly
blended points or gags, with a suitable introduction to the routine
[1]--each point and gag being a complete, separate entity, and the
introduction being as truly distinct--the monologue writer, unlike
the playlet writer, may begin to write anywhere.  He may even write
the last point or gag used in the routine before he writes the
first.  Or he may write the twelfth point before he writes either
the first one or the last one.  But usually, he writes his
introduction first.

[1] _Routine_--the entire monologue; but more often used to suggest
its arrangement and construction.  A monologue with its gags and
points arranged in a certain order is one routine; a different
routine is used when the gags or points are arranged in a different
order.  Thus _routine_ means _arrangement_.  The word is also used to
describe the arrangement of other stage offerings--for instance, a
dance:  the same steps arranged in a different order make a new
"dance routine."

1. The Introduction

A monologue introduction may be just one line with a point or a
gag that will raise a snicker, or it may be a long introduction
that stamps the character as a "character," and causes amusement
because it introduces the entire monologue theme in a bright way.

An example of the short introduction is:

"D'you know me friend Casey?  He's the guy that put the sham in
shamrock," then on into the first gag that stamps Casey as a
sure-'nuff "character," with a giggle-point to the gag.

The very best example of the long introduction being done on the
stage today is the first four paragraphs of "The German Senator."
The first line, "My dear friends and falling Citizens," stamps the
monologue unquestionably as a speech.  The second line, "My heart
fills up with vaccination to be disabled," declares the mixed-up
character of the oration and of the German Senator himself, and
causes amusement.  And the end of the fourth paragraph--which you
will note is one long involved sentence filled with giggles--raises
the first laugh.

Nat Wills says the introduction to the gag-monologue may often
profitably open with a "local"--one about the town or some local
happening--as a local is pretty sure to raise a giggle, and will
cause the audience to think the monologist "bright" and at least
start their relations off pleasantly.  He says:  "Work for giggles
in your introduction, but don't let the audience get set--with a
big laugh--until the fifth or sixth joke."

The introduction, therefore, is designed to establish the monologist
with the audience as "bright," to stamp the character of the
"character" delivering it--or about whom the gags are told--and
to delay a big laugh until the monologist has "got" his audience.

2. The Development

The "point," you will recall, we defined as the funny observation
of a pure monologue--in lay-conversation it means the laugh line
of a joke; and "gag" we defined as a joke or a pun.  For the sake
of clearness let us confine "point" to a funny observation in a
monologue, and "gag" to a joke in a connected series of stories.

It is impossible for anyone to teach you how to write a really
funny point or a gag.  But, if you have a well-developed sense of
humor, you can, with the help of the suggestions for form given
here and the examples of humor printed in the appendix, and those
you will find in the funny papers and hear along the street or on
the stage, teach yourself to write saleable material.  All that
this chapter can hope to do for you is to show you how the best
monologue writes and the most successful monologists work to achieve
their notable results, and thus put you in the right path to
accomplish, with the least waste of time and energy, what they
have done.

Therefore, let us suppose that you know what is humorous, have a
well-developed sense of humor, and can produce really funny points
and gags.  Now, having your points and gags clearly framed in mind
and ready to set down on paper, you naturally ask, How shall I
arrange them?  In what order shall I place them to secure the best
effect for the whole monologue?

Barrett Wendell, professor of English at Harvard University, [1]
has suggested an effective mechanical aid for determining the
clearest and best arrangement of sentences and paragraphs in English
prose, and his plan seems especially adapted to help the monologue
writer determine a perfect routine.  Briefly his method may be
paraphrased thus:

[1] English Composition, page 165.

Have as many cards or slips of paper as you have points or gags.
Write only one point or gag on one card or slip of paper.  On the
first card write "Introduction," and always keep that card first
in your hand.  Then take up a card and read the point or gag on
it as following the introduction, the second card as the second
point or gag, and so on until you have arranged your monologue in
an effective routine.

Then try another arrangement.  Let us say the tenth joke in the
first routine reads better as the first joke.  All right, place
it in your new arrangement right after the introduction.  Perhaps
the fourteenth point or gag fits in well after the tenth gag--fine,
make that fourteenth gag the second gag; and so on through your
cards until you have arranged a new routine.

Your first arrangement can invariably be improved--maybe even your
seventh arrangement can be made better; very good, by shuffiing
the cards you may make as many arrangements as you wish and
eventually arrive at the ideal routine.  And by keeping a memorandum
of preceding arrangements you can always turn back to the older
routine--if that appears the best after all other arrangements
have been tried.

But what is really the ideal arrangement of a monologue?  How may
you know which routine is really the best?  Frankly, you cannot
_know_ until it has been tried out on an audience many, many
times--and has been proved a success by actual test.  Arranging a
routine of untried points and gags on paper is like trying to solve
a cut-out puzzle with the key-piece missing.  Only by actually
trying out a monologue before an audience and fitting the points
and gags to suit the monologist's peculiar style (indeed, this is
the real work of writing a monologue and will be described later
on) can you determine what really is the best routine.  And even
then another arrangement may "go" better in another town.  Still
there are a few suggestions--a very few--that can be given here
to aid the beginner.

Like ocean waves, monologic laughs should come in threes and
nines--proved, like most rules, by exceptions.  Note the application
of this rule in "The German Senator."

Study the arrangement of the points in this great monologue and
you will see that each really big point is dependent on several
minor points that precede it to get its own big laugh.  For instance,
take the following point:

  And if meat goes any higher, it will be worth more than money.

  Then there won't be any money.

  Instead of carrying money in your pocket, you'll carry meat
  around.

  A sirloin steak will be worth a thousand dollar bill.

  When you go down to the bank to make a deposit, instead of giving
  the cashier a thousand dollar bill, you'll slip him a sirloin
  steak.

  If you ask him for change, he'll give you a hunk of bologny.
  
The first line blends this point with the preceding one about
the high cost of eggs.  The second line awakens interest and
prepares for the next, "Instead of carrying money in your pocket,
you'll carry meat around," which is good for a grin.  The next
line states the premise necessary for the first point-ending
"--you'll slip him a sirloin steak," which is always good for a
laugh.  Then the last line, "If you ask him for change, he'll
give you a hunk of bologny," tops the preceding laugh.

From this example you see what is meant by monologic laughs coming
in threes and nines.  The introduction of each new story--the line
after the blend-line--should awaken a grin, its development cause
a chuckle, and the point-line itself raise a laugh.

Each new point should top the preceding point until with the end
of that particular angle or situation, should come a roar of honest
laughter.  Then back to the grin, the chuckle, and on to the laugh
again, building up to the next big roar.

With the end of the monologue should come complete satisfaction
in one great burst of laughter.  This, of course, is the ideal.

3. How and Where to End

A monologue should run anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes.  The
monologist can vary his playing time at will by leaving out points
and gags here and there, as necessity demands, so the writer should
supply at least a full fifteen minutes of material in his manuscript.

"How shall I time my manuscript?" is the puzzling problem the new
writer asks himself.  The answer is that it is very difficult to
time a monologue exactly, because different performers work at
different speeds and laughs delay the delivery and, therefore,
make the monologue run longer.  But here is a very rough counting
scale that may be given, with the warning that it is far from
exact:

For every one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and forty words
count one minute for delivery.  This is so inexact, depending as
it does on the number of laughs and the monologist's speed of
delivery, that it is like a rubber ruler.  At one performance it
may be too long, at another too short.

Having given a full fifteen minutes of material, filled, let us
hope, with good points made up of grins, chuckles and laughs, now
choose your very biggest laugh-point for the last.  When you wrote
the monologue and arranged it into the first routine, that biggest
laugh may have been the tenth, or the ninth, or the fifteenth, but
you have spotted it unerringly as the very biggest laugh you
possess, so you blend it in as the final laugh of the completed
monologue.

It may now be worth while thus to sum up the ideal structure:

A routine is so arranged that the introduction stamps the monologist
as bright, and the character he is impersonating or telling about
as a real "character."  The first four points or gags are snickers
and the fifth or sixth is a laugh. [1] Each point or gag blends
perfectly into the ones preceding and following it.  The introduction
of each new story awakens a grin, its development causes a chuckle,
and the point-line itself raises a laugh.  The final point or gag
rounds the monologue off in the biggest burst of honest laughter.

[1] It is true that some monologists strive for a laugh on the
very first point, but to win a big laugh at once is very rare.

IV.  BUILDING A MONOLOGUE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

When a writer delivers the manuscript of a monologue to a monologist
his work is not ended.  It has just begun, because he must share
with the monologist the pains of delivering the monologue before
an audience.  Dion Boucicault once said, "A play is not written,
but rewritten."  True as this is of a play, it is, if possible,
even more true of a monologue.

Of course, not all beginners can afford to give this personal
attention to staging a monologue, but it is advisable whenever
possible.  For, points that the author and the monologist himself
were sure would "go big," "die," while points and gags that neither
thought much of, "go big."  It is for precisely this purpose of
weeding out the good points and gags from the bad that even famous
monologists "hide away," under other names, in very small houses
for try-outs.  And while the monologist is working on the stage
to make the points and gags "get over," the author is working in
the audience to note the effect of points and finding ways to
change a phrase here and a word there to build dead points into
life and laughter.  Then it is that they both realize that Frank
Fogarty's wise words are true:  "There is only one way to tell a
gag.  If you can cut one word out from any of my gags I'll give
you five dollars, for it's worth fifty to me.  Words are costly."

Some entire points and gags will be found to be dead beyond
resurrection, and even whole series of gags and points must be
cast away and new and better ones substituted to raise the golden
laughs.  So the monologue is changed and built performance after
performance, with both the monologist and the author working as
though their very lives depended on making it perfect.

Then, when it is "set" to the satisfaction of both, the monologist
goes out on the road to try it out on different audiences and to
write the author continually for new points and gags.  It may be
said with perfect truth that a monologue is never finished.  Nat
Wills, the Tramp Monologist, pays James Madison a weekly salary
to supply him with new jokes every seventh day.  So, nearly every
monologist retains the author to keep him up to the minute with
material, right in the forefront of the laughter-of-the-hour.

V. OTHER SINGLE TALKING ACT FORMS

The discussion of the monologue form has been exhaustive, for the
pure monologue holds within itself all the elements of the other
allied forms.  The only difference between a pure monologue and
any other kind is in the addition of entertainment features that
are not connected gags and points.  Therefore, to cover the field
completely it is necessary only to name a few of the many different
kinds of single talking acts and to describe them briefly.

The most common talking singles--all of whom buy material from
vaudeville writers--are:

(a) _The Talking Magician_--who may have only a few little tricks
to present, but who plays them up big because he sprinkles his
work with laughter-provoking points.

(b) _The "Nut Comedian"_--who does all manner of silly tricks to
make his audience laugh, but who has a carefully prepared routine
of "nut" material.

(c) _The Parody Monologist_--who opens and closes with funny
parodies on the latest song hits and does a monologue routine
between songs.

(d) _The "Original Talk"_ Impersonator--who does impersonations
of celebrities, but adds to his offering a few clever points and
gags.

VI.  A FINAL WORD

Before you seek a market [1] for your monologue, be sure that it
fulfills all the requirements of a monologue and that it is the very
best work you can do.  Above all, make sure that every gag or point
you use is original with you, and that the angle of the subject you
have selected for your theme is honestly your own.  For if you have
copied even one gag or point that has been used before, you have laid
your work open to suspicion and yourself to the epithet of "chooser."

[1] See Chapter XXIV, Manuscripts and Markets.

The infringer--who steals gags and points bodily--can be pursued
and punished under the copyright law, but the chooser is a kind
of sneak thief who works gags and points around to escape taking
criminal chances, making his material just enough different to
evade the law.  A chooser damages the originator of the material
without himself getting very far.  No one likes a chooser; no one
knowingly will have dealings with a chooser.  Call a vaudeville
man a liar and he may laugh at you--call him a chooser and you'll
have to fight him.

There are, of course, deliberate choosers in the vaudeville business,
just as there are "crooks" in every line of life, but they never
make more than a momentary success.  Here is why they invariably
fail:

When you sit in the audience, and hear an old gag or point, you
whisper, "Phew, that's old," or you give your companion a knowing
look, don't you?  Well, half the audience is doing the very same
thing, and they, like you, receive the impression that all the
gags are old, and merely suppose that they haven't heard the other
ones before.

The performer, whose bread and butter depends on the audience
thinking him bright, cannot afford to have anything ancient in his
routine.  Two familiar gags or points will kill at least twenty-five
percent of his applause.  He may not get even one bow, and when
audiences do not like a monologist well enough to call him out for
a bow, he might as well say good-by to his chances of getting even
another week's booking.  Therefore the performer watches the
material that is offered him with the strained attention of an
Asiatic potentate who suspects there is poison in his breakfast
food.  He not only guards against old gags or points, but he takes
great care that the specific form of the subject of any routine
that he accepts is absolutely new.

Some of the deliberate choosers watch the field very closely and
as soon as anyone strikes a new vein or angle they proceed to work
it over.  But taking the same subject and working around it--even
though each gag or point is honestly new--does not and cannot pay.
Even though the chooser secures some actor willing to use such
material, he fails ultimately for two reasons:  In the first place,
the copier is never as good as the originator; and, in the second
place, the circuit managers do not look with favor upon copy-acts.

As the success of the performer depends on his cleverness and the
novelty of his material, in identically the same way the success
of a vaudeville theatre lies in the cleverness and novelty of the
acts it plays.  Individual house managers, and therefore circuit
managers, cannot afford to countenance copy-acts.  For this reason
a monologist or an act is often given exclusive rights to use a
precise kind of subject-material over a given circuit.  A copy-act
cannot keep going to very long with only a few segregated house
willing to play his act.

Therefore before you offer your monologue to a possible buyer, be
sure--absolutely sure--that your theme and every one of your points
and gags are original.



CHAPTER VII

THE VAUDEVILLE TWO-ACT


The word "two-act" is used to describe any act played by two
people.  It has nothing to do with the number of scenes or acts
of a drama.  When two people present a "turn," it is called a
two-act.  It is a booking-office term--a word made necessary by
the exigencies of vaudeville commerce.

If the manager of a theatre requires an acrobatic act to fill his
bill and balance his show he often inquires for an acrobatic
two-act.  It may matter little to him whether the act plays in One
or Full Stage--he wants an acrobatic act, and one presented by two
people.  If he requires any other kind of two-people-act, he
specifies the kind of two-act of which he is in need.

On the other hand, if a performer asks an author to write a
vaudeville two-act, an act of a certai