Writing for Vaudeville Part 10

Weber and Fields--before they made so much money that they retired to indulge in the pleasant pastime of producing shows--presented probably the most famous of all the sidewalk comedian slap-stick acts. [1] They elevated the slap-stick sidewalk conversation act into national popularity and certainly reduced the business of their performance to a science--or raised it to an art. In an article ent.i.tled "Adventures in Human Nature," published in The a.s.sociated Sunday Mazagines for June 23, 1912, Joe Weber and Lew Fields have this to say about the stage business responsible, in large measure, for the success of their famous two-act:

The capitalizing of the audiences' laughter we have set down in the following statistics, ranged in the order of their value.

An audience will laugh loudest at these episodes:

(1) When a man sticks one finger into another man's eye.

(2) When a man sticks two fingers into another man's eyes.

(3) When a man chokes another man and shakes his head from side to side.

(4) When a man kicks another man.

(5) When a man b.u.mps up suddenly against another man and knocks him off his feet.

(6) When a man steps on another man's foot.

[1] The great success of the return of Weber and Fields to vaudeville in 1915-16, with excerpts from their old successes, is only one more proof of the perennial value of sure-fire business.

Human nature--as we have a.n.a.lyzed it, with results that will be told you by the cas.h.i.+er at our bank--will laugh louder and oftener at these spectacles, in the respective order we have chronicled them, than at anything else one might name. Human nature here, as before, insists that the object of the attacks--the other man--be not really hurt.

Now, let us tell you how we arrived at our conclusions. The eye is the most delicate part of the body. If a man, therefore, pokes his two forefingers into the eyes of another man _without hurting them_, then human nature will make you scream with mirth; not at the sight of the poking of the fingers into the other man's eyes (as you who have seen us do this trick night in and night out have imagined), but because you get all the sensations of such a dangerous act without there being any actual pain involved in the case of the man you were watching. You laugh because human nature tells you to. You laugh because the man who had the fingers stuck into his eyes might have been hurt badly, but wasn't.

The greatest laughter, the greatest comedy, is divided by a hair from the greatest tragedy. Always remember that! As the chance of pain, the proportion of physical misery, the proportion of tragedy, becomes diminished (see the other items in the table), so does the proportion of laughter become less and less. We have often tried to figure out a way to do something to the other's kneecap--second in delicacy only to the eye--but the danger involved is too great. Once let us figure out the trick, however, and we shall have capitalized another item that may be listed high in our table. Here is how you can verify the truth of our observations yourself:

You have seen those small imitation tacks made of rubber. Exhibit one, put it on a chair, ask a stranger to sit down--and everybody who is in on the joke will scream with mirth. Try it with a real tack, and everybody will take on a serious face and will want to keep the man from sitting down.

6. What George M. Cohan Has to Say

George M. Cohan spent his boyhood on the vaudeville stage as one of "The Four Cohans." In collaboration with George J. Nathan, Mr.

Cohan published in McClure's Magazine for November, 1913, an article ent.i.tled "The Mechanics of Emotion." Here is what he has to say about some bits of business that are sure-fire laughs: [1]

[1] These sure-fire bits of business should be considered as being equally effective when used in any form of stage work. Some of them, however, lend themselves most readily to the vaudeville two-act.

Here, then, are a few of the hundred-odd things that you constantly laugh at on the stage, though, when you see them in cold type, you will probably be ashamed of doing so.

(1) Giving a man a resounding whack on the back under the guise of friends.h.i.+p. The laugh in this instance may be "built up"

steadily in a climacteric way by repeating the blow three times at intervals of several minutes.

(2) A man gives a woman a whack on the back, believing in an absent-minded moment that the woman (to whom he is talking) is a man.

(3) One character steps on the sore foot of another character, causing the latter to jump with pain.

(4) The spectacle of a man laden with many large bundles.

(5) A man or a woman starts to lean his or her elbow on a table or the arm of a chair, the elbow slipping off abruptly and suddenly precipitating him or her forward.

(6) One character imitating the walk of another character, who is walking in front of him and cannot see him.

(7) A man consuming a drink of considerable size at one quick gulp.

(8) A character who, on entering an "interior" or room scene, stumbles over a rug. If the character in point be of the "dignified" sort, the power of this laugh provoker is doubled.

(9) Intoxication in almost any form. [1]

[1] Intoxication, however, must never be revolting. To be welcomed, it must always be funny; in rare instances, it may be pathetic.

(10) Two men in heated conversation. One starts to leave.

Suddenly, as if fearing the other will kick him while his back is turned, this man bends his body inward (as if he actually had been kicked) and sidles off.

(11) A man who, in trying to light his cigar or cigarette, strikes match after match in an attempt to keep one lighted. If the man throws each useless match vigorously to the floor with a muttered note of vexation the laughter will increase.

(12) The use of a swear-word. [2]

[2] The use of swear-words is prohibited in most first-cla.s.s vaudeville theatres. On the walls of every B. F. Keith Theatre is posted this notice: "The use of 'd.a.m.n' and 'h.e.l.l' is forbidden on the stage of this theatre. If a performer cannot do without using them, he need not open here."

(13) A man proclaims his defiance of his wife while the latter is presumably out of hearing. As the man is speaking, his wife's voice is heard calling him. Meekly he turns and goes to her.

This device has many changes, such as employer and employee.

All are equally effective.

(14) A pair of lovers who try several times to kiss, and each time are interrupted by the entrance of some one or by the ringing of the doorbell or telephone-bell or something of the sort.

(15) A bashful man and a not-bashful woman are seated on a bench or divan. As the woman gradually edges up to the man, the man just as gradually edges away from her.

All these "laugh-getters" are known to the experienced as "high cla.s.s"; that is, they may all be used upon the legitimate stage.

On the burlesque and vaudeville stages devices of a somewhat lower intellectual plane have established a permanent standing An authority on this phase of the subject is Mr. Frederick Wyckoff, who catalogues the following as a few of the tricks that make a vaudeville audience laugh:

Open your coat and show a green vest, or pull out your s.h.i.+rt front and expose a red unders.h.i.+rt. Another excellent thing to do is to wear a s.h.i.+rt without sleeves and pull off your coat repeatedly. [1]

[1] Such ancient methods of winning laughs, however, belong to vaudeville yesterdays. It should be remembered that Mr. Nathan, who bore the labor of writing this excellent article, is blessed with a satirical soul--which, undoubtedly, is the reason why he is so excellent and so famous a dramatic critic.

Ask the orchestra leader if he is married.

Have the drummer put in an extra beat with the cymbals, then glare at him.

Always use an expression which ends with the query, "Did he not?"

Then say, "He did not."

The men who elaborated this kind of thing into a cla.s.sic are Messrs. Weber and Fields. They are the great presiding deities of "slap-stick" humor. They have capitalized it to enormous financial profit. They claim that Mr. Fields' favorite trick of poking his forefinger periodically in Mr. Weber's eye is worth a large fortune in itself. A peculiarity of this kind of humor is that it finds its basis in the inflicting of pain. A painful situation apparently contains elements of the ridiculous so long as the pain is not actually of a serious nature. Here, too, the stage merely mirrors life itself. We laugh at the person who falls on the ice, at the man who b.u.mps against a chair or table in the dark, at the headache of the "morning after," at the boy who eats green apples and pays the abdominal penalty, at the woman whose shoes are so tight they hurt her, at the person who is thrown to the floor by a sudden lurch of a street-car, and at the unfortunate who sits on a pin. A man chasing his rolling hat in the street makes everybody laugh.

The most successful tricks or jokes are all based on the idea of pain or embarra.s.sment. Tacks made of rubber, matches that explode or refuse to light, exploding cigars or cigarettes, fountain-pens that smear ink over the fingers immediately they are put to use, "electric" bells with pins secreted in their push b.u.t.tons, and boutonnieres that squirt water into the face of the beholder, are a few familiar examples.

Here, then, we have the bits of business that three of the ablest producers of the legitimate stage--all graduates from vaudeville, by the way--agree upon as sure-fire for the vaudeville two-act.

Paradoxically, however, they should be considered not as instructive of what you should copy, but as brilliant examples of what you should avoid. They belong more to vaudeville's Past than to its Present. Audiences laughed at them yesterday--they may not laugh at them tomorrow. If you would win success, you must invent new business in the light of the old successes. The principles underlying these laugh-getters remain the same forever.

7. Sure-Fire Laughs Depend upon Action and Situation, Not on Words

If you will read again what Weber and Fields have to say about their adventures in human nature, you will note that not once do they mention the lines with which they accompanied the business of their two-act. Several times they mention situation--which is the result of action, when it is not its cause--but the words by which they accompanied those actions and explained those situations they did not consider of enough importance to mention. Every successful two-act, every entertainment-form of which acting is an element--the playlet and the full-evening play as well--prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that what audiences laugh at--what you and I laugh at--is not words, but actions and situations.