Writing for Vaudeville Part 11

Later on, this most important truth--the very life-blood of stage reality--will be taken up and considered at greater length in the study of the playlet. But it cannot be mentioned too often. It is a vital lesson that you must learn if you would achieve even the most fleeting success in writing for the stage in general and vaudeville in particular.

But by action is not meant running about the stage, or even wild wavings of the arms. _There must be action in the idea--in the thought_--even though the performers stand perfectly still.

So it is not with words, witty sayings, funny observations and topsy-turvy language alone that the writer works, when he constructs a vaudeville two-act. It is with clever ideas, expressed in laughable situations and actions, that his brain is busy when he begins to marshal to his aid the elements that enter into the preparation of two-act material.

CHAPTER VIII

THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF TWO-ACT MATERIAL

It is very likely that in your study of "The German Senator" and "The Art of Flirtation," there has crossed your mind this thought: Both the monologue and the two-act are composed of points and gags.

The only difference--besides the merely physical difference of two persons delivering the gags and the greater amount of business used to "get them over" [1]--lies in the way the gags are constructed.

The very same gags--twisted just a little differently--would do equally well for either the monologue or the two-act.

[1] To _get over_ a vaudeville line or the entire act, means to make it a success--to make it get over the foot-lights so that the audience may see and appreciate it, or "get" it.

I. THE INDIVIDUAL TWIST OF THE TWO-ACT

There is just enough truth in this to make it seem an illuminating fact. For instance, take the "janitor point" in "The German Senator." We may imagine the characters of a two-act working up through a routine, and then one saying to the other:

A child can go to school for nothing, and when he grows up to be a man and he is thoroughly educated he can go into the public school and be a teacher and get fifty dollars a month.

The other swiftly saying:

And the janitor gets ninety-five.

There would be a big laugh in this arrangement of this particular gag, without a doubt. But only a few points of "The German Senator"

could be used for a two-act, with nearly as much effect as in the monologue form. For instance, take the introduction. Of course, that is part and parcel of the monologue form, and therefore seems hardly a fair example, yet it is particularly suggestive of the unique character of much monologic material.

But take the series of points in "The German Senator," beginning: "We were better off years ago than we are now." Picture the effect if one character said:

Look at Adam in the Garden of Eat-ing.

2nd

Life to him was a pleasure.

1st

There was a fellow that had nothing to worry about.

2nd

Anything he wanted he could get.

1st

But the old fool had to get lonesome.

2nd

And that's the guy that started all our trouble etc. etc. etc.

Even before the fourth speech it all sounded flat and tiresome, didn't it? Almost unconsciously you compared it with the brighter material in "The Art of Flirtation." But, you may say: "If the business had been snappy and funny, the whole thing would have raised a laugh."

How could business be introduced in this gag--without having the obvious effect of being lugged in by the heels? Business, to be effective, must be the body of the material's soul. The material must suggest the business, so it will seem to be made alive by it.

It must be as much the obvious result of the thought as when your hand would follow the words, "I'm going to give you this. Here, take it."

Herein lies the reason why two-act material differs from monologic material. Experience alone can teach you to "feel" the difference unerringly.

Yet it is in a measure true that some of the points and gags that are used in many monologues--rarely the anecdotal gag, however, which must be acted out in non-two-act form--would be equally effective if differently treated in the two-act. But often this is not due so much to the points themselves as to the fault of the writer in considering them monologic points.

The underlying cause of many such errors may be the family likeness discernible in all stage material. Still, it is much better for the writer fully to recompense Peter, than to rob Peter to pay Paul inadequately.

Nevertheless, aside from the "feel" of the material--its individual adaptability--there is a striking similarity in the structural elements of the monologue and the two-act. Everything in the chapter on "The Nature of the Monologue" is as true of the two-act as of the monologue, if you use discrimination. Refer to what was said about humor, unity of character, compression, vividness, smoothness and blending, and read it all again in the light of the peculiar requirements of the two-act. They are the elements that make for its success.

II. THINKING OUT THE TWO-ACT

The two-act--like all stage material in which acting plays a part--is not written; it is constructed. You may write with the greatest facility, and yet fail in writing material for the vaudeville stage. The mere wording of a two-act means little, in the final a.n.a.lysis. It is the action behind the words that suggests the stage effect. It is the business--combined with the acting--that causes the audience to laugh and makes the whole a success. So the two-act, like every other stage form, must--before it is written--be thought out.

In the preceding chapter, you read of the elements that enter into the construction of a two-act. They are also some of the broad foundation elements which underlie, in whole or in part, all other stage-acting--material. A few of the two-act elements that have to do more particularly with the ma.n.u.script construction have been reserved for discussion in the paragraphs on development. In this chapter we shall consider what you must have before you even begin to think out your two-act--your theme.

1. Selecting a Theme

Imitation may be the sincerest flattery, but it is dangerous for the imitator. And yet to stray too far afield alone is even more hazardous. Successful vaudeville writers are much like a band of Indians marching through an enemy's country--they follow one another in single file, stepping in each other's footprints. In other words, they obey the rules of their craft, but their mental strides, like the Indians' physical footsteps, are individual and distinct.

2. Fundamental Themes

Experience has taught effective writers that certain definite themes are peculiarly adaptable to two-act form and they follow them. But success comes to them not because they stick to certain themes only--they win because they vary these fundamental themes as much as they can and still remain within the limits of proved theatrical success.

(a) _The Quarrel Theme_. Search my memory as diligently as I may, I cannot now recall a single successful two-act that has not had somewhere in its routine a quarrel, while many of the most successful two-acts I remember have been constructed with a quarrel as their routine motives.

With this observation in mind, re-read "The Art of Flirtation" and you will discover that the biggest laughs precede, arise from, or are followed by quarrels. Weber and Fields in their list of the most humorous business, cite not only mildly quarrelsome actions, but actually hostile and seemingly dangerous acts. The more hostile and the more seemingly dangerous they are, the funnier they are.

Run through the Cohan list and you will discover that nearly every bit of business there reported is based on a quarrel, or might easily lead to a fight.

(b) _The "Fool" Theme_. To quote again from Weber and Fields:

There are two other important items in human nature that we have capitalized along with others to large profit. Human nature, according to the way we a.n.a.lyzed it, is such a curious thing that it will invariably find cause for extreme mirth in seeing some other fellow being made a fool of, no matter who that fellow may be, and in seeing a man betting on a proposition when he cannot possibly win. We figured it out, in the first place, that nothing pleased a man much more than when he saw another man being made to look silly in the eyes of others.

For example, don't you laugh when you observe a dignified looking individual strutting down the street wearing a paper tail that has been pinned to his coat by some mischievous boys? [1]

[1] From the Weber and Fields article already quoted.

Note how the "fool" theme runs all through "The Art of Flirtation."

Go to see as many two-acts as you can and you will find that one or another of the characters is always trying to "show up" the other.

(c) _The "Sucker" Theme_.