Writing for Vaudeville Part 17

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

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

3--A single preeminent character.

4--Motivated speeches.

5--Motivated business and acting.

6--Unity of characters.

7--Compression.

8--Plot.

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

10--Unity of impression [1]

[1] See page 30, Writing the Short-Story, by J. Berg Esenwein, published in "The Writer's Library," uniform with this volume.

Note the seven characteristics of the short-story and compare them with the playlet's ten characteristics. You will find a surprising similarity between the short-story and the playlet in some points of structure. A study of both in relation to each other may give you a clearer understanding of each.

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

A Definition of a Playlet

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

You may haunt the vaudeville theatres in a vain search for a playlet that will embody all of these characteristics in one perfect example. [1] But the fact that a few playlets are absolutely perfect technically is no reason why the others should be condemned.

Remember that precise conformity to the rules here laid down is merely academic perfection, and that the final worth of a playlet depends not upon adherence to any one rule, or all--save as they point the way to success--but upon how the playlet as a whole succeeds with the audience.

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XI

KINDS OF PLAYLET

The kind of playlet is largely determined by its characters and their surroundings, and on these there are practically no limits.

You may have characters of any nationality; you may treat them reverently, or--save that you must never offend--you may make them as funny as you desire; you may give them any profession that suits your purpose; you may place them in any sort of house or on the open hills or in an air-s.h.i.+p high in the sky; you may show them in any country of the earth or on the moon or in the seas under the earth--you may do anything you like with them. Vaudeville wants everything--everything so long as it is well and strikingly done. Therefore, to attempt to list the many different kinds of playlet to be seen upon the vaudeville stage would, indeed, be a task as fraught with hazard as to try to cla.s.sify minutely the divers kinds of men seen upon the stage of life. And of just as little practical value would it be to have tables showing the scores of superficial variations of character, nationality, time and place which the years have woven into the playlets of the past.

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

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

A brief technical discussion will also be found in Writing the Short-Story, by J. Berg Esenwein, pp. 64-67.

But do not confuse the word "romance," as it is used in the preceding paragraph, with love. Love is an emotional, not a technical element, and consorts equally well with either romance or realism in writing. Love might be the heading of one of those tables we have agreed not to bother with. Into everything that is written for vaudeville love may stray. Or it may not intrude, if your purpose demands that love stay out. Yet, like the world, what would vaudeville be, if love were left out? And now we come to those broad types of playlet which you should recognize instinctively.

Unless you do so recognize them--and the varying half-grounds that lie between, where they meet and mingle quite as often as they appear in their pure forms--you will have but little success in writing the playlet.

In considering the broad types of playlet you should remember that words are said to _denote_ definitely the ideas they delineate, and to _connote_ the thoughts and emotions they do not clearly express but arouse in the hearer or reader. For example, what do "farce," "comedy," "tragedy" and "melodrama" _connote_ to you?

What emotions do they suggest? This is an important matter, because all great artistic types are more or less fully a.s.sociated with a mood, a feeling, an atmosphere.

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

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

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

[1] See Appendix.

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

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

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

[1] See Appendix.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The same is true of

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

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

And the same is likewise true of

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