Writing for Vaudeville · Chapter 15Part 15
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You need never worry over-long about a title for your playlet if you put the emphasis in your own mind upon the fact that your title is an advertisement.
But when you have a playlet manuscript that is full of laughter and vibrant with dramatic thrills, and even after you have sold it to a manager who has produced it, your work as a playlet writer is not done. You still must cut and polish it until it is a flawless gem that flashes from the stage. As Edgar Allan Woolf expressed it to me in one of our conversations:
"The work of the author of a one-act comedy is not over until, after several weeks of playing, his playlet has been so reshaped and altered by him that not a single dull spot remains. Individual lines must be condensed so that they are as short as they possibly can be made. The elimination of every unnecessary word or phrase is essential. Where a line that develops the plot can be altered so that it will still serve its purpose, and also score a laugh on its own account, it must be so changed. Where lines cannot be changed, bits of comedy business may perhaps be inserted to keep the audience from lapsing into listlessness. For it is a deplorable fact that a vaudeville audience that is not laughing outright at a comedy becomes listless. Vaudeville managers never book a playlet that makes an audience smile—for while the humor that brings a smile may be more brilliant than the comedy that gets a laugh, it must always be remembered that vaudeville audiences come to laugh and not to smile. Some of the biggest laughs in every one of my many acts I put in after the acts had been playing some weeks. And I attribute whatever success they have had later in the best vaudeville theatres to the improvements I have made during their 'breaking in' periods."
To sum up: While no two writers ever have written and never will write a playlet in precisely the same way, the wise beginner chooses for his first playlet a comedy theme. Your germ idea you express in a single short sentence which you consider as the problem of your playlet, to be solved logically, clearly and conclusively. Instinct for the dramatic leads you to lift out from life's flowing stream of events the separate incidents you require and to dovetail them into a plot which tells the story simply by means of characters and dialogue skillfully blended into an indivisible whole, flashing with revealing meaning and ending with complete satisfaction.
After you have thought out your playlet, you set down so much of it as you feel is necessary in the form of a scenario. But you do not consider this scenario as unchangeable. Rather you judge the value of the idea by the freedom with which it grows in effectiveness. And while this process is going on, you carefully select the basic points in the beginning of the story that must be brought out prominently.
Then you develop the story by making the points that foreshadow your "big" scene stand out so as to weave the enthralling power of suspense. You let your audience guess what is going to happen, but keep them tensely interested in how it is going to happen. And you prepare your audience by a carefully preserved balance between the promise and the performance for the one big point of the climax which changes the relations of the characters to each other.
After you have shown the change as happening, you punch home the fact that it has happened, and withhold your completing card until the finish. In your finish you play the final card and account for the last loose strand of the plot, with a speed that does not detract from your effect of complete satisfaction.
In seeking to "punch up" your playlet, you go over every word, every bit of characterization, every moment of action, and eliminate single words, whole speeches, entire scenes, to cut down the playlet to the meat, seeking for lost punches particularly in the faults of keeping secrets that should be instantly disclosed, and in the too frank disclosures of secrets that ought to be kept in the beginning. And out of this re-writing there rises into view the "heart wallop" which first attracted you.
Finally, when your playlet is finished, you decide on a proper title. Remembering that a title is an advertisement, you choose a short name that both names and lures. And then you prepare the manuscript for its market—which is discussed in a later chapter.
But when you have written your playlet and have sold it to a manager who has produced it, your work is not yet done. You watch it in rehearsal, and during the "breaking in" weeks you cut it here, change it there, make a plot-line do double duty as a laugh-line in this spot, take away a needless word from another—until your playlet flashes a flawless gem from the stage. The final effect in the medium of expression for which you write it is UNITY. Every part—acting, dialogue, action—blends in a perfect whole. Not even one word may be taken away without disturbing the total effect of its vital oneness.
If you were asked, "What is a one-act musical comedy?" you might answer: "Let's see, a one-act musical comedy is—is—. Well, all I remember is a lot of pretty girls who changed their clothes every few minutes, two lovers who sang about the moon, a funny couple and a whole lot of music."
Hazy? Not at all. This is really a clear and reasonably correct definition of the average one-act musical colnedy, for this type of act is usually about fifty per cent. girl, twenty per cent. costumes and scenery, twenty-five per cent. music, and usually, but not always, five per cent. comedy. A musical comedy, therefore, is not music and comedy—it is girls and music. That is why the trade name of this, one of the most pleasing of vaudeville acts, is—a girl-act."
It was the girl-act, perhaps more than any other one style of act, that helped to build vaudeville up to its present high standing. On nearly every bill of the years that are past there was a girl-act. It is a form of entertainment that pleases young and old, and coming in the middle or toward the end of a varied program, it lends a touch of romance and melody without which many vaudeville bills would seem incomplete.
A girl-act is a picture, too. Moreover, it holds a touch of bigness, due to the number of its people, their changing costumes, and the length of time the act holds the stage. With its tuneful haste, its swiftly moving events, its rapid dialogue, its succession of characters, and its ever-changing, colorful pictures, the one-act musical comedy is not so much written as put together.
1. The Musical Elements
Technically known as a girl-act, and booked by managers who wish a "flash"—a big effect—the one-act musical comedy naturally puts its best foot foremost as soon as the curtain rises. And, equally of course, it builds up its effects into a concluding best-foot.
The best-foot of a musical comedy is the ensemble number, in which all the characters—save the principals, sometimes—join in a rousing song. The ensemble is musical comedy, and one-act musical comedy is—let this exaggeration clinch the truth—the ensemble. [1]
[1] Of course, I am discussing the usual musical comedy—the flash of a bill—in pointing out so forcefully the value of the ensemble. There have been some fine one-act musical comedies in which the ensemble was not used at all. Indeed, the musical comedy in one act without any ensemble offers most promising possibilities.
Between the opening and the closing ensembles there is usually one other ensemble number, and sometimes two. And between these three or four ensembles there are usually one or two single numbers—solos by a man or a woman—and a duet, or a trio, or a quartet. These form the musical element of the one-act musical comedy.
2. Scenery and Costumes—The Picture-Elements
While the one-act musical comedy may be played in one set of scenery only, it very often happens that there are two or three different scenes. The act may open in One, as did Joe Hart's "If We Said What We Thought," and then go into Full Stage; or it may open in Full Stage, go into One for a little musical number, and then go back into a different full-stage scene for its finish. It may even be divided into three big scenes—each played in a different set—with two interesting numbers in One, if time permits, or the act be planned to make its appeal by spectacular effects.
Very often, as in Lasky's "A Night on a Houseboat," a big set-piece or a trick scene is used to give an effect of difference, although the entire act is played without dropping a curtain.
To sum up the idea behind the use of musical comedy scenery: it is designed to present an effect of bigness—to make the audience feel they are viewing a "production."
The same thought is behind the continual costume changes which are an integral part of the one-act musical comedy effect. For each ensemble number the girls' costumes are changed. If there are three ensembles there are three costumes, and four changes if there are four ensembles. Needless to say, it sometimes keeps the girls hustling every minute the act is in progress, changing from one costume to another, and taking that one off to don a third or a fourth.
The result in spectacular effect is as though a scene were changed every time an ensemble number is sung. Furthermore, the lights are so contrived as to add to this effect of difference, and the combination of different colors playing over different costumes, moving about in different sets, forms an ever-changing picture delightfully pleasing and big.
Now, as the musical comedy depends for its appeal upon musical volume, numbers of people, sometimes shifting scenery, a kaleidoscopic effect of pretty girls in ever changing costumes and dancing about to catchy music, it does not have to lean upon a fascinating plot or brilliant dialogue, in order to succeed. But of course, as we shall see, a good story and funny dialogue make a good musical comedy better.
3. The Element of Plot
If your memory and my recollection of numerous musical comedies of both the one-act and the longer production of the legitimate stage are to be trusted, a plot is something not vital to the success of a musical comedy. Indeed, it is actually true that many a musical comedy has failed because the emphasis was placed on plot rather than on a skeleton of a story which showed the larger elements to the best advantage. Therefore I present the plot element of the average one-act musical comedy thus:
Whereas the opening and the finish of the playlet are two of its most difficult parts to write, in the musical comedy the beginning and the finish are ready-made to the writer's hand. However anxious he may be to introduce a novel twist of plot at the end, the writer is debarred from doing so, because he must finish with an ensemble number where the appeal is made by numbers of people, costumes, pretty girls and music. At the beginning, however, the writer may be as unconventional as he pleases—providing he does not take too long to bring on his first ensemble, and so disappoint his audience, who are waiting for the music and the girls. Therefore the writer must be content to "tag on" his plot to an opening nearly always— if not always—indicated, and to round his plot out into an almost invariably specified ending.
Between the opening and the closing ensembles the writer has to figure on at least one, and maybe more, ensembles, and a solo and a duet, or a trio and a quartet, or other combinations of these musical elements. These demands restrict his plot still further. He must indeed make his plot so slight that it will lead out from and blend into the overshadowing stage effects. Necessarily, his plot must first serve the demands of scenery and musical numbers— then and only then may his plot be whatever he can make it.
The one important rule for the making of a musical comedy plot is this: The plot of a one-act musical comedy should be considered as made up of story and comedy elements so spaced that the time necessary for setting scenery and changing costumes is neither too long nor too short.
More than one dress rehearsal on the night before opening has been wisely devoted to the precise rehearsing of musical numbers and costume changes only. The dialogue was never even hastily spoken. The entire effort was directed to making the entrances and exits of the chorus and principals on time. "For," the producer cannily reasons, "if they slip up on the dialogue they can fake it—but the slightest wait on a musical number will seem like a mortal wound."
If you recall any of Jesse L. Lasky's famous musical acts, "A Night at the Country Club," "At the Waldorf," "The Love Waltz," "The Song Shop" (these come readily to mind, but for the life of me I cannot recall even one incident of any of their plots), you will realize how important is the correct timing of musical numbers. You will also understand how unimportant to a successful vaudeville musical comedy is its plot.
4. Story Told by Situations, Not by Dialogue
As there is no time for studied character analysis and plot exposition, and little time for dialogue, the story of a musical comedy must be told by broad strokes. When you read "A Persian Garden," selected for full reproduction in the Appendix because it is one of the best examples of a well-balanced musical comedy plot ever seen in vaudeville, you will understand why so careful a constructionist as Edgar Allan Woolf begins his act with the following broad stroke:
The opening chorus has been sung, and instantly an old man's voice is heard off stage. Then all the chorus girls run up and say, "Oh, here comes the old Sheik now."
Again, when Paul wishes to be alone with Rose, Mr. Woolf makes Paul turn to Phil and say, "What did I tell you to do?" Then Phil seizes Mrs. Schuyler and runs her off the stage into the house.
Mr. Woolf's skill built this very broad stroke up into a comedy exit good for a laugh, but you and I have seen other exits where the comedy was lacking and the mechanics stood out even more boldly.
So we see that the same time-restriction which makes a musical comedy plot a skeleton, also makes the exits and entrances and the dialogue and every happening structurally a skeleton so loosely jointed that it would rattle horribly—were it not for the beautiful covering of the larger effects of costumes, scenery and music. Therefore the overshadowing necessity for speed makes admissible in the musical comedy broad strokes that would not be tolerated anywhere else.
It is by willingly granting this necessary license that the audience is permitted to enjoy many single musical numbers and delightful ensembles within the time-limits vaudeville can afford for anyone act. So we see why it is—to return to the bald expository statement with which this division begins—that the writer must consider his story and his comedy scenes only as time-fillers to make the waits between musical numbers pleasantly interesting and laughter-worthwhile.
5. The Comedy Element
Plainly recognizing the quickness with which one character must be brought on the stage and taken off again, and thoroughly appreciating that whatever is done between the musical numbers must be speedily dismissed, let us now see what forms of comedy are possible.
Obviously the comedy cannot depend upon delicate shades. It must be the sort of comedy that is physical rather than mental. Slap-stick comedy would seem to be the surest to succeed.
But while this is true, there is no need to depend entirely on the slap-stick brand of humor. For instance, while we find in "A Persian Garden" one whole comedy scene built on the killing of mosquitoes on Phil's face—certainly the slap-stick brand, even though a hand delivers the slap—we also have the comedy of character in Mrs. Schuyler's speeches.
Comedy rising directly out of and dependent upon plot, however, is not the sort of comedy that usually gives the best results, because plot is nearly always subservient to the musical and picture making elements. But the comedy element of plot may be made to run throughout and can be used with good effect, if it is the kind that is easily dismissed and brought back. This is why so many musical comedies have made use of plots hinged on mistaken identity, Kings and Princesses in masquerade, and wives and husbands anxiously avoiding each other and forever meeting unexpectedly.
Still, plot-comedy may be depended upon for at least one big scene, if the idea is big enough. For instance, the internationally successful "The Naked Truth" possessed a plot that was big enough to carry the musical comedy on plot-interest alone, if that were necessary. Indeed, it might have been used as a good farce without music. The whole act hung on a magic statue in whose presence nothing but the truth could be told, on pain of parting from one's clothes. And the comedy scenes that developed out of it carried a series of twists and turns of real plot-interest that made the musical numbers all the more delightful and the whole act a notable success. The musical element of this delightful vaudeville form makes certain other humorous acts fit into the musical comedy structure. For instance, if the comedy character is left alone on the stage, he can with perfect propriety deliver a short monologue. Or he may do anything else that will win laughter and applause.
And the two-act, even more perfectly than the monologue, fits into the musical comedy. No matter what the two-act is, if it is short and humorous, it may be used for one of the ornamental time-gap stoppers. A quarrel scene may be just what is needed to fill out and advance the plot. But more often, the flirtation two-act is the form that best suits, for the nature of the musical comedy seems best expressed by love and its romantic moments. Indeed, the flirtation two-act is often a little musical comedy in itself, minus a background of girls. As an example, take Louis Weslyn's very successful two-act, "After the Shower." [1] You can easily imagine all the other girls in the camping party appearing, to act as the chorus. Then suppply a talkative chaperon, and you have only to add her comical husband to produce a fine musical comedy offering.
[1] See the Appendix.
So we see once more that the one-act musical comedy is the result of assembling, rather than of writing. There is no need of adding even one instruction paragraph here.
Before we take up the one or two hints on writing that would seem to present themselves in helpful guise, you should read Edgar Allan Woolf's "A Persian Garden." Turn to the Appendix and this act will show you clearly how the writer welds these different vaudeville forms into one perfect whole.
Unless you have a definite order to write a one-act musical comedy, it would seem, from the comparatively small part the writer has in the final effect, that the novice had better not write the musical comedy at all. Although this would appear to be clear from the discussion of the elements in the preceding chapter, I want to make it even more emphatic by saying that more than once I have written a musical comedy act for the "small time" in a few hours—and have then spent weeks dovetailing it to fit the musical numbers introduced and whipping the whole act into the aspect of a "production."
But there is one time when even the amateur may write a musical comedy—when he has a great idea. But I do not mean the average musical comedy idea—I mean such an idea as that which made "The Naked Truth" so successful. And in the hope that you may possess such an idea, I offer a few hints that may prove helpful in casting your idea into smooth musical comedy form.
As I have already discussed plot in the chapters devoted to the playlet, and have taken up the structure of the monologue and the two-act in the chapters on those forms, there is now no need for considering "writing" at all save for a single hint. Yet even this one suggestion deals less with the formal "writing" element than with the "feel" of the material. It is stated rather humorously by Thomas J. Gray, who has written many successful one-act musical comedies, varying in style from "Gus Edwards' School Boys and Girls" to "The Vaudeville Revue of 1915"—a musical travesty on prevailing ideas—and the books of a few long musical successes, from comedy scenes in "Watch your Step" to "Ned Wayburn's Town Topics," that "Musical comedy, from a vaudeville standpoint, and a 'Broadway' or two-dollar standpoint, are two different things. A writer has to treat them in entirely different ways, as a doctor would two different patients suffering from the same ailment. In vaudeville an author has to remember that nearly everyone in the audience has some one particular favorite on the bill—you have to write something funny enough to: please the admirers of the acrobat, the magician, the dancer, the dramatic artist, the rag-time singer and the moving pictures. But in 'Broadway' musical comedy it is easier to please the audiences because they usually know what the show is about before they buy their tickets, and they know what to expect. That's why you can tell 'vaudeville stuff' in a 'Broadway' show—it's the lines the audience laugh at.
"To put it in a different way, let me say that while in two-dollar musical comedy you can get by with 'smart lines' and snickers, in vaudeville musical comedy you have to go deeper than the lip-laughter. You must waken the laughter that lies deep down and rises in appreciative roars. It is in ability to create situations that will produce this type of laughter that the one-act musical comedy writer's success lies."
1. An Average One-Act Musical Comedy Recipe
While it is not absolutely necessary to open a musical comedy with an ensemble number, many fine acts do so open. And the ensemble finish seems to be the rule. Therefore let us assume that you wish to form your musical comedy on this usual style. As your act should run anywhere from thirty to fifty minutes, and as your opening number will consume scarcely two minutes, and your closing ensemble perhaps three, you have—on a thirty-five minute basis— thirty minutes in which to bring in your third ensemble, your other musical numbers and your dialogue.
The third ensemble—probably a chorus number, with the tenor or the ingenue, or both, working in front of the chorus—will consume anywhere from five to seven minutes. Then your solo will take about three minutes. And if you have a duet or a trio, count four minutes more. So you have about eighteen minutes for your plot and comedy—including specialties.
While these time hints are obviously not exact, they are suggestive of the fact that you should time everything which enters into your act. And having timed your musical elements by some such rough standard as this—or, better still, by slowly reading your lyrics as though you were singing—you should set down for your own guidance a schedule that will look something like this:
Opening ensemble…………. 2 minutes
Dialogue Introducing Plot, First Comedy Scenes……. 4 "
Solo……………………. 3 "
Dialogue Comedy and Specialties…. 5 "
Ensemble number………….. 5 "
Dialogue Specialties, Comedy. Plot climax—perhaps a "big" love scene, leading into………….. 7 "
Duet……………………. 4 "
Dialogue Plot Solution—the final arrangement of characters…………. 2 "
Closing ensemble…………. 3 " ———- 35 "
Of course this imaginary schedule is not the only schedule that can be used; also bear firmly in mind that you may make any arrangement of your elements that you desire, within the musical comedy form. Let me repeat what I am never tired of saying, that a rigid adherence to any existing form of vaudeville act is as likely to be disastrous as a too wild desire to be original. Be as unconventional as you can be within the necessary conventional limits. This is the way to success.
You have your big idea, and you have the safe, conventional ensemble opening, or a semi-ensemble novelty opening. Also you have a solo number for the tenor or the ingenue, with the chorus working behind them. Finally you have your ensemble ending. Now, within these boundaries, arrange your solo and duet—or dispense with them, as you feel best fits your plot and your comedy. Develop your story by comedy situations—don't depend upon lines. Place your big scene in the last big dialogue space—the seven minutes of the foregoing schedule—and then bring your act to an end with a great big musical finish.
2. Timing the Costume Changes
Although the schedule given allows plenty of time for costume changes, you must not consider your schedule as a ready-made formula. Read it and learn the lesson it points out—then cast it aside. Test every minute of your act by the test of time. Be especially careful to give your chorus and your principal characters time to make costume changes.
In gauging the minutes these changes will take, time yourself in making actual changes of clothing. Remember that you must allow one minute to get to the dressing room and return to the stage. But do not make the mistake of supposing that the first test you make in changing your own clothes will be the actual time it will take experienced dressers to change. You yourself can cut down your time record by practice—and your clothes are not equipped with time-saving fasteners. Furthermore, it often happens that the most complicated dress is worn in the first scene and a very quick change is prepared for by under-dressing—that is, wearing some of the garments of the next change under the pretentious over-garments of the preceding scene. These are merely stripped off and the person is ready dressed to go back on the stage in half a minute.
But precise exactness in costume changes need not worry you very much. If you have been reasonably exact, the producer—upon whom the costume changes and the costumes themselves depend—will add a minute of dialogue here or take away a minute there, to make the act run as it should.
3. The Production Song
Certain songs lend themselves more readily to effective staging, and these are called "production songs." For instance: "Alexander's Ragtime Band" could be—and often was—put on with a real band. The principal character could sing the first verse and the chorus alone. Then the chorus girls could come out in regimentals, each one "playing" some instrument—the music faked by the orchestra or produced by "zobos"—and when they were all on the stage, the chorus could be played again with rousing effect. During the second verse, sung as a solo, the girls could act out the lines. Then with the repetitioin of the chorus, they could produce funny characteristic effects on the instruments. And then they could all exit—waiting for the audience to bring them back for the novelties the audience would expect to be introduced in an encore.
This is often the way a "popular song" is "plugged" in cabarets, musical comedies, burlesque, and in vaudeville. It is made so attractive that it is repeated again and again—and so drummed into the ears of the audience that they go out whistling it. Ned Wayburn demonstrated this in his vaudeville act "Staging an Act." He took a commonplace melody and built it up into a production—then the audience liked it. George Cohan did precisely the same thing in his "Hello, Broadway"; taking a silly lyric and a melody, he told the audience he was going to make 'em like it; and he did—by "producing it."
But not every "popular song" lends itself to production treatment. For instance, how would you go about producing "When it Strikes Home"? How would you stage "When I Lost You"? Or—to show you that serious songs are not the only ones that may not be producible— how would you put on "Oh, How that German Could Love"? Of course you could bring the chorus on in couples and have them sing such a sentimental song to each other—but that would not, in the fullest sense, be producing it.
Just as not every "popular song" can be produced, so not every production song can be made popular. You have never whistled that song produced in "Staging an Act," nor have you ever whistled Cohan's song from "Hello, Broadway." If they ever had any names I have forgotten them, but the audience liked them immensely at the time.