Writing for Vaudeville · Chapter 9Part 9
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It is generally accepted by students of the novel and the short-story that there are three ways of constructing a narrative:
(a) Characters may be fitted with a story.
(b) A sequence of events may be fitted with characters.
(c) An interesting atmosphere may be expressed by characters and a sequence of events.
In other words, a narrative may be told by making either the characters or the events or the atmosphere peculiarly and particularly prominent.
It should be obvious that the special character of vaudeville makes the last-named—the story of atmosphere—the least effective; indeed, as drama is action—by which I mean a clash of wills and the outcome—no audience would be likely to sit through even twenty minutes of something which, after all, merely results in a "feeling." Therefore the very nature of the pure story of atmosphere eliminates it from the stage; next in weakness of effect is the story of character; while the strongest—blood of its blood and bone of its bone—is the story of dramatic events. This is for what the stage is made and by which it lives. To be sure, character and atmosphere both have their places in the play of dramatic action, but for vaudeville those places must be subordinate.
These last two ways of constructing a story will be taken up and discussed in detail later on, in their proper order; they are mentioned here to help make clear how a playwright gets an idea.
2. Themes to fit Certain Players
It is not at all uncommon for a playlet writer to be asked to fit some legitimate star, about to enter vaudeville, with a playlet that shall have for its hero or its heroine the particular character in which the star has had marked success. [1] And often a man and wife who have achieved a reputation in vaudeville together will order a new playlet that shall have characters modeled on the lines of those in the old playlet. Or, indeed, as I have know in many instances, three performers will order a playlet in which there must be characters to fit them all. When a writer receives such an order it would seem that at least a part of his task is already done for him; but this is not the case, he still must seek that most important things—a story.
[1] In precisely the same way writers of the full-evening play for the legitimate stage are forever fashioning vehicles for famous stars. The fact that the chief consideration is the star and that the play is considered merely as a "vehicle" is one of the reasons why our plays are not always of the best. Where you consider a personality greater than a story, the story is likely to suffer. Can you name more than one or two recent plays so fashioned that have won more than a season's run?
3. Themes Born in the Mind of the Writer
The beginner, fortunately, is not brought face to face with this problem; he is foot-free to wander wherever his fancy leads. And yet he may find in his thoughts a character or two who beg to serve him so earnestly that he cannot deny them. So he takes them, knowing them so well that he is sure he can make them live—and he constructs a story around them.
Or there may first pop into his mind a story in its entirety, full fledged, with beginning, middle and ending—that is; thoroughly motivated in every part and equipped with characters that live and breathe. Unhappily this most fortunate of occurrences usually happens only in the middle of the night, when one must wake up next morning and sadly realize it was but a dream.
4. The Newspaper as a Source of Ideas.
A playwright, let us say, reads in the newspapers of some striking characters, or of an event that appeals to him as funny or as having a deep dramatic import. There may be only a few bald lines telling the news. features of the story in one sentence, or there may be an entire column, discussing the case from every angle. Whatever it is, the bit of news appeals to him, and maybe of all men to him only, so he starts thinking about the possibilities it offers for a playlet.
5. Happenings of which the Playwright is Told or Which Occur under his Notice
Some striking incident rises out of the life about the playwright and he sees it or hears about it, and straightway comes the thought: This is a playlet idea. A large number of playlets have been germinated so.
6. Experiences that Happen to the Playwright
Some personal experience which wakens in the mind of the playwright the thought, Here's something that'll make a good playlet, is one of the fruitful sources of playlet-germs.
But however the germ idea comes to him—whether as a complete story, or merely as one striking incident, or just a situation that recommends itself to him as worth while fitting with a story—he begins by turning it over in his mind and casting it into dramatic form.
For the purpose of illustration, let us suppose that Taylor Granville, who conceived the idea of "The System," had read in the New York newspapers about the Becker case and the startling expose of the alleged police "system" that grew out of the Rosenthal murder, here is how his mind, trained to vaudeville and dramatic conventions, might have evolved that excellent melodramatic playleet. [1]
[1] As a matter of fact, Mr. Granville had the first draft of the playlet in his trunk many months before the Rosenthal murder occurred, and Mr. MacCree and Mr. Clark were helping him with the final revisions when the fatal shot was fired.
In this connection it should be emphasized that the Becker case did not make The System a great playlet; the investigation of the New York Police Department only gave it the added attraction of timeliness and, therefore, drew particular attention to it. Dozens of other playlets and many long plays that followed The System on the wave of the same timely interest failed. Precisely as Within the Law, Bayard Veiller's great play, so successful for the Selwyn Company, was given a striking timeliness by the Rosenthal murder, The System reaped merely the brimming harvest of lucky accident. And like Within the Law, this great playlet would be as successful today as it was then—because it is "big" in itself. [end footnote]
The incidents of "the Becker Case" were these: Herman Rosenthal, a gambler of notorious reputation, one day went to District Attorney Whitman with the story that he was being hounded by the police—at the command of a certain Police Lieutenant. Rosenthal asserted that he had a story to tell which would shake up the New York Police Department. He was about to be called to testify to his alleged story when he was shot to death in front of the Metropole Hotel on Forty-third Street and the murderer or murderers escaped in an automobile. Several notorious underworld characters were arrested, charged with complicity in the murder, and some, in the hope, it has been said, of receiving immunity, confessed and implicated Police Lieutenant Becker, who was arrested on the charge of being the instigator of the crime. [1] These are the bare facts as every newspaper in New York City told them in glaring headlines at the time. Merely as incidents of a striking story, Mr. Granville would, it is likely, have turned them over in his mind with these thoughts:
[1] Becker's subsequent trial, conviction, sentence to death and execution occurred many months later and could not have entered into the playwright's material, therefore they are not recounted here.
"If I take these incidents as they stand, I'll have a grewsome ending that'll 'go great' for a while—if the authorities let me play it—and then the playlet will die with the waning interest. There isn't much that's dramatic in a gambler shown in the District Attorney's Office planning to 'squeal,' and then getting shot for it, even though the police in the playlet were made to instigate the murder. It'd make a great 'movie,' perhaps, but there isn't enough time in vaudeville to go through all the motions: I've got to recast it into drama.
"I must 'forget' the bloody ending, too—it may be great drama, but it isn't good vaudeville. The two-a-day wants the happy ending, if it can get it.
"And even if the Becker story's true in every detail, Rosenthal isn't a character with whom vaudeville can sympathize—I'll have to get a lesser offender, to win sympathy—a 'dip's' about right— 'The Eel.'
"There isn't any love-interest, either—where's the girl that sticks to him through thick and thin? I'll add his sweetheart, Goldie. And I'll give The Eel more sympathy by making Dugan's motive the attempt to win her.
"Then there's got to be the square Copper—the public knows that the Police force is fundamentally honest—so the Department has got to clean itself up, in my playlet; fine, there's McCarthy, the honest Inspector."
Here we have a little more, perhaps, than a bare germ idea, but it is probably the sort of thing that came into Mr. Granville's mind with the very first thought of "The System." Even more might have come during the first consideration of his new playlet, and—as we are dealing now not with a germ idea only but primarily with how a playwright's mind works—let us follow his supposititious reasoning further:
"All right; now, there's got to be an incident that'll give Dugan his chance to 'railroad' The Eel, and a money-society turn is always good, so we have Mrs. Worthington and the necklace, with Goldie, the suspected maid, who casts suspicion on The Eel. Dugan 'plants' it all, gets the necklace himself, tries to lay it to The Eel, and win Goldie besides—but a dictograph shows him up. Now a man-to-man struggle between Dugan and The Eel for good old melodrama. The Eel is losing, in comes the Inspector and saves him—Dugan caught—triumph of the honest police—and Goldie and The Eel free to start life anew together. That's about it—for a starter, anyway.
"Re-read these dramatic incidents carefully, compare them with the incidents of the suggestive case as the newspapers reported them, and you will see not only where a playwright may get a germ idea, but how his mind works in casting it into stage form.
The first thing that strikes you is the dissimilarity of the two stories; the second, the greater dramatic effectiveness of the plot the playlet-writer's mind has evolved; third, that needless incidents have been cut away; fourth, that the very premise of the story, and all the succeeding incidents, lead you to recognize them in the light of the denouement as the logical first step and succeeding steps of which the final scene is inevitably the last; fifth, however many doubts may hover around the story of the suggesting incident, there is no cloud of doubt about the perfect justice of the stage story; and, sixth, that while you greet the ending of the suggesting story with a feeling of repugnance, the final scene of the stage story makes the whole clearly, happily and pleasantly true—truer than life itself, to human hearts which forever aspire after what we sometimes sadly call "poetic justice."
Now, in a few short paragraphs, we may sum up the answer to the question which opens this chapter, and answer the other two questions as well. A playlet writer may get the germ of a playlet idea: from half-ideas suggested by the necessity of fitting certain players; directly from his own imagination; from the newspapers; from what someone tells him, or from his observation of incidents that come under his personal notice; from experiences that happen to him—in fact, from anywhere.
A playlet writer recognizes that the character or characters, the incident or incidents, possess a funny, serious or tragic grip, and the fact that he, himself, is gripped, is evidence that a playlet is "there," if—IF—he can trust his own dramatic instinct. A playlet writer recognizes an idea as a playlet idea, because he is able so to recognize such an idea; there is no escape from this: YOU MUST POSSESS DRAMATIC INSTINCT [1] to recognize playlet ideas and write playlets.
[1] See the following chapter on "The Dramatic—the Vital Element of Plot."
No two persons in this world act alike, and certainly no two persons think alike. How much of a playlet is achieved when the germ idea is found and recognized, depends somewhat upon the idea—whether it is of characters that must be fitted with a story, a series of incidents, or one incident only—but more upon the writer. I have known playlets which were the results of ideas that originated in the concepts of clever final situations, the last two minutes of the playlet serving as the incentive to the construction of the story that led inevitably up to the climax. I have also known playlets whose big scenes were the original ideas—the opening and finish being fitted to them. One or two writers have told me of playlets which came almost entirely organized and motivated into their minds with the first appearance of the germ idea. And others have told me of the hours of careful thinking through which they saw, in divers half-purposes of doubt, the action and the characters emerge into a definite, purposeful whole.
What one writer considers a full-fledged germ idea, may be to another but the first faint evidence that an idea may possibly be there. The skilled playlet-writer will certainly grasp a germ idea, and appraise its worth quicker than the novice can. In the eager acceptance of half-formed ideas that speciously glitter, lies the pitfall which entraps many a beginner. Therefore, engrave on the tablets of your resolution this determination and single standard:
Never accept a subject as a germ idea and begin to write a playlet until you have turned its theme over in your mind a sufficient length of time to establish its worth beyond question. Consider it from every angle in the light of the suggestions in this chapter, and make its characters and its action as familiar to you as is the location of every article in your own room. Then, when your instinct for the dramatic tells you there is no doubt that here is the germ idea of a playlet, state it in one short sentence, and consider that statement as a problem that must be solved logically, clearly and conclusively, within the requirements of the playlet form.
With the germ idea the entire playlet may flood into the writer's mind, or come in little waves that rise continually, like the ever advancing tide, to the flood that touches high-water mark. But, however complete the germ idea may be, it depends upon the writer alone whether he struggles like a novice to keep his dramatic head above water, or strikes out with the bold, free strokes of the practised swimmer.
What the dramatic is—no matter whether it be serious or comic in tone—requires some consideration in a volume such as this, even though but a brief discussion is possible and only a line of thought may be pointed out.
This discussion is placed here in the sequence of chapters, because it first begins to trouble the novice after he has accepted his germ idea, and before he has succeeded in casting it into a stage story. Indeed, at that moment even the most self-sure becomes conscious of the demands of the dramatic. Yet this chapter will be found to overlap some that precede it and some that follow—particularly the chapter on plot structure, of which this discussion may be considered an integral part—as is the case in every attempt to put into formal words, principles separate in theory, but inseparable in application.
In the previous chapter, the conscious thought that precedes even the acceptance of a germ idea was insisted on—it was "played up," as the stage phrase terms a scene in which the emotional key is pitched high—with the purpose of forcing upon your attention the prime necessity of thinking out—not yet writing—the playlet. Emphasis was also laid on the necessity for the possession of dramatic instinct—a gift far different from the ability to think—by anyone who would win success in writing this most difficult of dramatic forms. But now I wish to lay an added stress—to pitch even higher the key of emphasis—on one fundamental, this vital necessity: Anyone who would write a playlet must possess in himself, as an instinct—something that cannot be taught and cannot be acquired—the ability to recognize and grasp the dramatic.
No matter if you master the technic by which the great dramatists have built their plays, you cannot achieve success in writing the playlet if you do not possess an innate sense of what is dramatic. For, just as a man who is tone-deaf [1] might produce musical manuscripts which while technically faultless would play inharmoniously, so the man who is drama-blind might produce "perfect" playlet manuscripts that would play in dramatic discords.
[1] Not organically defective, as were the ears of the great composer, Beethoven, but tone-deaf, as a person may be color-blind.
1. What Dramatic Instinct Is
When you witness a really thrilling scene in a play you find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat; you clench your hands until the nails sink into your flesh; tears roll down your cheeks at other scenes, until you are ashamed of your emotion and wipe them furtively away; and you laugh uproariously at still other scenes. But your quickened heart-beats, your tears, and your laughter are, however, no evidence that you possess dramatic instinct—they are a tribute to the possession of that gift in the person who wrote the play. So do not confuse appreciation—the ultimate result of another's gift—with the ability to create: they are two very different things.
No more does comprehension of a dramatist's methods—a sort of detached and often cold appreciation—indicate the possession of gifts other than those of the critic.
Dramatic instinct is the ability to see the dramatic moments in real life; to grasp the dramatic possibilities; to pick out the thrills, the tears and the laughter, and to lift these out from the mass and set them—combined, coherent and convincing—in a story that seems truer than life itself, when unfolded on the stage by characters who are more real than reality. [1]
[1] Arniel in his Journal says: "The ideal, after all, is truer than the real; for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things; it is their type, their sum, their 'raison d'etre,' their formula in the book of the Creator, and therefore at once the most exact and the most condensed expression of them."
Elizabeth Woodbridge in her volume, The Drama, says: "It is in finding the mean between personal narrowness which is too selective, and photographic impersonality that is not selective at all, that the individuality of the artist, his training, and his ideals, are tested. It is this that determines how much his work shall possess of what we may call poetic, or artistic, truth." [end footnote]
Yet, true as it is that dramatic ability inevitably shines through finished drama when it is well played upon the stage, there are so many determining factors of pleasing theme, acting, production and even of audience—and so many little false steps both in manuscript and presentation; which might be counted unfortunate accident—that the failure of a play is not always a sure sign that the playwright lacks dramatic instinct. If it were, hardly one of our successful dramatists of today would have had the heart to persevere—for some wrote twenty full-evening plays before one was accepted by a manager, and then plodded through one or more stage failures before they were rewarded with final success. If producing managers could unerringly tell who has dramatic instinct highly developed and who has it not at all, there would be few play failures and the show-business would cease to be a gamble that surpasses even horse-racing for hazard.
Not only is it impossible for anyone to weigh the quantity or to assay the quality of dramatic instinct—whether in his own or another's breast—but it is as nearly impossible for anyone to decide from reading a manuscript whether a play will succeed or fail. Charles Frohman is reported to have said: "A man who could pick out winners would be worth a salary of a million dollars a year."
And even when a play is put into rehearsal the most experienced men in the business cannot tell unerringly whether it will succeed or fail before an audience. An audience—the heart of the crowd, the intellect of the mass, whatever you wish to call it—is at once the jury that tries a play and the judge who pronounces sentence to speedy death or a long and happy life. It is an audience, the "crowd," that awards the certificate of possession of dramatic instinct. [1]
[1] [four paragraphs:]
From three of the ablest critics of the "theatre crowd" I quote a tabloid statement:
"The theatre is a function of the crowd," says Brander Matthews, "and the work of the dramatist is conditioned by the audience to which he meant to present it. In the main, this influence is wholesome, for it tends to bring about a dealing with themes of universal interest. To some extent, it may be limiting and even harmful—but to what extent we cannot yet determine in our present ignorance of that psychology of the crowd which LeBon has analyzed so interestingly."
Here is M. LeBon's doctrine neatly condensed by Clayton Hamilton: "The mental qualities in which men differ from one another are the acquired qualities of intellect and character; but the qualities in which they are one are basic passions of the race. A crowd, therefore, is less intellectual and more emotional than the individuals that compose it. It is less reasonable, less judicious, less disinterested, more credulous, more primitive, more partisan; and hence, a man, by the mere fact that he forms a part of an organized crowd, descends several rungs on the ladder of civilization. Even the most cultured and intellectual of men, when he forms an atom of a crowd, loses consciousness of his acquired mental qualities, and harks back to his primal nakedness of mind. The dramatist, therefore, because he writes for the crowd, writes for an uncivilized and uncultivated mind, a mind richly human, vehement in approbation, violent in disapproval, easily credulous, eagerly enthusiastic, boyishly heroic, and carelessly thinking."
And Clayton Hamilton himself adds that, ". . .both in its sentiments and in its opinions, the crowd is hugely commonplace. It is incapable of original thought and of any but inherited emotion. It has no speculation in its eyes. What it feels was felt before the flood; and what it thinks, its fathers thought before it. The most effective moments in the theatre are those that appeal to commonplace emotions—love of women, love of home, love of country, love of right, anger, jealousy, revenge, ambition, lust and treachery."
[end footnote]
2. What "Good Drama" Is
By what standards, then, do producers decide whether a play has at least a good chance of success? How is it possible for a manager to pick a successful play even once in a while? Why is it that managers do not produce failures all the time?
Leaving outside of our consideration the question of changeable fashions in themes, and the commercial element (which includes the number of actors required, the scenery, costumes and similar factors), let us devote our attention, as the manager does, to the determining element—the story.
Does the story grip? Does it thrill? Does it lure to laughter? Does it touch to tears? Is it well constructed—that is, does it interest every minute of the time? Is every word, is every action, thoroughly motivated? Is the dialogue fine? Are the characters interesting, lovable, hateable, laughable, to be remembered? Does it state its problem clearly, so that everyone can comprehend it, develop its angle absorbingly, and end, not merely stop, with complete satisfaction? Could one little scene be added, or even one little passage be left out, without marring the whole? Is it true to life—truer than life? If it is all this, it is good drama.
Good drama is therefore more than plot. It is more than story plus characters, dialogue, acting, costumes, scenery—it is more than them all combined. Just as a man is more than his body, his speech, his dress, his movings to and fro in the scenes where he plays out his life, and even more than his deeds, so is a play more than the sum of all its parts. Every successful play, every great playlet, possesses a soul—a character, if you like—that carries a message to its audiences by means which cannot be analyzed.
But the fact that the soul of a great play cannot be analyzed does not prevent some other dramatist from duplicating the miracle in another play. And it is from a study of these great plays that certain mechanics of the drama—though, of course, they cannot explain the hidden miracle—have been laid down as laws.
3. What is Dramatic?
These few observations upon the nature of drama, which have scarcely been materially added to since Aristotle laid down the first over two thousand years ago, will be taken up and discussed in their relation to the playlet in the chapter on plot construction. Here they have no place, because we are concerned now not with how the results are obtained, but with what they are.
Let us approach our end by the standard definition route. The word "drama" is defined by Webster as, "A composition in poetry or prose, or both, representing a picture of human life, arranged for action, and having a plot, developed by the words and actions of its characters, which culminates in a final situation of human interest. It is usually designed for production on the stage, with the accessories of costumes, scenery, music, etc."
"Dramatic," is defined as, "Of or pertaining to the drama; represented by action; appropriate to or in the form of a drama; theatrical. Characterized by the force and fidelity appropriate to the drama."
In this last sentence we have the first step to what we are seeking: anything to be dramatic must be forceful, and it also must be faithful to life. And in the preceding sentence, "dramatic. . . is theatrical," we have a second step.
But what is "forceful," and why does Webster define anything that is dramatic as "theatrical"? To define one shadow by the name of another shadow is not making either clearer. However, the necessary looseness of the foregoing definitions is why they are so valuable to us—they are most suggestive.
If the maker of a dictionary, [1] hampered by space restrictions, finds it necessary to define "dramatic" by the word "theatrical," we may safely assume that theatrical effect has a foundation in the very heart of man. How many times have you heard someone say of another's action, "Oh, he did that just for theatrical effect"? Instantly you knew that the speaker was accusing the other of a desire to impress you by a carefully calculated action, either of the fineness of his own character or of the necessity and righteousness of your doing what he suggested so forcefully. We need not go back several thousand years to Aristotle to determine what is dramatic. In the promptings of our own hearts we can find the answer. [2]
[1] Webster's Dictionary was chosen because it is, historically, closely associated with American life, and therefore would seem to reflect the best American thought upon the peculiar form of our own drama.
[2] Shelley, in his preface to Cenci, says: "The highest moral purpose aimed at in the highest species of the drama is the teaching of the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself."
What is dramatic, is not what falls out as things ordinarily occur in life's flow of seemingly disconnected happenings; it is what occurs with precision and purpose, and with results which are eventually recognizable as being far beyond the forces that show upon its face. In an illuminating flash that reveals character, we comprehend what led up to that instant and what will follow. It is the revealing flash that is dramatic. Drama is a series of revealing flashes.
"This is not every-day life," we say, "but typical life—life as it would be if it were compactly ordered—life purposeful, and leading surely to an evident somewhere."
And, as man's heart beats high with hope and ever throbs with justice, those occurrences that fall out as he would wish them are the ones he loves the best; in this we find the reason for "poetic justice"—the "happy ending." For, as "man is of such stuff as dreams are made of," so are his plays made of his dreams. Here is the foundation of what is dramatic.
Yet, the dramatic ending may be unhappy, if it rounds the play out with big and logical design. Death is not necessarily poignantly sad upon the stage, because death is life's logical end. And who can die better than he who dies greatly? [1] Defeat, sorrow and suffering have a place as exquisitely fitting as success, laughter and gladness, because they are inalienable elements of life. Into every life a little sadness must come, we know, and so the lives of our stage-loves may be "draped with woe," and we but love them better.