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WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE
WITH NINE COMPLETE EXAMPLES OF VARIOUS VAUDEVILLE FORMS BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, AARON HOFFMAN, EDGAR ALLAN WOOLF,
TAYLOR GRANVILLE, LOUIS WESLYN, ARTHUR DENVIR, AND JAMES
MADISON
BY BRETT PAGE
AUTHOR OF "CLOSE HARMONY," "CAMPING DAYS," "MEMORIES," ETC.
DRAMATIC EDITOR, NEWSPAPER FEATURE SERVICE, NEW YORK
THE WRITER'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY J. BERG ESENWEIN
FOREWORD
Can you be taught how to write for vaudeville? If you have the
native gift, what experienced writers say about its problems, what
they themselves have accomplished, and the means by which it has
been wrought, will be of help to you. So much this book offers,
and more I would not claim for it.
Although this volume is the first treatise on the subject of which
I know, it is less an original offering than a compilation. Growing
out of a series of articles written in collaboration with Mr.
William C. Lengel for The Green Book Magazine, the subject assumed
such bigness in my eyes that when I began the writing of this book,
I spent months harvesting the knowledge of others to add to my own
experience. With the warm-heartedness for which vaudevillians are
famous, nearly everyone whose aid I asked lent assistance gladly.
"It is vaudeville's first book," said more than one, deprecating
the value of his own suggestions, "and we want it right in each
slightest particular."
To the following kindly gentlemen I wish to express my especial
thanks: Aaron Hoffman, Edwin Hopkins, James Madison, Edgar Allan
Woolf, Richard Harding Davis--the foremost example of a writer who
made a famous name first in literature and afterward in
vaudeville--Arthur Hopkins, Taylor Granville, Junie McCree, Arthur
Denvir, Frank Fogarty, Irving Berlin, Charles K. Harris, L. Wolfe
Gilbert, Ballard MacDonald, Louis Bernstein, Joe McCarthy, Joseph
Hart, Joseph Maxwell, George A. Gottlieb, Daniel F. Hennessy,
Sime Silverman, Thomas J. Gray, William C. Lengel, Miss Nellie
Revell, the "big sister of vaudeville," and a host of others whose
names space does not permit my naming again here, but whose work
is evidenced in the following pages. To Alexander Black, the man
who made the first picture play twenty-one years ago, I owe thanks
for points in the discussion of dramatic values. And for many
helpful suggestions, and his kindly editing, I wish to express my
gratitude to Dr. J. Berg Esenwein. To these "friends indeed"
belongs whatever merit this book possesses.
BRETT PAGE
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
August 25, 1915
INTRODUCTION
It falls to the lot of few men in these days to blaze a new trail
in Bookland. This Mr. Brett Page has done, with firmness and
precision, and with a joy in every stroke that will beget in
countless readers that answering joy which is the reward of both
him who guides and him who follows. There is but one word for a
work so penetrating, so eductive, so clear--and that word is
_masterly_. Let no one believe the modest assertion that "Writing
for Vaudeville" is "less an original offering than a compilation."
I have seen it grow and re-grow, section by section, and never
have I known an author give more care to the development of his
theme in an original way. Mr. Page has worked with fidelity to
the convictions gained while himself writing professionally, yet
with deference for the opinions of past masters in this field.
The result is a book quite unexcelled among manuals of instruction,
for authority, full statement, analysis of the sort that leads the
reader to see what essentials he must build into his own structures,
and sympathetic helpfulness throughout. I count it an honor to
have been the editorial sponsor for a pioneer book which will be
soon known everywhere.
J. BERG ESENWEIN
WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE
CHAPTER I
THE WHY OF THE VAUDEVILLE ACT
1. The Rise of Vaudeville
A French workman who lived in the Valley of the Vire in the
fourteenth or fifteenth century, is said to be vaudeville's
grandparent. Of course, the child of his brain bears not even a
remote resemblance to its descendant of to-day, yet the line is
unbroken and the relationship clearer than many of the family trees
of the royal houses. The French workman's name was Oliver Bassel,
or Olivier Basselin, and in his way he was a poet. He composed
and sang certain sprightly songs which struck the popular fancy
and achieved a reputation not only in his own town but throughout
the country.
Bassel's success raised the usual crop of imitators and soon a
whole family of songs like his were being whistled in France. In
the course of time these came to be classed as a new and distinct
form of musical entertainment. They were given the name of
"Val-de-Vire" from the valley in which Bassel was born. This
name became corrupted, into "vaux-de-vire" in the time of Louis
XVI, and was applied to all the popular or topical songs sung on
the streets of Paris. Then the aristocrats took up these songs
and gave entertainments at their country seats. To these
entertainments they gave the name of "vaux-de-ville," the last
syllable being changed to honor Bassel's native town [1] And
gradually the x was dropped and the word has remained through the
years as it is to-day.
[1] Another version relates that these songs were sung on the Pont
Neuf in Paris, where stands the Hotel de Ville, or City Hall, and
thus the generic name acquired the different termination.
As the form of entertainment advanced, the word vaudeville expanded
in meaning. It came to comprise not only a collection of songs,
but also acrobatic feats and other exhibitions. Having no dramatic
sequence whatever, these unrelated acts when shown together achieved
recognition as a distinct form of theatrical entertainment. As
"vaudeville"--or "variety"--this form of entertainment became known
and loved in every country of the world.
Vaudeville was introduced into this country before 1820, but it
did not become a common form of entertainment until shortly before
the Civil War when the word 'variety' was at once adopted and
became familiar as something peculiarly applicable to the troubled
times. The new and always cheerful entertainment found the reward
of its optimism in a wide popularity. But as those days of war
were the days of men, vaudeville made its appeal to men only. And
then the war-clouds passed away and the show business had to
reestablish itself, precisely as every other commercial pursuit
had to readjust itself to changed conditions.
Tony Pastor saw his opportunity. On July 31, 1865, he opened "Tony
Pastor's Opera House" at 199-201 Bowery, New York. He had a theory
that a vaudeville entertainment from which every objectionable
word and action were taken away, and from which the drinking bar
was excluded, would appeal to women and children as well as men.
He knew that no entertainment that excluded women could long hold
a profitable place in a man's affections. So to draw the whole
family to his new Opera House, Tony Pastor inaugurated clean
vaudeville [1]. Pastor's success was almost instantaneous. It
became the fashion to go to Pastor's Opera House and later when
he moved to Broadway, and then up to Fourteenth Street, next to
Tammany Hall, he carried his clientele with him. And vaudeville,
as a form of entertainment that appealed to every member of the
home circle, was firmly established--for a while.
[1] In the New York Clipper for December 19, 1914, there is an
interesting article: "The Days of Tony Pastor," by Al. Fostelle,
an old-time vaudeville performer, recounting the names of the
famous performers who played for Tony Pastor in the early days.
It reads like a "who's who" of vaudeville history. Mr. Fostelle,
has in his collection a bill of an entertainment given in England
in 1723, consisting of singing, dancing, character impersonations,
with musical accompaniment, tight-rope walking, acrobatic feats,
etc.
For Pastor's success in New York did not at first seem to the
average vaudeville manager something that could be duplicated
everywhere. A large part of the profits of the usual place came
from the sale of drinks and to forego this source of revenue seemed
suicidal. Therefore, vaudeville as a whole continued for years
on the old plane. "Variety" was the name--in England vaudeville
is still called "variety"--that it held even more widely then.
And in the later seventies and the early eighties "variety" was
on the ebb-tide. It was classed even lower than the circus, from
which many of its recruits were drawn.
Among the men who came to vaudeville's rescue, because they saw
that to appear to the masses profitably, vaudeville must be clean,
were F. F. Proctor in Philadelphia, and B. F. Keith in Boston.
On Washington Street in Boston, B. F. Keith had opened a "store
show." The room was very small and he had but a tiny stage; still
he showed a collection of curiosities, among which were a two-headed
calf and a fat woman. Later on he added a singer and a serio-comic
comedian and insisted that they eliminate from their acts everything
that might offend the most fastidious. The result was that he
moved to larger quarters and ten months later to still more
commodious premised.
Continuous vaudeville--"eleven o'clock in the morning until eleven
at night"--had its birth on July 6, 1885. It struck the popular
fancy immediately and soon there was hardly a city of any importance
that did not possess its "continuous" house. From the "continuous"
vaudeville has developed the two-performances-a-day policy, for
which vaudeville is now so well known.
The vaudeville entertainment of this generation is, however, a
vastly different entertainment from that of even the nineties.
What it has become in popular affection it owes not only to Tony
Pastor, F. F. Proctor, or even to B. F. Keith--great as was his
influence--but to a host of showmen whose names and activities
would fill more space than is possible here. E. F. Albee, Oscar
Hammerstein, S. Z. Poli, William Morris, Mike Shea, James E. Moore,
Percy G. Williams, Harry Davis, Morris Meyerfeld, Martin Beck,
John J. Murdock, Daniel F. Hennessy, Sullivan and Considine,
Alexander Pantages, Marcus Loew, Charles E. Kohl, Max Anderson,
Henry Zeigler, and George Castle, are but a few of the many men
living and dead who have helped to make vaudeville what it is.
From the old variety show, made up of a singer of topical songs,
an acrobatic couple, a tight-rope walker, a sidewalk "patter" pair,
and perhaps a very rough comedy sketch, there has developed a
performance that sometimes includes as many as ten or twelve acts,
each one presented by an artist whose name is known around the
world. One of the laments of the old vaudeville performers is
that they have a place in vaudeville no more. The most famous
grand opera singers and the greatest actors and actresses appear
in their room. The most renowned dramatists write some of its
playlets. The finest composers cut down their best-known works
to fit its stage, and little operas requiring forty people and
three or four sets of scenery are the result. To the legitimate
[1] stage vaudeville has given some of its successful plays and
at least one grand opera has been expanded from a playlet. To-day
a vaudeville performance is the best thought of the world condensed
to fit the flying hour.
[1] _Legitimate_ is a word used in the theatrical business to
distinguish the full-evening drama, its actors, producers, and its
mechanical stage from those of burlesque and vaudeville. Originally
coined as a word of reproach against vaudeville, it has lost its
sting and is used by vaudevillians as well as legitimate actors
and managers.
2. Of What a Vaudeville Show is Made
There is no keener psychologist than a vaudeville manager. Not
only does he present the best of everything that can be shown upon
a stage, but he so arranges the heterogeneous elements that they
combine to form a unified whole. He brings his audiences together
by advertising variety and reputations, and he sends them away
aglow with the feeling that they have been entertained every minute.
His raw material is the best he can buy. His finished product is
usually the finest his brain can form. He engages Sarah Bernhardt,
Calve, a Sir James M. Barrie playlet, Ethel Barrymore, and Henry
Miller. He takes one of them as the nucleus of a week's bill.
Then he runs over the names of such regular vaudevillians as Grace
La Rue, Nat Wills, Trixie Friganza, Harry Fox and Yansci Dollie,
Emma Carus, Sam and Kitty Morton, Walter C. Kelly, Conroy and
LeMaire, Jack Wilson, Hyams and McIntyre, and Frank Fogarty. He
selects two or maybe three of them. Suddenly it occurs to him
that he hasn't a big musical "flash" for his bill, so he telephones
a producer like Jesse L. Lasky, Arthur Hopkins or Joe Hart and
asks him for one of his fifteen- or twenty-people acts. This he
adds to his bill. Then he picks a song-and-dance act and an
acrobatic turn. Suddenly he remembers that he wants--not for this
show, but for some future week--Gertrude Hoffman with her big
company, or Eva Tanguay all by herself. This off his mind, the
manager lays out his show--if it is the standard nine-act
bill--somewhat after the following plan, as George A. Gottlieb,
who books Keith's Palace Theatre, New York, shows--probably the
best and certainly the "biggest" vaudeville entertainments seen
in this country--has been good enough to explain.
"We usually select a 'dumb act' for the first act on the bill.
It may be a dancing act, some good animal act, or any act that
makes a good impression and will not be spoiled by the late arrivals
seeking their seats. Therefore it sometimes happens that we make
use of a song-and-dance turn, or any other little act that does
not depend on its words being heard.
"For number two position we select an interesting act of the sort
recognized as a typical 'vaudeville act.' It may be almost anything
at all, though it should be more entertaining than the first act.
For this reason it often happens that a good man-and-woman singing
act is placed here. This position on the bill is to 'settle' the
audience and to prepare it for the show.
"With number three position we count on waking up the audience.
The show has been properly started and from now on it must build
right up to the finish. So we offer a comedy dramatic sketch--a
playlet that wakens the interest and holds the audience every
minute with a culminative effect that comes to its laughter-climax
at the 'curtain,' or any other kind of act that is not of the same
order as the preceding turn, so that, having laid the foundations,
we may have the audience wondering what is to come next.
"For number four position we must have a 'corker' of an act--and
a 'name.' It must be the sort of act that will rouse the audience
to expect still better things, based on the fine performance of
the past numbers. Maybe this act is the first big punch of the
show; anyway, it must strike home and build up the interest for
the act that follows.
"And here for number five position, a big act, and at the same
time another big name, must be presented. Or it might be a big
dancing act--one of those delightful novelties vaudeville likes
so well. In any event this act must be as big a 'hit' as any on
the bill. It is next to intermission and the audience must have
something really worth while to talk over. And so we select one
of the best acts on the bill to crown the first half of the show.
"The first act after intermission, number six on the bill, is a
difficult position to fill, because the act must not let down the
carefully built-up tension of interest and yet it must not be
stronger than the acts that are to follow. Very likely there is
chosen a strong vaudeville specialty, with comedy well to the fore.
Perhaps a famous comedy dumb act is selected, with the intention
of getting the audience back in its seats without too many conspicuous
interruptions of what is going on on the stage. Any sort of act
that makes a splendid start-off is chosen, for there has been a
fine first half and the second half must be built up again--of
course the process is infinitely swifter in the second half of the
show--and the audience brought once more into a delighted-expectant
attitude.
"Therefore the second act after intermission--number seven--must
be stronger than the first. It is usually a full-stage act and
again must be another big name. Very likely it is a big playlet,
if another sketch has not been presented earlier on the bill. It
may be a comedy playlet or even a serious dramatic playlet, if the
star is a fine actor or actress and the name is well known. Or
it may be anything at all that builds up the interest and appreciation
of the audience to welcome the 'big' act that follows. "For here
in number eight position--next to closing, on a nine-act bill--the
comedy hit of the show is usually placed. It is one of the acts
for which the audience has been waiting. Usually it is one of the
famous 'single' man or 'single' women acts that vaudeville has
made such favorites.
"And now we have come to the act that closes the show. We count
on the fact that some of the audience will be going out. Many
have only waited to see the chief attraction of the evening, before
hurrying off to their after-theatre supper and dance. So we spring
a big 'flash.' It must be an act that does not depend for its
success upon being heard perfectly. Therefore a 'sight' act is
chosen, an animal act maybe, to please the children, or a Japanese
troupe with their gorgeous kimonos and vividly harmonizing stage
draperies, or a troupe of white-clad trapeze artists flying against
a background of black. Whatever the act is, it must be a showy
act, for it closes the performance and sends the audience home
pleased with the program to the very last minute.
"Now all the time a booking-manager is laying out his show, he has
not only had these many artistic problems on his mind, but also
the mechanical working of the show. For instance, he must consider
the actual physical demands of his stage and not place next each
other two full-stage acts. If he did, how would the stage hands
change the scenery without causing a long and tedious wait? In
vaudeville there must be no waits. Everything must run with
unbroken stride. One act must follow another as though it were
especially made for the position. And the entire show must be
dovetailed to the split seconds of a stop-watch.
"Therefore it is customary to follow an 'act in One' (See below)
with an act requiring Full Stage. Then after the curtain has
fallen on this act, an act comes on to play in One again. A show
can, of course, start with a full-stage act, and the alternation
process remains the same. Or there may be an act that can open
in One and then go into Full Stage--after having given the stage
hands time to set their scenery--or vice versa, close in One.
Briefly, the whole problem is simply this--acts must be arranged
not only in the order of their interest value, but also according
to their physical demands.
"But there is still another problem the manager must solve. 'Variety'
is vaudeville's paternal name--vaudeville must present a _varied_
bill and a show consisting of names that will tend to have a
box-office appeal. No two acts in a show should be alike. No two
can be permitted to conflict. 'Conflict' is a word that falls with
ominous meaning on a vaudeville performer's or manager's ears,
because it means death to one of the acts and injury to the show
as a whole. If two famous singing 'single' women were placed on
the same bill, very likely there would be odious comparisons--even
though they did not use songs that were alike. And however
interesting each might be, both would lose in interest. And yet,
sometimes we do just this thing--violating a minor rule to win a
great big box-office appeal.
"Part of the many sides of this delicate problem may be seen when
you consider that no two 'single' singing acts should be placed
next each other--although they may not conflict if they are placed
far apart on the bill. And no two 'quiet' acts may be placed
together. The tempo of the show must be maintained--and because
tragic playlets, and even serious playlets, are suspected of
'slowing up a show,' they are not booked unless very exceptional."
These are but a few of the many sides of the problem of what is
called "laying out a show." A command of the art of balancing a
show is a part of the genius of a great showman. It is a gift.
It cannot be analyzed. A born showman lays out his bill, not by
rule, but by feeling.
3. The Writer's Part in a Vaudeville Show
In preparing the raw material from which the manager makes up his
show, the writer may play many parts. He may bear much of the
burden of entertainment, as in a playlet, or none of the responsibility,
as in the average dumb act. And yet, he may write the pantomimic
story that pleases the audience most. Indeed, the writer may be
everything in a vaudeville show, and always his part is an important
one.
Of course the trained seals do not need a dramatist to lend them
interest, nor does the acrobat need his skill; but without the
writer what would the actress be, and without the song-smith, what
would the singer sing? And even the animal trainer may utilize
the writer to concoct his "line of talk." The monologist, who of
all performers seems the most independent of the author, buys his
merriest stories, his most up-to-the-instant jests, ready-made
from the writer who works like a marionette's master pulling the
strings. The two-act, which sometimes seems like a funny impromptu
fight, is the result of the writer's careful thinking. The
flirtatious couple who stroll out on the stage to make everyone
in the audience envious, woo Cupid through the brain of their
author. And the musical comedy, with its strong combination of
nearly everything; is but the embodied flight of the writer's
fancy. In fact, the writer supplies much of the life-blood of a
vaudeville show. Without him modern vaudeville could not live.
Thus, much of the present wide popularity of vaudeville is due to
the writer. It is largely owing to the addition of his thoughts
that vaudeville stands to-day as a greater influence--because it
has a wider appeal--than the legitimate drama in the make-believe
life of the land. Even the motion pictures, which are nearer the
eyes of the masses, are not nearer their hearts. Vaudeville was
the first to foster motion pictures and vaudeville still accords
the motion picture the place it deserves on its bills. For
vaudeville is the amusement weekly of the world--it gathers and
presents each week the best the world affords in entertainment.
And much of the best comes from the writer's brain.
Because mechanical novelties that are vaudeville-worth-while are
rare, and because acrobats and animal trainers are of necessity
limited by the frailties of the flesh, and for the reason that
dancers cannot forever present new steps, it remains for the writer
to bring to vaudeville the never-ceasing novelty of his thoughts.
New songs, new ideas, new stories, new dreams are what vaudeville
demands from the writer. Laughter that lightens the weary day is
what is asked for most.
It is in the fulfilling of vaudeville's fine mission that writers
all over the world are turning out their best. And because the
mission of vaudeville is fine, the writing of anything that is not
fine is contemptible. The author who tries to turn his talents
to base uses--putting an untrue emphasis on life's false values,
picturing situations that are not wholesome, using words that are
not clean--deserves the fate of failure that awaits him. As E.
F. Albee, who for years has been a controlling force in vaudeville,
wrote: [1] "We have no trouble in keeping vaudeville clean and
wholesome, unless it is with some act that is just entering, for
the majority of the performers are jealous of the respectable name
that vaudeville has to-day, and cry out themselves against
besmirchment by others."
[1] "The Future of the Show Business," by E. F. Albee, in The
Billboard for December 19, 1914.
Reality and truth are for what the vaudeville writer strives. The
clean, the fine, the wholesome is his goal. He finds in the many
theatres all over the land a countless audience eager to hear what
he has to say. And millions are invested to help him say it well.