SHOULD YOU TRY TO WRITE FOR VAUDEVILLE?
"I became a writer," George Bernard Shaw once said, "because I
wanted to get a living without working for it--I have since realized
my mistake." Anyone who thinks that by writing for vaudeville he
can get a living without working for it is doomed to a sad and
speedy awakening.
If I were called upon to give a formula for the creation of a
successful vaudeville writer, I would specify: The dramatic genius
of a Shakespere, the diplomatic craftiness of a Machiavelli, the
explosive energy of a Roosevelt, and the genius-for-long-hours of
an Edison: mix in equal proportions, add a dash of Shaw's impudence,
all the patience of Job, and keep boiling for a lifetime over the
seething ambition of Napoleon.
In other--and less extreme--words, if you contemplate writing for
vaudeville for your bread and butter, you must bring to the business,
if not genius, at least the ability to think, and if not boundless
energy, at any rate a determination never to rest content with the
working hours of the ordinary professions.
If you suppose that the mere reading of this book is going to make
you able to think, permit me gently to disillusion you; and if you
are imbued with the flattering faith that after studying these
chapters you will suddenly be able to sit down and write a successful
playlet, monologue, two-act, musical comedy libretto, or even a
good little "gag," in the words of classic vaudeville--forget it!
All this book can do for you--all any instruction can do--is to
show you the right path, show precisely _how_ others have successfully
essayed it, and wish you luck. Do you remember the brave lines
of W. E. Henley, the blind English poet:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
And again in the same poem, "Invictus":
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
There sings the spirit that will carry a writer to success in
vaudeville or in any other line of writing; and it is this inspired
attitude you should assume toward the present book of instruction.
These chapters, carefully designed and painstakingly arranged,
contain information and suggestions which, if studied and applied
by the right person, will help him to a mastery of vaudeville
writing. But they should be viewed not as laying down rules, only
as being suggestive. This book cannot teach you how to write--with
its aid you may be able to teach yourself.
Are you the sort of person likely to make a success of writing for
vaudeville? You, alone, can determine. But the following discussion
of some of the elements of equipment which anyone purposing to
write for vaudeville should possess, may help you find the answer.
1. Experience in Other Forms of Writing Valuable
Let us suppose that you have been engaged in writing for a newspaper
for years. You started as a reporter and because of your unusual
ability in the handling of political news have made politics your
specialty. You have been doing nothing but politics until politics
seems to be all you know. Suddenly the sporting editor falls ill,
and at the moment there is no one to take his place but you. Your
assistant takes over your work and you are instructed to turn out
a daily page of sporting news.
If you knew nothing at all about writing you would find the task
nearly impossible to accomplish. But you do know how to write and
therefore the mere writing does not worry you. And your experience
as a special writer on politics has taught you that there are
certain points all special newspaper work has in common and you
apply your knowledge to the task before you.
Still you are seriously handicapped for a time because you have
been thinking in terms of politics. But soon, by turning all your
energy and ability upon your new subject, you learn to think in
terms of sport. And, if you are a better thinker and a better
writer than the old sporting editor, it won't be long before you
turn out a better sporting page than he did. If you were the owner
of the newspaper, which, in the emergency, would you choose to be
your sporting editor: the untried man who has never demonstrated
his ability to write, the reporter who has no knowledge of special
writing, or the trained writer who has mastered one specialty and,
it may reasonably be supposed, will master another quickly? The
same care you would exercise in choosing another man to work for
you, you should exercise in choosing your own work for yourself.
Do you know how to write? Do you write with ease and find pleasure
in the work? If you do, class yourself with the reporter.
What success have you had in writing fiction? Have you written
successful novels or short-stories? If you have, class yourself
with the special writer. Did you ever write a play? Was your
full-evening play accepted and successful? If you have written a
play and if your play was a success, class yourself with the
sporting editor himself--but as one who has made a success in only
one specialty in the realm of sport.
For, those who have had some success in other forms of writing--even
the successful playwright--and those who never have written even
a salable joke, all have to learn the slightly different form of
the vaudeville act.
But, having once learned the form and become perfectly familiar
with vaudeville's peculiar requirements, the dramatist and the
trained fiction writer will outstrip the untrained novice. Remember
that the tortoise was determined, persistent, and energetic.
2. Ability to Think in Drama and Technical Knowledge of the Stage
Required
The dramatist and the trained fiction writer possess imagination,
they think in plots, they have learned how to picture vivid,
dramatic incidents, and they know a story when it comes up and
taps them on the shoulder. Furthermore, they know where to look
for ideas, and how to twist them to plot uses. In every one of
these points of special knowledge both the dramatist and the trained
fiction writer have the advantage over the untrained novice, for
the essence of all vaudeville writing lies in plot--which is
story--arrangement.
But there is a wide difference between being able to think in a
story-plot and in drama, and in this the playwright who has produced
a full-evening play has the advantage over even the trained fiction
writer when it comes to applying his dramatic knowledge to vaudeville.
Precisely what the difference is, and what drama itself is--especially
that angle of the art to be found in vaudeville--will be taken up
and explained as clearly as the ideas admit of explanation, in the
following pages. But not on one page, nor even in a whole chapter,
will the definition of drama be found, for pulsating life cannot
be bound by words. However, by applying the rules and heeding the
suggestions herein contained, you will be able to understand the
"why" of the drama that you feel when you witness it upon the
stage. The ability to think in drama means being able to see drama
and bring it fresh and new and gripping to the stage.
Of course drama is nothing more than story presented by a different
method than that employed in the short-story and the novel. Yet
the difference in methods is as great as the difference between
painting and sculpture. Indeed the novel-writer's methods have
always seemed to me analogous to those employed by the painter,
and the dramatist's methods similar to those used by the sculptor.
And I have marvelled at the nonchalant way in which the fiction
writer often rushes into the writing of a play, when a painter
would never think of trying to "sculpt" until he had learned at
least some of the very different processes employed in the strange
art-form of sculpture. The radical difference between writing and
playwrighting [1] has never been popularly understood, but some
day it will be comprehended by everybody as clearly as by those
whose business it is to make plays.
[1] Note the termination of the word _playwright_. A "wright" is
a workman in some mechanical business. Webster's dictionary says:
"Wright is used chiefly in compounds, as, figuratively, playwright."
It is significant that the playwright is compelled to rely for
nearly all his effects upon purely mechanical means.
An intimate knowledge of the stage itself is necessary for success
in the writing of plays. The dramatist must know precisely what
means, such as scenery, sound-effects, and lights--the hundred
contributing elements of a purely mechanical nature at his command--
he can employ to construct his play to mimic reality. In the
present commercial position of the stage such knowledge is
absolutely necessary, or the writer may construct an act that
cannot possibly win a production, because he has made use of
scenes that are financially out of the question, even if they are
artistically possible.
This is a fundamental knowledge that every person who would write
for the stage must possess. It ranks with the "a b c" course in
the old common school education, and yet nearly every novice
overlooks it in striving after the laurel wreaths of dramatic
success that are impossible without it. And, precisely in the
degree that stage scenery is different from nature's scenes, is
the way people must talk upon the stage different from the way
they talk on the street. The method of stage speech--_what_ is
said, not _how_ it is said--is best expressed in the definition
of all art, which is summed up in the one word "suppression." Not
what to put in, but what to leave out, is the knowledge the
playwright--in common with all other artists--must possess. The
difference in methods between writing a novel and writing a play
lies in the difference in the scenes and speeches that must be
left out, as well as in the descriptions of scenery and moods of
character that everyone knows cannot be expressed in a play by
words.
Furthermore, the playwright is working with _spoken_, not _written_,
words, therefore he must know something about the art of acting,
if he would achieve the highest success. He must know not only
how the words he writes will sound when they are spoken, but he
must also know how he can make gestures and glances take the place
of the volumes they can be made to speak.
Therefore of each one of the different arts that are fused into
the composite art of the stage, the playwright must have intimate
knowledge. Prove the truth of this statement for yourself by
selecting at random any play you have liked and inquiring into the
technical education of its author. The chances are scores to one
that the person who wrote that play has been closely connected
with the stage for years. Either he was an actor, a theatrical
press agent, a newspaper man, a professional play-reader for some
producer, or gained special knowledge of the stage through a
dramatic course at college or by continual attendance at the theatre
and behind the scenes. It is only by acquiring _special_ knowledge
of one of the most difficult of arts that anyone may hope to achieve
success.
3. A Familiar Knowledge of Vaudeville and its Special Stage Necessary
It is strange but true that a writer able to produce a successful
vaudeville playlet often writes a successful full-evening play,
but that only in rare instances do full-evening dramatists produce
successful vaudeville playlets. Clyde Fitch wrote more than
fifty-four long plays in twenty years, and yet his "Frederic
Lemaitre," used by Henry Miller in vaudeville, was not a true
vaudeville playlet--merely a short play--and achieved its success
simply because Fitch wrote it and Miller played it with consummate
art.
The vaudeville playlet and the play that is merely short, are
separate art forms, they are precisely and as distinctly different
as the short-story and the story that is merely short. It is only
within the last few years that Brander Matthews drew attention to
the artistic isolation of the short-story; and J. Berg Esenwein,
in his very valuable work [1], established the truth so that all
might read and know it. For years I have contended for the
recognition of the playlet as an art form distinct from the play
that is short.
[1] Writing the Short-Story, by J. Berg Esenwein, published uniform
with this volume, in, "The Writer's Library."
And what is true of the peculiar difference of the playlet form
is, in a lesser measure, true of the monologue, the two-act, and
the one-act musical comedy. They are all different from their
sisters and brothers that are found as integral parts of full-evening
entertainments.
To recognize these forms as distinct, to learn what material [2]
best lends itself to them and how it may be turned into the most
natural and efficient form, requires a special training different
from that necessary for the writing of plays for the legitimate
stage.
[2] The word _material_ in vaudeville means manuscript material.
To write vaudeville material is to write monologues and playlets
and the other forms of stage speech used in vaudeville acts.
But not only is there a vast difference between the material and
the art forms of the legitimate and the vaudeville stage, there
is also a great difference in their playing stages. The arrangements
of the vaudeville stage, its lights and scenery, are all unique,
as are even the playing spaces and mechanical equipment.
Therefore the author must know the mechanical aids peculiar to his
special craft, as well as possess a familiar knowledge of the
material that vaudeville welcomes and the unique forms into which
that material must be cast.
4. What Chance Has the Beginner?
The "gentle reader" who has read thus far certainly has not been
deterred by the emphasis--not undue emphasis, by the way--placed
on the value of proved ability in other forms of writing to one
who would write for vaudeville. That he has not been discouraged
by what has been said--if he is a novice--proves that he is not
easily downcast. If he has been discouraged--even if he has read
this far simply from curiosity--proves that he is precisely the
person who should not waste his time trying to write for vaudeville.
Such a person is one who ought to ponder his lack of fitness for
the work in hand and turn all his energies into his own business.
Many a good clerk, it has been truly said, has been wasted in a
poor writer.
But, while emphasis has been laid upon the value of training in
other forms of literary work, the emphasis has been placed not on
purely literary skill, but on the possession of ideas and the
training necessary to turn the ideas to account. It is "up to"
the ambitious beginner, therefore, to analyze the problem for
himself and to decide if he possesses the peculiar qualifications
that can by great energy and this special training place him upon
a par with the write who has made a success in other forms of
literary work. For there is a sense in which no literary training
is really necessary for success in vaudeville writing.
If the amateur has an imaginative mind, the innate ability to see
and turn to his own uses an interesting and coherent story, and
is possessed of the ability to think in drama, and, above all, has
the gift of humor, he can write good vaudeville material, even if
he has not education or ability to write an acceptable poem, article
or short-story. In other words, a mastery of English prose or
verse is not necessary for success in vaudeville writing. Some
of the most successful popular songs, the most successful playlets,
and other vaudeville acts, have been written by men unable to write
even a good letter.
But the constant advancement in excellence demanded of vaudeville
material, both by the managers and the public, is gradually making
it profitable for only the best-educated, specially-trained writers
to undertake this form of work. The old, illiterate, rough-and-ready
writer is passing, in a day when the "coon shouter" has given the
headline-place to Calve and Melba, and every dramatic star has
followed Sarah Bernhardt into the "two-a-day." [1]
[1] The _two-a-day_ is stage argot for vaudeville. It comes from
the number of performances the actor "does," for in vaudeville
there are two shows every day, six or seven days a week.
Nevertheless, in this sense the novice needs no literary training.
If he can see drama in real life and feels how it can be turned
into a coherent, satisfying story, he can learn how to apply that
story to the peculiar requirements of vaudeville. But no amount
of instruction can supply this inborn ability. The writer himself
must be the master of his fate, the captain of his own dramatic
soul.