THE PLAYLET AS A UNIQUE DRAMATIC FORM
The playlet is a very definite thing--and yet it is difficult to
define. Like the short-story, painting as we know it today,
photography, the incandescent lamp, the telephone, and the myriad
other forms of art and mechanical conveniences, the playlet did
not spring from an inventor's mind full fledged, but attained its
present form by slow growth. It is a thing of life--and life
cannot be bounded by words, lest it be buried in the tomb of a
hasty definition.
To attempt even the most cautious of definitions without having
first laid down the foundations of understanding by describing
some of the near-playlet forms to be seen on many vaudeville bills
would, indeed, be futile. For perhaps the surest way of learning
what a thing is, is first to learn what it is not. Confusion is
then less likely to creep into the conception, and the definition
comes like a satisfactory summing up of familiar points that are
resolved into clear words.
I. NEAR-DRAMATIC FORMS WHICH PRECEDED THE VAUDEVILLE PLAYLET
Even in the old music hall days, when a patron strolled in from a
hard day's work and sat down to enjoy an even harder evening's
entertainment, the skit or sketch or short play which eventually
drifted upon the boards--where it was seen through the mists of
tobacco smoke and strong drink--was _the_ thing. The admiration
the patrons had for the performers, whom they liberally treated
after the show, did not prevent them from actively driving from
the stage any offering that did not possess the required dramatic
"punch." [1] They had enjoyed the best of everything else the music
hall manager could obtain for their amusement and they demanded
that their bit of a play be, also, the very best of its kind.
[1] It is worthy of note in this connection that many of the
dramatic and particularly the comedy offerings seen in the music
halls of twenty years ago, and in the "Honkitonks" of Seattle and
other Pacific Coast cities during the Alaskan gold rush, have,
expurgated, furnished the scenarios of a score of the most successful
legitimate dramas and comedies of recent years. Some of our
greatest legitimate and vaudeville performers also came from this
humble and not-to-be-boasted-of school. This phase of the growth
of the American drama has never been written. It should be recorded
while the memories of "old timers" are still fresh.
No matter what this form of entertainment that we now know by the
name of vaudeville may be called, the very essence of its being
is variety. "Topical songs"--we call their descendants "popular
songs"--classic ballads, short concerts given on all sorts of
instruments, juggling, legerdermain, clowning, feats of balancing,
all the departments of dancing and of acrobatic work, musical
comedy, pantomime, and all the other hundred-and-one things that
may be turned into an amusing ten or twenty minutes, found eager
welcome on the one stage that made it, and still makes it, a
business to present the very newest and the very best of everything.
To complete its claim to the title of variety, to separate itself
from a likeness to the circus, to establish itself as blood brother
of the legitimate stage, and, most important of all, to satisfy
the craving of its audiences for _drama_, vaudeville tried many
forms of the short play before the playlet was evolved to fill the
want.
Everything that bears even the remotest likeness to a play found
a place and had a more or less fleeting--or lasting--popularity.
And not only was every form of play used, but forms of entertainment
that could not by reason of their very excellencies be made to
fill the crying want, were pressed into service and supplied with
ill-fitting plots in the vain attempt.
Musical acts, whose chief appeal was the coaxing of musical sounds
from wagon tires, drinking glasses, and exotic instruments, were
staged in the kitchen set. And father just home from work would
say, "Come, daughter, let's have a tune." Then off they would
start, give their little entertainment, and down would come the
curtain on a picture of never-to-be-seen domestic life. Even
today, we sometimes see such a hybrid act.
Slap-stick sidewalk conversation teams often would hire an author
to fit them with a ready-made plot, and, pushed back behind the
Olio into a centre-door fancy set, would laboriously explain why
they were there, then go through their inappropriate antics and
finish with a climax that never "climaxed." All kinds of two-acts,
from the dancing pair to the flirtatious couple, vainly tried to
give their offerings dramatic form. They did their best to make
them over into little plays and still retain the individual elements
that had won them success.
The futility of such attempts it took years to realize. It was
only when the stock opening, "I expect a new partner to call at
the house today in answer to my advertisement (which was read for
a laugh) and while I am waiting for him I might as well practice
my song," grew so wearisome that it had to be served with a special
notice in many vaudeville theatres, that these groping two-acts
returned to the pure forms from which they never should have
strayed. But even today you sometimes see such an act--with a
little less inappropriate opening--win, because of the extreme
cleverness of the performers.
II. DRAMATIC FORMS FROM WHICH THE PLAYLET EVOLVED
Among the dramatic forms--by which I mean acts depending on dialogue,
plot and "acting" for appeal--that found more or less success in
vaudeville, were sketches and short plays (not playlets) using
either comedy, farce, or dramatic plots, and containing either
burlesque or extravaganza. Let us take these dramatic forms in
their order of widest difference from the playlet and give to each
the explanatory word it deserves.
1. Extravaganza Acts
Extravaganza is anything out of rule. It deals comically with the
impossible and the unreal, and serves its purpose best when it
amazes most. Relying upon physical surprises, as well as extravagant
stage-effects, the extravaganza act may be best explained, perhaps,
by naming a famous example--"Eight Bells." The Byrne Brothers
took the elements of this entertainment so often into
vaudeville and out of it again into road shows that it is difficult
to remember where it originated. The sudden appearances of the
acrobatic actors and their amazing dives through seemingly solid
doors and floors, held the very essence of extravaganza. Uncommon
nowadays even in its pure form, the extravaganza act that tries
to ape the play form is seldom if ever seen.
2. Burlesque Acts
Burlesque acts, however, are not uncommon today and are of two
different kinds. First, there is the burlesque that is travesty,
which takes a well-known and often serious subject and hits off
its famous features in ways that are uproariously funny. "When
Caesar Sees Her," took the famous meeting between Cleopatra and
Marc Antony and made even the most impressive moment a scream. [1]
And Arthur Denvir's "The Villain Still Pursued Her" (See Appendix),
an exceptionally fine example of the travesty, takes the well-
remembered melodrama and extracts laughter from situations that
once thrilled.
[1] In musical comedy this is often done to subjects and personalities
of national interest. The Ziegfeld perennial Follies invariably
have bits that are played by impersonators of the national figure
of the moment. Sometimes in musical revues great dramatic successes
are travestied, and the invariable shouts of laughter their
presentation provokes are an illuminating exemplification of the
truth that between tragedy and comedy there is but a step.
Second, there are the acts that are constructed from bits of comedy
business and depend for their success not on dialogue, but on
action. Merely a thread of plot holds them together and on it is
strung the elemental humor of the comedy bits, which as often as
not may be slap-stick. The purpose being only to amuse for the
moment, all kinds of entertainment forms may be introduced. One
of the most successful examples of the burlesque tab, [2] James
Madison's "My Old Kentucky Home" (See Appendix), serves as the
basic example in my treatment of this vaudeville form.
[2] _Tab_ is short for tabloid. There may be tabloid musical
comedies--running forty minutes or more--as well as _burlesque
tabs_.
3. Short Plays
Short plays, as the name implies, are merely plays that are short.
They partake of the nature of the long play and are simply short
because the philosophic speeches are few and the number of scenes
that have been inserted are not many. The short play may have
sub-plots; it may have incidents that do not affect the main design;
its characters may be many and some may be introduced simply to
achieve life-like effect; and it usually comes to a leisurely end
after the lapse of from twenty minutes to even an hour or more.
Again like the full-evening play, the one-act play that is merely
short paints its characters in greater detail than is possible in
the playlet, where the strokes are made full and broad. Furthermore,
while in the playlet economy of time and attention are prime
requisites, in the short play they are not; to take some of the
incidents away from the short play might not ruin it, but to take
even one incident away from a playlet would make it incomplete.
For many years, however, the following tabloid forms of the
legitimate drama were vaudeville's answer to the craving of its
audiences for drama.
(a) _Condensed Versions, "Big" Scenes and Single Acts of Long
Plays_. For example--an example which proves three points in a
single instance: the need for drama in vaudeville, vaudeville's
anxiety for names, and its willingness to pay great sums for what
it wants--Joseph Jefferson was offered by F. F. Proctor, in 1905,
the then unheard-of salary of $5,000 a week for twelve consecutive
weeks to play "Bob Acres" in a condensed version of "The Rivals."
Mr. Jefferson was to receive this honorarium for himself alone,
Mr. Proctor agreeing to furnish the condensed play, the scenery
and costumes, and pay the salaries of the supporting cast. The
offer was not accepted, but it stood as the record until Martin
Beck paid Sarah Bernhardt the sum of $7,500 a week for herself and
supporting players during her famous 1913 tour of the Orpheum
Circuit. In recent years nearly every legitimate artist of national
and international reputation has appeared in vaudeville in some
sort of dramatic vehicle that had a memory in the legitimate.
But that neither a condensed play, nor one "big" scene or a single
act from a long play, is not a playlet should be apparent when you
remember the impression of inadequacy left on your own mind by
such a vehicle, even when a famous actor or actress has endowed
it with all of his or her charm and wonderful art.
(b) _The Curtain-Raiser_. First used to supplement or preface a
short three-act play so as to eke out a full evening's entertainment,
the little play was known as either an "afterpiece" or a
"curtain-raiser"; usually, however, it was presented before the
three-act drama, to give those who came early their full money's
worth and still permit the fashionables, who "always come late,"
to be present in time to witness the important play of the evening.
Then it was that "curtain-raiser" was considered a term of reproach.
But often in these days a curtain-raiser, like Sir James M. Barrie's
"The Twelve Pound Look," proves even more entertaining and worth
while than the ambitious play it precedes.
That Ethel Barrymore took "The Twelve Pound Look" into vaudeville
does not prove, however, that the curtain-raiser and the vaudeville
playlet are like forms. As in the past, the curtain-raiser of
today usually is more kin to the long play than to the playlet.
But it is nevertheless true that in some recent curtain-raisers
the compact swiftness and meaningful effect of the playlet form
has become more apparent--they differ from the vaudeville playlet
less in form than in legitimate feeling.
Historically, however, the curtain-raiser stands in much the same
position in the genealogy of the playlet that the forms discussed
in the preceding section occupy. As in the other short plays,
there was no sense of oneness of plot and little feeling of
coming-to-the-end that mark a good playlet.
Therefore, since the short play could not fully satisfy the
vaudeville patron's natural desire for drama, the sketch held the
vaudeville stage unchallenged until the playlet came.
4. Vaudeville Sketches
The vaudeville sketch in the old days was almost anything you might
care to name, in dramatic form. Any vaudeville two-act that stepped
behind the Olio and was able to hold a bit of a plot alive amid
its murdering of the King's English and its slap-stick ways, took
the name of "a sketch." But the "proper sketch," as the English
would say--the child of vaudeville and elder half-brother to the
playlet--did not make use of other entertainment forms. It depended
on dialogue, business and acting and a more or less consistent
plot or near-plot for its appeal. Usually a comedy--yet sometimes
a melodrama--the vaudeville sketch of yesterday and of today rarely
makes plot a chief element. The _story_ of a sketch usually means
little in its general effect. The general effect of the sketch
is--general. That is one of the chief differences between it and
the playlet.
The purpose of the sketch is not to leave a single impression of
a single story. It points no moral, draws no conclusion, and
sometimes it might end quite as effectively anywhere before the
place in the action at which it does terminate. It is built for
entertainment purposes only, and furthermore, for entertainment
purposes that end the moment the sketch ends. When you see a
sketch you carry away no definite impression, save that of
entertainment, and usually you cannot remember what it was that
entertained you. Often a sketch might be incorporated into a
burlesque show or a musical comedy and serve for part of an act,
without suffering, itself, in effect. [1] And yet, without the
sketch of yesterday there would be no playlet today.
[1] Not so many years ago, a considerable number of vaudeville
sketches were used in burlesque; and vice versa, many sketches
were produced in burlesque that afterward had successful runs in
vaudeville. Yet they were more than successful twenty-minute
"bits," taken out of burlesque shows. They had a certain completeness
of form which did not lose in effect by being transplanted.
(a) _The Character Sketch_. Some sketches, like Tom Nawn's "Pat
and the Geni," and his other "Pat" offerings, so long a famous
vaudeville feature, are merely character sketches. Like the
near-short-story character-sketch, the vaudeville sketch often
gives an admirable exposition of character, without showing any
change in the character's heart effected by the incidents of the
story. "Pat" went through all sorts of funny and startling
adventures when he opened the brass bottle and the Geni came forth,
but he was the very same Pat when he woke up and found it all a
dream. [1]
[1] The Ryan and Richfield acts that have to do with Haggerty and
his society-climbing daughter Mag, may be remembered. For longer
than my memory runs, Mag Haggerty has been trying to get her father
into society, but the Irish brick-layer will never "arrive." The
humor lies in Haggerty's rich Irishness and the funny mistakes he
always makes. The "Haggerty" series of sketches and the "Pat"
series show, perhaps better than any others, the closeness of the
character-sketch short-story that is often mistaken for the true
short-story, to the vaudeville sketch that is so often considered
a playlet.
Indeed, the vaudeville sketch was for years the natural vehicle
and "artistic reward" for clever actors who made a marked success
in impersonating some particular character in burlesque or in the
legitimate. The vaudeville sketch was written around the personality
of the character with which success had been won and hence was
constructed to give the actor opportunity to show to the best
advantage his acting in the character. And in the degree that it
succeeded it was and still is a success--and a valuable entertainment
form for vaudeville.
(b) _The Narrative Sketch_. Precisely as the character sketch is
not a playlet, the merely narrative sketch is not a true playlet.
No matter how interesting and momentarily amusing or thrilling may
be the twenty-minute vaudeville offering that depends upon incident
only, it does not enlist the attention, hold the sympathy, or
linger in the memory, as does the playlet.
Character revelation has little place in the narrative sketch, a
complete well-rounded plot is seldom to be found, and a change in
the relations of the characters rarely comes about. The sketch
does not convince the audience that it is complete in itself--rather
it seems an incident taken out of the middle of a host of similar
experiences. It does not carry the larger conviction of reality
that lies behind reality.
(1) _The Farce Sketch_. Nevertheless such excellent farce sketches
as Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Drew, Rice and Cohen, Homer Mason and
Margaret Keeler, and other sterling performers have presented in
vaudeville, are well worth while. The fact that many of the minor
incidents that occur in such finely amusing sketches as Mason and
Keeler's "In and Out" [1] do not lend weight to the ending, but
seem introduced merely to heighten the cumulative effect of the
farce-comedy, does not prove them, or the offering, to be lacking
in entertainment value for vaudeville. Rather, the use of just
such extraneous incidents makes these sketches more worth while;
but the introduction of them and the dependence upon them, for
interest, does mark such offerings as narrative sketches rather
than as true playlets.
[1] By Porter Emerson Brown, author of A Fool There Was, and other
full-evening plays.
(2) _The Straight Dramatic and Melodramatic Sketch_. In identically
the same way the introduction into one-act dramas and melodramas
of "bits" that are merely added to heighten the suspense and make
the whole seem more "creepy," without having a definite--an
inevitable--effect upon the ending makes and marks them as narrative
dramas and melodramas and not true playlet forms.
From the foregoing examples we may now attempt
5. A Definition of a Vaudeville Sketch
A Vaudeville Sketch is a simple narrative, or a character sketch,
presented by two or more people, requiring usually about twenty
minutes to act, having little or no definite plot, developing
no vital change in the relations of the characters, and depending
on effective incidents for its appeal, rather than on the
singleness of effect of a problem solved by character revelation
and change.
It must be borne in mind that vaudeville is presenting today all
sorts of sketches, and that nothing in this definition is levelled
against their worth. All that has been attempted so far in this
chapter has been to separate for you the various forms of dramatic
and near-dramatic offerings to be seen in vaudeville. A good
sketch is decidedly worth writing. And you should also remember
that definitions and separations are dangerous things. There are
vaudeville sketches that touch in one point or two or three the
peculiar requirements of the playlet and naturally, in proportion
as these approach closely the playlet form, hair-splitting separations
become nearly, if not quite, absurd.
Furthermore, when an experienced playwright sits down to write a
vaudeville offering he does not consider definitions. He has in
his mind something very definite that he plans to produce and he
produces it irrespective of definitions. He is not likely to stop
to inquire whether it is a sketch or a playlet. [1] The only
classifications the professional vaudeville writer considers, are
failures and successes. He defines a success by the money it
brings him.
[1] In discussing this, Arthur Hopkins said: "When vaudeville
presents a very good dramatic offering, 'playlet' is the word used
to describe it. If it isn't very fine, it is called a 'sketch.'"
But today there is a force abroad in vaudeville that is making for
a more artistic form of the one-act play. It is the same artistic
spirit that produced out of short fiction the short-story. This
age has been styled the age of the short-story and of vaudeville--it
is, indeed, the age of the playlet.
The actor looking for a vaudeville vehicle today is not content
with merely an incident that will give him the opportunity to
present the character with which he has won marked success on the
legitimate stage. Nor is he satisfied with a series of incidents,
however amusing or thrilling they may be. He requires an offering
that will lift his work into a more artistic sphere. He desires
a little play that will be remembered after the curtain has been
rung down.
This is the sort of vehicle that he must present to win success
in vaudeville for any length of time. While vaudeville managers
may seem content to book an act that is not of the very first rank,
because it is played by someone whose ability and whose name glosses
over its defects, they do not encourage such offerings by long
contracts. Even with the most famous of names, vaudeville
managers--reflecting the desires of their audiences--demand
acceptable playlets.
III. HOW THE VAUDEVILLE SKETCH AND THE PLAYLET DIFFER
Edgar Allan Woolf, one of the day's most successful playlet writers
who has won success year after year with vaudeville offerings that
have been presented by some of the most famous actors of this
country and of England, said when I asked him what he considered
to be the difference between the sketch and the playlet:
"There was a time when the vaudeville sketch was moulded on lines
that presented less difficulties and required less technique of
the playwright than does the playlet of today. The curtain generally
rose on a chambermaid in above-the-ankle skirts dusting the furniture
as she told in soliloquy form that her master and mistress had
sent for a new butler or coachman or French teacher. How the
butler, coachman or French teacher might make her happier was not
disclosed.
"Then came a knock on the door, followed by the elucidating remark
of the maid, 'Ah, this must be he now.' A strange man thereupon
entered, who was not permitted to say who he was till the piece
was over or there would have been no piece. The maid for no reason
mistook him for the butler, coachman or French teacher, as the
case may have been, and the complications ensuing were made hilarious
by the entrance of the maid's husband who, of course, brought about
a comedy chase scene, without which no 'comedietta' was complete.
Then all characters met--hasty explanations--and 'comedy curtain.'
"Today, all these things are taboo. A vaudeville audience resents
having the 'protiasis' or introductory facts told them in monologue
form, as keenly as does the 'legitimate' audience. Here, too, the
actor may not explain his actions by 'asides.' And 'mistaken
identity' is a thing of the past.
"Every trivial action must be thoroughly motivated, and the finish
of the playlet, instead of occurring upon the 'catabasis,' or
general windup of the action, must develop the most striking feature
of the playlet, so that the curtain may come down on a surprise,
or at least an event toward which the entire action has been
progressing.
"But the most important element that has developed in the playlet
of today is the problem, or theme. A little comedy that provokes
laughter yet means nothing, is apt to be peddled about from week
to week on the 'small time' and never secure booking in the better
houses. In nearly all cases where the act has been a 'riot' of
laughter, yet has failed to secure bookings, the reason is to be
found in the fact that it is devoid of a definite theme or central
idea.
"The booking managers are only too eager to secure playlets--and
now I mean precisely the _playlet_--which are constructed to develop
a problem, either humorous or dramatic. The technique of the
playlet playwright is considered in the same way that the three-act
playwright's art of construction is analyzed by the dramatic
critic."
IV. WHAT A PLAYLET IS
We have seen what the playlet is not. We have considered the
various dramatic and near-dramatic forms from which it differs.
And now, having studied its negative qualities, I may assemble its
positive characteristics before we embark once more upon the
troubled seas of definition. The true playlet is marked by the
following ten characteristics:
1--A clearly motivated opening--not in soliloquy form.
2--A single definite and predominating problem or theme.
3--A single preeminent character.
4--Motivated speeches.
5--Motivated business and acting.
6--Unity of characters.
7--Compression.
8--Plot.
9--A finish that develops the most striking feature into a
surprise--or is an event toward which every speech and every action
has been progressing.
10--Unity of impression [1]
[1] See page 30, Writing the Short-Story, by J. Berg Esenwein,
published in "The Writer's Library," uniform with this volume.
Note the seven characteristics of the short-story and compare them
with the playlet's ten characteristics. You will find a surprising
similarity between the short-story and the playlet in some points
of structure. A study of both in relation to each other may give
you a clearer understanding of each.
Each of these characteristics has already been discussed in our
consideration of the dramatic forms--either in its negative or
positive quality--or will later be taken up at length in its proper
place. Therefore, we may hazard in the following words
A Definition of a Playlet
A Playlet is a stage narrative taking usually about twenty minutes
to act, having a single chief character, and a single problem
which predominates, and is developed by means of a plot so
compressed and so organized that every speech and every action
of the characters move it forward to a finish which presents the
most striking features; while the whole is so organized as to
produce a single impression.
You may haunt the vaudeville theatres in a vain search for a playlet
that will embody all of these characteristics in one perfect
example. [1] But the fact that a few playlets are absolutely perfect
technically is no reason why the others should be condemned.
Remember that precise conformity to the rules here laid down is
merely academic perfection, and that the final worth of a playlet
depends not upon adherence to any one rule, or all--save as they
point the way to success--but upon how the playlet as a whole
succeeds with the audience.
[1] Study the playlet examples in the Appendix and note how closely
each approaches technical perfection.
Yet there will be found still fewer dramatic offerings in vaudeville
that do not conform to some of these principles. Such near-playlets
succeed not because they evade the type, but mysteriously in spite
of their mistakes. And as they conform more closely to the standards
of what a playlet should be, they approach the elements that make
for lasting success.
But beyond these "rules"--if rules there really are--and far above
them in the heights no rules can reach, lies that something which
cannot be defined, which breathes the breath of life into words
and actions that bring laughter and tears. Rules cannot build the
bridge from your heart to the hearts of your audiences. Science
stands abashed and helpless before the task. All that rules can
suggest, all that science can point out--is the way others have
built their bridges
For this purpose only, are these standards of any value to you.