Writing for Vaudeville | Page 8

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