CHAPTER XVIII

THE TREATMENT OF COMEDY

Let it be remembered that the lines of division between the several sorts of comedy are not sharply defined, for one often overlaps the other; nor is a rigid adherence to type insisted upon by either playwright or public--for example, on the regular stage we have farce-comedy, and other hybrids.

_1. Types of Humorous Plays Distinguished_

_Comedy_, strictly, is a lighter, more refined, type of humor than farce. It deals with those amusing situations which do, or may, happen every day, without the introduction of the extravagant and the unnatural. True comedy is distinctly probable. Its humor is the humor of reality, however laughable it may be. It may press humor to an extreme, but that extreme must never strain our credulity.

_Farce_ is essentially extreme. It deals with the absurd, the ridiculous, not with the physically impossible. Though not in itself probable, all its actions proceed just as though the basis on which it is worked out were probable.

To illustrate both types, we may recall an extremely humorous comedy situation which was worked out by Miss May Irwin some years ago in "The Swell Miss Fitzwell." One of the characters had conspired with a physician to deceive the former's wife by pretending to break his leg. As a matter of fact he tumbles down stairs with an awful clatter and the leg is actually broken. The doctor comes in, according to the scheme, and, not knowing that the leg is broken, begins to twist it with fine professional vigor. The victim howls and protests that he is in agony, but the doctor merely whispers in a cheerful aside, "Keep it up, you are playing your part beautifully!" And so the play goes on.

All this might easily have happened in real life, and the audience is tickled--not to see a man apparently suffer, but at the humor of the biter being bit. The very incongruity is the foundation of the humor--incongruity, mingled with surprise.

But farce would not be content with twisting the leg, it would go to any absurd extreme imaginable. Suppose, for example, that the doctor's twisting of the victim's leg should so enrage him that he would leap upon the doctor and bite the torturer's leg in the manner of a dog. The wife, coming in, might think that her husband had hydrophobia, and a whole train of farcical results might follow. We have all seen unnatural yet uproariously funny situations to which such a complication might lead in farce.

_Burlesque_ takes a well-known and often a serious subject and hits off its salient points in an uproarious manner. One might burlesque "Hamlet" by causing a red-nosed Prince of Denmark to do a juggling act with "poor Yorick's" skull.

_Extravaganza_ deals with the unnatural and the impossible. The super-human antics of the acrobatic buffoons in Hanlon's perennial "Superba," and those of the Byrne Brothers in "Eight Bells," are familiar examples.

_2. Comedy a Difficult Art_

A writer in one of the photoplay journals, advising writers who are struggling to succeed, concludes by admonishing them either to avoid stories which because of prohibited themes are likely to make them unpopular with editors, or else to "try comedies."

It may be that this writer is one of those who have never tried to write comedy scripts, or possibly he is one of the favored few who have a special talent for humor. Whichever may be the case, notwithstanding this well-meant advice, the truth is that the thoroughly effective comedy script is the hardest of all to produce, and this is proved by the fact that, no matter how many manufacturers announce that they "will not be able to use any more Western, slum life, or war stories for some time to come," they _never_ declare that they are "over-stocked with good comedy scripts." There is _always_ a market for a fine, clean comedy.

_3. Comedy Requires a "Full" Treatment_

But superior comedy scripts, we insist, are hard to write. One of the less obvious reasons is that there are generally about twice as many scenes in a comedy script as in any kind of dramatic story. This does not mean, of course, that the comedy script is hard to write merely because it takes longer to write it. The labor expended on its mechanical preparation is trivial compared to the brain-work necessary to the building of a story which, while having almost double the usual number of scenes, must still display lively action, logical sequence, and convincing (which in the case of comedy means probable) situations from beginning to end.

Especially in comedy must each scene tell; hence there can be no excuse for "writing in" a number of scenes which have no dramatic value whatever, for that is palpable padding. True, you may have seen many comedy subjects in which one or two fairly good ideas were stretched out until you could almost picture the director kneeling in front of the camera, stop-watch in hand and megaphone at lips, wearily pleading: "Ginger up! Work fast! It will soon be over." Unfortunately, there have been many such "funny" plays, and there will be more, for the right kind of comedy is not to be had for the asking. The number of scenes in a comedy photoplay arises from the necessity that the

## action be brisk, scene follow scene rapidly, and the whole be played

from a full third to a half faster than is the case in a dramatic subject.

To say that comedy requires a fuller script-treatment than is needed for a dramatic subject does not mean that in writing comedy scripts you should write in line after line of action that would only be useful to give the director a few details which he could very well think of himself. No matter what part of the script you are writing, be constantly on the alert to avoid including non-essential details. Take pains, of course, to show the director just what bit of by-play it is that is responsible for a certain situation that will "get a laugh," but do not be verbose, and do not go into tiresome details. "It is a very easy matter, for a writer fired with enthusiasm, to overwrite."

_4. Length of Comedy Photoplays_

Seemingly, the day of the split-reel comedy is past. A few years ago, when one thousand feet was considered the proper length for the average dramatic subject, a full-reel comedy was the exception. They ran from four hundred to six hundred feet, the remainder of the reel being taken up with a scenic or other educational subject. Thus we had what came to be known as "split reels," as we have previously explained. Today, even the slap-stick comedies are produced in not less than one full reel, and they usually run to two reels. On the other hand, there are one or two comedy-producing companies which adhere to the single-reel length for their light comedies of domestic life.

Far more than in writing dramatic scripts, you must be guided in deciding the length of your comedy photoplay by the company to which you are submitting. This entails taking a chance as to whether you sell at all or not, in the event of your story's not being suitable for the market at which you have aimed it. For example, those writers who have both sold to and had scripts rejected by the editor who looks after the wants of such a comedy team as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew know that if a script does come back from them it is seldom "placable" anywhere else. For markets such as this, the fact that a synopsis only is usually called for is a real benefit to the writer, saving him much time and disappointment in the event of non-acceptance.

Another thing that experienced writers know is that certain of the larger producers of slap-stick comedy are not in the market for outside material. After being deluged with all kinds of "comedy" stories for years, the Keystone Company finally found it necessary to announce that nothing could be considered from free-lance writers, on account of the peculiar nature of the comedies produced by them and the necessity of having them written by inside writers who were familiar with the studio, its players, and the surrounding possible locations.

Thus, in its way, the market for comedy scripts or synopses is more or less limited, and yet there is, as has been said, a good demand for first-class humorous stories for the screen. One important rule to keep in mind is that they should be, in every case, just as long as, _but no longer than_, the idea that is back of them. You must never pad a comedy plot, or even a comedy idea; to do so is fatal to the attainment of artistically perfect results, if not to its acceptance by the editor.

In writing dramatic stories, on the other hand, more freedom is allowed. To be sure, here padding is bad also, but in a dramatic subject the central idea is almost always big enough to justify one of the several lengths to which screen dramas now run; but, largely because comedy action is played so much faster than dramatic action, you must firmly refuse to allow yourself to expand a humorous story by even so little as a single scene beyond its logical and natural end.

Comedy ideas, perhaps more than any others, should be carefully classified, and in classifying you should try to determine, from the very first, the length to which that particular story ought to run. Having once arrived at your decision, keep to it. It is quality--clever situations and funny action--and not quantity that counts in the writing of humorous photoplays. Most of the good comedy themes have been worked over so often, either by the authors themselves or by the director, that it requires considerable skill to give them that much-desired new twist[30] that is necessary to make them acceptable. In the writing of dramatic photoplays, a word or two will often suggest the necessary "business" of a certain character, but in comedy it is especially important that every action, every bit of by-play, should be made to count; and for that reason it is necessary to give each scene a much fuller treatment in the script than would be necessary in describing dramatic action.

[Footnote 30: Treated in