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VAUDEVILLE 340 The most successful tricks or jokes are all based on the idea of pain or embarrassment . Tacks made of rubber, matches that explode or refuse to light, exploding cigars or cigarettes, fountain-pens that smear ink over the fingers immediately they are to put to use, ‘‘electric’’ bells with pins secreted in their push buttons, and boutonnières that squirt water into the face of the beholder, are a few familiar examples. ‘‘Thrill’’ and ‘‘Suspense’’ [Twelve examples of the use of sound or lighting effects to produce dramatic tension.] We pass now to the spine and to that side of theatrical mechanics known as ‘‘thrill’’ and ‘‘suspense.’’ In the secret ritual there are as many mechanical tricks wherewith to excite and thrill an audience and keep it in suspense as there are tricks to make it cry or weep. . . . Every one of the different elements of thrill mechanics will be found to rest upon substantial grounds, even if the introduction of the thrill mechanics in certain parts of plays is made for mere trickiness. The reader must recall again that the audience is at the moment unaware that the thunder-clap or the mysterious locked door or the shadow against the wall, or whatever it is, has been utilized arbitrarily by the stage artificer, and that it may have absolutely nothing to do with what follows. The quality of suspense is shot into the audience on the spot. If, subsequently, the audience says to itself, ‘‘We were fooled,’’ it does not matter. It will have been made to feel suspense— and that is all the trafficker in theatrical tricks has aimed for! The secret of stage effectiveness rests in the impression of the moment. . . . All the ‘‘mechanics of emotion’’ are based, from the theatrical craftsman’s point of view, on this one solid fact. Routines In his 1915 manual, Brett Page singled out Aaron Hoffman as unusually talented, and pronounced one of his vaudeville sketches ‘‘perhaps the best example of the pure monologue ever written.’’ Hoffman’s ‘‘The Horse Doctor ’’ was a classic slapstick farce of mistaken identities, timed to fit a fifteenminute spot in the program, and one of dozens that he wrote. In the early twentieth century, a ‘‘soubrette,’’ the female character in this sketch, was a maid, but more generally in the theater, a young flirtatious woman who served as an attractive foil for the comic. Aaron Hoffman, ‘‘A Comedy Sketch entitled The Horse Doctor’’ (manuscript, 1911, Rare Book and Special Collection Division, Library of Congress) [American Memory: The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870–1920, http:// memory.loc.gov]. Routines 341 A COMEDY SKETCH entitled THE HORSE DOCTOR by Aaron Hoffman SCENE PLOT. C. D. F. [center door front] in three. Boxed set. Doors R. and L. Furniture, bric-abrac, fireplace and mantle, etc., etc. Opening lively curtain music. (Enter SOUBRETTE at rise of curtain.) Well, this is the limit. The house is all upset. Yesterday one of our best horses was taken sick, we sent for a horse doctor, but he hasn’t put in an appearance as yet, and now, poor Mr. Knight is sick in bed all day. His wife, Mrs. Knight, went down to the station to meet the doctor, and his young daughter, Miss Knight, left me here in charge of Lord How Poor. A young nobleman wants to marry her; she said he might come in some disguise, and she offered me fifty dollars to get rid of him, and you can just bet I will, because I need the money. (Bell rings outside.) I guess I’ll go and see if Mr. Knight wants anything. I don’t care what he wants as long as I get that fifty. (Exits door R.) (Enter COMEDIAN.) (C. D.) Well, this is the place all right. No. 99 Spring, between Summer and Winter. I was an actor and a manager once, but ever since my play has failed I’m at liberty, or as they say in slang I’m dead broke, and when an actor or a manager is broke he’ll do almost anything to make an honest dollar. A friend of mine told me there was a sick horse in this house; I know what I’ll do, I’ll just make him believe I’m a horse doctor, get some mizouma and Richard will be himself once again. (Enter SOUBRETTE from door R.) SOUBRETTE: Ah, stranger! COMEDIAN: I beg your pardon. SOUBRETTE: Well, sir...

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