Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/147

Rh one of the characters, usually the faithful old servant, entered, and talking to himself, dropped the necessary clues to get the plot going. It was brief and effective, but it also was, no one denied, stilted and theatrical. Today an audience would snicker.

So the playwrights now get out and crank, and if the motor is cold and the ignition feeble, as frequently happens, the process is laborious and painful to all concerned. It is a rare play that can leap forward with the rise of the curtain without first taking the spectators into its confidence. The playwright now either gives over a third of his first act to trying to get the play under way naturally by the force of gravity, or he puts false whiskers on the soliloquy in the hope that the audience will not recognize the discredited old gentleman.

Thus the property man rings the prop telephone. If society drama, that calls for a servant to answer, but that will not serve our purposes. We want the heroine to answer that insistent ring, or we want to keep the cast down, so we give the servants a night off and bring the heroine on, complaining about the servant problem.

She takes off the receiver, discloses her identity