[1] Vaudeville Appeal and the “Heart Wallop,” by Tom Barry, author of The Upstart and Brother Fans, an interesting article in The Dramatic Mirror of December 16, 1914.  For this and other valuable information I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and to express my thanks to The Dramatic Mirror and its courteous Vaudeville Editor, Frederick James Smith.

Whatever this decision may be and however it is won and made, the climax must be first of all a real climax—­it must be “big,” whether it be a comedy scream or the seldom-seen tragic tear.  Big in movement and expression it must be, depending for effect not on words but on the revealing flash; it must be the summit of the action; it must be the event toward which the entire movement has been rising; it must be the fulfillment of what was foreshadowed; it must be keen, quick, perfectly logical and flash the illuminating revelation, as if one would say, “Here, this is what I’ve kept you waiting for—­my whole reason for being.”  Need I say that such a climax will be worth while?

And now, as the climax is the scene toward which every moment of the playlet—­from the first word of the introduction and the first scene-statement of the playlet’s problem—­has been motivated, and toward which it has risen and culminated, so also the climax holds within itself the elements from which develops the ending.

3.  The Ending Must Round the Whole Out Satisfyingly.

For the purpose of clearness, let me define the ending of a playlet as a scene that lies between the climax or culminating scene—­in which the audience has been made to feel the coming-to-an-end effect—­and the very last word on which the curtain descends.  If you have ever watched a sailor splicing a rope, you will know what I mean when I say that the worker, reaching for the loose ends to finish the job off neatly, is like the playlet writer who reaches here and there for the playlet’s loose ends and gathers them all up into a neat, workmanlike finish.  The ending of a playlet must not leave unfulfilled any promises of the premise, but must fulfill them all satisfyingly.

The characteristics of a good playlet ending—­besides the completeness with which the problem has been “proved” and the satisfyingness with which it all rounds out—­are terseness, speed and “punch.”  If the climax is a part of the playlet wherein words may not be squandered, the ending is the place where words—­you will know what I mean—­may not be used at all.  Everything that must be explained must be told by means which reach into the spectator’s memory of what has gone before and make it the positive pole of the battery from which flash the wireless messages from the scene of action.  As Emerson defined character as that which acts by mere presence without words, let me define the ending of a playlet as that which acts without words by the simple bringing together of the characters in their new relations.