Vaudeville is variety—­it strives to compress into the space of about two hours and a half a great number of different acts which run the gamut of the entertainment forms, and therefore it cannot afford more than an average of twenty minutes to each.  This time limit makes it difficult for a playlet to present effectively any story that does not occur in consecutive minutes.  It has been found that even the lowering of the curtain for one second to denote the lapse of an hour or a year, has a tendency to distract the minds of the audience from the story and to weaken the singleness of effect without which a playlet is nothing.

On the other hand, this “rule” is not unbreakable:  a master craftsman’s genius is above all laws.  In “The System” the first scene takes place in the evening; scene two, a little later the same evening; and scene three later that same night.  The story is really continuous in time, but the story-time is not equal to the playing-time even though this playlet consumes nearly twice twenty minutes.  But, you will note, the scenery changes help to keep the interest of the audience from flagging, and also stamp the lapses of time effectively.

A still greater violation of the “rule”—­if it were stated as absolutely rigid—­is to be found in Mr. Granville’s later act, “The Yellow Streak,” written in collaboration with James Madison.  Here scene two takes place later in the evening of the first scene, and the third scene after a lapse of four months.  But these two exceptions, out of many that might be cited, merely prove that dramatic genius can mold even the rigid time of the vaudeville stage to its needs.

Of course, there is the possibility of foreshortening time to meet the exigencies of vaudeville when the scene is not changed.  For instance:  a character telephones that he will be right over and solve the whole situation on which the punch of the playlet depends, and he enters five actual minutes later—­although in real life it would take an hour to make the trip.  This is an extreme instance, as time foreshortening goes, because it is one where the audience might grasp the disparity, and is given for its side-light of warning as well as for its suggestive value.

More simple foreshortenings of time are found in many playlets where the effect of an hour-or-more of events is compressed into the average twenty minutes.  As an example of this perfectly safe use of shortening, note the quickness with which Harry returns to Miss Carey’s apartment when he goes out to change into his regimentals.  And as still safer foreshortenings, note the quickness with which Fred Saltus enters after Miss Carey goes to bed leaving Angela on the couch; and the quickness with which Angela falls in love with him—­in fact, the entire compression inherent in the dramatic events which cannot be dissociated from time compression.

A safe attitude for a playlet writer to take, is that all of his action shall mimic time reality as closely as his dramatic moment and the time-allowance of presentation will permit.  This is considered in all dramatic art to be the ideal.