departments that contribute to the successful presentation of a
vaudeville entertainment. We have examined the vaudeville writer's
tool-box and have learned to know the uses for which each tool of
space, scenery, property, and light is specially designed. And
by learning what these tools can do, we have also learned what
they cannot do.

Now let us turn to the plans and specifications--called manuscripts--
that go to make up the entertaining ten or forty minutes during which
a vaudeville act calls upon these physical aids to make it live
upon the mimic stage, as though it were a breathing reality of the
great stage of life.



CHAPTER V

THE NATURE OF THE MONOLOGUE


The word monologue comes from the combination of two Greek words,
_monos_, alone, and _legein_, to speak. Therefore the word monologue
means "to speak alone"--and that is often how a monologist feels.
If in facing a thousand solemn faces he is not a success, no one
in all the world is more alone than he.

It appears easy for a performer to stroll into a theatre, without
bothersome scenery, props, or tagging people, and walk right out
on the stage alone and set the house a-roar. But, like most things
that appear easy, it is not. It is the hardest "stunt" in the