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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/The_Playhouse_9708.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:350:"This fellow Keaton seems to be the whole show"]]
3
4Creator/BusterKeaton buys a ticket at entrance of the Playhouse and joins an audience (consisting of [[ActingForTwo Buster Keaton, Buster Keaton, Buster Keaton, Buster Keaton, Buster Keaton, Buster Keaton, Buster Keaton, and Buster Keaton]]) to watch a variety show featuring musicians, comics, synchronized dancers, and a minstrel act — with Keaton filling every role, including that of stagehand. It turns out it was AllJustADream as [[Creator/BusterKeaton Keaton]] wakes up in a bedroom -- actually a stage set that is promptly dismantled. He plays various roles behind the scenes and onstage while pursuing one of the show girls, who is a twin, only slightly daunted by his tendency to confuse the friendly twin with her disinterested sister.
5
6This film is in the public domain and may be viewed in its entirety at [[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3461801947432155594 Google Video]].
7----
8
9!!Includes examples of
10* AdultsDressedAsChildren: Buster dons the traditional sailor suit to portray a juvenile audience member.
11* AllJustADream: The first part of the short.
12* BackwardsFiringGun: Happens with a wrongly assembled cannon.
13* ChaseScene
14* CloudCuckooLander: Buster tries to empty the twins' glass-walled water tank with a teacup. In his defense, he had suffered a TapOnTheHead not long before.
15* DragQueen: Creator/BusterKeaton plays all the audience members -- including a flapper with bobbed hair, a harried mother, and a tetchy society dame.
16* ExplodingFishTanks: The twins' act involves a large glass tank filled with water, which is smashed to prevent a drowning.
17* HumanLadder: Both ladders and an inverted pyramid during the Zouave Guards act.
18* ItMakesSenseInContext: Buster pretending he's an orangutan.
19* LiteralMinded:
20** When Buster is told to clock in for the day, he looks at the sign reading "'''[-PUNCH CLOCK-]'''". So he does.
21** When the actor-stage manager sets his false beard on fire while smoking, Buster runs toward an axe behind glass labelled "For Fire Only". He thinks for a moment, then smashes the glass, grabs the axe, and hits the actor's burning beard with it (though not with the blade!).
22* ManOnFire: Smoking while wearing a false beard = bad idea.
23* MinstrelShows
24* NoMoreForMe: When Buster first meets the twins, he only sees one of them at a time; when he first sees them together, he thinks he is having a drunken hallucination, so he runs into a back room and removes a bottle of booze from his pocket. Then he finds the twins looking at themselves in mirrors, convinces himself that now the girl has ''quadrupled'' herself, and returns to the back room, where he smashes the bottle against the floor and signs a resolution "never to drink anymore". After seeing his own reflection in a triple mirror and establishing that the girls are twins and the "other two" were just reflections, he changes his mind and adds "but just as much" to his resolution.
25* PaintedTunnelRealTrain: Buster appears to dive into the painted ocean backdrop (in reality he jumps through a slit in the canvas).
26* PantomimeAnimal
27* PolarOppositeTwins: Buster falls in love with a girl, who reciprocates; unfortunately, he keeps mixing her up with her twin sister, who doesn't.
28* ProsceniumReveal: The dismantling of Creator/BusterKeaton's "bedroom".
29* ScoobyDoobyDoors: Buster thinks this is what's happening after he unknowingly escorts identical twin sisters into separate yet adjacent dressing rooms. Played straight in a later chase scene.
30* SiblingTeam: The sisters. (Oddly, their act does not exploit the fact that they are identical twins.)
31* TheStoic: Subverted; Buster is visibly annoyed at one point after mixing up the twins ''again'', and he's very expressive while pretending to be an orangutan.
32* SuperNotDrowningSkills: The point of the twins' act: "This young lady can stay under water longer than the bottom of a river."
33* TakeThat: The theater program crediting Creator/BusterKeaton with every role, and the audience member's remark, "This fellow Keaton seems to be the whole show," are jabs at silent film director/actor/screenwriter/producer Thomas H. Ince, who was not shy about putting his name in the credits of his films.
34* TapOnTheHead
35* {{Undercrank}}: Used for the Zouave Guards routine.
36* VisualPun: Buster's treatment of the punch clock. (Ooh, right [[StealthPun in the face!]])

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