Vaudeville

For other uses, see Vaudeville (disambiguation).

A promotional poster for the Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles (1894), showing dancers, clowns, trapeze artists and costumed dogs

Vaudeville (/ˈvɔːdᵊvɪl/; French: [vodvil]) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment. It was especially popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. A typical vaudeville performance is made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, female and male impersonators, acrobats, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and movies. A vaudeville performer is often referred to as a "vaudevillian".

Vaudeville developed from many sources, including the concert saloon, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums, and literary American burlesque. Called "the heart of American show business", vaudeville was one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America for several decades.^[1]

Etymology

The origin of this term is obscure, but is often explained as being derived from the French expression voix de ville ("city voice"). A second speculation is that it comes from the fifteenth-century songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin, "Vaux de Vire".^[2] In his Connections television series, science historian James Burke claims that the term is a corruption of the French "Vau de Vire" ("Vire River Valley", in English), an area known for its bawdy drinking songs and where Basselin lived.^[3] Some, however, preferred the earlier term "variety" to what manager Tony Pastor called its "sissy and Frenchified" successor. Thus, vaudeville was marketed as "variety" well into the 20th century.

Beginnings

Popularity

Performance bill for Temple Theatre, Detroit, December 1, 1902 The manager's comments, sent back to the circuit's central office weekly, follow each act's description. The bill illustrates the typical pattern of opening the show with a "dumb" act to allow patrons to find their seats, placing strong acts in second and penultimate positions, and leaving the weakest act for the end, to clear the house. As well, note that in this bill, as in many vaudeville shows, acts often associated with "lowbrow" or popular entertainment (acrobats, a trained mule) shared a stage with acts more usually regarded as "highbrow" or classical entertainment (opera vocalists, classical musicians).
(1) Burt Jordan and Rosa Crouch. "Sensational, grotesque and 'buck' dancers. A good act..." (2) The White Tscherkess Trio. "A man and two women who do a singing turn of the operatic order. They carry special scenery which is very artistic and their costumes are original and neat. Their voices are good and blend exceedingly well. The act goes big with the audience." (3) Sarah Midgely and Gertie Carlisle. "Presenting the sketch 'After School.' ... they are a 'knockout.'" (4) Theodor F. Smith and Jenny St. George-Fuller. "Refined instrumentalists." (5) Milly Capell. "European equestrienne. This is her second week. On account of the very pretty picture that she makes she goes as strong as she did last week." (6) R. J. Jose. "Tenor singer. The very best of them all." (7) The Nelson Family of Acrobats. "This act is composed of three men, two young women, three boys and two small girls. The greatest acrobatic act extant." (8) James Thornton. "Monologist and vocalist. He goes like a cyclone. It is a case of continuous laughter from his entrance to his exit." (9) Burk and Andrus and Their Trained Mule. "This act, if it can be so classed, was closed after the evening performance." Typical provincial venue on the circuit: "The Opera" in Kirksville, Missouri

B. F. Keith took the next step, starting in Boston, where he built an empire of theatres and brought vaudeville to the US and Canada. Later, E. F. Albee, adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee, managed the chain to its greatest success. Circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudeville's greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the single-theatre booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years.

Albee also gave national prominence to vaudeville's trumpeting "polite" entertainment, a commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos (e.g., those that used words such as "hell") were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the week's remaining performances or were canceled altogether. In spite of such threats, performers routinely flouted this censorship, often to the delight of the very audience members whose sensibilities were supposedly endangered. He eventually instituted a set of guidelines to be an audience member at his show, and these were reinforced by the ushers working in the theater.^[2]

This "polite entertainment" also extended to Keith's company members. He went to extreme measures to maintain this level of modesty. Keith even went as far as posting warnings backstage such as this: "Don't say 'slob' or 'son of a gun' or 'hully gee' on the stage unless you want to be canceled peremptorily ... if you are guilty of uttering anything sacrilegious or even suggestive you will be immediately closed and will never again be allowed in a theater where Mr. Keith is in authority." Along these same lines of discipline, Keith's theater managers would occasionally send out blue envelopes with orders to omit certain suggestive lines of songs and possible substitutions for those words. If actors chose to ignore these orders or quit, they would get "a black mark" on their name and would never again be allowed to work on the Keith Circuit. Thus, actors learned to follow the instructions given them by B. F. Keith for fear of losing their careers forever.^[2]

By the late 1890s, vaudeville had large circuits, houses (small and large) in almost every sizable location, standardized booking, broad pools of skilled acts, and a loyal national following. One of the biggest circuits was Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit. It incorporated in 1919 and brought together 45 vaudeville theaters in 36 cities throughout the US and Canada and a large interest in two vaudeville circuits. Another major circuit was that of Alexander Pantages. In his hey-day, Pantages owned more than 30 vaudeville theaters and controlled, through management contracts, perhaps 60 more in both the US and Canada.

At its height, vaudeville played across multiple strata of economic class and auditorium size. On the vaudeville circuit, it was said that if an act would succeed in Peoria, Illinois, it would work anywhere. The question "Will it play in Peoria?" has now become a metaphor for whether something appeals to the American mainstream public. The three most common levels were the "small time" (lower-paying contracts for more frequent performances in rougher, often converted theatres), the "medium time" (moderate wages for two performances each day in purpose-built theatres), and the "big time" (possible remuneration of several thousand dollars per week in large, urban theatres largely patronized by the middle and upper-middle classes). As performers rose in renown and established regional and national followings, they worked their way into the less arduous working conditions and better pay of the big time. The capitol of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre (or just "The Palace" in the slang of vaudevillians), built by Martin Beck in 1913 and operated by Keith. Featuring a bill stocked with inventive novelty acts, national celebrities, and acknowledged masters of vaudeville performance (such as comedian and trick roper Will Rogers), the Palace provided what many vaudevillians considered the apotheosis of remarkable careers. A standard show bill would begin with a sketch, follow with a single – an individual male or female performer, next would be an alley oop – an acrobatic act, then another single, followed by yet another sketch such as a blackface comedy. The acts that followed these for the rest of the show would vary from musicals to jugglers to song and dance singles and end with a final extravaganza – either musical or drama – with the full company. These shows would feature such stars as Eubie Blake – a piano player, the famous and magical Harry Houdini and child star, Baby Rose Marie, adds Gilbert.^[8] In the New York Tribune’s article about Vaudeville, it is said that at any given time, Vaudeville was employing over twelve thousand different people throughout its entire industry. Each entertainer would be on the road 42 weeks at a time while working a particular "Circuit" – or an individual theatre chain of a major company.^[9]

This 1913 how-to booklet for would-be vaudevillians was recently republished.

While the neighborhood character of vaudeville attendance had always promoted a tendency to tailor fare to specific audiences, mature vaudeville grew to feature houses and circuits specifically aimed at certain demographic groups. Black patrons, often segregated into the rear of the second gallery in white-oriented theatres, had their own smaller circuits, as did speakers of Italian and Yiddish. (For a brief discussion of Black vaudeville, see Theater Owners Booking Association.) This foreign addition combined with comedy produced such acts as "minstrel shows of antebellum America" and Yiddish theater. PBS adds that many of these ethnic families joined in on this entertainment business, and for them, this traveling lifestyle was simply a continuation of the adventures that brought them to America. Through these acts, they were able to assimilate themselves into their new home while also bringing bits of their own culture into this new world.^[10] White-oriented regional circuits, such as New England's "Peanut Circuit", also provided essential training grounds for new artists while allowing established acts to experiment with and polish new material. At its height, vaudeville was rivaled only by churches and public schools among the nation's premiere public gathering places.

Another slightly different aspect of Vaudeville was an increasing intrigue with the female figure. The previously mentioned ominous idea of "the blue envelopes" led to the phrase "blue" material, which described the provocative subject matter present in many Vaudeville acts of the time.^[2] Many managers even saw this scandalous material as a marketing strategy to attract many different audiences. As stated in Andrew Erdman’s book Blue Vaudeville, the Vaudeville stage was even marked with descriptions like, "a highly sexualized space ... where unclad bodies, provocative dancers, and singers of 'blue' lyrics all vied for attention." Such performances highlighted and objectified the female body as a "sexual delight", a phenomenon that historians believe emerged in the mid-19th century. But more than that, these historians think that Vaudeville marked a time in which the female body became its own "sexual spectacle" more than it ever had before. This sexual image began sprouting everywhere an American went: the shops, a restaurant, the grocery store, etc. The more this image brought in the highest revenue, the more Vaudeville focused on acts involving women. Even acts that were as innocent as a sister act were higher sellers than a good brother act. Consequently, Erdman adds that female Vaudeville performers such as Julie Mackey and Gibson’s Bathing Girls began to focus less on talent and more on physical appeal through their figure, tight gowns, and other revealing attire. It eventually came as a surprise to audience members when such beautiful women actually possessed talent in addition to their appealing looks. This element of surprise colored much of the reaction to the female entertainment of this time.^[11]

Immigrant America

The racial relations of Irish and African Americans is showcased by the cover art and lyrics of St. Patrick's Day is a Bad Day for Coons.

In addition to vaudeville's prominence as a form of American entertainment, it reflected the newly evolving urban inner city culture and interaction of its operators and audience. Making up a large portion of immigration to the United States in the mid-19th century, Irish Americans interacted with established Americans, with the Irish becoming subject to discrimination due to their ethnic physical and cultural characteristics. The ethnic stereotypes of Irish through their greenhorn depiction alluded to their newly arrived status as immigrant Americans, with the stereotype portrayed in avenues of entertainment.^[12]

Following the Irish immigration wave, several waves followed in which new immigrants from different backgrounds came in contact with the Irish in America's urban centers. Already settled and being native English speakers, Irish Americans took hold of these advantages and began to assert their positions in the immigrant racial hierarchy based on skin tone and assimilation status, cementing job positions that were previously unavailable to them as recently arrived immigrants.^[13] As a result, Irish Americans became prominent in vaudeville entertainment as curators and actors, creating a unique ethnic interplay between Irish American use of self-deprecation as humor and their diverse inner city surroundings.^[14]

The interactions between newly arrived immigrants and settled immigrants within the backdrop of the unknown American urban landscape allowed vaudeville to be utilized as an avenue for expression and understanding. The often hostile immigrant experience in their new country was now used for comic relief on the vaudeville stage, where stereotypes of different ethnic groups were perpetuated.^[15] The crude stereotypes that emerged were easily identifiable not only by their distinct ethnic cultural attributes, but how those attributes differed from the mainstream established American culture and identity.^[16]

Coupled with their historical presence on the English stage for comic relief,^[14] and as operators and actors of the vaudeville stage, Irish Americans became interpreters of immigrant cultural images in American popular culture. New arrivals found their ethnic group status defined within the immigrant population and in their new country as a whole by the Irish on stage.^[17] Unfortunately, the same interactions between ethnic groups within the close living conditions of cities also created racial tensions which were reflected in vaudeville. Conflict between Irish and African Americans saw the promotion of black-face minstrelsy on the stage, purposefully used to place African Americans beneath the Irish in the racial and social urban hierarchy.^[18]

Although the Irish had a strong Celtic presence in vaudeville and in the promotion of ethnic stereotypes, the ethnic groups that they were characterizing also utilized the same humor. As the Irish donned their ethnic costumes, groups such as the Chinese, Italians, Germans and Jews utilized ethnic caricatures to understand themselves as well as the Irish.^[19] The urban diversity within the vaudeville stage and audience also reflected their societal status, with the working class constituting 2/3 of the typical vaudeville audience.^[19]

The ethnic caricatures that now comprised American humor reflected the positive and negative interactions between ethnic groups in America's cities. The caricatures served as a method of understanding different groups and their societal positions within their cities.^[19] The use of the greenhorn immigrant for comedic effect showcased how immigrants were viewed as new arrivals, but also what they could aspire to be. In addition to interpreting visual ethnic caricatures, the Irish American ideal of transitioning from the shanty^[20] to the lace curtain^[16] became a model of economic upward mobility for immigrant groups.

Decline

The continued growth of the lower-priced cinema in the early 1910s dealt the heaviest blow to vaudeville. This was similar to the advent of free broadcast television's diminishing the cultural and economic strength of the cinema. Cinema was first regularly commercially presented in the US in vaudeville halls. The first public showing of movies projected on a screen took place at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in 1896. Lured by greater salaries and less arduous working conditions, many performers and personalities, such as Al Jolson, W. C. Fields, Mae West, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, Jimmy Durante, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Edgar Bergen, Fanny Brice, Burns and Allen, and Eddie Cantor, used the prominence gained in live variety performance to vault into the new medium of cinema. In doing so, such performers often exhausted in a few moments of screen time the novelty of an act that might have kept them on tour for several years. Other performers who entered in vaudeville's later years, including Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, Kate Smith, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Judy Garland, Rose Marie, Sammy Davis, Jr., Red Skelton, and The Three Stooges, used vaudeville only as a launching pad for later careers. They left live performance before achieving the national celebrity of earlier vaudeville stars, and found fame in new venues.

The line between live and filmed performances was blurred by the number of vaudeville entrepreneurs who made more or less successful forays into the movie business. For example, Alexander Pantages quickly realized the importance of motion pictures as a form of entertainment. He incorporated them in his shows as early as 1902. Later, he entered into partnership with the Famous Players-Lasky, a major Hollywood production company and an affiliate of Paramount Pictures.

By the late 1920s, most vaudeville shows included a healthy selection of cinema. Earlier in the century, many vaudevillians, cognizant of the threat represented by cinema, held out hope that the silent nature of the "flickering shadow sweethearts" would preclude their usurpation of the paramount place in the public's affection. With the introduction of talking pictures in 1926, the burgeoning film studios removed what had remained the chief difference in favor of live theatrical performance: spoken dialogue. Historian John Kenrick wrote:

Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to speed the death of vaudeville. After all, when "small time" theatres could offer "big time" performers on screen at a nickel a seat, who could ask audiences to pay higher amounts for less impressive live talent? The newly-formed RKO studios took over the famed Orpheum vaudeville circuit and swiftly turned it into a chain of full-time movie theaters. The half-century tradition of vaudeville was effectively wiped out within less than four years.^[21]

Inevitably, managers further trimmed costs by eliminating the last of the live performances. Vaudeville also suffered due to the rise of broadcast radio following the greater availability of inexpensive receiver sets later in the decade. Even the hardiest in the vaudeville industry realized the form was in decline; the perceptive understood the condition to be terminal. The standardized film distribution and talking pictures of the 1930s confirmed the end of vaudeville. By 1930, the vast majority of formerly live theatres had been wired for sound, and none of the major studios was producing silent pictures. For a time, the most luxurious theatres continued to offer live entertainment, but most theatres were forced by the Great Depression to economize.

Some in the industry blamed cinema's drain of talent from the vaudeville circuits for the medium's demise. Others argued that vaudeville had allowed its performances to become too familiar to its famously loyal, now seemingly fickle audiences.

There was no abrupt end to vaudeville, though the form was clearly sagging by the late 1920s. Joseph Kennedy in a hostile buyout, acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theaters across the United States which had begun showing movies. The shift of New York City's Palace Theatre, vaudeville's epicenter, to an exclusively cinema presentation on November 16, 1932 is often considered to have been the death knell of vaudeville.^[22] No single event is more reflective of its gradual withering.

Though talk of its resurrection was heard during the 1930s and later, the demise of the supporting apparatus of the circuits and the higher cost of live performance made any large-scale renewal of vaudeville unrealistic.

Architecture

The most striking examples of Gilded Age theater architecture were commissioned by the big time vaudeville magnates and stood as monuments of their wealth and ambition. Examples of such architecture are the theaters built by impresario Alexander Pantages. Pantages often used architect B. Marcus Priteca (1881–1971), who in turn regularly worked with muralist Anthony Heinsbergen. Priteca devised an exotic, neo-classical style that his employer called "Pantages Greek".

Though classic vaudeville reached a zenith of capitalization and sophistication in urban areas dominated by national chains and commodious theatres, small-time vaudeville included countless more intimate and locally controlled houses. Small-time houses were often converted saloons, rough-hewn theatres or multi-purpose halls, together catering to a wide range of clientele. Many small towns had purpose-built theatres.

Post-vaudeville

Some of the most prominent vaudevillians continued the migration to cinema, though others did not see a personal success within media entertainment. Some performers such as Bert Lahr fashioned careers out of combining live performance, radio and film roles. Many others later appeared in the Catskill resorts that constituted the "Borscht Belt".

The large amount of credit for the success of entertainment media of film, radio, and television goes to vaudeville. Comedies of the new era seemed to reflect the classic physical and lingual aspects of some vaudeville acts. The arsenal of the vaudeville tradition was reused in the preeminent prime-time radio variety shows, like The Rudy Vallée Show. The structure of a single host introducing a series of acts became a popular television style and could be seen consistently within future of television entertainment, from Milton Berle in 1948 to David Letterman's late night show of the 1980s.^[23] The multi-act format had renewed success in shows such as Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and, The Ed Sullivan Show. Today, performers such as Bill Irwin, a MacArthur Fellow and Tony Award-winning actor, are frequently lauded as being "New Vaudevillians."^[24]^[25]

References to vaudeville and the use of its distinctive argot continue throughout Western popular culture. Words such as "flop" and "gag" were terms created from the vaudeville era and have entered the American idiom. Though not credited often, vaudevillian techniques can commonly be witnessed on television and in movies.

References

↑ Trav, S.D. (October 31, 2006). No Applause-Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0865479586. (subscription required (help)).
1 2 3 4 5 Kenrick, John. "A History of The Musical: Vaudeville". Retrieved 2015-10-26.
↑ Burke, James (September 2, 2003). An Invisible Object (Connections3 DVD). Ambrose Video Publishing, Inc.
↑ Cullen, Frank; Hackman, Florence; McNeilly, Donald (October 8, 2006). "Vaudeville History". Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. London: Routledge. pp. xi–xxxii.
↑ Thompson, Robert J. (February 4, 2014). "Television in the United States". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
↑ Tosches, Nick (2002). Where Dead Voices Gather. Boston: Back Bay Books. p. 11. ISBN 0-316-89537-7.
↑ Grosch, Nils; Widmaier, Tobias, eds. (2010). Lied und populäre Kultur/ Song and Popular Culture (in German). Münster: Waxman Verlag GmbH. p. 233. ISBN 978-383092395-4. ... the widespread influence Dutch minstrels and comedians had with their musical and dramaturgical idiom on vaudeville, the circuit of traveling tent shows. ... The Black Crook of 1866 ... already displayed a mixture of "ersatz German romanticism" (Gerald Bordman) and burlesque elements inherited from the Dutch character shows ...
↑ Gilbert, Douglas (1940). American Vaudeville: Its Life and Times. Whittlesey House.
↑ Webwerks. "The New York Tribune: Vaudeville". Oldnewsads.com. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
↑ "Vaudeville: About Vaudeville". PBS American Masters.
↑ Erdman, Andrew L. (January 20, 2007). Blue Vaudeville. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0786431151.
↑ Williams, William H. A. (2002). "Green Again: Irish-American Lace-Curtain Satire". New Hibernia Review.
↑ Barrett, James (2012). The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multi-Ethnic City. New York: The Penguin Press. p. 107.
1 2 Barrett, James (2012). The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multi-Ethnic City. New York: The Penguin Press. ISBN 978-0143122807.
↑ "Sign In". doi:10.2307/467640. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
1 2 Wittke, Carl (1952). "The Immigrant Theme on the American Stage". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. doi:10.2307/1892181.
↑ Bayor, Ronald (1996). The New York Irish. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 143–145.
↑ Barrett, James (2012). The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multi-Ethnic City. New York: The Penguin Press. p. 159.
1 2 3 Barrett, James (2012). The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multi-Ethnic City. New York: The Penguin Press. pp. 166–167.
↑ Barrett, James (2012). The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multi-Ethnic City. New York: The Penguin Press. p. 108.
↑ Kenrick, John. "History of Musical Film, 1927-30: Part II". Musicals101.com, 2004, accessed May 17, 2010
↑ Senelick, Laurence (October 22, 2007). Wilmeth, Don B., ed. Cambridge Guide to American Theatre (Second ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 480. ISBN 978-0521835381. (subscription required (help)).
↑ Hilmes, Michele (February 12, 2010). Only Connect: A Cultural History of Broadcasting in the United States. Cengage Learning. p. 97. ISBN 978-0495570516. [...] it is in the form of the variety show itself, network radio's offering, that we can see the influence of vaudeville on radio most clearly. From The Rudy Vallee Show through Jack Benny and Bing Crosby to TV programs like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Smothers Brothers, Saturday Night Live, In Living Color, and even Late Night with David Letterman, we can see strong remnants of vaudeville's typical variety act structure. Combining a host/announcer with comedy sketches, musical performances, dance, monologues, and satiric banter--sometimes even animal acts--the variety show takes myriad forms today. The vaudeville circuit of touring companies and local theaters is gone, but it lives on electronically.
↑ Henry III, William A. (1989-05-15). "Theater: Bowing Out with a Flourish". TIME. Retrieved 2010-05-27.
↑ "Bill Irwin: Clown Prince". Great Performances. Season 32. December 15, 2004. PBS. Retrieved 2010-09-12.
↑ "Vaudeville Lives: The world’s largest Vaudeville memorabilia collection has been donated to the UA". UA News. February 25, 2009.
↑ Kibler, M. Alison (April 1992). "The Keith/Albee Collection: The Vaudeville Industry, 1894-1935". From Books at Iowa 56.

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	How can they tell that I'm Irish? 1910 Edison Records recording of vaudeville performer Edward M. Favor's rendition of Clarence Wainwright Murphy's song How can they tell that I'm Irish?
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