User:Ganymead/Vaudeville

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Vaudeville is a style of variety entertainment predominant in America in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. A similar development in Britain was known as Music Hall. Developing from many sources including shows in saloons, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums, British pantomimes, and other popular entertainments, vaudeville became one of the most popular types of entertainment in America. This entertainment took the form of a series of separate, unrelated acts each featuring a different type of performance. These performances could ranges from musicians (both classically trained and popular), dancers, comedians, animal acts, magicians, female and male impersonators, to acrobats, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, leturing celebrities, minstrels, or even short films.

In the 1880s, under the care of Tony Pastor, vaudeville was cleansed of its obscenity and disrespectability and made wholesome for the general public. This is generally acknowledged as the beginning of American-style vaudeville. B.F. Keith took the next step in Boston soon building an empire of theaters and bringing vaudeville to the people of the United States as well as Canada. Following Keith’s lead, other vaudeville circuits blossomed. Many of these circuits boasted levels of vaudeville, the three most common levels were the “small time”, the “medium time,” and the “Big Time”. The Big Time consisted of those performers who were considered the best and most famous. The Big Time found its home in 1913 at the Palace Theater (or just “The Palace” in the patois of vaudevillians) in New York City, built by Martin Beck and operated by Keith. The Palace featured the best and brightest on its bill and many vaudvillians would consider playing it to be the apotheosis of their careers.

The opening of the Palace marked the beginning of the gradual decline of vaudeville’s popularity. Even though vaudeville and the Palace were wildly successful, the new film industry, later radio and finally the Great Depression in the 1930s led to the closure of vaudeville theaters. The Palace’s conversion to a cinema on 16 November 1932 is considered the final death knell of the art vaudeville. Some attempts to revive it would occur later, but these were never successful.

Though the form as popular entertainment is dead, vaudeville lives on in American popular culture and entertainment. The language of the vaudevillians has added to the language such colorful terms as “a flop” (an act that does badly) and “the limelight” (from the color of phosphorus lights that were commonly used in theaters of the time). while many of the most common techniques of vaudeville entertainers are still seen on televisions, and on film. In addition, vaudeville has provided generations of American entertainers including George M. Cohan, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Mae West, Fanny Brice, and W.C. Fields, among others. In addition, vaudeville introduced many great foreign entertainers to the American audience among them Sir Harry Lauder and Sarah Bernhardt.

Etymology

The exact origins of the term “vaudeville” have been lost, but scholars have surmised a few plausible theories. One common theory states that the term is a corruption of the French ‘’voix de ville’’ or “voice of the city”. Another explanation has it that “vaudeville” is a corruption of the name ‘’Vau de Vire,’’ the name of a valley in Normandy noted for a style of songs with topical themes. Yet one other possible French source is from a combination of the words ‘’vauder’’ (to see) and ‘’virer’’ (to turn).

Whatever the origin, the ‘’Oxford Guide to the Theatre’’ states that the first known usage of the term ‘’vaudeville’’ is found in the work ‘’Art Poétique’’ by the French drama critic Nicholas Boileau-Despréaux in 1674. Boileau-Despréaux used the term to describe ballads that were often satrical and sometimes on political subjects. Later “vaudeville” was used to describe plays that were light, satirical and often interspersed with song. It was this meaning that was used consistently in France until the late 19th Century.