A History of The Musical

Burlesque
by John Kenrick
(Copyright 1996-2003)

Misunderstood Genre Lydia Thompson Burlesque Format Training Ground

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Misunderstood Genre
Lydia Thompson, the audacious British showgirl who's troupe of blonde beauties made burlesque a sensation in America.

Most people think that "burlesque" means female strippers walking a runway to a bump and grind beat. But that only fits the form in its declining years. At its best, burlesque was a rich source of music and comedy that kept America, audiences laughing from 1840 through the 1960s. Some sources try to wrap burlesque in a mantle of pseudo-intellectual respectability. Yes, it involved transgressive comedy and songs, but the primary attraction of burlesque was sex . . in the form of ribald humor and immodestly dressed women. Although many dismissed burlesque as the tail-end of show business, its influence reaches through the development of popular entertainment into the present. Without question, however, burlesque's principal legacy as a cultural form was its establishment of patterns of gender representation that forever changed the role of the woman on the American stage and later influenced her role on the screen. . . The very sight of a female body not covered by the accepted costume of bourgeois respectability forcefully if playfully called attention to the entire question of the "place" of woman in American society.
- Robert G. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1991), pp. 258-259.

In the 19th Century, the term "burlesque" was applied to a wide range of comic plays, including non-musicals. Beginning in the 1840s, these works entertained the lower and middle classes in Great Britain and the United States by making fun of (or "burlesquing") the operas, plays and social habits of the upper classes. These shows used comedy and music to challenge the established way of looking at things. Everything from Shakespearean drama to the craze for Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind could inspire a full-length burlesque spoof. On Broadway, the burlesque productions of actor managers

William Mitchell, John Brougham and Laura Keene were among Broadway's most popular hits of the mid-19th Century. By the 1860s, British burlesque relied on the display of shapely, underdressed women to keep audiences interested. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge. Suggestive rather than bawdy, these shows relied less on strong scripts or songs than on sheer star power. When Broadway's The Black Crook became a massive hit in 1866, its troop of ballerinas in flesh-colored tights served notice that respectable American audiences were ready to fork over big bucks for sexually stimulating entertainment. All it took was a daring producer to take things to the next level.

Lydia Thompson
The original program to Ixion, Broadway's first burlesque hit.

In the late 1860s, Lydia Thompson's British burlesque troupe became New York's biggest theatrical sensation. Their first hit was Ixion (1868), a mythological spoof that had women in revealing tights playing men's roles. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge. Underdressed women playing sexual aggressors, combining good looks with impertinent comedy in a production written and managed by a woman? Unthinkable! No wonder men and adventurous wives turned out in droves, making Thompson and her "British blondes" the hottest thing in American show business. Demand for tickets was such that Ixion soon moved to Broadway's most prestigious musical house, Niblo's Garden the same theatre where The Black Crook had triumphed two years earlier. All told, Thompson's first New York season grossed over $370,000. Thompson and her imitators did not bother with such mundane matters as hiring composers. Instead, they used melodies from operatic arias and popular songs of the day, incorporating them into the action for comic or sentimental effect. To prevent unauthorized productions, the scripts from these early burlesques were not published. In fact, the material changed so often (sometimes from week to week) that a written script would serve little purpose. We can only guess at the exact content and staging of these shows, but it is clear that audiences were delighted. At first, the American press praised burlesques, but turned vicious under pressure from influential do-gooders. But the cries of the self-righteous had an unintended effect. Editorials and sermons condemning burlesque as "indecent" only made the form more

popular! Demand was such that copycat burlesque companies soon cropped up, many with female managers.

Mabel Saintley became America's first native-born burlesque star, leading "Mme. Rintz's Female Minstrels" from the 1880s onwards in a stylish burlesque of allmale troupes. Burlesque left little to the imagination. The popular stage spectacle Ben Hur inspired "The High Rollers" troupe to produce Bend Her, with scantily clad chorines as Roman charioteers. Any stage hit could become a target for humor. The popular melodrama Trilby was spoofed in 'Twill Be.

Americans began creating their own burlesques, and some proved extremely popular. Composer Edward E.Rice teamed with actor Henry Dixey to create Adonis (1874), the story of a statue that comes to life and is so disgusted by human folly that he finally chooses to turn back into stone. The show ran over 500 performances in New York and toured for years, making the handsome Dixey the top matinee idol of his time.

Burlesque Format
As male managers took over the form in the 1880s, feminine wit was gradually replaced by a determination to reveal as much of the feminine form as local laws allowed. But obscenity and vulgarity were avoided the point was to spoof and (to a limited extent) titillate, not to offend. Burlesque underwent a crucial change when Michael Leavitt produced burlesque variety shows using something similar to the three act minstrel show format

ACT ONE: The ensemble entertains with songs and gags, dressed in formal evening clothes. ACT TWO: An "olio" of variety acts (singers, comics, skits, etc.). ACT THREE: A complete one-act musical burlesque. These ranged from Shakespearean take offs like Much Ado About a Merchant of Venice to a Gilbert and Sullivan spoof called The Mick Hair-Do.

By 1905, burlesque theatre owners formed vaudeville-style circuits of small, medium and big time theatres. Because big time burlesque companies played these theatres in regular rotations, the circuits came to be known as wheels -- the largest being the Columbia (Eastern U.S.), Mutual, and Empire (Western U.S.) wheels. Unlike vaudeville performers who sought weekly bookings as individual acts, burlesquers spent an entire forty week season touring as part of one complete troupe. For three decades, this system made burlesque a dependable source of steady work.

The biggest burlesque star of the early 20th Century was dancer Millie DeLeon, an attractive brunette who tossed her garters into the audience and occasionally neglected to wear tights. Such shenanigans got her arrested on occasion, and helped to give burlesque a raunchy reputation. Although vaudevillians looked down on burlesque performers, many a vaude trouper avoided bankruptcy by appearing in burlesque usually under an assumed name, to avoid embarrassment.

Training Ground
Long before his "Cowardly Lion" days, Bert Lahr polished his comic skills in burlesque. Note the outlandish costume and exaggerated make-up, required attire for burlesque comics.

In time, burlesque bills began and ended with "burlettas," extended skits that made fun of hit shows and popular topics. In between came a variety olio where singers, comics, jugglers, magicians and specialty acts were all part of the mix. Herb Goldman points out in Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl (Oxford: NYC, 1992, p. 28-29) that burlesque not vaudeville was the real "break-in ground" where amateurs could prove if they had the talent and determination to survive in show business. By the time most performers reached vaudeville, they were already experienced pros. While it was common for burlesque stars to graduate into vaudeville, vaudevillians considered it a fatal disgrace to appear in burlesque, insisting that only those who were "washed up" would stoop so low. However, many a vaudeville veteran hit the burlesque wheels during dry spells, appearing under an assumed name. Burlesque's richest legacy was its comedy. The lead comic in a burlesque show was referred to as the "top banana," and his sidekicks were known as the second, third, etc. supposedly because they would resort to slipping on banana peels in order to get a laugh. The lower you were in the "bunch," the more likely you were to suffer the worst of the physical humor (pies in the face, seltzer in the pants, etc.). Some wondrous comedians learned their craft working the burlesque wheels, including future musical comedy stars Jackie Gleason, Fanny Brice, Leon Errol, Bert Lahr, W.C. Fields, Bobby Clark, Red Skelton, Phil Silvers, Joey Faye and Bob Hope. All used the same basic routines, but no two played them the same way. So what was burlesque comedy like? A History of The Musical

Burlesque - Part II
by John Kenrick
(Copyright 1996 & 2004)

The Skits

Stripping Death Knells Revivals Legacy

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The Skits
From the 1880s onwards, burlesque comedy was built around settings and situations familiar to lower and working class audiences. Courtrooms, street corners and inner city schoolrooms were favorites, as were examining rooms ruled over by quack physicians. Sexual innuendo was always present, but the focus was on making fun of sex and what people were willing to do in the pursuit of it. Some examples (Injured Man crosses stage in assorted bandages and casts.) Comic: What happened to you? Injured Man: I was living the life of Riley. Comic: And? Injured Man: Riley came home! (A buxom Girl drops her purse, and a Comic tries to return it.) Comic: I beg your pardon. Girl: What are you begging for? You're old enough to ask for it. (Minister walks up to a beautiful young woman.) Minister: Do you believe in the hereafter? Woman: Certainly, I do! Minister: (Leering) Then you know what I'm here after. Many burlesque routines spoofed social conventions and linguistic idiosyncrasies. The most famous was Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's glorious "Who's On First," which had fun with the sometimes confusing nicknames given to popular baseball players. It was the descendant of several earlier routines that involved two men exchanging an intricate series of misunderstood words. Another popular bit was aimed at the convoluted names of nepotistic businesses and law firms Man at Desk: (picks up phone) Hello, Cohen, Cohen, Cohen and Cohen. Caller: Let me speak to Mr. Cohen. Man at Desk: He's dead these six years. We keep his name on the door out of respect. Caller: Then let me speak to Mr. Cohen. Man: He's on vacation. Caller: (Exasperated) Well then, let me speak to Mr. Cohen.

Man: He's out to lunch. Caller: (Yells) Then let me speak to Mr. Cohen! Man: Speaking. Many routines showed the underdog getting the best of a confrontation. One skit involved a man pushing a baby carriage. The baby screams until the man takes a beer bottle and beats the unseen tyke into silence. Papa then proclaims, "That ought to show the little sucker," whereupon a stream of yellow liquid flies out of the carriage and hits him square in the face. Talk about justice! Burlesque performers developed a unique backstage language of their own. Some examples found in H. M. Alexander's Strip Tease (Knight Publishers, NY, 1938, pp. 120123) Jerk audience member Yock a belly laugh Skull make a funny face Talking woman delivers lines in comedy skits Cover perform someone's scenes for them The asbestos is down the audience is ignoring the jokes From hunger a lousy performer Mountaineer a new comic, fresh from the Catskill resort circuit Boston version a cleaned-up routine Blisters a stripper's breasts Cheeks a stripper's backside Gadget a G-string Trailer the strut taken before a strip Quiver shake the bust Shimmy Shake the posterior Bump swing the hips forward Grind full circle swing of the pelvis Milk it get an audience to demand encores Brush your teeth! - comedian's response to a Bronx cheer

"Somethin' Wrong With Strippin'?"

In the 1920s, the old burlesque circuits closed down, leaving individual theater owners to get by as best they could on their own. The strip tease was introduced as a desperate bid to offer something that vaudeville, film and radio could not. There are a dozen or more popular legends as to how the strip was born telling how a dancer's shoulder strap broke, or some similar nonsense. In fact, it had been around since Little Egypt introduced the "hootchie-kooch" at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and had always remained a mainstay of stag parties. Burlesque promoters like the Minsky brothers took the strip tease out of the back rooms and put it onstage. While stripping

drew in hoards of randy men, it also gave burlesque a sleazy reputation. As moralists once again expressed outrage, male audiences kept burlesque profitable through most of the Great Depression. Strippers had to walk a fine line between titillation and propriety going too far (let alone "all the way") could land them in jail for corrupting public morals. Some gave stripping an artistic twist and graduated to general stardom, including fan dancer Sally Rand and former vaudevillian Rose Lousie Hovick better known as the comically intellectual Gypsy Rose Lee. The strippers soon dominated burlesque, and their routines became increasingly graphic. To avoid total nudity but still give the audience what it wanted, the ladies covered their groins with flimsy G-strings and used "pasties" to cover their nipples. This was usually enough to keep the cops at bay, even though pasties were far more vulgar that a plain naked breast.

Death Knells
Legal crackdowns began in the mid-1920s, including a now legendary raid on Minsky's in Manhattan. Burlesque managers relied on their lawyers, who kept coming up with legal loopholes for more than a decade. Reform-minded Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia closed New York's remaining burlesque houses in 1937, dismissing them as purveyors of "filth." He was not altogether wrong by this time, most burlesque shows had degenerated into a series of bump and grind strip routines interrupted by lifeless comic bits. Burlesque managers were so resilient that LaGuardia outlawed the use of the words "burlesque" or "Minsky" in public advertising! Some sources praise the burlesque comics of the 1920s and 30s, but by this point, men went to burlesque shows to watch women strip -- period. The more the gals took off, the more the audiences liked it. At a time when fear of personal scandal and sexual disease were rampant, burlesque was a relatively safe source of titillation for married men and youngsters alike. The comedy was no longer a key attraction. Without New York City, which had been the hub of burlesque's universe, the remaining promoters around the US presented increasingly tacky strip shows. The best burlesque comics segued into radio, film and television, taking many classic routines with them. By the 1960s, hard core pornography became readily available. Men no longer needed strippers to feed their fantasies. The few remaining burlesque shows were campy softporn, with even the strippers aiming for "yocks." An article in Esquire (July 1964) describes how Blaze Starr played her strip for laughs. After one of her breasts "accidentally" bounced out of her costume Blaze tripped to the microphone. Looking down at her exposed breast, she said, "What are you doing out there, you gorgeous thing?" Then she covered herself. "You got to tell

them they're pretty," she said; "it makes them grow" . . . Then she flung herself on the couch and quickly stripped down to a transparent bra and black garter pants. She produced a power puff and asked rhetorically, "Who's going to powder my butt?"

Revivals: "Chorus Girls, Jugglers and a Sentimental Tune"

Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller in the Broadway revue Sugar Babies (1979).

Over the decades, several revues tried to revive the burlesque format usually with a well-known stripper like Ann Corio heading the cast. Corio and others penned books about the genre, always giving inordinate attention to the strip tease. Many graduates of burlesque became familiar faces on television and the likes of Red Skelton, Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason recycled many an old "burly" gag on their comedy telecasts. It took a tribute to the pre-stripper era to restore burlesque's fading reputation. The Broadway hit Sugar Babies (1979 - 1,208 perfs) starred MGM veterans Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller. With mildly raunchy sketches, period songs and lovely chorus girls, this lavish show caught the comic spirit of 1930s burlesque's comic spirit while making it look classier than it had ever really been. The only striptease routine in the show ended when a chorus girl removed her brassiere unleashing a floor-length evening gown! The key to the show's success was the comedy. During more than a decade of research, Professor Ralph G. Allen identified more than 1,800 basic burlesque comedy sketches that performers had "borrowed" and recycled for decades. These skits formed the basis for a college revue that eventually grew into Sugar Babies. A burlesque comedian always plays the child of nature. He represents man stripped of moral pretense, lazy, selfish, frequently a victim, but never a pathetic one, because in nine bits out of ten, he blunders into some kind of dubious success . . . The jokes are classy or corny, depending on your point of view. But most of us love jokes we know. They reassure us, and therefore the earth does not yawn at our feet . . . If only we too could make the law an ass, or win five aces in a poker game, or receive an invitation from a lovely lady to meet her 'round the corner for unspecified delights.
- Dr. Ralph G. Allen, from the Sugar Babies souvenir program, 1980

Legacy: Burlesque Today?

While the "golden age of burlesque" is long gone, its legacy is very much alive. Every time a comedian does a "spit take" or tells a joke with a double-meaning, or whenever Saturday Night Live skewers politicians and movie stars, you are watching burlesque in action. Big screen spoofs such as Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, and the Austin Powers films are clearly carrying on the tradition of early burlesque -- making fun of well-known entertainments, social mores, etc. Shrek 2 (2004) is a superb example of the kind of

comedy that Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes offered in the 1860s, getting in good natured jabs at a wide variety of comic targets while challenging audiences to look beyond appearances -- finding true beauty and bravery in unlikely characters. The tawdrier burlesque tradition lives on too. Every time The Jerry Springer Show airs a digitally obscured set of bared female breasts, it is a classic burlesque tease -- and Springer audiences are eerily reminiscent of those who sought tacky thrills at bump and grind houses a few decades ago. All of these entertainments have their righteous critics, and all appeal to a nation-wide audience. In the early 2000s, a spate of "new burlesque" shows are cropping up on both sides of the Atlantic, featuring comics, strippers and specialty acts that offer a new spin on the old "burly-q" mix. Is it too early to fully assess this trend, but the fact that such shows have spontaneously sprung up in places as diverse as Manhattan, Montreal and Oslo suggests there is a widespread interest crossing all sorts of physical and generational barriers. Why? I would suggest that there is a natural human need for the bold comic challenge that burlesque poses to the social, cultural and sexual status quo. The word "burlesque" was seriously tarnished by the mid-20th Century, when it was linked to witless soft porn strip revues in seedy venues. Now, a new generation is open to re-evaluating both the word and the format, recognizing the spirit of spoofery that made burlesque a potent form of entertainment back in the 1860s. At the dawn of a new millennium, burlesque is still alive and giggling. By the time vaudeville and burlesque were in full swing, Broadway was already home to several thriving forms of musical theatre. For the details . . . History of the Musical Stage

1860s: The Black Crook

by John Kenrick
(Copyright 1996 & 2003)

Accidental Birth Script Sample Why a Landmark?

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Accidental Birth
The ornate interior of Niblo's Garden as seen in an 1855 newspaper sketch. Actors needed solid vocal technique to be heard in this 3,200 seat auditorium.

In 1866, lower Broadway was New York's busiest thoroughfare, every bit as congested with traffic as it is today, but with temperamental horses and

piles of their manure added to the mix. As post-Civil War business boomed, there was a sharp increase in the city's working and middle class population, and these growing masses of people craved entertainment. Theaters abounded in Manhattan. One of the most popular venues was Niblos Garden, a 3,200 seat auditorium at the corner of Broadway and Prince Streets that boasted the most well equipped stage in the city. Its manager was William Wheatley, a sometime actor and man who would invent the bigtime Broadway musical. Not that he intended to invent anything. Like any sensible manager, he was just trying to keep his theater in business. With the fall season set to start in a few weeks, Wheatley was stuck. He held the rights to a dull melodrama that he hoped to sweeten with lavish production values and a stack of mediocre songs by assorted composers. Salvation came in the unexpected form of a fire that destroyed New York's elegant Academy of Music, leaving promoters Henry C. Jarrett and Harry Palmer with a costly Parisian ballet troupe and a shipload of handsome stage sets. Historians now argue about specifics, but at some point Jarrett & Palmer went to Wheatley and a deal was made. Amid chaos, Broadway's first mega-hit musical began to take shape.
The entrance to Niblo's Garden was depicted on this mid-20th Century cigarette card.

When playwright Charles M. Barras objected to having his derivative text "cheapened" by the inclusion of musical numbers, a $1,500 bonus secured his silence. Wheatley later claimed that he spent the then-unheard of sum of $25,000 to produce The Black Crook (1866 - 474). The opening night performance on September 12 lasted a bottom-numbing five and a half hours, but audiences were too dazzled to complain. The Black Crook's tortured plot stole elements from Goethe's Faust, Weber's Der Freischutz, and several other well-known works. It told the story of the evil Count Wolfenstein, who tries to win the affection of the lovely Amina by placing her boyfriend Rodolphe in the clutches of Hertzog, a nasty crook-backed master of black magic (hence the show's title). The ancient Hertzog stays alive by providing the Devil (Zamiel, "The Arch Fiend") with a fresh soul every New Year's Eve. While an unknowing Rodolphe is being led to this hellish fate, he saves the life of a dove, which magically turns out to be Stalacta, Fairy Queen of the Golden Realm who was masquerading as the bird. (Are you still following this?) The grateful Queen whisks Rudolph to safety in fairyland before helping to reunite him with his beloved Amina. The fairy army then goes to war with the Count and his evil minions. The Count is defeated, demons drag the evil magician Hertzog into hell, and Rodolphe and Amina live happily ever after.
The original cast program for The Black Crook.

Wheatley made sure his production offered plenty to keep theatergoer's minds off the inane plot and forgettable score. There were dazzling special effects, including a "transformation scene" that mechanically converted a rocky grotto into a fairyland throne room in full view of the

audience. But the show's key draw was its underdressed female dancing chorus, choreographed in semi-classical style by David Costa. Imagine (if you dare) a hundred fleshy ballerinas in skin-colored tights singing "The March of the Amazons" while prancing about in a moonlit grotto. It sounds laughable now, but this display was the most provocative thing on any respectable stage. The troupe's prima ballerina, Marie Bonfanti, became the toast of New York. A script sample from The Black Crook, Act I Scene 1

Why a Landmark?
Controversy sells tickets, and righteous attacks from pulpits and newspaper editorial columns made The Black Crook the hottest ticket on Broadway. Half-clad women? Who could miss seeing such a daring display! At a time when New York productions were happy to run two or three weeks, The Black Crook ran for more than a year, grossing over a million dollars. New tours popped up for decades to come, and the show was revived on Broadway eight times. So why did The Black Crook become such a phenomenon, when a similar hit from six years earlier is now forgotten? The Seven Sisters (1860) starred Laura Keene (a top actormanager of the day) and ran for a then-whopping 253 performances. It featured the same sort of magical special effects and scene changes, and delighted audiences of all classes and ages. No copies of Seven Sisters score or libretto are known to survive, so direct comparisons are impossible. However, we can say that The Black Crook's greater success resulted from two changes brought about by the Civil War -

After running businesses and hospitals during the war years, respectable women no longer felt tied to their homes and could attend the theatre. This substantially increased the potential audience for popular entertainment. (Even so, some "respectable" women attended The Black Crook heavily veiled.) America's railroad system had expanded and upgraded during the war, making it easier and more affordable for large productions to tour. During three decades of touring the United States, The Black Crook earned millions of dollars.

British theatre historian Sheridan Morley (Spread A Little Happiness. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987. p. 15) suggests that The Black Crook was the first musical, American or otherwise. While that may be an overstatement, The Black Crook did prove how profitable musical theater could be in the United States.
A period print shows what Niblo's Garden looked like from the stage during a performance of The Black Crook.

The Black Crook spawned a host of similar stage spectacles with fantasy themes, known as extravaganzas. None gave much care to plot or characterization, and the songs had little to do with stories that always involved whimsical trips to fairyland.

But the best of these early musicals were clean and entertaining, so they became an established part of what was then referred to as "the show business." The next musical form to rise on Broadway was full length burlesque. But these shows were nothing like the bump-and-grind girlie shows of the 20th Century. History of the Musical Stage

1870s-1880s: Burlesques and Pantomimes

by John Kenrick
(Copyright 1996 & 2003)

British Imports Burlesque Extravaganzas Pantomimes

(The images below are thumbnails click on them to see larger versions. This page repeats some information found in Musicals101's History of Burlesque.)

British Imports
Lydia Thompson, the audacious British showgirl who's troupe of blonde beauties made burlesque musicals a sensation in America.

Full length burlesque musicals were almost as lavish as extravaganzas, but aimed their comedy at specific targets, with a bit of sex appeal thrown in. The first Broadway burlesques appeared in the 1840s, with story lines that allowed lower class audiences to laugh at the habits of the rich -- or at the high-minded plays and operas the rich admired. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice was spoofed in Shylock: A Jerusalem Hearty Joke (1853), and Verdi's popular opera Il Trovatore inspired a burlesque called Kill Trovatore! (1867). These were disposable theatre works, designed to run for a week or two before being swiftly forgotten. None of the scripts survive, but we do know from critical revues that the scores were entirely borrowed, the comedy low and heavy handed. Burlesque moved to a new level of popularity when English star Lydia Thompson and her troupe of "British Blondes" came to Broadway in a mythological spoof entitled Ixion (1868 - 104). Click here to see an original cast program for Ixion.
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By featuring women in both male and female roles, all clad in revealing tights, Thompson's production set off an uproar. In the Victorian age, proper women hid every angle of their body beneath bustles, hoops and frills. The idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights, and acting as sexual aggressors was a powerful challenge to the status

quo. In addition, Thompson and her troupe combined good looks with impertinent humor in a production written and managed by a woman -- no wonder men and adventurous wives turned out in droves, making Thompson the hottest thing in American show business. None of the scripts for he burlesques survive, but we do know that Thompson and her imitators incorporated popular songs of the day into the action. Demand for tickets was such that Ixion moved to Niblo's Garden the same huge theatre where The Black Crook had triumphed two years earlier. All told, Thompson's first New York season grossed an extraordinary $370,000. Her impact on the future development of popular entertainment in America was tremendous. Without question, however, burlesque's principal legacy as a cultural form was its establishment of patterns of gender representation that forever changed the role of the woman on the American stage and later influenced her role on the screen. . . In 1869, the display of the revealed female body was morally and socially transgressive. The very sight of a female body not covered by the accepted costume of bourgeois respectability forcefully if playfully called attention to the entire question of the "place" of woman in American society.
- Robert G. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 258-259.

At first, the press praised these burlesques, but soon turned vicious under pressure from prominent do-gooders. Editorials and sermons condemned burlesque as "indecent," which only made the form more popular. Copycat burlesque companies soon appeared, many with female managers. Over time, these companies fell under male control, and burlesque evolved into a form of variety entertainment. (More can be found on this in Musicals101's History of Burlesque.)

Burlesque Extravaganzas
Henry E. Dixey as Adonis (1884), a marble statue that comes to life and does not find human existence all it is cracked up to be.

Broadway soon developed a homegrown form of burlesque, sometimes described by scholars as burlesque extravaganzas. Produced with lavish stage effects, these musicals spoofed anything from literary classics to contemporary celebrities, poking fun simultaneously at any number of targets. Edward E. Rice dominated the genre, becoming America's first prominent stage composer and producer. As a producer, he brought eighteen burlesque musicals to Broadway, and sent dozens of companies out to tour the United States. Instead of relying on borrowed songs, his shows had original scores. With no formal musical training but a solid sense of melody, Rice dictated tunes to an assistant. His scores graced two of Broadway's most popular burlesques

Evangeline (1874) took its title (and little else) from Longfellow's popular poem. It became a surprise success during a summer run at Niblo's Garden. Rice then

mounted a Boston production that was even more lavish, and brought it into New York for much longer and more profitable run. There were plenty of young ladies in tights, and a bizarre plot that whisked audiences from Africa to Arizona. Although close to incoherent, the material was clean, and family audiences loved the spouting whale, the dancing cow, and comedian James S. Maffit's performance as the inscrutable Lone Fisherman. This jumble of delights toured the U.S. for more than a decade, periodically returning to New York. The 1885 revival ran 251 performances, and marked the Broadway debuts of future stars Fay Templeton and Lillian Russell. Adonis (1884 - 603) was Rice's most popular hit. It told the story of a gorgeous male statue that comes to life and finds human ways so unpleasant that he chooses to turn back into stone after spoofing several famous personalities. Appearing in the title role, co-author Henry E. Dixey became a matinee idol. Respectable Victorian women flocked to admire his muscular legs, which were on display in alabaster colored tights. Dixey frequently added new gags to delight returning fans, helping Adonis to become the longest running Broadway musical up to that time. The program described the title character as follows:

"Adonis: An accomplished young gentleman, of undeniably good family, inasmuch as he can trace his ancestry back through the Genozoic, Mesozoic and Palaeozoic period, until he finds it resting on the Archean Time. His family name, by the way, is 'Marble.'" Click here to see an original cast program for Adonis.
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In an 1893 interview, Edward Rice offered his definition of the burlesque musical and explained the importance of casting the right kind of performers -Is there a difference between burlesque and extravaganza? Decidedly, yes; a subtle one, yet sharply defines. An extravaganza permits any extravagances or whimsicalities, without definite purpose. A burlesque should burlesque something. It should be pregnant with meaning. It should be pure, wholesome, free from suggestiveness. It should fancifully and humorously distort fact. It should have consistency of plot, idealization of treatment in effects of scenery and costumes, fantastic drollery of movement and witchery of musical embellishment. It should be performed by comedians who understand the value of light and shade, and the sharp accenting of every salient point. Strong personality and individual peculiarities are invaluable to the burlesque artist. Passive, negative temperaments go for nothing. Their possessors move on and off the stage unnoticed. It is the man or woman with nervous force, individuality, magnetism who compels the attention of the audience, and this is equally true in tragedy, comedy or burlesque.
- as quoted in The Morning Journal, June 1893

Burlesque musicals continued to thrive through the 1890s. Rice's final production was Excelsior Jr. (1895), another Longfellow spoof that enjoyed a profitable run thanks to a stellar performance by Fay Templeton.

Pantomimes: Clowning Around

Program for an 1873 revival of Humpty Dumpty starring George L. Fox. He eventually performed the title role more than 1,400 times.

One act musical pantomimes had been a London and Broadway staple since the 1700s, sharing the bill with other entertainments. By the mid1800s, American pantomimes placed figures from Mother Goose stories in varied settings, then gave a mischievous fairy an excuse to transform them into the characters taken from commedia dell arte (Harlequin, Columbine, Clown, etc.). Using the silent language of gesture, these clowns then had to contend with a variety of comic situations and misunderstandings. The humor was mostly physical, relying on a succession of slapstick routines. A typical pantomime script consisted of detailed stage directions with a few snippets of inserted dialogue. The otherwise mute clowns could burst into song to heighten the mood -- or whenever the audience and the battered cast needed a breather. With colorful sets and athletic antics, this glorified form of children's theater proved to be popular with adults, many of whom were immigrants who did not mind the absence of English dialogue. The most successful American pantomime was Humpty Dumpty (1868 - 483), with comic actor George Fox in the title role. The plot (if you can call it that) turned young Humpty and his playmates into harlequinade characters romping through such diverse settings as a candy store, an enchanted garden and Manhattan's costly new City Hall. With a lavish ballet staged by David Costa (choreographer of The Black Crook), there was plenty of visual spectacle to offset the knockabout humor. The score was sometimes credited to "A. Reiff Jr.," but it was largely assembled from existing material, a mishmosh of recycled Offenbach and old music hall tunes. But no one paid much attention to the songs Fox's buffoonery was the main attraction. Humpty Dumpty set a new long-run record, was revived several times and inspired a series of sequels. A sample scene from Humpty Dumpty Fox's mute passivity set him apart from the clamor surrounding him on Humpty Dumpty's stage, and audiences took the little man to their hearts. Counting revivals and tours, he played Humpty more than 1,400 times. Advanced syphilis eventually clouded Fox's mind. After pelting an audience with props in November 1875, Fox was forced into retirement. He died two years later at age 52. Pantomime survived in England as a form of Christmas entertainment, but faded from American stages by 1880. American audiences were looking for something more intimate than burlesque and less childish than pantomime. The time was right for an innovation the form we now know as "musical comedy."