THE SPEED OF SOUND by SCOTT EYMAN

THE SPEED OF SOUND by SCOTT EYMAN

Author:SCOTT EYMAN
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER


Vaudeville grew out of early variety shows, which tended to be performed in waterfront dives and frontier honky-tonks. In 1883, Benjamin F. Keith, a former circus performer, combined variety shows with some of the traditions of the English music hall and came up with vaudeville, carefully pruning away anything that might offend a family audience. Keith, in partnership with Edward F. Albee, eventually presided over a chain of a thousand theaters, with one located in every city with a population of at least one hundred thousand.

A vaudeville program was constructed in modular form, six to ten acts of no more than twenty minutes apiece. The acts were combined to create an overall effect of novelty and variety. “In the end,” wrote historian Henry Jenkins, “what vaudeville communicated was the pleasure of infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” Because Keith-Albee entertained two million people daily in the United States and Canada, there was a consistent market for talented specialty acts who could work “clean”: jugglers, acrobats, singers, magicians, comedians, monologuists, and so on. By 1928, the National Vaudeville Artists Association Inc. had about fifteen thousand members.

One of the major joys of the vaudeville proving ground was the multiplicity of skills that it taught. Comedians could, of course, learn jokes and, more important, timing, but they could also pick up dancing or, if they were interested, juggling, singing, whatever. Although George Burns and Gracie Allen became famous for ritualistically detailed two-handers between a calm, bemused husband and his deeply confused wife, they were actually all-around performers—in the 1937 Damsel in Distress they do a spectacular production number with Fred Astaire. “When I met Gracie,” remembered the ninety-seven-year-old George Burns, “she was a dramatic Irish actress. [Vaudeville taught her how to] play the part of a comedienne.”

Even the people who worked within vaudeville were conscious of its slightly surreal nature. It was more than acrobats and magicians. Jugglers followed animal acts who followed monologuists who followed singers who followed comics who followed acts that didn’t really fall into any known category. No matter what form the act took, time was of the essence; as Eddie Cantor told an interviewer, “A [perfomer] in vaudeville … is like a salesman who has only fifteen minutes in which to make a sale. You go on the stage knowing that every minute counts. You’ve got to get your audience the instant you appear.”

Among the legendary oddball acts was Swayne’s Rats and Cats, the favorite act of both Groucho Marx and George Burns, in which Swayne trained rats to chase cats around a circular enclosure. There were the Siamese Twins, a pair of circus freaks who played saxophone-and-clarinet duets, impersonated other sister acts, sang songs, cracked jokes, and tap-danced. (Variety noted that they were “not bad for an act of this type.”)

There was Think-A-Drink Hoffman, who would come out with a portable bar and one single cocktail shaker. Without ever being seen to add any ingredients, he would make up any drink anybody in the audience desired. “The audience loved it,” remembered Donald O’Connor, who began his performing career as a child in vaudeville.



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