As an addition to my evaluation, here are a couple of pages to explain what the terms Vaudeville, Musical Comedy and Broadway are.
Vaudeville
Vaudeville grew out of the culture of American life after the Civil War. The development of vaudeville marked the beginning of popular entertainment as big business, dependent on the efforts of a growing number of white-collar workers and the increased leisure time, spending power, and changing tastes of an urban middle class audience. Business savvy showmen improved transportation and communication technologies, creating and controlling vast networks of theatre circuits which both professionalised, and institutionalised American popular entertainment.
In the years before the war, entertainment existed on a different scale. Certainly, variety theatre existed before 1860. Europeans enjoyed types of variety performances years before anyone even thought of the United States. On American soil, as early as the first decades of the nineteenth century, theatre goers could enjoy a performance of Shakespeare, acrobats, singers, presentations of dance, and comedy all in the same evening. As the years progressed, seekers of different amusements found an increasing number to choose from. A handful of circuses regularly toured the country, dime-museums appealed to the curious, amusement parks, riverboats, and town halls often-featured "cleaner" presentations of variety entertainment, while saloons, music halls, and burlesque houses catered to those with a taste for the obscene. Medicine shows travelled the countryside offering programs of comedy, music, jugglers and other novelties along with their tonics, salves, and miracle elixirs, while Wild West Shows provided romantic vistas of the disappearing frontier complete with trick riding, music, and drama. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable form centred in America's growing urban areas.
The term "vaudeville," itself, referring specifically to American variety entertainment, came about after 1871 with the formation of "Sargent's Great Vaudeville Company" of Louisville, Kentucky, and had little if anything to do with the "vaudeville" of the French theatre.
In the early 1880's, Tony Pastor, a former ringmaster with the circus turned theatre manager, capitalised on middle class sensibilities and spending power when he began to feature "polite" variety programs in several of his New York theatres. Hoping to draw a female and family-based audience, as an experiment, Pastor barred the sale of alcohol in his theatres, banned questionable material from his shows, and offered gifts of coal and hams to the audience. Pastor's experiment proved successful and other managers soon followed suit.
However, Benjamin Franklin Keith is probably the most well known name in American Vaudeville. After working many years in theatres and eventually opening his own, Keith had earned enough to build the Bijou Theatre, a lavishly appointed, state-of-the-art, fireproof theatre, which set the standard for the shape of things to come. At the Bijou, Keith established a "fixed policy of cleanliness and order." He strictly banned the use of vulgarity or coarse material in his acts "so the that the theatre and the entertainment would directly appeal to women and children. Keith strictly enforced his policies at the Bijou as he would in all his future theatres. He ruled with an iron fist, censoring performers whose acts fell below his standards of decency. Keith posted signs backstage ordering performers to eliminate vulgarity and suggestiveness in words, action, and costume while performing in his theatre. Anyone failing to do so would be sacked on the spot. As an added measure, Keith invited a Sunday school teacher to judge propriety at rehearsals.
Within a few short years, imitators sprung up around the country, following the lead of Keith. By the 1890's vast theatre circuits spanned the country and "comprehensive networks of booking offices" handled promotion and production. However, Keith consolidated their control of vaudeville, first through the United Booking Artists and later through the establishment of the Vaudeville Manager's Association, establishing a virtual monopoly that lasted well past Keith's death in 1914.
During shows an army of ushers and uniformed attendants handed customers printed cards from silver trays asking female patrons to remove their hats or requesting that:
Gentlemen will kindly avoid carrying cigars or cigarettes in their mouths while in the building, and greatly oblige.
Gentlemen will kindly avoid the stamping of feet and pounding of canes on the floor, and greatly oblige. All applause is best shown by clapping of hands.
Please don't talk during acts, as it annoys those about you, and prevents a perfect hearing of the entertainment.
So to summarise what I have written above, vaudeville is a collection of clubs and theatres forming a circuit. Originally gypsy is set in the time of Vaudeville. However we wanted to put on a timeless performance, So to prevent it’s vaudeville routs slipping through we excluded the word vaudeville everywhere possible, modernised certain scenes and phrases and left some scenes unscathed thus making the show timeless. Ironically, most of vaudeville’s history is based around New York, which leads me in to my next topic also based around New York. And that is…
Broadway
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find as much about the history of Broadway as I could Vaudeville. However from my own knowledge, I can give you a quick brief of what Broadway is all about.
Broadway is a series of theatres in New York were all the best have played and all the stars of tomorrow dream of playing. You could ask any serious actor/dancer were they would love to perform and you would get the same answer time and time again, Broadway.
Although a little well a lot on the expensive side, every show is generally worth every penny. All of the best shows and remade classics are performed every week. Shows I relate to Broadway are shows like Cats, Chicago, Carousel, Gypsy and Grease to name but a few. Broadway actually started out as a similar venture to Vaudeville but gradually became more popular and then eventually became the theatre capital of the world.
Musical Comedy’s
A musical is defined in the dictionary as:
"A play or film whose action and dialogue is interspersed
with singing and dancing".
However, I am not trying to explain musicals but instead Musical Comedies. Now I’m assuming that this would be defined as the same as a musical with the extension added that it contains humorous lyrics within songs and scripts and also humorous gestures shown by the actors appearing either on screen or on stage. I would class Gypsy as a musical comedy as it contains all of the above. For example, there are plenty of occasions were actors will be on stage reciting a script when the next thing you know they go into a song. I think a good example of a humorous number would be Mrs Goldstone (originally Mr Goldstone but had to be changed for a number of reasons). This contained a lot of stupid lyrics but in turn this was amusing because of the way it was presented in the form of over the top gestures by both the adults of the scene and the ‘children’.
When thinking of a certain character that is shall we say Zany (amusing in an insane manner), there’s only one that springs to mind. Rose. This character is so over the top it’s insane. Although delivering a serious message and also being a bad mother, the melodramatic speeches and gestures have the audience simply in stitches. I think this way gets the message across a lot better than if Gypsy was a serious play because people are so amused and entertained throughout that they remain aware of the plot from start to finish.
So there you have it. My run down of the three genres within Gypsy. Once again I apologise for the lack of information on Broadway but I think there is enough there to get the general idea of what it is all about. Hope you find it useful.
Kristian