The New Humor in the Progressive Era : Americanization and the Vaudeville Comedian

Preface xvii not their own provoked fear among some Anglo-Americans, who worried that the new humor could reach a wide variety of audiences. As a result, vaudeville comedy was subjected to Progressive-era reform and censure. This book uniquely examines the popular stage's comic forms in the context of suppression, an area that needs further scrutiny. By examining iconic as well as lesser-known comedic performers from this era of cultural and political ferment, this study seeks to reclaim an important part of American theatrical and sociocultural history, one that needs more attention in US performance studies and in sociocultural evaluations of Americanization in the early twentieth century. Chapter 1, "Americanization: Progressive-Era Reformers, Cultural Critics, and Popular Comic Entertainments," examines a diverse range of reformers and critics, their arguments for and against Americanization, and the conflicts among them in the context of the Progressive-era agenda of Americanization. These reformers and critics are seen in relationship with the new immigrants and their progeny, who were often targeted at the turn of the twentieth century as corrupting the aesthetics and culture of the American middle class. Chapter 2, "Putting It Over in American Vaudeville," defines the new humor as it evolved from comic vaudeville performers and their roots in nineteenth-century American theatrical forms such as minstrel shows, concert saloons, variety theater, and burlesque comedy. This chapter examines the transition and separation of these earlier popular forms from vaudeville as they became marginalized entertainments for the lower classes and as select comic performers attempted to upgrade to the "cleaned up" and more respectable vaudeville stage. Key to this transition was the development of "putting it over," or the notion of connecting with audiences through ethnic-and gender-coded comic acts. To avoid overtly offending unsuspecting audience members, comic vaudevillians hid their intentions with masked physical and vocal language that traded in double entendres and hidden meanings, including references that only certain spectators from the underclasses could appreciate. Chapter 3, "The New Humor: Ethnic Acts and Family Acts," examines the conflicts between Progressives and vaudeville comedians through ethnic acts and family acts. The vaudeville impresarios Joe xviii Preface Weber and Lew Fields, who began as a "Double Dutch" act; the Three Weber and Lew Fields, who began as a "Double Dutch" act; the Three Keatons and their faux-Irish family who trafficked in domestic strife; the family act of the Marx Brothers and their ethnic mix of German, Italian, and Irish character types; and the Elinore Sisters' mistressservant act, which enacted the Irish-British conflict-all these would w confront the notion of Americanness, often dramatizing the new humor's clash with the reformers' campaigns. One such campaign was undertaken in the early 1900s by John Dewey, Edgar Gardner Murphy, and E. A. Ross, who sought to reform public education and regulate child labor and welfare. Chapter w 4, "The Marx Brothers Go to School," examines how the Marx Brothers-as first-generation children of eastern European J Jewish immigrants-commented on the American public school system and satirized the reformers. Years before their international success in Hollywood films, the brothers' first successful vaudeville routine was "the school act," originally titled Fun in Hi Skule (1910)-the inten e tional misspelling indicated how poorly public school had educated x this trio of comedians. The failure of the public schools for the Marx boys, and their resistance to the American formal education system, paved the way for their school act. Fun in Hi Skule and its later incarna e tions-Mr. Green's Reception (1912), Home Again (1914), and the film Horse Feathers (1932)-serve as a lens through which to view how the s Marx Brothers used the new humor to satirize and critique Progressiveera education reform at the beginning of the twentieth century. Chapter 5, "The New Woman and the Female Comedian as Social Insurgent," will look at the new women on the comic vaudeville stage in relationship to class, ethnicity, and body image. Female comic per-r r formers considered here include May Irwin and her comic persona as staged through her "coon" numbers (racially charged comic songs); Eva Tanguay, whose comically wild and unruly sexualized singing and dancing made her the "Queen of Vaudeville"; and Marie Dressler, whose unconventional body image was featured in her "Big Girl" portrayals and led her to be described as a grotesque female comedian and later a dowager comic film star. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of how these comedians embodied the characterization of sexualized w wild women. The class confrontations of these working-class "tough girls" are contrasted with Florenz Ziegfeld's glorified image of the "all-A American girls." These contradictory images of the female performer ## This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Acknowledgments F irst and foremost to Robyn Curtis, Erica Buchman, and Don Wilmeth, for their stewardship of this book for the Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History Series. Many thanks are due to several mentors and colleagues at the CUNY Graduate Center who were influential in guiding my research interests and process including Morris Dickstein, Lynn Gibson, Jean Graham-Jones, J Judy Milhous, and James Wilson. A special tribute is in order for the late Daniel Gerould whose support of my scholarship at the Graduate Center was paramount in making this project possible. "The New Humor in the Progressive Era defines this brand of humor and how it was practiced by comic vaudevillians from the 1880s to the early 1920s, vaudeville's golden era. Providing a comprehensive and wide range of comic vaudevillians, a special emphasis is placed on the comedy team and ethnic act of Joe Weber and Lew Fields; the family act of the Three Keatons; the school act of the Marx Brothers; the combination ethnic and family act of Kate and May Elinore, known as the Elinore Sisters; and the burlesque-inspired comedy of May Irwin, Eva Tanguay, and Marie Dressler. This diverse array of performers will be considered in relationship to Progressive-era reformers, cultural critics, and moral authorities, and their attempts to control, censure, and regulate popular comic entertainments on the vaudeville stage"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xxi Americanization: Progressive-Era Reformers, Cultural Critics, and Popular Comic Entertainments....Pages 1-27 Putting It Over in American Vaudeville....Pages 29-52 The New Humor: Ethnic Acts and Family Acts....Pages 53-75 The Marx Brothers Go to School....Pages 77-108 The New Woman and the Female Comedian as Social Insurgent....Pages 109-137 Epilogue....Pages 139-142 Back Matter....Pages 143-187 By tracing the effects of unprecedented immigration, the advent of the new woman, and the little-known vaudeville careers of performers like the Elinore Sisters, Buster Keaton, and the Marx Brothers, DesRochers examines the relation between comedic vaudeville acts and progressive reformers as they fought over the new definition of "Americanness."