Burlesque in America. Traditional burlesque, in the sense of a travesty or satire, came early to America and was well represented both in specific works, such as the 18th‐century spoof of The Blockade as The Blockheads, and in more extended manifestations, such as the productions mounted in the 1840s by William Mitchell at the Olympic. Notable later 19th‐century examples might be John Brougham's Pocahontas and the musicals Evangeline and Adonis. The modern burlesque, which is perceived as a much lower order of entertainment filled with bump‐and‐grind strippers and raunchy clowning, began to develop in the last half of the 19th century. Coming on top of the sensation caused by a chorus line of girls in tights in The Black Crook (1866), the arrival in 1868 of Lydia Thompson and her “British Blondes” in their burlesques started the slow and at first subtle transition. Her burlesques were totally in the older tradition, but the presence of a line of beautiful women in tights added a new and ultimately telling dimension. The decline of minstrelsy, oddly enough, was the next major factor. Michael Leavitt ran an all‐girl blackface company called Mme. Rentz's Female Minstrels, and when business waned he changed the nature and name of his troupe, dropping blackface, adding vaudeville turns not unlike the often suggestive comic bits of the time, and emphasizing his line of beautiful girls. Since his leading performer was Mabel Santley, Leavitt called his reconstituted troupe the Rentz‐Santley show. Before long another star, May Howard, headed her own companies. The cleaning up of vaudeville by Tony Pastor and later by Keith shoved many less‐amenable players and producers into the ranks of burlesque and underscored the emerging difference. Many historians suggest that Sam T. Jack, who had worked with Leavitt and who incorporated risqué features of Western honky‐tonk entertainments, initiated the more modern show in Chicago. His and other burlesque shows of the turn of the century still assumed much of the form of period musical comedy or revue, to an extent to give the productions a certain legitimacy. During this period the two great circuits were formed. The Empire (or so‐called Western) Circuit was first established as a loose confederacy of houses from such cities as Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, and Minneapolis in the early 1880s and officially incorporated in 1897. The Columbia (or Eastern) Wheel was established in 1902. Sam A. Scribner, its first president, attempted to de‐emphasize the growing bawdy elements, but failed. While suggestive dress and even nudity were not unknown to the legitimate stage, the modern striptease began to come to the fore about the time of World War I and continued to grow in importance until burlesque was finally closed by police order in the 1930s and faded away on its own a decade or two later. The Minskys and their greatest star, Gypsy Rose Lee, exemplified burlesque at its modern apogee. She was one of the few strippers to move into legitimate theatre and make a mark there, but in its heyday burlesque proved a remarkable training ground for great comedians, among them Fanny Brice and Bobby Clark. A few leading clowns, such as Billy “Cheese 'n' Crackers” Hagen, were never able to transplant their art. In 1979 the successful Broadway musical Sugar Babies, starring Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller, revived much of the old material for a nostalgic look back at the genre's comic aspects. Burlesque was also the subject of two musical plays: the popular Gypsy (1959) and the dark, short‐lived Grind (1985).

BURLESQUE

BURLESQUE, a popular dramatic and literary form in which parody, coarseness, mockery, and innuendo provide many of the laughs, has a long history. Literary burlesque may be traced back to Greece, where dramas presented at festivals were sometimes satiric and received with joviality. Some of the earliest burlesques were Batrachomyomachia (The Battle of the Frogs and Mice), an anonymous burlesque of Homer, and the comedies of Aristophanes (fifth and fourth centuries b.c.). Burlesque evolved throughout Europe, always relying on satire and parody. Fifteenth-century Italian burlesque mocked chivalry, while seventeenth-century French burlesque portrayed the clash between the "moderns" and the "ancients." English burlesque was primarily dramatic, although it included some notable burlesque poems and prose. In the nineteenth century, English burlesque began to rely on pun as much as parody and it was this new, pun-filled burlesque, influenced by a rich history of satire and staging conventions, that was brought to America.

Burlesque, sometimes called "burleycue," came to the United States from England shortly after the Civil War in the form of variety shows that included dirty jokes, parody, and chorus girls performing "leg shows." One of the first, Lydia Thompson's British Blondes, sponsored by P. T. Barnum, toured the United States parodying, or burlesquing, current events and popular plays. Another popular show of the time was the High Rollers troupe's parody of Ben Hur, titled "Bend Her" and featuring female performers suggestively costumed as Roman warriors. In saloons, especially in the western territories, chorus girls who offered bawdy dance performances were sometimes known as "honky-tonk girls."

Many burlesque performers, especially comedians, moved into the similar but more respected form of entertainment known as vaudeville. Others went on to the films of Hollywood or the stages of Broadway. Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Bert Lahr, W. C. Fields, Mae West, Jackie Gleason, Bobby Clark, Phil Silvers, and Bob Hope began their careers in burlesque. Some burlesque striptease artists also graduated to stardom, most notably fan dancer Sally Rand and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

Although burlesque was always risqué, it was not originally merely striptease. In the 1920s, as new competition such as nightclubs and movies grew, the popularity of burlesque declined. In an effort to remain in business, burlesque houses evolved into soft-pornography strip shows. In 1937 Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia closed New York City's burlesque houses.

In 1979 the tradition and spirit of burlesque was honored on Broadway with the show Sugar Babies. The lavish production, starring Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller, featured chorus girls, classic songs, and the traditional risqué humor of burlesque.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Robert C. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

Goldman, Herbert G. Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Lee, Gypsy Rose. Gypsy: A Memoir. Berkeley, Calif.: Frog, 1999.

Rothe, Len. The Bare Truth: Stars of Burlesque of the '40s and '50s. Altgen, Pa.: Schiffer, 1998.

DeirdreSheets

See alsoVaudeville .

burlesque [Ital.,=mockery], form of entertainment differing from comedy or farce in that it achieves its effects through caricature, ridicule, and distortion. It differs from satire in that it is devoid of any ethical element. The word first came into use in the 16th cent. in an opera of the Italian Francesco Berni, who called his works burleschi. Early English burlesque often ridiculed celebrated literary works, especially sentimental drama. Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle (1613), Buckingham's The Rehearsal (1671), Gay's Beggar's Opera (1728), Fielding's Tom Thumb (1730), and Sheridan's Critic (1779) may be classed as dramatic burlesque. In the 19th cent. English burlesque depended less on parody of literary styles and models. H. J. Bryon was a major writer of the new, pun-filled burlesque. The extravaganza and burletta were forms of amusement similar to burlesque, the latter being primarily a musical production. They were performed in small theaters in an effort to evade the strict licensing laws that forbade major dramatic productions to these theaters. American stage burlesque (from 1865), often referred to as "burleycue" or "leg show," began as a variety show, characterized by vulgar dialogue and broad comedy, and uninhibited behavior by performers and audience. Such stars as Al Jolson, W. C. Fields, Mae West, Fannie Brice, Sophie Tucker, Bert Lahr, and Joe Weber and Lew Fields began their careers in burlesque. About 1920 the term began to refer to the "strip-tease" show, which created its own stars, such as Gypsy Rose Lee; in c.1937 burlesque performances in New York City were banned. With the increase in popularity of nightclubs and movies, the burlesque entertainment died.

Bibliography: See studies by C. V. Clinton-Baddeley (1952, repr. 1974); R. P. Bond (1932, repr. 1964), and J. D. Jump (1972).

Burlesque (1927), a play by George Manker Watters and Arthur Hopkins. [Plymouth Theatre, 372 perf.] Bonnie ( Barbara Stanwyck) and Skid Johnson ( Hal Skelly) are not only husband and wife but work together in a second‐string burlesque company in which Skid is the leading comedian. Bonnie worries about Skid, who is a heavy drinker, takes hurtful pratfalls as part of his act, and has his eye on a cute showgirl who is about to leave for a Broadway musical. To make Skid jealous, Bonnie openly flirts with a rich rancher who has been buying tickets for their show every night. Skid is unconcerned, and when an offer comes for Skid to appear in the same Broadway show as the chorus girl, he takes it. In no time he is having an affair with the showgirl, so Bonnie sues for divorce and agrees to marry the rancher. Just before the divorce becomes final, Skid goes on a binge and loses his job. When a friend offers to produce a musical featuring Bonnie and Skid, the two recognize how much each needs the other. Like Broadway the season before, Burlesque was written by a new young playwright and revised by an experienced hand. Burns Mantle saw the play as a “rough drama in the sense that it cross‐sections life among the lowly and uncultured performers of the burlesque theatres, revealing them on good authority as they live and as they are.” A 1946 revival by Jean Dalrymple with Bert Lahr as Skid and Jean Parker as Bonnie and with Hopkins once again directing ran for over a year.

bur·lesque / bərˈlesk/ • n. 1. a parody or comically exaggerated imitation of something, esp. in a literary or dramatic work: the funniest burlesque of opera [as adj.] burlesque Shakespearean stanzas. ∎  humor that depends on comic imitation and exaggeration; absurdity: the argument descends into burlesque. 2. a variety show, typically including striptease: [as adj.] burlesque clubs. • v. (-lesques , -lesqued , -lesqu·ing ) [tr.] cause to appear absurd by parodying or copying in an exaggerated form: she struck a ridiculous pose that burlesqued her own vanity.

Burlesque, popular stage entertainment that originated in mid‐19th‐century New York, deriving from the minstrel show, variety theater, and travesties. Often considered somewhat illicit, it became very popular, and from New York companies grew the Columbia and Mutual circuits (“wheels”) throughout the country and the Weber and Fields Music Hall and Minsky's. It featured dialect and slapstick comedians who specialized in double entendre; travesties of popular drama and current events; scantily dressed chorus girls; and song‐and‐dance acts.

burlesque (Fr.; It. burlesca; Ger. Burleske). Humorous form of entertainment involving an element of parody or exaggeration. Applied in 18th cent. to mus. works in which comic and serious elements were contrasted. In Eng. word usually means a dramatic work ridiculing stage conventions, while in Amer. it means a variety show, often involving strippers.

burlesque, from the Italian burla, ridicule, mockery, a literary composition or dramatic representation which aims at exciting laughter by the comical treatment of a serious subject or the caricature of the spirit of a serious work. Notable examples of burlesque in English literature are Butler's Hudibras and Buckingham's The Rehearsal.

burlesque (It. ‘ridicule’) Form of literary or dramatic entertainment that achieves its effect by caricature, ridicule and distortion, often of celebrated literary genres or works. A later form, in the USA, became synonymous with strip shows.

burlesque †droll; derisively imitative; sb. burlesque composition. XVII. — F. — It. burlesco, f. burla ridicule, fun; of unkn. orig.; see -ESQUE.

Burleske (Burlesque). Work for pf. and orch. in D minor by R. Strauss, comp. 1885–6, rev. 1890. F.p. Eisenach, 1890.

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