showboat

showboat In the early 19th cent. entertainment was brought by boat to the pioneers that settled along the western rivers (especially the Mississippi and Ohio) of the United States. At first companies only traveled by boat, performing on land. Later the boats themselves, first paddle boats and finally steamboats, were equipped with stages. Docking near a town, they would herald their arrival with trumpets and flags. The companies presented popular melodramas, with vaudeville performances, called olios, between the acts; by day, the boats often served as museums. With the coming of the Civil War, their popularity dwindled. Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat is an interesting description of the life of its people.

Bibliography: See historical study by P. Graham (1951, repr. 1970).

show·boat / ˈshōˌbōt/ • n. a river steamboat on which theatrical performances are given. ∎ inf. a show-off; an exhibitionist. • v. [intr.] inf. show off: [as adj.] (showboating) a lot of showboating politicians. DERIVATIVES: show·boat·er n.

Showboats, floating theaters that give performances at waterfront towns. Such companies of strolling players were known early in the American occupation of the Mississippi basin, and performed on canalboats, flatboats, and keelboats. Later troupes, with more elegant accommodations on Ohio and Mississippi River steamboats, continued to present melodramas and variety shows, and there were also floating circuses and minstrel shows. The Chapman family, well known during the 1830s, were among the outstanding showboat actors. The main period of the showboats was during the 19th century, but they continue to exist, and an antiquarian interest has recently led to their revival and that of their early productions. The literature concerned with this form of theater includes Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat (1926), adapted as a musical play by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II; David Graham Phillips's novel Susan Lenox (1917); and John Barth's novel The Floating Opera (1956).