Theatre 1881

Theatre 1881

The Meininger Company* tours thirty cities, this year they go to Drury Lane* in London. Their productions make a real impression everywhere, here the company makes its mark on a young English director-designer, Edward Gordon Craig * (see below 1903).

In England, a rising young actor and director, William Poel* (1852-1934, who changed his family name, Pole, because his father hated having his son go into the theatre) becomes manager of the Old Vic*.

This is the year Offenbach* comes out with his best known work, Tales of Hoffman*. This is based on three of the stories of E. T. A. Hoffman*, a German romantic novelist and composer who specialized (in the 1820's) in gothic tales of madness, the grotesque and the supernatural.

Europe finally has a Spanish dramatist whose works have great influence outside Spain. Jos‚ Echegaray* (1832-1916) writes plays with the verse-form and imagery of the Romantics, but they deal with social problems. The audiences love them, but the plays are terrifically controversial. This year he creates his most important work, El gran Galeoto* (produced in England as Calumny and in the U.S. as The World and His Wife).

The Rise of Vaudeville*, the American form - [It will have its heyday from now to 1932. This is the parent of contemporary TV variety

shows.] Vaudeville* is the name adopted in the U.S. for a kind of respectable family entertainment that is growing up to replace the earlier Variety (and the Burlesque*, or "leg- show", which are degenerating from the earlier music hall shows into beer hall entertainment for drunks and prostitutes). About twenty years ago (1860s) this vaudeville stuff was pioneered by a guy named Tony Pastor * (1837-1908) who started out in circuses and minstrel shows (see previous chapter) and moved into Variety in 1861, but it was in really crummy shape. He decided to come up with a clean, wholesome, family type variety. In 1865 he had opened a theater to do this stuff in, but it's not until this year (1881) that he presents first performance of what comes to be called Vaudeville*. It opens at the Fourteenth Street Theatre* (NY of course), which he has just acquired. The opening production has eight contrasting acts that include comedy, acrobatics, singing and dancing, with a "headliner" (a big name). The Headliner for this opening is a male impersonator, Ella Wesner* who does some comic skits satirizing various types of "dandies" and she sings some English music hall songs.

This "male impersonator" stuff is getting to be very popular (ever since women got to start performing on the stage in England in 1660, having women play men's parts has been a big This "male impersonator" stuff is getting to be very popular (ever since women got to start performing on the stage in England in 1660, having women play men's parts has been a big

This year as well, another Vaudeville* actor and comic writer, Edward "Ned" Harrigan* (1845-1911) and his partner, the female impersonator Tony Hart* (1855-91), take over the New York Theatre and call it the New Th‚ƒtre Comique. As a comic writer, Harrigan* mines New York's seamier side as a rich source of material. His "Bowery Boy" comedies combine broad farce with absolute realism of dress and background, especially New York character types of German- and Irish- and Afro-Americans. His characters are the ordinary people of New York's immigrant and black population, living in the back streets of the big city. This year he opens and acts in his play, The Major*. In addition to his full length plays, he writes a number of songs and over 80 vaudeville sketches.

1881 Edison* gets the world's first central electric-light power plant up and running in New York City. [He also is running the first industrial research lab in his New Jersey work shops. This research lab business will be the way to go for the twentieth century.]

In the U.S. this year there is a new president (20th), James A. Garfield* (1831-81). As you can see he doesn't last very long (March to September). He's shot July 2nd by a disappointed office seeker. At this point the office goes to Chester A. Arthur* (1830?-86), 21st president.

This year Samuel Gompers* (1850-1924) (an Englishman who emigrated to the U.S. in 1863, worked as a cigar maker and joined the local union) helps found the labor organization that will grow into the AFL (see 1886).

Booker T. Washington* (1856-1915) founds Tuskegee Institute as an educational institution for Afro-Americans.

Clara Barton* (1821-1912), who worked behind the German battle lines in the Franco- Prussian War for the International Red Cross, organizes the American Red Cross* this year. {She is known as the "Angel of the Battlefield".] She will head this organization until 1904.

Henry James* publishes The Portrait of a Lady* this year, contrasting the naive quality of Americans with the sophisticated culture of Europeans.

That French business of digging a sea level Panama canal is under way. They clear a path a hundred feet wide across the isthmus and start digging. It is the greatest construction job ever attempted. Unfortunately nature is against them, there are diseases (malaria, yellow fever, typhoid and small pox, to name a few), ticks, snakes, murderous saw grass and rain, rain, rain. But they are Frenchmen with their national honor at stake and they slog on.