Burlesque

Most people think that "burlesque" means female strippers walking a runway to a bump and grind beat. But that only fits the form in its declining years. At its best, burlesque was a rich source of music and comedy that kept America, audiences laughing from 1840 through the 1960s.

 Without question, however, burlesque's principal legacy as a cultural form was its establishment of patterns of gender representation that forever changed the role of the woman on the American stage and later influenced her role on the screen. . . The very sight of a female body not covered by the accepted costume of bourgeois respectability forcefully if playfully called attention to the entire question of the "place" of woman in American society (Allen-1991).

In the 19th Century, the term "burlesque" was applied to a wide range of comic plays, including non-musicals.

 Beginning in the 1840s, these works entertained the lower and middle classes in Great Britain and the United States by making fun of  operas, plays and social habits of the upper classes. These shows used comedy and music to challenge the established way of looking at things.

By the 1860s, British burlesque relied on the display of shapely, underdressed women to keep audiences interested.

   This picture is from U.S. Gilbert burlesque comedy,"Engaged" poster  in the Library of Congress year 1879. 

From the 1880s onwards, burlesque comedy was built around settings and situations familiar to lower and working class audiences. Courtrooms, street corners and inner city schoolrooms were favorites.

By 1905, burlesque theatre owners formed vaudeville-style circuits of small, medium and big time theatres. Because big time burlesque companies played these theatres in regular rotations, the circuits came to be known as wheels. Unlike vaudeville performers who sought weekly bookings as individual acts, burlesquers spent an entire forty week season touring as part of one complete troupe.  

In the 1920s, the old burlesque circuits closed down, leaving individual theater owners to get by as best they could on their own. The strip tease was introduced as a desperate bid to offer something that vaudeville, film and radio could not. 

Some sources praise the burlesque comics of the 1920s and 30s, but by this point, men went to burlesque shows to watch women strip. The more the gals took off, the more the audiences liked it.

By the 1960s, hard core pornography became readily available. Men no longer needed strippers to feed their fantasies.

In the early 2000s, new burlesque shows were cropping up on both sides of the Atlantic, featuring comics, strippers and specialty acts that offer a new spin on the old buresque mix.

 This book chronicles the history of burlesque

Back in the days  burlesque performers developed a unique backstage language of their own.

Jerk – audience member
Yock – a belly laugh
Skull – make a funny face
Talking woman – delivers lines in comedy skits
Cover – perform someone's scenes for them
The asbestos is down – the audience is ignoring the jokes
From hunger – a lousy performer
Mountaineer – a new comic, fresh from the Catskill resort circuit
Boston version – a cleaned-up routine
Blisters – a stripper's breasts
Cheeks – a stripper's backside
Gadget – a G-string
Trailer – the strut taken before a strip
Quiver – shake the bust
Shimmy – Shake the posterior
Bump – swing the hips forward
Grind – full circle swing of the pelvis
Milk it – get an audience to demand encores
Brush your teeth! - comedian's response to a Bronx cheer

                                                                    

Allen. Robert G. Horrible Prrettines:Burlesque and American Culture (Univ.of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1991), pp. 258-259

El-Droubie, Yak, and Parliament, Ian C. The Art of Tease. 1st ed. New York: Korero, 2009 176-178. Print.

"A Brief History of Burlesque." The Indepent. Theatre and Dance. web 25 March 2006