By Verena Dobnik
Aerialists and animal acts. Comics, clowns and magicians. Singers, strongmen, dancers and a dog that supposedly talked, counted and predicted the future.
And then, there were names like Armstrong, Gershwin, Berlin and Kern.
Those were some of the spectacles, both giddy and grand, that made up America's vaudeville era in the early 20th century -- the theme of an exhibit that opened recently at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center.
The stars of vaudeville became the pop icons of America's entertainment industry: actress and dancer Fanny Brice, jazz great Fats Waller, comedians George Burns, Gracie Allen and Milton Berle, and, of course, magician Harry Houdini.
"Vaudeville has been called the most influential entertainment genre in the nation's history," said Jacqueline Davis, the library's executive director. "It served as a model for radio, early sound film, and television."
New York was the entertainment epicenter, fanning out across the country with such stars as Louis Armstrong, Sophie Tucker and Gypsy Rose Lee, who later inspired the Broadway musical "Gypsy."
Curator Barbara Stratyner dug into the library's archives and the back rooms of Broadway theaters for joke books, scripts, songs, scrapbooks and photographs.
In the old days, the stage shows were sprinkled with the ethnic humor of performers born to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe -- precursors of the Jewish comedians who crafted America's laugh lines for decades, from Jack Benny to Jerry Seinfeld. George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern all had immigrant Jewish roots.
But vaudevillians were uniquely American show folks, strutting their stuff with comments on love, politics and gender. Songs touched on the Spanish-American War, World War I, suffrage and Prohibition -- as well as drinking and sex.
"Vaudeville provided freedom for social and political commentary," said Stratyner. "And it supported the development of America's two native art forms -- jazz and tap dance."
Most of the materials are being exhibited for the first time.
The exhibit features recordings of broadcasts with singers and instrumentalists, and a historical radio console, with Waller playing the theater organ and Eubie Blake the piano. A touch screen triggers Bill Robinson to perform "Doin' the New Low Down," with audible taps.
Comedy routines are performed by stars like Burns and Allen, who made the transition to radio, then television. As late as the 1960s, "The Ed Sullivan Show" offered acts that were vaudeville throwbacks, as is today's Radio City Music Hall "Christmas Spectacular."
In vaudeville, silliness reigns -- particularly in the early days.
A letterhead touts the talents of a dog named Sherlock Holmes, who "Thinks -- Talks -- and Acts." The animal "understands the English language; knows how to add, subtract, multiply and divide; distinguishes numerous objects, various coins and gives their value ... speaks simple, compound, and complex words, phrases, and sentences."
"Vaudeville Nation" is on view through April 1.
On the Net:
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: www.nypl.org/press/vaudeville.cfm
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