From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Much has been written about the American institution of vaudeville, but readers would be hard-pressed to find an account as humorous and sharp as writer and performer Trav S.D.'s tasty chronicle. Although critics in the early 20th century lambasted vaudeville as crude, sometimes clever, but generally "trite and empty," the author points out that from 1881 to 1932, vaudeville "was the heart of American show business," so ubiquitous that "if you were beyond the reach of vaudeville, then you were really in the sticks." He comments on the artistic and commercial ties between vaudeville and Hollywood's glamour industry and Broadway; they often shared performers in hit plays and films (though Trav S.D. also reveals how essential managers were to the medium, since "performers, as Jesus said of the poor, are always with us"). There are candid moments about the resistance to hiring black players in a few fascinating segments about minstrelsy and blackface, as Trav S.D. writes of the trials African-American legend Bert Williams endured. Throughout, the author, a humorist, never forgets to get his laugh quota, whether he's talking about audiences (Midwestern crowds were tough: "Do they like me? Hate me? Are they alive? Hello?") or burlesque ("a sort of bush league for broad comedians"). The result is a well-researched, riotous book about a cultural mainstay, "the theatrical embodiment of freedom, tolerance, opportunity, diversity, democracy, and optimism." B&w illus.
(Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Milton Berle once joked that vaudeville was dead and "TV was the box they buried it in." Trav S. D. takes issue with both forks of that quip, wittily arguing that vaudeville isn't dead and that TV is but one of the places where it, or at least a mutation of it, continues to thrive. He also points to the current resurgence of variety, burlesque, and vaudeville-like performers and shows on the theatrical fringes. Both performer and theater historian, he knows of what he speaks. His rich, well-researched history of American vaudeville from its roots in the 1880s onward is a rare enough feat made all the more startling by the wit, zest, and fresh eyes Trav S. D. brings to the subject. He succeeds in enlivening all facets of vaudeville history--not just the oft--recorded lives of performers on "the Road" but also how "the Road" itself was formed during the rise of the railroad and how different cabals of producers and managers dominated and eventually monopolized the business. He also discusses the social history of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American middle class in the context of explaining how vaudeville acts were "sanitized" to be "fit" for the whole family. He writes with the passion of an aficionado, which doesn't, however, keep him from a clear-eyed account of the dark side of the business: its cutthroat competition, nearly constant double-dealing, and sad legacy of racism.
Jack HelbigCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
