Popular Performance

Description

There is no fourth wall in popular performance. The show is firmly rooted in the here and now, and the performers address the audience directly, while the audience answer back with laughter, applause or heckling. Performer and role are interlaced, so that we are left uncertain about just how the persona we see onstage might relate to the private person who presents it to us. Popular Performance defines and surveys varieties of performance where the main purpose is to entertain, and where there is no shame in being trivial, frivolous or nonsensical as long as people go home happy at the end of the show. Contributions by new and established scholars focus particularly on how it is made, explaining the techniques of performance and production that make it so appealing to audiences. With sections examining how popular performance works in a range of historical and contemporary examples, readers will gain insights into: Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction: What is Popular Performance? Little Tich is not a stage play Definitions Direct connection between performer and audience Skill and novelty Rooted in the present moment Interlacing of performer and role A distinct mode of performance Bibliography 1 From Domestic Song to Drawing Room Recitation: Dan Leno’s Music Hall Repertoire Musical form, performance and patter ‘The Shopwalker’: Naturalism and a shifting class appeal The ballroom: Music hall song and social dance. Recitations: Parodies and the national-popular Notes Bibliography 2 American Vaudeville The performing self The truth of disguise Bills and climaxes Not quite disappearing Bibliography 3 It’s 1922 and at the Munich Kammerspiele Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt Perform Das Christbaumbrettl at Die rote Zibebe ‘Meine Damen und Herren, introducing Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt . . .’ 1922: Bert’s big break Opening night at the Kammerspiele The Munich cabaret scene Die rote Zibebe Das Christbaumbrettl Das Christbaumbrettl as social commentary Persona and character The use and delivery of language Physicality and physical contrasts Conclusion: The significance of Die rote Zibebe Notes Bibliography 4 Packed From Pit to Ceiling: The Kingston Empire (1910–1955) and British Variety Notes Bibliography 5 Grock: ‘Genius Among Clowns’1 Introduction Persona Audience Skill Conclusion Notes References 6 Something Wicked: The Theatre of Derren Brown Introduction: The live and the mediated Miracle (1): The secrets of magicians Svengali: Mentalism and magic Infamous: Persona and performance Miracle (2): Scepticism and belief Bibliography 7 Performing the Burlesque Body: The Explicit Female Body as Palimpsest Setting the mise-en-scène at a prototypical American burlesque show Burlesque undone: Histories, contexts, theories Reading to read: Layers as/of ‘uncovering’ in MsTickle’s performance Bibliography 8 ‘Hiya Fans!’: Celebrity Performance and Reception in Modern British Pantomime ‘The most powerful – and most downloaded – Genie in the world’ ‘This isn’t a performance – it’s a personal appearance’ ‘There is no doubt whom the audienceis there to see’ ‘There is no doubt whom the audience is there to see’ Bibliography 9 With Them, Not at Them Training Devising walkabout performance Real and ‘not-real’ in the contest for power Creating community with Mummer&dada Bibliography 10 What’s Special about Stand-Up Comedy? Josie Long’s Lost Treasures of the Black Heart The novelty of skill; the skill of novelty Battling the widening gulf: The importance of intimacy and direct connection The interlacing of performer and interpretation Notes Bibliography 11 ‘It Feels Like a Group of Friends Messing Around Onstage’: Pappy’s and Live Sketch Comedy An uneasy fusion of theatrical and music hall elements As live as comedy gets The fourth member of the gang The audience meet us first as people Art which conceals art Sketch comedy has changed Bibliography Conclusion Demands on audience Audience interaction: The layering of participation Skill and novelty On the borders between fiction and reality Bibliography Index