Not Just a Naughty French Word. (original) (raw)

Klaerner's Opera House, Peter's Hall and The Palace Theater in Fredericksburg hosted regular vaudeville shows. So did the Arcadia Theater and Pampell's Opera House in Kerrville.

Other shows performed in tents. In January 1923 the Grandi Brothers Stock Company came to Fredericksburg, set up a tent at Marktplatz and stayed a week. Ads claimed the tent was "double walled, as warm and cozy as your living room and absolutely water-proof."

Cost for a ticket was 40 cents for adults and 10 cents for children.

Knowing the conservative nature of rural Texas communities, managers were careful to stage shows that were "strictly clean and moral." The style came to be called "polite Vaudeville."

At the same time theater managers carefully screened new acts. They sent "impolite" scripts back to actors in blue envelopes, leading to the phrase "blue material," a reference to content that was too hot to handle.

It was interesting to note that just about every act that passed through the Hill Country in those days had "recently returned from a tour of Europe where the cast entertained the crowned heads of state." Singers and dancers were "fresh from the Broadway stage."

Of course there was no way to check the validity of those claims. The internet hadn't been invented yet.

The typical "polite" Vaudeville show featured singers, dancers and comedians in addition to all kinds of interesting specialty acts.

An early Vaudeville show at Peter's Hall in Fredericksburg starred Baby Edna, world's champion child buck and wing dancer.

Another show featured Lady Pat, a horse who could add, subtract, multiply and divide. Lady Pat could tell time. She could pick out the flags of different countries.

Some Vaudeville shows staged boxing and wrestling matches. Dancers performed serpentine dancing, also called skirt dancing, a toned down version of the can-can. Monologists recited Shakespeare and "Casey at the Bat."

But there was trouble ahead for Vaudeville. Radio hurt ticket sales in the 1920s. Then an exciting new form of entertainment knocked Vaudeville for a loop.

In 1927 talking pictures took the country by storm. By 1935 most Vaudeville theaters converted to movie houses and the top talent left Vaudeville for radio and Hollywood.

But in its day Vaudeville was the theater of the people. It had something for everybody. It was the most democratic art form in American history.