VICTORIAN MUSICAL THEATRE

Early nineteenth century England provided a variety of theatrical experience which at first was unlicensed and uncontrolled. In 1843 the Theatre Act was passed which defined the roles of the various establishments. Each venue had to choose between presenting plays or offering refreshments. The result was a more delineated structure with only Music Halls allowed to offer refreshments. The Theatres produced plays and musicals, and any food or drink was available only in lobbies or adjacent facilities. Music Halls could only give short skits, songs, dances, etc. similar to American vaudeville, not real drama. In the opera Rumpelstiltskin is given in "an old English music hall which has seen better days". It would have been an illegal performance, but there were many of these*.

An evening at a typical early Victorian Theatre was very long. It consisted of a curtain-raiser, a serious drama, a musical play and, finally, an afterpiece. As time went on this shortened but evenings still contained a short piece, often a one-act farce. Trial by Jury started as such an after piece.

Serious drama and opera was upper class entertainment were found at theatres such as Drury Lane and Covent Garden which held 4,000 each. These were licensed, exclusive and expensive. But there were many choices for working class people.

MUSICAL THEATRE
Theatres such as the Gaiety, which saw the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's first collaboration Thespis, the Royalty which premiered Trial by Jury, and D'Oyly Carte's later Savoy produced operettas and what we would now call musical comedy. The Gaiety was particularly noted for the Gaiety Girls, female performers first used to attract male audiences. However, they soon attained a higher professional standard than many other actresses and, by the late nineteenth century, the audiences contained as many women as men. The musicals were usually comic but they avoided the bawdy and suggestiveness of the fare available in the other venues. The works of Gilbert and Sullivan and Offenbach were typical offerings. The titles of their other shows frequently contained the word "girl", for example: The Shop Girl, The Circus Girl, A Runaway Girl and The Earl and the Girl.

HARLEQUINADE
The British Harlequinade is the direct descendant of Commedia del Arte with similar characters. The chief characters of the English Harlequinade are: Harlequin the clever comic servant and love interest for Columbine; Pantaloon, with a hook nose, who is a greedy elderly, merchant taken in by the tricks of Harlequin; Pierrot usually in white-face and baggy trousers and originally comic, but evolved into a romantic ; Columbine usually a servant girl in love with Harlequin; and Clown the slapstick comical idiot who later became less idiotic and is a player of practical jokes.

In Britain Harlequinade started as silent mime in the eighteenth century and by the nineteenth century was mainly chase scenes. It lost ground to the Music Hall after the 1880s but is still played as the ending of the tradition Christmas Pantomime. Gilbert wrote a Harlequinade: Harlequin and the Fairy's Dilemma (1904).

PANTOMIME
British Pantomime (or "panto") is not silent mime. It started in the early nineteenth century as theatre for families and for the middle class with stories mostly based on children's literature. It continues today as the Christmas pantomime a featured event in every town of any size in Britain.

One of the earliest productions was Cinderella which continues to be one of the most popular. There are many traditions associated with pantomime. The good fairy always enters from stage right (Heaven) and the villain from stage left (Hell). The audience participates, for example by calling warnings to the actors if the villain is about to strike. Most of the songs are not original but are set to familiar tunes and the audience is encouraged to sing along. The cast often included animals, actors in costumes. Very often a celebrity guest star makes an appearance. One tradition which is now being curtailed for health and safety reasons is the throwing of candies into the audience by members of the cast. One tradition which is still sometimes observed is the "Transformation Scene" during which the play turns into a Harlequinade with the cast assuming the roles of Columbine, Harlequin, etc., and with a chase scene. (In one of Gilbert's Bab Ballads, The Pantomime "Super" to his Mask, an actor addresses the mask he has been wearing as a Harlequinade character.)

BURLESQUE
British Burlesque in Victorian times was not the risqué show the name implies today, although it was sometimes suggestive. It started in theatres which were not licensed to present serious drama or opera and was the theatre for the middle and upper lower classes, frequently making fun of the upper classes and British traditions or parodying upper class amusements such as opera. They were usually one-act pieces, less than an hour and were often used in combination with longer pieces. Gilbert wrote many burlesques including Dulcamara or The Little Duck and the Great Quack based on Donizetti's The Elixir of Love, and La Vivandière or True to the Corps!, based on Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment. There are echoes of burlesque in many of his works with Sullivan, especially in Trial by Jury. While its roots were in Music Hall, and the comedy was often low, burlesque was always considered proper for ladies, and even families, to attend.

The songs of pantomime and burlesque were often written in iambic pentameter* couplets ending with a pun. The Usher's admonition to the jury in Trial by Jury is a typical example:

Now Jurymen, hear my advice —
All kinds of vulgar prejudice**
    I pray you set aside:
With stern judicial frame of mind
From bias free of every kind,
    This trial must be tried

* A line with five units, each made up of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

** Pronounced to rhyme with advice.

MUSIC HALL
The earliest and longest lasting of the British venues for musical entertainment was the music hall. The entertainment for the lower classes, it got its start in local pubs and saloons as early as Chaucer's time as indoor entertainment in contrast to fairs and other outdoor entertainment. Singers and other entertainers would perform as the patrons ate and drank. Soon pubs started to open adjacent performing spaces to give more room and collect additional money for admission, but eating and drinking continued as one of the many attractions. The acts had to be spectacular and loud to be seen and heard by the clientele which was distinctly lower class. Most of the women attending were prostitutes or "friends" of the men. Songs had titles such as "Don't tell my mother, she don't know I'm out".

The passage of the Theatre Act of 1843 defined the roles of the various theatrical venues, making them choose between producing plays or allowing food, drink and smoking*. Specially designed facilities called Music Halls and "supper clubs" were built and the clientele and offerings started to improve — somewhat. Young working women started to attend, not with men but in groups with other women. Orchestras started to grow. Most of the songs were comic and became very popular; the audience was encouraged to sing along.

By the 1880s and 90s music halls had become respectable, and they could produce oratorios and selections from operas but not full operas. As time went on, the amount of music performed and most of the fare consisted of variety acts and impersonations, like modern vaudeville or an early form of "Saturday Night Live". Rules of behavior were established and lyrics cleaned up. Uniformed police officers patrolled to control the worst behavior, and middle class patrons started to appear. In 1896, the writer E. M. Forster (A Room With a View and Howards End) took his mother and aunt to a performance and wrote a review in Latin! It was official: Music hall entertainment was respectable, and it remained popular through World War I. Some of the songs of that era are still known today: Keep the Home Fires Burning, It's a Long Way to Tipperary, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, et cetera. The advent of radio, and, later, television, put an end to the popularity of the public music hall, but vestiges remain. For example, Paul McCartney's father was a music hall performer and some of his songs bear traces of the genre. A few old halls have been restored, but they mainly attract tourists.

* There were many breeches of this law. For example, by 1909 there were about 150,000 illegal performances in Britain each year.