Champagne Charlie and Pretty Jemima: Variety Theater in the Nineteenth Century (review)

Champagne Charlie and Pretty Jemima: Variety Theater in the Nineteenth Century begins with an account of the 1849 Astor Place riot. As author Gillian Rodger demonstrates, the event was more than a violent public reaction to the rivalry between actors William Macready and Edwin Forrest; it was an expression of social identities revealing the increasing divide between the upper and lower classes that would ultimately lead to the formation of an American middle class. This change in social hierarchy, complicated by the growth of leisure time and evolving cultural values, contributed to the development of variety theater, a diverse showcase of musical, dramatic, and acrobatic acts catering to the lower classes. Rodger tells its story with great care, revealing the complex culture that not only gave it birth but also celebrated it in all its forms.

The book consists of three largely chronological sections, each of which is then subdivided into subject-oriented chapters with a fair amount of overlapping. This is all too appropriate when examining something as richly muddled as variety. Subjects such as social history, performer biographies, song study, and business practices are inherently intertwined, and as such, it is to Rodger's credit that the book is best read as a complete narrative; it reminds us that the story of variety is not a tidy one, but one marked by constant change.

The opening section of the book explores the beginnings of variety in the concert saloons of New York. Social and entrepreneurial issues are highlighted most prominently, though some aspects of performance—including novelty acts and dancers—are discussed in considerable detail. The influential role of theatrical managers is one of the most important issues introduced, as Rodger demonstrates both here and at several later points that those trained as businessmen ran things very differently from those trained as performers. Clearly, basic management styles contributed as much to the variety of this genre as did the performers who appeared on stage.

The middle section of the book is the most musically focused of the three, with chapters dedicated to specific song types and the performers who sang them. Rodger takes her title from these discussions; "Champagne Charlie" and "Pretty Jemima" are titles representing the swell song and the serio-comic song, respectively, both of which were common in the repertoire of variety singers. These song types reveal changing views of gender, race, and nationality among the lower classes in the nineteenth century, and Rodger points to a number of textual nuances that might have escaped someone less well versed in the cultural history of the period. For example, she does more than discuss Irish stereotypes in song lyrics; she traces their evolution alongside the gradual assimilation of Irish Americans into their new country and their increasing presence in variety theater—both as audience members and as performers. She similarly unpacks caricatures of men, demonstrating that "Champagne Charlie" is but one early manifestation of the swell character imported from England; later versions show much stronger influence from the social and economic conditions in nineteenth-century America, especially the growing importance of sport and drink to American definitions of masculinity and a class structure based more on money than on birth.

The final section of the book looks at variety in the last decades of the nineteenth century, focusing on new nomenclature and the spread of the form. Rodger's history of the term "vaudeville" and its cultural significance is especially noteworthy, as is her coverage of regional theater. She devotes entire chapters to theatrical activity in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Saginaw, Michigan, pointing to the range of social forces driving entertainment in the Midwest. She demonstrates how perceptions of morality contributed to the success or failure of theaters in Cincinnati; debates about variety raged in the city, fueling already existing tensions between members of different classes and ethnic backgrounds. By contrast, her research shows...