Staging Vaudeville for a Twenty-First-Century Audience
ciative of them all . There they sit , their show-instincts open to conviction , without any particular art microbe to oppress them .” 15 Managers were especially hostile to anything that worked as a drag on a show . Although one Boston audience apparently enjoyed a dramatic sketch put on by Mary Hampton and company in 1903 , the manager was concerned that no one had caught “ one glaring error ” that he felt ruined the moment of an otherwise bright piece�a violin solo in the middle of the sketch . While the solo was there to allow for a costume change , the manager reported “ I have modified the solo somewhat but hope by the end of the week to eliminate the entire thing and in its place introduce some real lively stage business . I can ’ t for the life of me see how this sketch could have gone along with this glaring error being allowed to run so long . Possibly it has not been over the circuit , if it has I should like other opinions of it .” 16
To be successful in this type of fast-paced theater , players learned to fix attention on themselves . Their goal was to establish some kind of connection that might transcend even weak or old material . Vaudevillians came to term the method they used to secure spectator attention the “ direct appeal .” Media scholar Henry Jenkins described this as a kind of “ affective immediacy ,” a bond of fellowship created between audience and performer . According to Caroline Caffin , a contemporary observer , it was the casual geniality of the vaudeville house , “ that feeling of good-fellowship ,” that made audiences attentive . The audience “ loves to be on confidential terms with the performer , to be treated as an intimate . It loves to have the actor step out of his part and speak of his dressing-room , or hint at his salary , or flourish a make-up towel .” 17
Naturalness of manner was considered essential to success in vaudeville . Spectators responded most positively to those
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