This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Spectacles of Agency and Desire: Dance Histories and the Burlesque Stage

Lydia Thompson in Drag

This page is referenced by:

The Performance of Masculinity Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes: Ada Harland, Lisa Weber, Grace Logan, Pauline Markham and Aggie Wood were all (with the exception of Markham), cross dressed in their performance of Ixion (their first performance in the US) which premiered September of 1868 at Wood’s Broadway Theatre in New York. During their act, Elizabeth Mullenix notes, “Thompson and her Blondes would parody honorable and dishonorable male contemporaries, adopt their language and their gestures, and sing songs and dance in imitation of well-known artists—all of which was standard fare for the burlesque” (379). The key words here are parody and imitation. These performers were not just playing out the stories of men, they were playing out stories as men. Which is a crucial distinction to make as it directly relates to the saliency of their performance. Men who attended the performance could not brush off the idea that they were being made fun of, and were thus very affected by the performance. Mullenix continues, “burlesque actresses' performance of male characters focused not upon conveying the illusion of masculinity or telling a man's story but instead foregrounded the construction of masculinity or of the masculine fable—an act which was obviously so threatening to hegemonic forces that it was eventually forbidden in mainstream theatres” (379-80). The subtext of the breeches role is that women could "wear the breeches" in other areas of life too. Thompsonian burlesque was threatening because it made the subtext into text by showing that women could play men just as well as men (Mullenix 379-80). This realization pulled the rug out from under the way both women and men conceived of masculinity.

The bodies of these performers, women in breeches, were sites of paradox. The sexualized areas of the bust, waist and thighs were accentuated in the costumes, but they were coupled with the attitudes and gestures of manhood (Mullenix). These gestures of manhood were often extreme: “In the upside-down world of burlesque…[the] performer was licensed to act in a very unladylike fashion: she swaggered about the stage wearing short pants, played the banjo, danced the jig, commanded battalions of her fellows in close-order drill” (Allen 148). The female burlesquer was given a space to swagger, to exaggerate the speech and stance of men. This performance was first met with open arms and sensationalized, drawing large crowds for months on end, but then, because burlesque could not be reconciled with preceding melodramatic ideologies these performers were eventually removed from the mainstream bourgeoisie theatres. This act of pushing burlesque out contributed to the development of the emerging image of the burlesquer as a dangerously sexual low other, a character unwanted and unsupported in mainstream culture (Mullenix 376). History dealt with the paradox of women’s bodies in breeches by sweeping them to the side and then further sexualizing and de-masculinizing them. By the 1920s burlesque was synonymous with stripping—having lost the employment of masculine costumes, and gained a significant level of promiscuity.

Works Cited:
Allen, Robert Clyde. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture. University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Print.

Mullenix, Elizabeth. "Fair Montague" or "Ill-beseeming beast": Breeches performance on the American stage, 1800-1869. Diss. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1995. Web. 23 Oct 2015.
Thompsonian Burlesque
Upon her arrival in the United States, Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes shocked and awed audiences with their performance of Ixion, an adaptation of the classic Greek myth. The troupe filled the house at Wood’s theatre and later at Niblo’s in New York City for months. At its core, Thompsonian Burlesque hinged on wit, banter and gossip. Robert Allen, a burlesque scholar, says of Ixion: “Burnand’s play probably provided no more than a skeletal structure on which were hung topical allusions, popular songs, familiar airs to which new lyrics had been composed, dances and even more outrageous puns” (12). The combination of the British Blondes’s singing, acting, dancing and joking gave rise to a new type of spectacle. A female performer in minimal clothing, exercising the power of humor onstage was a force that captivated audiences, and gave Thompson agency and renown.

Contemporary reviewers did not know what to make of Thompson and her British Blondes. Robert Allen notes in Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture how “Burlesque resisted the critics’ attempts even to describe it as a form of theater. It was seen as having no form or of promiscuously taking on too many…With the pun it exploded the possibility of stable meanings…” (147). Burlesque set itself apart from other theatrical forms by transgressing gender norms onstage. In comparison to The Black Crook, a musical that appeared a few years earlier in 1866 on the stage at Niblo’s which showcased ballerinas in the most revealing costumes the public had seen yet, the British Blondes embodied more masculine roles and donned more masculine costumes including faux armor and weapons. The performance of masculinity onstage allowed the British Blondes to take more liberties with the amount of leg they exposed. Photographs of their costumes show fantasy-type battle garb with armor-like elements that evoke soldiering.
Works Cited:
Allen, Robert C. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina, 1991. Print.
Lydia Thompson in Drag

Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes cross dressed in many performances including Ixion (their first performance in the US) which premiered September of 1868 at Wood’s Broadway Theatre in New York. Cross dressing onstage as a phenomenon was not new, actors had been doing it for hundreds of years, but the way burlesque was utilizing the male clothing was different. During their act, Elizabeth Mullenix notes, “Thompson and her Blondes would parody honorable and dishonorable male contemporaries, adopt their language and their gestures, and sing songs and dance in imitation of well-known artists—all of which was standard fare for the burlesque” (379). The key words here are parody and imitation. These performers were not just playing out the stories of men, they were playing out stories as men. Which is a crucial distinction to make as it directly relates to the saliency of their performance. Men who attended the performance could not brush off the idea that they were being made fun of, and were thus very affected by the performance.

Works Cited:
Mullenix, Elizabeth. "Fair Montague" or "Ill-beseeming beast": Breeches performance on the American stage, 1800-1869. Diss. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1995. Web. 23 Oct 2015.