ACTRESSES AS WORKING WOMEN 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 See the Stage articles (1883–4) reprinted in Michael R.Booth (ed.) Victorian Theatrical Trades, London, Society for Theatre Research, 1981 Only the variety stage (loosely definable as music hall, a succession of unconnected ‘turns’ on a stage, and circus, primarily physical and visual rather than verbal with unconnected acts performed in a ring) had interchangeable categories, with music hall borrowing the physical acts such as Blondins, Leotards, and their facsimiles Fit-ups and booth theatres are analogous, emerging out of statute and charter fair traditions in the seventeenth century and continuing after the 1843 Act See Josephine Harrop, Victorian Portable Theatres, London, Society for Theatre Research, 1989 For the sharing of duties, see Cecil Price, ‘Regulations of a 19th Century Theatrical Booth’, Theatre Notebook, 1949/50, vol 4, pp 8–9 For background on the organization of English companies, see James C.Burge, Lines of Business, Casting Practice and Policy in the American Theatre 1752–1899, New York, Peter Lang, 1986 Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London: A Study of the Relationship Between Classes in Victorian Society, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971, reprinted Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1984, p 27 Genres of legitimate theatre, in contrast to the variety stage, are all characterized by a unifying story line The distinctive forms of drama, comedy, farce, extravaganza, and pantomime are described by Michael R Booth in Prefaces to English Nineteenth-Century Theatre, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1980 Pantomime (exclusive of the harlequinade), extravaganza (burletta), and ballet used many of the same scenic features as well as a corp of female dancers, though ballet was a nonverbal form Nineteenth-century burlesque was satirical, but unlike topical farce (à la Toole) it used song and a corp of female dancers The origins and constant evolution of genres had a distinct bearing on employment traditions and careers Stedman Jones, op cit., p 27 E.T.Smith, ‘A Plea for the Theatre’, supplement to Era, December 1860, p Michael R.Booth, Victorian Spectacular Theatre 1850–1910, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, p 85 Greater London Record Office, Inspector’s Report, December 1891, LCC/ MIN/10,769 Documented cases include Helen Taylor, Mary Stafford (Flora Mayor), and the anonymous author [Alma Ellerslie?] of The Diary of an Actress or Realities of Stage Life, ed H.C.Shuttleworth, London, Briffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, 1885 T.W.Robertson, ‘Theatrical Types No IV.—Leading Ladies, Walking Ladies, and Heavy Women’, Illustrated Times, 13 February 1864, p 107 At the Britannia Theatre (Hoxton), ‘super’ appears to have been a male appellation, while ‘ballet girls’ served as walk-ons in dramatic pieces Leman Thomas Rede, The Road to the Stage, London, J.Onwhyn, 1836, p 15 T.W.Robertson, ‘Theatrical Types No VIII—Chambermaids, Soubrettes, and Burlesque Actresses’, Illustrated Times, 23 April 1864, p 267 Davenport Adams, ‘Neglected Lines III.—The Light Comedian and the Singing Soubrette’, Stage, April 1896, p 166