Gaiety Burlesk

Before television became a regular staple of American life, entertainment took the form of live performances, and included such theatrical presentations as the burlesque, a variety show that featured bawdy comedy and female striptease. Presented in small cabarets and theaters, burlesques and vaudeville acts were popular in America from the 1860s until the 1940s. A frequent subject of Reginald Marsh’s paintings and prints, the seedy, lower-class nature of burlesque held a special appeal for the Yale-educated artist. He once noted: “The whole thing is extremely pictorial. … You get a woman in the spotlight, the gilt architecture of the place, plenty of humanity. Everything is nice and intimate.”