Knockabout and Slapstick: Violence and Laughter in Nineteenth-Century Popular Theatre and Early Film

Knockabout and Slapstick: Violence and Laughter in Nineteenth-Century Popular Theatre and Early Film by Paul Michael Walter Babiak A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies University of Toronto ©Copyright by Paul Michael Walter Babiak, 2015 Knockabout and Slapstick: Violence and Laughter in Nineteenth-Century Popular Theatre and Early Film Paul Michael Walter Babiak Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies University of Toronto 2015 Abstract This thesis examines laughter that attends violent physical comedy: the knockabout acts of the nineteenth-century variety theatres, and their putative descendants, the slapstick films of the early twentieth-century cinema. It attempts a comparative functional analysis of knockabout acts and their counterparts in slapstick film. In Chapter 1 of this thesis I outline the obstacles to this inquiry and the means I took to overcome them; in Chapter 2, I distinguish the periods when knockabout and slapstick each formed the dominant paradigm for physical comedy, and give an overview of the critical changes in the social context that separate them. In Chapter 3, I trace the gradual development of comedy films throughout the early cinema period, from the “comics” of 1900 to 1907, through the “rough house” films of the transitional era, to the emergence of the new genre in 1911-1914. ii Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 present my comparative analyses of the workings of four representative “tropes,” ubiquitous in various forms of knockabout performance and in various representative slapstick films: i) The burlesque prize fight (in variety theatre, in the Ethiopian sketches of blackface minstrelsy and in Keystone’s “The Knockout”); ii) the Pete Jenkins act (in nineteenth- century circus) and the “Wild Ride” (a sub-subgenre of chase film); iii) the “One-Two-Three- Switch motif” in knockabout song and dance and in the slapstick pie fight; and iv) The “White Night” of the Ethiopian sketches and the “Inn Where No Man Rests” of early film. Chapters 8 and 9 present my attempt to synthesize my findings and come to a conclusion by concretely theorizing what this comparison teaches us about knockabout and slapstick performance. Slapstick has a twofold nature: as a performance style, it is a quasi-verisimilar acting “anti-technique,” incorporating acrobatic elements. As a film genre, slapstick represents an intervention in the superfluous violence of everyday life: it functions to recuperate the spectator’s sense of his/her own potential freedom from complicity in social violence; and to make reconciliation with others possible. Nevertheless, the spectator may well reject these functions and use the slapstick film as a pleasurable outlet for his/her own sadistic energies. iii Acknowledgments This thesis could never have come to completion without the support of a uniquely constituted and remarkable committee. It relied from the outset on the unique accomplishments of my two co-supervisors, Stephen Johnson of the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, and Charlie Keil of the Cinema Studies Institute, in the University of Toronto; on Stephen’s thorough acquaintance with the scholarship on nineteenth-century popular theatre in general and on minstrelsy in particular; and on Charlie’s insights into early film. Rob King provided me with invaluable guidance and support in forming my initial reading list, in deepening my understanding of the field, and in developing my argument; and it was chiefly he whose feedback proved critical to the eventual development of my approach. Throughout a long and difficult process, and in spite of many disappointments these three scholars and teachers never wavered in their support; and words have no power to express my gratitude for their patience, which I must often have severely tested. Among those whose generous feedback on my prospectus for this project heartened me for the task ahead were Professors Paula Sperdakos of the University of Toronto, Scarborough, and Martin Revermann of the U of T Classics department. For much kind advice and guidance with my research I am thankful to Marlis Schweitzer of York University, Nikki Cesare Schotzko of the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, U of T, David Klausner of the Centre for Medieval Studies, U of T, Professors Emeritus Cameron Tolton of the French Department and William Blissett of the Department of English, both of U of T, and David Mayer of the University of Manchester. Throughout the research process, I received invaluable support and encouragement from numerous friends and colleagues at the erstwhile Graduate Centre for Study of Drama in the University of Toronto: Jill Carter, Keren Zaiontz, Jamie Ashby, Leslie Barcza, Barry Freeman, Alexis Butler and Sam Stedman. I was most fortunate to receive much gracious financial support through a succession of Ontario Graduate Scholarships, a SSHRC doctoral fellowship, and a research grant from the School of Graduate Studies that enabled me to visit archives and view films that must otherwise have remained inaccessible to me. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to a number of outstanding archivists, librarians and research assistants at the University of Toronto. Outstanding among them is Len Ferstman of the Innis College library, whose untiring helpfulness was chiefly responsible for getting the initial phase of my research off the ground. iv This project could never have come close to achieving its aims, however, without the inexhaustible patience and invaluable expertise of the staff of the University of Toronto’s Media Commons working under Brock Silversides: Mike Hamilton, Guy Ziebert, Joan Links, Rachel Beattie, and the late Don Sklepovich. I should also like to offer particular thanks to the staff of the Inter-Library Loan department of the Robarts Library, and especially to Anne-Marie Crotty, who so cheerfully raided the libraries and archives of the world in attempting to comply with my many bizarre requests. It is an honor for me to have become one of the large number of film scholars whose work has benefitted from the astonishing erudition of Steve Massa of the New York Public Library. For giving me access to a number of films which I might otherwise never have seen I am thankful to Steve, to Ben Model, and to Charles Silver of the Museum of Modern Art. I should also like to express my gratitude to Maryann Chach and Reagan Fletcher of the Shubert Archive for their kind assistance during my visit there, as well as to Samuel J. Perryman of the Library of Congress. I should also like to thank the many librarians in the U.K. who ransacked their local archives in search of helpful data in response to my call for information on knockabout performance in Great Britain: Bryony Dixon of the British Film Institute, Christian Algar and Adrian Schindler of the British Library, Anna Elson of the Museum of London, Bridget Howlett of the London Metropolitan Archives, Peter Lester of the Nottinghamshire Archives, Bridget Gillies of the University of East Anglia, Sally Harrower of the National Library of Scotland, David Weston of the University of Glasgow, Martin Humphries of the Cinema Museum, Rosie Hall of the Kirklees Archives, Sue Slide of the Nottingham Central library (for many very useful suggestions, including an extremely helpful reading list), Elizabeth Highfield of the Islington Local History Centre, Nathan Williams of the University of Reading, Angela Kale of the Scarborough Library and Information Centre, Louise-Ann Hand of the Local and Family History Library, Leeds, and Anna Fineman of the University of Bristol. I gained numerous valuable insights that renewed my confidence in the value of this study through the performance-based research project, “Hallowe’en Vaudevilles” in which I participated in October 2009. I would like heartily to thank the excellent performers -- Nicole (Gypsy) Bischoff, Sasha Kovacs, Laura Hendrickson, Laura Lucci, Art Babayants, Julian Cervello, Rein Kartna, and Mike Reinhart – and our dedicated dramaturgical team -- Rachel Steinberg, Aynsley Moorhouse, and Colin Tierney – all of whom worked so hard to help me test the practical application of my ideas. I also owe a vast debt of gratitude to the professional v colleagues who have listened so patiently and commented with such incisive practical wisdom on the various iterations of my argument as it gradually emerged -- to Kristi Heath (Madame Buskerfly), Greg Tarlin, John McCorkle (Johnny Toronto) – and to my friends at Zero Gravity Circus: especially Eli Chernenky, Svava Stefanson, Angela Morra, Jen Georgeopolous, Britten Vincent, Ben Burland, Lindsay Stephens and Jeff Kearns. Finally, let me pause to thank three faithful friends for their unremitting support through a long and often tortuous process: to Stacey Halloran, whose enthusiasm and acute attention so frequently emboldened me to develop what I might have dismissed as whimsies into clear and distinct ideas; to Fermen Andrew, whose admonition and encouragement to show “TOTAL DEDICATION” is not only taped to my fridge but inscribed by his example on my heart; and most of all to Julie McNeill, whose daily kindness, infinite patience, and unfailing wisdom alone could have brought me through – to all, as my words can only fail, my gratitude alone can express sufficient thanks. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments ..........................................................................................................................iv

Load more