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Susan Kattwinkel

Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Volume 28, Number 1, Fall

2013, pp. 87-89 (Article)
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DOI: 10.1353/dtc.2013.0029

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it as influencing his 2003 decision to grant a mass commutation. Acknowledging

that her criticism may seem wearily skeptical (256), Ryan launches an incisive
critique about the scripts partial sentimentality. The appeal of the characters
stories, Ryan observes, traffics largely on the fact of their innocence. The death
penalty is wrong, argues The Exonerated, because it can so easily entrap the
wrong person. While indubitable (innocent people ought not be executed), this
argument tacitly leaves intact the notion that the death penalty is fine as long as it
only applies to guilty people. From the abolitionist perspective Ryan writes from,
such an argument ignores the structural (primarily racial) inequities that make
capital punishment inherently unjust regardless of the guilt or innocence of the
person executed.
In her introduction, Ryan (citing H. Bruce Franklin) contends that teaching
American literature without reference to the nations prison industrial complex
resembles teaching nineteenth-century American history while ignoring slavery.
Readers impressions of the book may depend somewhat on whether they concur
with Ryans argument. I found myself convinced. Her work pushes me to consider
how theatre history might likewise account for the role of prison systems in US
culture, a project already being pioneered by scholars like Nina Billone Prieur and
Jonathan Shailor. Ryans challenge, like her collection, responds to the demands
of those living and dead who find themselves caught in our glaringly unjust
criminal justice system.
John Fletcher
Louisiana State University

Baggy Pants Comedy: Burlesque and the Oral Tradition. By Andrew Davis. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Cloth $95.00. 304 pages.
Within the realm of American popular theatre scholarship, amongst the many
works on circus, vaudeville, variety, minstrelsy, dime museums, and concert saloons,
the burlesque tradition remains one of the most theorized, yet least comprehensively
examined. In the last thirty years dozens of books and articles examining both the
history of burlesque and contemporary variations have been published. Almost
without exception, these works, led by Robert C. Allens excellent Horrible
Prettiness (1991), focus on feminist and cultural approaches to the disrobing
portions of the shows. Most works that chronicle the history of burlesque as a part
of their project, like Rachel Schteirs Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie
Show (2004) and Katherine Liepe-Levinsons Strip Show: Performances of Gender
and Desire (2003), barely mention the comedians whose acts tied the strips together

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Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism

into a show, except to note their presence as holdovers from burlesques origins as
variety shows of parodies. Schteir notes the similarities between early burlesque
and vaudeville, and Michelle Baldwin, in her examination of modern burlesque,
Burlesque and the New Bump-N-Grind (2004), includes a short but well-elucidated
section on the process by which female burlesque performers were mostly removed
from the dialogue scenes. Lacking in modern burlesque scholarship, however,
has been an examination of the comedy. Andrew Daviss Baggy Pants Comedy:
Burlesque and the Oral Tradition seeks to fill that gap.
Daviss focus is not so much the comediansalthough there are fascinating
tidbits about how specific performers workedbut rather the most popular sketches,
many of which he reproduces here as he analyzes their structure and type. The first
seven chapters analyze the structure and types of humor found in the scripts, as
well as the working habits and styles of the performers. The final seven chapters
are divided into humor types (e.g. Flirtations and Trickery) and contain some
lengthy script excerpts as examples. Oddly, Daviss history of burlesque (including
a contextualization within the other popular theatres of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries) does not appear until chapter three, a delay that might lead to confusion
for the popular audience at whom the book seems to be aimed. That chapter ends
with a short section on the behavior of the audience, and Daviss assertion that the
purpose of the burlesque show was not about satisfying sexual desire. Rather it
was about dissipating those feelings through laughter (49). This is an intriguing
theory, and one that seems to be supported by the mix of sexual references and
humor present in many of the sketches Davis includes.
The major unifying theory of the book, as indicated in the title, is that the
history and evolution of burlesque comedy can best be understood through the
lens of folklore and oral tradition. Davis situates burlesque within oral-formulaic
theory. He connects standard joke and sketch types to the formulas and catalogued
motifs of folk literature, and provides examples of sketches that present variations
on select motifs. The key for Davis is the unwritten tradition of burlesque humor.
He repeatedly asserts that sketches were transmitted, learned, and stolen verbally, a
tradition that allowed and contributed to the many versions and constant evolution
of the scripts. Accompanying every sketch is Daviss reminder that this is just
one version of those extant in print. Many other variations lived in the minds of
comedians, waiting to be pulled out and inserted during performance whenever
needed. He succeeds in the delicate task of freezing individual versions in print
while not letting the reader forget that they were fluid in usage. His implication
is that the written collections of comedians were nostalgic and historic in nature,
rather than sources for constructing performances. To support that concept he uses
Richard Andrewss work on commedia dellarte and argues that, similar to that
tradition (and that of oral storytelling as well), performers remembered pieces of

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full sketches in dialogic units that could be combined and recycled to create any
number of scenes.
A section on schemas as understood in cognitive science is brief and simply
stated, but is a welcome and rare application of the theory to non-text-based theatre.
A further contribution is Daviss explication of Victor Raskins application of
schema theory to the topic of humor, and his own incorporation of burlesque jokes
and sketches as case studies. In Raskins theory, humor arises from the spectators
shifting perspective, cued by the comics ability to first make us identify with them
and then to disrupt our expectations in a playful way. Daviss examples reveal
burlesque humor as an ideal location for the study of schema theory.
Davis raises a number of theoretical and practical questions that are ripe for
further analysis. The role of humor in dissipating sexual tension, mentioned above, is
but one example. Connected to that topic is the neglect of any in-depth examination
of the relationship between the comic sketches and the stripteases that became the
raison dtre of burlesque performance, an inattention that ironically mirrors the gap
in other major works in burlesque. Nevertheless, he does not avoid confrontation
with the homosexual and ethnic humor that makes many of the sketches untenable
for performance today. He helpfully applies the work of scholars on both subjects,
although one might wish that some of his own examples and conclusions were
more thoroughly explained.
The only true shortcoming of the book is one shared by many of the works
that have come out on popular theatre in recent years, and that is one of negligent
editing. It is perhaps a sign of the continuing disdain for popular theatre topics that
their works are not given extensive editorial attention before publishing. Minor but
irritating errors such as multiple typos, incorrect references, unnecessary repetition,
and confusing structure can complicate or even obscure valuable and insightful
theory and history. Despite these issues, Baggy Pants Comedy offers a fascinating
look at the routines and working methods of twentieth-century burlesque comedians,
and provides a useful catalogue of sketches and interpretations.
Susan Kattwinkel
College of Charleston

Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and
Pinter. By Michael Y. Bennett. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Cloth
$85, Ebook $85. xi, 179 pages.
In recent years, a number of scholars have striven to deconstruct and redefine
Martin Esslins Theatre of the Absurd, challenging his fairly Procrustean taxonomy