LibCrowds

Thanks for your post, johnjo! Your observation on the recurrence of "curiosities," or exploitative human spectacles, among the many performances advertised in the playbill collection reminds me of something I encountered in the course of transcribing the genres of miscellaneous performances at the Nottingham Theatre. There are multiple playbills featuring a play described as a "ballet pantomime" called "The Island Ape," starring a performer known as Monsieur Gouffe. On the playbill for the performance held on November 16, 1826, Monsieur Gouffe's "singular and laughable performance" was set to include him performing "leaps and humourous tricks," such as flying onto the stage and walking "on three fingers." His act is hyped as being one in which he performs "many surprising Feats never attempted by any Man in the kingdom but himself." The language used here and the accompanying illustration featuring a literal ape-man, conjures images of the dehumanizing caricatures of African Americans and the highly popular minstrel shows that were facets of 19th and early 20th century American culture. It made me wonder whether this particular "ballet pantomime" and performances like it, were that period's British equivalent of American minstrelsy.

I think In the Spotlight definitely provides a fascinating window into a different historical context, replete with its admirable and questionable mores and ideologies. It certainly inspires reflection.

Beccabooks10. Gouffe sounds amazing. Yes, there are many instances of "man-monkeys", often tagged as such on the site, but also acrobats and gymnasts without a gimmick.. Real monkeys have been used in circuses for a long time - not sure if that continues. Less controversial are the many trained dogs like Carlo and Bruin. I have resisted commenting on the numerous acts which reek of racism today but were generally regarded as just entertainment, but this went on until quite recently. The BBC's Black and White Minstrel Show -mainly Welsh male singers -was hugely popular in the 60s on prime-time TV, continuing the black-face minstrel shows that appear on the playbills from the 19thc. A Jim Crow song was often on the old bills, usually sung by an actor in black-face, no doubt with the cod dialect, like "dem" for "them" etc., and the n word used commonly. There are occasional genuine visiting African-Americans who usually danced, sang slave songs, and were often portrayed as figures of fun, but sometimes acted in serious plays, most famously the American Ira Aldridge the "African Roscius", who played Othello and other leading parts after initially doing the stock slave routines. He settled in Britain and became a British citizen. Really, the theatre reflected society as it was at the time, and that is what is so interesting about the playbills, in all sorts of ways. It is like stepping into another time. The human exhibits were different, often just to be gawped at or prodded, or worse. Many could also be hired for private gatherings, as graphically portrayed in the film Black Venus.

I first heard of Saartjie "Sara" Baartman in college, in the context of visual representations of the Black female body and the history of racist archetypes used throughout American popular culture (i.e. "Jezebel," "Mammy," "Sapphire," and the "Angry Black Woman") and that have sometimes seeped into American social, educational, and political policy issues that impact modern African American women. Although it centers on the experiences of a young British woman of Caribbean descent, Candice Carty-Williams's recent debut novel Queenie, brilliantly exemplifies these issues of Black female objectification from a 21st-century, millennial perspective.

I had not heard of the film "Black Venus," though will now have to check it out. Thanks for mentioning it! Here's something about Saarjie "Sara" Baartman that I'd forgotten: upon her death in 1815, Napolean's surgeon appropriated her body and displayed her remains in a museum in France, where they remained until they were finally returned to her native South Africa in 2002. There was an article in The Guardian about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/feb/21/internationaleducationnews.highereducation

The details of Baartman's mistreatment are difficult to stomach, as her exploitation was truly heinous. Though it is so important to engage with history and critically interrogate the beliefs, practices, and norms of the past and allow that inquiry to positively inform how we understand the present and help us shape the future for the better. In that sense, I am glad that we are getting to see the playbills as they were at the time in which they were created. I feel it is necessary, and after all enriching, to critique history, but not to err on the side of whitewashing it.

The career of Ira Aldridge sounds similar to that of Bert Williams, an African American vaudeville performer of the early 20th century who, due to rampant racism in the US, was often the only African American performer on stage, and who endeavored to turn the stereotypes he and other African Americans were saddled with on their head in his performances: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/bert-williams/.

I'll have to add the BBC's "Black and White Minstrel Show" and "Black Venus" to my TBW (to-be-watched) list, one that may begin to rival my TBR list! It is an interesting process trying to reconcile what was once regarded as "entertainment" with the realities of marginalized peoples then and now. One of my favorite Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films, "Swing Time," features a gratuitous sequence of Fred Astaire performing in blackface. Zadie Smith actually alluded to this exact moment in the film in her novel of the same name.

Interesting and thought-provoking points and links, especially the Guardian article about Saartjie Baartman - thank you. Just a further memory about the BBC's "Black and White Minstrel Show". The connection from the 19thc theatre to 1960s TV was greatly influenced by the huge popularity of Al Jolson, and the lead singers in the show aped his voice and gestures. Their medleys were often bits of Stephen Foster's songs and show tunes strung together. I've been reading Wiki on blackface, and it is a very complex and controversial subject to say the least. The number of well-known Hollywood and singing stars who performed in blackface is surprising, as I guess that the movies containing such routines haven't been shown on TV for a long time.