The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-07-03
From the Louisville courier-Journal.

~
~ serts that musical comedy will
4 introduce some new dances to the
ballroom next autumn, and that they VIII
be dances which will not drive chaperones
home or cause the management, or hoteis
or dance halls to order vulgar performers
off the floor. 1.-THE turkey trot,' says TINS
authority, is no longer smart Only
village bellies and country beaux, who
are always socially trailers, are daneinj
it, and to indulge marks you as very
much behind the times"
1t is promised that musical comedY'
which is to illustrate the swinging II
the pendulum, an illustration periodically
given on the stage. i going back to det
cency after a period of riotous depletion
of dive scenes. The incidental music and
dancing will sort with the theme, just
as it has one-during the period in which
the music has duplicated that of the
heavily pounded piano in questionable re-
sorts, and the dancing has oceasioned
portests from the pulpit and press, and
occasional interferences by the police.
The recent Gilbert and Sullivan re-
vivals in America and the elaborate re-
vival of robin Hood" under the title
of Maid Marian that is promised In
London, suggest a possible abandonment
of Montmartre musical comedy. which
familiarized the proverbal mice young
person" with adaptations of the 'danse
du ventre' subsequently adopted by mod
erately nice young persons of certain
mental and moral bent
Musical comedy is decidedly a social
influence" says the authority whose pre-
diction is here referred to, land If II
gave society certain indecent dances
which have caused great deal of dis
cussion it will, by decreeing them out Of
date and supplanting them with dances
that are at once graceful\and modest, aci
as a regenerative influepte.'
1t is quite true that amusements are
very much more potent influence upor
manners, if not upon morals. than the
lessons which solemn dramatists try to
impress through the medium of serious
plays. 1t is extremely doubtful whether
Henrik Ibsen has exerted any positive IN
fuence upon the thought of any consider
able number of Americans, to say nothing
lof their lives. The same thing might be
said of any, and all. of dozen writers
| of plays which are accepted by those WHO
patronize and support them as impress
ing a moral. But ocular demonstration
must convince the last doubter that Pau
Potter and his kind, through the agency
of farces and musical farces OF the pase'
sort. have exerted a positive and per
vasiye influence upon manners.
| Until musical comedy. featured ant
| elaborated, under various names given II
sundry variations, a dance which was
old when India and Egypt were young
| and had been a familiar spectacle in the
segregated quarters of American cities
for a long time the waltz and two-ster
were regarded by everyone as worldly
amusements. The more religious element
held them questionable. Recently 1t was
proposed in New York to give series OF
ldancing parties in the Sunday schoo
rooms of churches for the encouragement
of dancing that does not SAVIOR of the
gambols of Nautch girls. And in va
rious cities where police supervision sup
| presses public exhibitions of vulgarit,
| there are recurTent fepoItSfo VI 1hS -S"eee'
| girls being rivaled in their peculiar ar
| by young women at society balls
! If musical comedy. having run the
tgamut, returns to the state of innocencS
| in which it flourished when "Pinafore'
and 1.-The Pirates of Penzanee' were ne"
and abolishes the turkey trot' and IL
six or seven sisters, it will again demon
strate the 100 little recognized fact tina
light entertainment, and not the sledge
hammer pounding of moralists, has al
| effect that is reflected visibly and wide
| " in notifications of manners and, per
hans. to an extent, of morals The hope
FIJI advocates of the uplft of the stag
who want to popularize plays written b,
thinking dramatists for thinking audience
might profitably give attention to TIL
question of whether decade of the pro
duction of. dramas Of literary merit am
/ unassaiable ethical content has as grea
an effect upon the trend of contempor
arv life as a year of musical comedies o
a certain character.
/ OF course. dancing the turkey trot" j
\ not a popular indulgence, in the broade
sense. 1t is confined to small segment