What secret wish is gratified when we see man who was created in the image of God falling bump on his nose? Irresistibly, by a profound impulse, we laugh. The cares of the day, the harsh realities of life, fade away when in the golden land of Never-never a tall man enters with his short companion and hits the third man (he of the putty nose) over the head with a slapstick.
In the course of the evening, the small man was hit over the head fifty-seven hundred times; he rose but to fall again, more helplessly than before. He was also kicked—in the nose, in the ear, in front and behind. His nose was pulled into an infinite variety of shapes, being made to resemble every object under heaven from a telephone wire to a turnip. He submitted meekly, and upon him the desire of the whole audience to see mankind made ridiculous was visited times without number.
Genially, casually, the tall man kicked him in the face whenever he happened to notice him. The tall man had taken possession of the stage. Singing, dancing, clowning, guying, arguing, wheedling, mocking, bullying—now as an unshaven tramp, a few minutes later as an unshaven Turk, then as an unshaven pirate—whatever a man could be and do without first submitting to that odious refinement of civilization, the clean shave; in a dozen different costumes, always delightful and irresponsible and seductive, and always accompanied by his short comrade, he pervaded the evening. He spoke, and the audience laughed; he refrained from speaking, and the audience laughed.
His slapstick, that magic wand which had only to touch things to make them funny, was like himself. He had slapstick shoulders, slapstick eyebrows, ears, nose, legs, posteriors; he acted with all of these, eloquently—and at each gesture some ideal of human dignity was knocked on the head and tumbled on its nose. He sang, walked across the room, made love—and these actions, to the immense satisfaction of the audience, were revealed as essentially absurd. The precious gift he brought was a genial vulgarity, a hilarious cheapening of the values of normal life. When he spoke, with irresistible drollery, about women, about work, about marriage, about anything in the world, it became not worth a—his abrupt gesture told what—and the stout matron in the middle of the parquet became hysterical with laughter. For a moment she was not a solid block in the structure of our respectable American civilization—she was a rebellious child, delightedly come into a dream world where all burdens are lifted, all values transvalued. It seemed to do her good.... Then two dimpled soubrettes sang another song.
In and out between these episodes floated the chorus, shaking its immortal legs. The legs and their owners classified themselves into three ranks or hierarchies of fleshly charm: in front, the “little ones,” the “ponies”; in the next row, the “mediums”; and, last and most sumptuous, the “big ones,” the “show girls.” The big ones were the piece de resistance; no frills, no sauces, but a satisfying super-abundance. All that the hungry eye desired was bodied forth in these vast and shapely statues of feminine flesh, tipping the scales at not less than two hundred pounds. Two hundred pounds of arm and leg, bust and buttock; here was riches, here was Golconda—two hundred pounds of female meat! A thousand hungry eyes feasted rapturously on the sight.
But this was not the ultimate magic of burlesque.
A storm of applause, and a young woman entered on one toe, kicking the zenith with the other. A young woman? A pinwheel, a skyrocket, a slender feminine firework! Feminine? Not with the obvious allurements of her sex. Her figure was like that of a boy; boyish was the mischievous face that sparkled behind the tangle of her short curls. She was like a sword-blade in this poppyfield of easy dreams. Her soul was adventurous, like her legs; she kicked open the zenith with her boisterous boyish laugh. She defied the code of this tinsel dream-world, in which women burn with the ready fires of miscellaneous invitation; she seemed beyond sex. Nor was she a mere bundle of graceful muscles. She had, shining in contrast to all this impersonal eroticism, a hint of personality, a will of her own, an existence independent of the wishes of the audience. She smiled at them, but scornfully, indifferently, mischievously,—and triumphed over them. That touch of reality gave a momentary sharp savour to the too-cloying illusion. Then she left the stage—on her hands—and the dream-festival went on as before.
The music pounded itself, with endless repetition, through the senses, into the soul. The rhythm of legs became the rhythm of the universe. The people of the audience were absolutely at one with each other and with the genius of the slapstick, who talked to them familiarly now, as his friends. Cries and handclaps of applause mingled with the rhythm. The heart of the theatre beat gigantically, joyously, ecstatically. The play rose to its climax. To the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” the young firework appeared, turning handsprings, an American flag on the seat of her pants. Walking on her ear, she crossed the stage, waving the flag in the faces of the audience. The audience applauded in patriotic frenzy. They would have died for that flag.
The curtain fell, rose a foot from the floor, and disclosed a row of legs—legs—legs—twinkling across behind the footlights. Into those legs was concentrated the infinite sorcery of the theatre.... But it was time to go home. It was time to re-enter the world of reality.—Another leg appeared, the eloquent left leg of the tall slapstick comedian, clothed round with heavy woolen drawers and clasped by a Boston garter. It seemed to say: “After all, my friends, a leg is only a leg!” The spell was broken, and the audience began slowly to file out into the dusty street.