英语词汇vaudeville的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

vaudeville. In its heyday from 1885 to 1928, there were as many as 20,000 acts playing American vaudeville. Vaudeville derives from the village of Vire in 15th-century Normandy, where a group of performers was called the Compagnons du Vau de Vire (the Companions of the Vire Valley). Their popu- larity spread, and soon the word ville (town) was substituted for Vire, the name of the original village. Vaudeville came to mean “valley town songs” and then the acts that featured them. Much later, in the mid-19th century, Americans borrowed the French word to describe variety shows offering musical and comedy acts on the same bill—also called “olios.” Such shows, often coarse at first, initially played in saloons and honky- tonks around the country but did not become tremendously popular until the establishment of the B. F. Keith national cir- cuit in 1883. Vaudeville featured many famous stars of musical comedy and the legitimate theater, including the Barrymores and Sarah Bernhardt, but relied mainly on its own star comics and song-and-dance acts, such as Weber and Fields, Gallagher and Shean, Harry Lauder, Harrigan and Hart, the Marx Broth- ers, Will Rogers, the Seven Little Foys, Fanny Brice, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, and Jimmy Durante, many of whom later left vaudeville for the theater or movies. The most prestigious theater a vaudevillian could play was New York’s Palace Theat- er, built by Martin Beck on Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets in 1913; “playing the Palace” became the dream of every “two-a-dayer.” The Palace was converted to a movie theater and later a legitimate theater after vaudeville’s demise, which came in the early 1930s with the perfection of radio and sound films. See burlesque.

词汇	vaudeville
词源	vaudeville. In its heyday from 1885 to 1928, there were as many as 20,000 acts playing American vaudeville. Vaudeville derives from the village of Vire in 15th-century Normandy, where a group of performers was called the Compagnons du Vau de Vire (the Companions of the Vire Valley). Their popu- larity spread, and soon the word ville (town) was substituted for Vire, the name of the original village. Vaudeville came to mean “valley town songs” and then the acts that featured them. Much later, in the mid-19th century, Americans borrowed the French word to describe variety shows offering musical and comedy acts on the same bill—also called “olios.” Such shows, often coarse at first, initially played in saloons and honky- tonks around the country but did not become tremendously popular until the establishment of the B. F. Keith national cir- cuit in 1883. Vaudeville featured many famous stars of musical comedy and the legitimate theater, including the Barrymores and Sarah Bernhardt, but relied mainly on its own star comics and song-and-dance acts, such as Weber and Fields, Gallagher and Shean, Harry Lauder, Harrigan and Hart, the Marx Broth- ers, Will Rogers, the Seven Little Foys, Fanny Brice, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, and Jimmy Durante, many of whom later left vaudeville for the theater or movies. The most prestigious theater a vaudevillian could play was New York’s Palace Theat- er, built by Martin Beck on Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets in 1913; “playing the Palace” became the dream of every “two-a-dayer.” The Palace was converted to a movie theater and later a legitimate theater after vaudeville’s demise, which came in the early 1930s with the perfection of radio and sound films. See burlesque.
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