Vaudevilles

Anonymous

Nubu Press (Original: Paris - 1843)

Full disclosure: this is a reproduction of the 1843 original,
a copy of which can be found at UCLA Special Collections or at Archive.Org.
It was most likely brought to the US to be performed in the Creole South.

Next - it is entirely in French.

Even with my limited ability to read French,
I can see that their use of the word, Vaudeville,
is far different than our 20th or 21st-century useage.

Obviously, we would never think of a vaudeville skit as being in three acts
or even being in "deux" acts, as we see in the etching above.

But what we do find included in each one is... lyrics.

In the French-speaking South of 1843,
a "vaudeville" would be understood as a musical comedy.


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