Monday, March 02, 2009

Appreciating the Chorus Girl


The New Yorker, May 12, 1929.

The artist was John Reynolds. He created a real flurry of cartoons for the magazine between 1928 and 1930, but appears to have been subsequently forgotten.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's difficult to tell due to the cartoon's shading, but the chorus girl almost looks like she has minstrel makeup.

It's interesting how well-dressed and behaved the gentlemen in the audience are.

Can't tell if this scene is supposed to represent "legit" theatre versus burlesque

Adam Thornton said...

I'm pretty confident that the bizarre shading is just due to the New Yorker DVD's compression artifacts, and that she's supposed to be looking down through the footlights.

In addition, this is definitely supposed to be a broadway show, not burlesque; the magazine's theater reviews always mentioned the scantily-clad chorus girls in legit productions, and the fact that they were often just as much of an attraction to the audience as the name performers.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the clarifications! It makes more sense now.