WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE



CHAPTER I

THE WHY OF THE VAUDEVILLE ACT


1. The Rise of Vaudeville

A French workman who lived in the Valley of the Vire in the
fourteenth or fifteenth century, is said to be vaudeville's
grandparent. Of course, the child of his brain bears not even a
remote resemblance to its descendant of to-day, yet the line is
unbroken and the relationship clearer than many of the family trees
of the royal houses. The French workman's name was Oliver Bassel,
or Olivier Basselin, and in his way he was a poet. He composed
and sang certain sprightly songs which struck the popular fancy
and achieved a reputation not only in his own town but throughout
the country.

Bassel's success raised the usual crop of imitators and soon a
whole family of songs like his were being whistled in France. In
the course of time these came to be classed as a new and distinct
form of musical entertainment. They were given the name of
"Val-de-Vire" from the valley in which Bassel was born. This
name became corrupted, into "vaux-de-vire" in the time of Louis
XVI, and was applied to all the popular or topical songs sung on