I keep having to look words up and it’s turning out that theater is a giant blindspot for me in this novel because I think I know it. I mean, 20+ years working in the business ought to give me some insight.
Sure, the technical side has changed but so much of the language was in use in Shakespeare’s day. Upstage, for example, came about because stages used to be raked so that the back of the stage was elevated. One literally went upstage when one went toward the back.
Other terms, it seems, are more recent. Pratfall, for instance, is from 1939. From Prat “buttock” + fall. Now it means any comic fall. Prior to that, folks were apparently more specific. You could do a tailer, a crowner, or a noser.
I love these terms, but it makes me wonder how much other theater jargon I’m taking for granted.
If you want to read Chapter Fifteen, which does not use the word pratfall, it’s been posted. Here’s a teaser.
Cora poked at the soft-boiled egg with her spoon. The Hotel Marion had a fine dining room for an establishment of this size, though the tables were sparsely populated at this hour of the morning. In the far corner, a portly white businessman, whose waistcoat strained over his middle, had a platter of bacon in front of him. The middle of the room had a young couple cooing at each other like the newly-weds they probably were. Other then those two tables, the dining room was deserted save for her and Mr. Jernigan. It was nearly half-past ten and Cora had not been up for long, though Mr. Jernigan seemed distressingly chipper.
Cora’s first night back in vaudeville had been… awkward.
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