Subject
EDITOR's Query: ADA's variety acts Inversions
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----- Forwarded message from Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com -----
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:56:03 -0500
From: "Brown, Andrew" <Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com>
Reply-To: "Brown, Andrew" <Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com>
Subject: RE: RE: EDITOR's Query: ADA's variety acts
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum Yes, there must be some theatrical slang or
argot for the type of performer who enters the stage in one guise only to
completely reverse this perception before the grand finale. Is there a
dictionary or glossary of terms from the show world? Henry Mayhew had lists for
the types of criminals and beggars in 19nth century London. A friend of mine has
an encyclopedia of underworld argot that records thousands of expressions from
as far back as the 18nth century. I often try to buy this off him when he's
drunk.
I've either seen or read of frail and timid old ladies who sling off their sad
coats to be revealed as young show girls who dance up a storm. There are
precarious drunks who turn out to be expert marksmen, knife throwers, acrobats,
or equestrians. Moving from variety shows to plays and films, there are
vulnerable, drunk old men who fall victim to gamblers only to turn the tables
and win back everything and more. These types evolve upwards into Zorro, the
Scarlet Pimpernel, various spies, gentleman cat burglars. And these, I think,
evolved or were modernized or pomodernized into the constellation of super
heroes who Clark Kent, or Peter Parker, or Bruce Wayne it by day, and then
strip down into caped crusader togs when the feathers hit the fan. These types
evolve downwards into various psychos and nightmare types descended from the
little old lady AKA wicked stepmother who sold Snow White the apple, all the
way to Tony Perkins, prop. Bates Hotel.
There's something exhilarating about an entity changing into its reverse. It's
an action that releases an explosion of power one way or another. When the
change is from weakness to strength, I think it triggers an unconscious desire,
or hope, that one day we all may excel ourselves and be revealed as more than
what we are.
But the sudden change of a person one knows and for whom one feels love, such as
a mother, or one's child, into a diabolical persona, is a universal dread that's
fueled changeling stories, vampire tales and lycanthropy and zombie legends in
probably every culture in the world.
Probably the example that may have usually been uppermost in VNs mind was
lepedopteral mimesis, where the humblest moths and butterflies could acquire
the most elaborate disguises to survive
AB
> ----------
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of Donald B. Johnson
> Reply To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
> Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 11:15 AM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Fwd: RE: EDITOR's Query: ADA's variety acts
>
> <<File: ATT2295935.htm>>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com -----
> Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 14:07:18 -0500
> From: "Brown, Andrew" <Andrew.Brown@bbdodetroit.com>
>
>
> The entrance of the dark beast, "running strongly" reminded me of the demonic
> pursuer of Mary Hyde/Mary Lamb, as she dreams it toward the end of Martin
> Amis's novel Other People. The effect of a dancer who is revealed as standing
> upright when his or her costumed self was upside down is a Central European,
> Asian, probably universal entertainment that has seen service from ancient
> times all the way to vaudeville and beyond. This performance, with its
> surprises, reminded me of the circus Huck Finn sneaks into and is completely
> fooled by the blustering drunk who insists on joining the bareback riders'
> performance, and then rides frantically around the circus ring faster and
> faster, shedding a blizzard of ragged clothes until he stands revealed,
gliding
> along erect with his arms folded, as the star of the show.
>
> A. BROWN
> ----------------------------------------------------
> EDNOTE. Ah, yes. But what are these acts called? There must be a name for this
> kind of performer.
>
>
>
> > ----------
> > From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of D. Barton Johnson
> > Reply To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum>
> > Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 1:03 PM
> > To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> > Subject: EDITOR's Query: ADA's variety acts
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: D. Barton Johnson
> > Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 9:55 AM
> > Subject: circus acts query
> >
> >
> >
> > I have been trying to determine whether the variety acts described below in
> Nabokov's ADA are based on actual performances or are imaginary. No luck--in
> part because I have no idea of how to approach the question. What such acts
are
> called? Have any of you seen such acts?
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > FROM NABOKOV's NOVEL ADA.
> >
> >
> >
> > The stage would be empty when the curtain went up; then, after five
heartbeats
> of theatrical suspense, something swept out of the wings, enormous and black,
to
> the accompaniment of dervish drums. The shock of his powerful and precipitous
> entry affected so deeply the children in the audience that for a long time
> later, in the dark of sobbing insomnias, in the glare of violent nightmares,
> nervous little boys and girls relived, with private accretions, something
> similar to the > '> primordial qualm,> '> a shapeless nastiness, the swoosh
of
> nameless wings, the unendurable dilation of fever which came in a cavern draft
> from the uncanny stage. Into the harsh light of its gaudily carpeted space a
> masked giant, fully eight feet tall, erupted, running strongly in the kind of
> soft boots worn by Cossack dancers. A voluminous, black shaggy cloak of the
> burka type enveloped his silhouette inquiétante (according to a female
Sorbonne
> correspondent > -> we> '> ve kept all those cuttings) from neck to knee or
what
> appeared to be those sections of his body. A Karakul cap surmounted his top. A
> black mask covered the upper part of his heavily bearded face. The unpleasant
> colossus kept strutting up and down the stage for a while, then the strut
> changed to the restless walk of a caged madman, then he whirled, and to a
clash
> of cymbals in the orchestra and a cry of terror (perhaps faked) in the
gallery,
> Mascodagama turned over in the air and stood on his head.
> >
> > In this weird position, with his cap acting as a pseudopodal pad, he jumped
up
> and down, pogo-stick fashion > -> and suddenly came apart. Van> '> s face,
> shining with sweat, grinned between the legs of the boots that still shod his
> rigidly raised arms. Simultaneously his real feet kicked off and away the
false
> head with its crumpled cap and bearded mask. The magical reversal > '> made
the
> house gasp.> '> Frantic (> '> deafening,> '> > '> delirious,> '> > '> a
> veritable tempest of> '> ) applause followed the gasp. He bounded offstage >
->
> and next moment was back, now sheathed in black tights, dancing a jig on his
> hands. pp. 183-4
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > For the tango, which completed his number on his last tour, he was given a
> partner, a Crimean cabaret dancer in a very short scintillating frock cut very
> low on the back. She sang the tango tune in Russian:>
> >
> >
> >
> > Pod znóynïm nébom Argentínï,
> >
> > Pod strástnïy góvor mandolinï
> >
> >
> >
> > '> Neath sultry sky of Argentina,
> >
> > To the hot hum of mandolina
> >
> >
> >
> > Fragile, red-haired > '> Rita> '> (he never learned her real name), a
pretty
> Karaite from Chufut Kale, where, she nostalgically said, the Crimean cornel,
> kizil> '> , bloomed yellow among the arid rocks, bore an odd resemblance to
> Lucette as she was to look ten years later. During their dance, all Van saw of
> her were her silver slippers turning and marching nimbly in rhythm with the
> soles of his hands. pp. 185
> >
> >
>
>
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