Books: 150-lb Chorines

BURLEYCUE—Bernard Sobel—Farrar & Rinehart ($5).*

The old commedia dell'arte, the drama hat set the patterns for Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot and Pantaloon, is a favorite subject for romantic poets, water color painters, and lecturers on The Drama. They are apt to forget that there exists in the U. S. a lusty native parallel of the commedia to teach esthetes what a real old Harlequinade was like: the Burlesque Show. Like the commedia before the days of the great Debureau, Burlesque is vulgar entertainment catering to the masses, often frankly obscene. Like the commedia, Burlesque is...