Laughing artist

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Laughter artists were vaudeville artists who made laughter the subject of their lecture and knew how to stage it so perfectly that it was downright contagious to the audience. They could trigger their laughter at will and modulate it from a subtle chuckle to a thunderstorm of laughter. They usually used a special breathing technique that singers also use in order to be able to use their voice gently and yet sustainably: the so-called appoggio , the breathing support .

Similar to the paid claque , which was supposed to animate the audience in the theater to applaud, laugh artists were z. Used by comedy writers, for example, to “help” with stage performances when the audience did not react or did not react quickly enough to the comic effects in the play. Most of the time, however, the laughter artists were on stage themselves and were part of the variety program, to which they contributed in solo lectures and scenes. Unsuccessful music lectures with incorrectly playing brass or tenors were popular as a funny occasion to laugh. In scenes, therefore, music lessons for singing or instruments, but also drunk people, in one case even a jazz band, were used.

Well-known representatives of this subject in Germany were the soubrette Johanna Sandfuchs, who performed under the stage name Lucie Bernardo , often together with her partner Martin Martens , the Polish-born Paul Wasciewicz , who invented his own "laughing language" for his lecture, and "The laughing nigger" Arty Goodfellow . Gramophone recordings of all three have survived from the 1920s, on which their laughing skills are preserved; Such recordings were then offered under the name " Lachplatten " and enjoyed great popularity at times.

Even stage artists like the operetta baritone Richard Waldemar and the musician and lecture artist Otto Rathke occasionally made excursions into the field of laughter with the lecture by Lach couplets .

With the era of large and small variety theaters, however, the era of laughter came to an end.

Sound documents (examples)

  • without naming the artist: the singing rehearsal. Salmon scene. Odeon 308.480 (Mat. Be 2682)
  • Arty Goodfellow: The laughing nigger (Goodfellow) with orchestra accompaniment. Homocord 4-2647 (mx. 61 136), in wax 28 8 28
  • Arty Goodfellow: Lacheritis (Goodfellow) with orchestral accompaniment. Homocord 4-2647 (mx. 61 145), in wax 12 9 28
  • Lucie Bernardo: Who is laughing with you? (Lucie Bernardo - Martin Martens): Vox 5083 (mx. 1623 B), rec. 06.1923
  • Lucie Bernardo: The Adventure of a Drunken Man (Bernardo) Polyphon 31 286 / 2-23 322 (Matr. 1226 ax)
  • Lucie Bernardo: Die bent Rose (Bernardo) record “Grammophon” 20 284 / B 46 638 (Matr. 3605 1/2 ar)
  • Lucie Bernardo with jazz orchestra [= jazz band “The Excellos Five”]: Jazz band from Krähwinkel (Bernardo) record “Grammophon” 20 381 / B 46 649 (mat. 3810 ar), rec. Jan. 1926
  • Otto Rathke with orchestra: You laugh. Lachcouplet (text and music Otto Rathke) Beka B.5330-I (mat. 32 920), added. May 11, 1925
  • Richard Waldemar with orchestra: I laughed! Lachcouplet (Spahn) Odeon 308.481 (Matr. Vo 1442), approx. 1921
  • Paul Wasciewicz: Negerlachen (with piano accompaniment) (Lachplatte): Vox 5083 (mx. 350 B). Also on Isiphon Concert Record 295 b.

literature

  • Library of entertainment and knowledge. Volume 1, Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1893, pp. 227–230.
  • Henry Hughes: Human Mimicry Based on Voluntary Psychology. Publishing house Рипол Классик, 1900, ISBN 978-5-87642-855-4 .
  • Berthold Leimbach: audio documents of cabaret and their interpreters 1898-1945. First edition. Self-published, Göttingen 1991, DNB 911350551 .
  • Heinrich Malten: Latest world studies. (= Library of the latest world studies. Volume 3). Publishing house HR Sauerländer, Aarau 1842.
  • Christian Zwarg: Vox Catalog Numbers - 5000 to 5999: Talking and Cabaret. (PDF online)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ is mentioned more often in the older literature, cf. H. Malten: Latest world studies. 1842, p. 45; H. Hughes: Facial expressions of humans. 1900, p. 354.
  2. ↑ namely the Excellos Five consisting of German and Dutch musicians under the direction of Robert Kierberg , cf. Horst H. Lange: Jazz in Germany: the German jazz chronicle until 1960. Verlag G. Olms, 1996, ISBN 3-487-08375-2 , p. 25 u. 36-37.
  3. ↑ listen on YouTube
  4. ↑ cf. C. Zwarg: Vox Catalog Numbers. P. 12, label shown. at ebay.de (accessed 4.09.16)
  5. ↑ listen on YouTube
  6. ↑ listen on YouTube
  7. ↑ listen on YouTube
  8. ↑ listen on YouTube
  9. ↑ listen on YouTube
  10. ↑ listen on YouTube , label released. at ebay.de (accessed 4.09.16)