Zaza: That "Obtruding Harlot" of the Stage

Abstract

The title character in David Belasco's 1899 production of Zaza won the dubious distinction of being labeled one of those "obtruding harlots on the stage" by drama critic William Winter. Referencing a long tradition of fallen women and their dramaturgical sisters—courtesans and prostitutes—Winter claimed "it would be propitious for the community if [dramas like Zaza] could be played on from a fire hose and washed into the sewer where they belong." 1 Technically, of course, the character Zaza is not a harlot from a brothel or a hooker on the street. She is an actress, a music hall singer. Yet, Winter could not resist the turn-of-the-century cultural impulse to conflate actresses with prostitutes, calling her a "French prostitute," "a common, shameless, termagant wanton," and "a woman essentially vile in nature, degraded by a career of vice." 2 Taking particular exception to "the arts and tricks of the courtesan," the New York Times observed that "[n]othing quite so glaringly vicious as the symbols of vice in Zaza had ever before been put before decent American eyes." 3

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