Field Trip

From the darkness of the balcony, about 50 well-dressed men and women watched as the curtain rose at Minsky's burlesque in Newark, N.J. The patrons in the orchestra seats cheered, and the drummer began his slow off-beat as the first of the girls, Peggy O'Grady, casually undressed. Then came Marie Voe and Nony ("A Bit of TNT from Paree"). Queen of them all was a blonde relentlessly billed as "Miss Crystal Star," who took almost ten minutes to give her G-string the air.

Miss Crystal Star was performing for a special audience. The 50 men and women (among them: a biochemist, two nurses, several housewives) were no ordinary Minskyites. They were members of a class in show business from Manhattan's mercurial New School for Social Research ("where serious-minded and mature students may gather to carry on their studies in a spirit of scientific inquiry"), founded in 1919 by such scholars as Charles Beard and James Harvey Robinson. The students had come across the Hudson to Newark (theater burlesque is banned in New York City) to study one phase of their subject first hand, with second looks.

As the show went on, Teacher Bill Smith, 49, a veteran staffer on Broadway's weekly trade sheet Billboard, became more and more embarrassed. The trip, he decided, was a terrible mistake. He had forgotten how low burlesque had sunk. But his students showed nothing but scholarly interest in the struts, bumps and grinds, the unprintable gags. Gushed one mink-coated student: "I always thought it was much, much worse than this."

After the finale, Teacher Smith led his pupils onstage. They heard Proprietor Harold Minsky, pleased and professorial, boast: "It was a fast show. Good pace. No milking the acts [i.e., stalling for extra applause]." Teacher Smith hastened to remind his students that 1954 burlesque is merely a joyless corruption of the art of the '10s and '20s when the girls wore tights and such top comedians as Phil Silvers and Fanny Brice actually burlesqued Shakespeare and the opera. True burlesque. Smith declared, is dead.

Stripper Star disagreed: "It's not dead for me. I make $500 a week. I own my own house in Gardenia, California, and I have a car--all paid for. My parents have a house around the corner from mine. I've got all that and I'm just 21. I think I'm doing all right."

And with that bit of social research the New School students were inclined to agree.

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