By Karla Burkitt

The lovely and pure young woman is tied tightly to a railroad track while the villain wearing a top hat twirls his mustache. The train is bearing down. Will our hero arrive in time to save her? Mention the word melodrama and this is probably the first image that pops into the reader's mind. This is, of course, the type of dramatic presentation that we file under the name "Melodrama"; but what about soap operas, movies, and American Idol?

The modern definition of melodrama is a dramatic presentation involving stock characters, a struggle of good against evil (Paula vs. Simon?), heavy suspense, romantic sentiment, surprise twists and a happy ending. It's easy to see where much of our current entertainment fits that category. However, the literal meaning of the word melodrama is "a play with music." 

The term "melodrama" originated in the early nineteenth century as a clever legal maneuver. For more than 100 years, three theatres held the patent on all play performances in the city of London. In order to break the monopoly created by these "Theatres Royal" a few enterprising theatre managers began presenting "melodramas," claiming that they were not plays at all but only musical entertainments, thus not breaking any patent law. The musical presentations were geared toward the common people: fast-paced, violent, sudden twists of plot and heightened sentiment and suspense. The ploy, and apparently the style, was so successful that in 1843, when Parliament revoked the theatre patents, the melodramas continued on, eventually dropping more and more of the musical background and becoming the standard for what we know today as the Melodrama. 

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, melodramas were a very popular and widespread form of entertainment. Touring companies sprang up all over this country, and even small rural communities were visited by the traveling shows. Often these groups would provide more than a play for an evening's entertainment and variety acts would share the bill. Sword-swallowers, acrobats and freaks would often join actors and musicians as they toured the frontier. In many instances, companies would form around one well-known performer or other figure, sometimes a famous actor or a master showman like Buffalo Bill, P.T. Barnam or a "snake-oil salesman." Sales of patent medicines helped many struggling performers make ends meet. Each traveling show had its own unique style, and over time, those styles developed in different directions. Some touring companies grew and became circuses and Wild West shows; others pursued comedy and musical revue to become vaudeville shows, while others continued the theatrical traditions of melodrama and "straight" theatre. 

As the modern age brought easy transportation to the people, touring companies grew fewer and fewer, but melodrama found a new home on the radio. Serialized melodramas like the Lone Ranger were broadcast into our living rooms, still brought to you by patented stomach and headache cures, and still pitting good against evil to bring us weekly thrills and chills. 

Movie serials brought the art form back to a visual setting, and the silent movie houses even added the "musical background" back to the melodrama with live organists or pit orchestras creating music to heighten the on-screen drama. What modern movie thriller, even with spoken dialogue and sound effects, would be the same without its dramatic musical score? 

Old time melodrama or modern TV and movies, the appeal to the average person is still there. Who doesn't like to cheer for the hero or hiss at the villain? And we have the security of knowing that, in the end, the heroine will be saved, the villain punished, and everything put right. 

Prescott's own Blue Rose Theater continues its great tradition of old-time Melodramas with its 2006 summer season. This month, Professor E.P. Truesdale and his company of actors, return to the Blue Rose stage with a collection of original melodramas to entertain and delight. "The Collected Melodramas of E.P. Truesdale" may be seen at Sharlot Hall Museum's Blue Rose Theater June 16, 17, 23, and 24. Evening shows begin at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday matinees at 2:00 p.m. The price is now more than a buck, but it's still a whole lot of entertainment for your money! 

(Karla Burkitt is a local playwright, author, and schoolteacher.) 


Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Truesdale Co.3) Reuse only by permission.
Professor E.P. Truesdale and his company will perform at Sharlot Hall Museum's Blue Rose Theatre June 16, 17, 23, and 24. Please call the Museum, 445-3122, for further information.