Just See What's Thrilling Stolid Denmark Bare Knees and Pink Tights and a Leading lady That Comes Right Out and Shimmies in Front of All the Folks
COPENHAGEN.
TOURISTS and members of the Copenhagen foreign colony are chuckling up their sleeves at the good people of Denmark, Norway and Sweden over the "big thrill" these placid Scandinavians are getting out of the very Frenchy Follies which recently opened at a leading Copenhagen theatre.
The show has shattered the usual Norse calm with all the effect of a hula dancer prancing. Into a prayer meeting.
Society and bohemia hail It as a daring departure from the humdrum. Ministers are calling on their flocks to stay away from tho "disgraceful spectacle." Stockholm and Christiania are howling for a tour. Seats are sold out weeks ahead. Everywhere one goes he is asked, in a whisper, "Have you seen the Follies?"
Visitors from the Continent or America buy front-row seats, expecting something daringly extraordinary. Instead, they are mildly amused, somewhat bored shocked not at all. And they go out grinning at their gasping neighbors and wondering where on earth these Danes and Swedes have been for the past ten years!
For the show that is startling Scandinavia is what the Americans term "old stuff." Copenhagen's "sensation" is nothing more than the Follies father used to like back in the days when bead breast plates were tho nadir of naughtiness and the comedian got a roar everytime he mentioned pajamas.
This is the answer - the Follies, a type of stage entertainment introduced to the rest of the world long ago, has just reached Scandinavia. And its people are thrilled by costumes that would now be considered passe In Paris or Now York; they are cracking their ribs at gray-bearded "gags" which went out of fashion with the extinct runway.
The first Follies are said to have been given the world by Buda Pest. That was
a long time before the war, when the Hungarian capital yielded nothing in spice or gayety to any European city. It was the first city to start the "revue" as opposed to the stereotyped musical comedy or operetta; and the novelty quickly spread to other countries.
Paris gave the Follies international fame with the Folies Bergere. In about 1005 the managers introduced the institution to the States. The idea then traveled back across the water to London, Berlin and Vienna.
But there was one part of the world to which Follies failed to penetrate. Scandinavia, cool and serene, takes its entertainment leisurely. Even Copenhagen, which claims to be the capital of Scandinavian art life and culture, was content to jog along with musical comedies, acrobats - and Ibsen plays for the highbrows.
That is, it was so content until recently, when one of Copenhagen's producers woke up to the fact that barrels of bullion had been coined by the backers of a different kind of girly-girly show.
"I'll start the Danish Follies!" he decided.
His librettist he set to work translating all the wlso cracks that saw service on Broadway and the boulevards back in history. He ordered extra spotlights and increased his orchestra. He lassoed all the prettiest girls he could find, judging them with due regard to curves and dimples. And he called on his costumer.
There was the first hitch. The producer, as best he could, described what he wanted. The costumer blinked. A yard of chiffon and a few dozen beads! It sounded interesting, but - impossible. Muffs instead of skirts! V-backs to the waist! This was something entirely new to tho Danish mind.
The costumer told the producer he was perfectly willing to do what ho could, but he frankly, admitted he never had made such costumes and he very much doubted he could make them. It was necesary, the producer found, to send to Paris to have the job done.
Mlle. Yvonne Daunt, in the Costume a Swedish Star Refused to Wear.
Difficulty number two came when the first costumes arrived and a dress rehearsal was ordered. The Swedish actress who was to be starred in the new show rushed out of her dressing room, shaking in the manager's face a handful of silk and silver spangles.
"Do you expect me to wear this?" she demanded. "Just this?"
"Certainly," replied the manager. "It's modeled after the costume Yvonne Daunt wore in her last success in Paris."
"I wonder she didn't freeze to death, then!" exploded the leading lady. "Give me something to wear or give me my release"
She got her release, along with half dozen beautiful Scandinavian blondes who couldn't see themselves trotting out before a Copenhagen audience in white tights. The producer, undaunted, filled their places and got another leading lady willing to risk a cold. He was gambling heavily on the show. He was betting that Scandinavians, under the skin, are no different from New Yorkers and Parisians. And he won.
Tho morning after the "first night" of Copenhagen's first Follies the newspapers bristled with reviews. Some of the adjectives cheered loudly for the new show; others reared up on their toes and shouted, "Naughty! Naughty!" Before the week was over the house was sold out far in advance, all Copenhagen was talking about the Follies, and the news was speeding to Norway and Sweden that there was "something spicy In Denmark."
Agnes Brienmann, Dancer of the Danish Follies. (c Kadet & Herbert).
Most of the comment centered about Miss Agnes Brienmann, who - since she appeared in the Follies, at any rate has become famous as "the most shapely girl in Denmark." In the first act Miss Brienmann trips out in short silver toned tights, with a breast shield of the same hue. Her only other ornament is a diamond-studded anklet.
This is the costume which Copenhagen theatregoers describe either as "terrible"
or "daring," according to their lights. But several Americans say they recognize it as a "dead ringer" for a costume worn in one of Mr. Ziegfeld's Follies of pre-war date. Likewise, they fall to see anything particularly "snappy" in the ostrich feather headdress of Miss Kis Anderson.
"But wouldn't such a thing be prohibited in New York?" untraveled Copenhagen folk demand, innocently and sincerely.
"It wasn't when I saw it back in 1909," reply their American friends. "That sort of thing is a llillo bit out of date on Broadway. They've gone back to clothes, you see. The two best musical shows of the present season don't share a single pair of tights between them."
"But it's Parisian, anyway!" counter the Danes.
To which the French reply that Paris, like New York, has had a revulsion against the undraped. The most talked-of actress in Paris today Is Mlle. Lysette Chambral. Her fame rests on the costume she wears in the season's biggest revue, in which she takes the role of Joan of Arc and appears in chain armor covering her front head to heel!
Even sober sided Londoners refuse to indulge in exclamations over the Follies when they come to Copenhagen. England, they say, no longer gets excited about tights. The patrons of the music halls prefer swagger kilts and just a peep at dimpled knees; for example, the costume of May Leigh, one of the current favorites along Piccadilly.
A Photograph of Mary Leigh (left), Illustrating the Kilts English Theatregoers Prefer to Tights. When Miss Kis Anderson Appeared in This Ostrich Headdress, the Danes Gasped and the Tourists Yawned.
So the French and the Americans and the British chuckle up their sleeves when the Swedes and the Danes and the Norwegians talk about tho "naughty Frenchy Follies." But the Scandinavians, even if they don't see the joke, are good natured about It.
"Wo don't care if we are ten years late," they say. "We're getting thrilled and - we like it."
(The Morning Tulsa daily World, Comic and Magazine Section, 2. juli 1922).
Avisen har fået navnene galt i halsen: Der er tale om Agnes Brissmann (1893-1954) og Kiss Andersen som optrådte i Scala-Revyen 1922.
