The Impact Of Theater In The 1920's Theater

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“You know some guys just can’t hold their arsenic” (Chicago). Theater in the 1920’s was greatly influenced by prohibition, mobsters and large murder cases as shown in the musical Chicago. Prohibition fueled many of the social issues of the day and also influenced theater. 1920’s theater was in turmoil as American society struggled to establish a new moral code. The musical Chicago gives examples of corruption in the legal system and the changing roles of women in society.
Beer and alcohol has been around for thousands of years. It was only in the 1900’s that the idea that alcohol was a bad substance came about. Before prohibition went into effect there were 900 barrels of beer brewed each year. On December 10th of 1913 prohibitionist, people who supported prohibition also know as dries, marched to the capitol for the prohibition amendment. On the opposing, the anti-prohibitionist known as wets, elected the famous brewer Anheuser Bush as their leader. During the time of debate, on April 2nd, 1917 President Wilson declared war against Germany. This war gave the prohibitionist another reason for prohibition. Most of the liquor breweries were from German descent. This gave the wets a chance to combine the idea that war and alcohol were evil because they were both German. After lots of debates prohibition finally passed and went into effect on January 16th of 1920. Once in effect, the federal government wanted the state government to enforce the prohibition laws, meanwhile the state governments thought that the federal government would enforce the new law. This caused lots of confusion and for the law to be broken in many ways. It was acceptable to make wine for home conception, though you could not sell it or sell the ingredients for...

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...ver to see if she is ok she says she if fine but she hopes the fall did not hurt the baby. This creates buzz instantly keeping Roxie’s fame safe. Once the trial come Roxie takes the stand and steals Velma’s trial act. By this time Velma comes in the court with Roxie’s diary that has fake entries and a deal of freedom is she testifies. At the end of the trial both Roxie and Velma are set free and end up working in show business as performer’s together (Chicago). Even though prohibition was the law of the land few people abided by it. This new trend of disobedience is reflected in 1920s theatre with bootlegging characters and actors mixing and drinking alcohol on stage. This behavior is also depicted throughout the musical Chicago. Perhaps Billy Flynn said it best just before Roxie Hart’s trial began, “This trial… the whole world… it’s all… show business.” (Chicago).

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