The Great Bordello: A Story of the Theatre

Avery Hopwood

Jan 2011 · Mondial

About this eBook

Set in the early decades of the twentieth century, 'The Great Bordello' is a semi-autobiographical novel about aspiring playwright Edwin Endsleigh, who heads for Broadway to earn his fortune.

Ratings and reviews

The author of such quintessential Jazz Age farces as "The Gold Diggers" and "Ladies's Night in a Turkish Bath," Avery Hopwood remains among the most fascinating and neglected of early twentieth century American playwrights. Hopwood died tragically young, haunted by the sense that, despite his prodigious commercial success, and sparkling comic craftsmanship, he had not fulfilled an artistic potential recognized by such friends as George Jean Nathan and Gertrude Stein. It would have thrilled and amazed him that, 84 years after his death, readers can now enjoy his long-lost, unpublished novel "The Great Bordello," with which hoped to secure his lasting literary reputation. Edited by Jack Sharrar (author of the excellent Hopwood introduction "Avery Hopwood: His Life and Plays"), "The Great Bordello" is both a compelling backstage novel and an essential document of early twentieth century Broadway theater during a time of tremendous social, cultural, and theatrical change. The autobiographical protagonist of "The Great Bordello," Edwin Endsleigh, seeks to reconcile his conflicting desires for artistic integrity and material success, only to become trapped both by Broadway commercialism and his own weakness for luxury. Along the way, he becomes involved with three actresses representing different aspects of his ambitions: the sensuous and venal Jessamy Lee; the independent and career-focused Julia Scarlet (based loosely on Maxine Elliott), and the artistic and ethereal Adelina Kane (based loosely on Maud Adams). There are also characters based on Carl van Vechten, David Belasco, and the powerful female theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury. Had this book been published in 1928, Hopwood would have sent shockwaves through the Great White Way. With a title taken from a line of Emile Zola, "The Great Bordello" juxtaposes Edwin's sense of artistic prostitution, as he begins to immerse his talents in profitable "bedroom farces" (i.e. Hopwood's own "Getting Gertie's Garter"), with the desperate measures of one of the actresses. As sexually frank as anything by Hemingway or Dos Passos (and more so than Dreiser, with whose "Sister Carrie" the novel can be compared), "The Great Bordello" is a caustic indictment of a casting couch system that Hopwood depicts as powerfully pervasive in the early twentieth century. If "The Great Bordello" is a witheringly de-romanticized portrait of the commercial Broadway theater system, the novel is vividly detailed and wittily observed, capturing the bustle and ballyhoo of pre-Jazz Age Broadway. Hopwood writes dynamic and nuanced theatrical characters, as well as dialogue that reflects his skill as a playwright. I hope that this remarkable, ahead-of-its-time novel will help restore Hopwood's theatrical reputation and his place in the modernist canon, further study of his complex and fascinating life, as well as study and production of his plays. By Maya Cantu July 9, 2012