One of the structural and estranging devices that I’m using in The Elf King is the form of the vaudeville show — not dissimilar to the way it was used in the Peter Nichols’ 1967 play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, but not quite identical either. In The Elf King, two characters who engage in direct address to the audience provide a distancing frame for the entire play; this is vaguely based on the old George Burns & Gracie Allen Show. Below is an episode of the program from 1950.

In the immediate case, I am particularly interested in performance style. Here — as the title card of the show above indicates — “George” both participates in and stands aside from the action, leaning against the proscenium stage left and wryly commenting to the audience about the events occurring on-stage. While this is not new with Burns and Allen — many vaudevillians did the same thing, most famously Groucho Marx — Burns and Allen turned the device towards domestic life, effectively deconstructing and reconstructing the action for the spectator. Nor did the device end there; It’s Garry Shandling’s Show also utilized it, with an air of postmodernist hip. But it leads to a cool distancing from the narrative and characters; and Burns’ own detached, langourous performance style left considerable room for silence.