What ever happened to the music hall?

I thought it was very interesting this week to consider the music hall and where it's position is now in our society. Like always finding parallels to today's culture and what echoes of Victorian life we still see today is fascinating to me. As we discussed in class with the help of the temperance movement, and the fact that it was able to influence the goings on of the music hall, it changed the floor plan of the music hall. In the Kift article it was shown that the floor plan changed once the bars were removed from the hall from the standard table layout that invited people to socialize, drink and not necessarily be too concerned with the performance to benches that were positioned towards the stage that would then encourage people to pay attention to the show instead of just socializing. It is interesting to observe the influence of the cinema or maybe the reverse affect of the new floor plan to maybe inspire the cinema. In the early movie theater we see many similarities to the music hall. There was still some form of entertainment through the use of musicians playing the soundtrack and all of the sound for the film. Again as we discussed in class, there were also sometimes variety show type acts that would occur when reels would be changed or there would be a break in the production. I wonder if the temperance movement had not carried so much influence if we would not have seen the same tradition of the music hall carry over to America. Kift also blamed some of the demise of the music hall on other influences that were imported from America. The growing popularity of the dance the "Charleston" and Ragtime music attracted people to the dance hall instead of the music hall. Although I do believe that the "dance hall" we see during the big band era in America also echoes the traditions of the original music hall. In these dance halls we see people attending the performance not necessarily to see the band that is playing as much as to socialize, dance, and eat. Although the atmosphere may be similar, the music being played does not really follow suit to the variety acts of the music hall stage.