Atavism

When Kilpatrick's Oldtime Minstrels opened in Manhattan last fortnight, bewhiskered gentlemen who could not remember having witnessed a minstrel show in town since 1908, gathered their grandchildren about them and hurried to see the performance. When it closed last week they were vaguely concerned. Radio listeners made a craze of the Two Black Crows (Moran & Mack) last year, of Amos 'n' Andy this year. Why would people not patronize the only truly U. S. contribution to the theatre? Certainly the Kilpatrick production was archeologically faithful. The only thing that old gentlemen missed was the street parade, impossible because of Manhattan's garbled traffic.

Decked out in orange & blue and black & white striped satin costumes, with bulging dickies, great chrysanthemums, flaring bow ties, sat a grinning horseshoe of blackamoor faces. Endmen who were not black enough were darkened with cork, given mournful red mouths. Seated in the centre was a dapper, immaculate Mr. Interlocutor (Henry Troy), resplendent in a white satin cutaway.

Followed the traditional heterogeneous display of darky talent: the inevitable tall basso sang "When the Bell in the Lighthouse Rings" (ding dong); a frisky tenor rendered"Trans-mag-ni-fi-can-bam-dam-u-ality." Oldtimers in the audience hummed along with "Castle on the River Nile" and "My Babe from Boston Town." Programs rustled in cadence with Mr. William ("Porkchops") Cornish's matchless soft shoe shuffling. But the real fun came when the endmen (Boneses and Tambourines) went into action. If the jokes were old, they were laughed at because they had not been heard for a long time. Sample:

Mr. Bones: Mr. Interlocutor, didn't you tell me the other day that six and three made nine?

Mr. Interlocutor: Yes, I did, Mr. Bones.

Mr. Bones: Well, then yestiddy you said that five and four made nine.

Mr. Interlocutor: That's right, Mr. Bones.

Mr. Bones: Then which one is I to believe?

One funster enlarged on the idea that one's mouth should be in the top of one's head so that breakfast might be placed in a hat and eaten while going to work; and that one eye should be in the face and the other in the back of the head because "it's just as important that you see where you're coming from as where you're going to." Mr. Tambo, dressed as a colored preacher, announced that on the following Sunday babies would be baptized at the East end, the Sunday after at the West end, and the Sunday after that at both ends.

Critics of minstrelsy thought that the show's failure was not the result of any inadequacy of the "First Part," but by the mediocre character of the "Olio" (vaudeville). Producer Kilpatrick's Olio contained a series of antediluvian skits which included a ventriloquist, a female impersonator and some more singing, performed before a splendid example of early American opera-house curtain which bore advertisements for a patent electric belt, a dry goods store, and Mike's saloon. By far the best act in the Olio was not in the oldtime minstrel tradition, but bore the stamp of the modern night club. It was provided by Messrs. Sidney Easton and Bert Howell, whose trick improvisations on ukulele, violin, and portable organ brought loud applause even from those who wanted their minstrelsy atavistic.

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