America on stage; "Minstrel Shows" from 1830

Say did you hear Mr. Stanley minstrels left go see the parade to get your clothes off the lawn Mabel show folks into the shop and go see the parade mother would be anybody shopping while the parade is going on with the job writing this demand to be. A man on a liberator not a new outfit not a bridge to my liking. Can you say so I hope that something down. Isn't. Just something. Samuel G original Ethiopian minstrel company whose unique shape but moments has been patronized by the elite 10 fashion in all the principal cities of the Union will present one of their popular

and even memorable concerts at the Opera House in this city. 8:15 this evening at Mission 25 cents get Judd dockets novelist Samuel J. Late original Ethiopian minstrel show. Program 9 of America on stage. The character of a nation as seen through its theater. America on stage is produced by the Wisconsin state broadcasting service under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters a consultant for the series is Jonathan W. curve and

professor of speech at the University of Wisconsin and a specialist in the American theater. Here to introduce the program Professor curve and I heard a humorous ballad as not long ago a minstrel with wool on his head who performed a negro ballad that I confess moisten the spectacles in a most unexpected manner. I have gazed at thousands of tragedy Queens dying on the stage and expiring an appropriate blank verse. I never wanted to wipe them. They have looked up and said it many scores of clergymen without being dimmed. And behold a vagabond with a cork face and a banjo all sings a little song strikes a while note which sets the heart thrilling with happy pity. Such was the tribute paid by English novelist William factory to that genuinely American formal Museum and the minstrel show. Minstrels into the excitement spreads like a prairie fire. The livery stable closes early

so everyone can go home and clean up before the performance. Ladies lay out their bottles and stiffest crinolines and children hurry home to an early supper. There is already a collection of wagons in front of the theater. Farmers who had to get an early start in order to be here in plenty of time. There is little discussion about what the evening's entertainment will be. Everyone knows that there will be a wonderful sentimental songs a middle man end to end man and many many jokes and some dancing and everyone knows it will all start with a gentleman be seated and then with a grand walk around almost everything in the minstrel show is traditional and traditionally this is what it was like backstage at 8 o'clock all these hustle and bustle. The band is tuning up the minstrels are dressed traditionally in Prince Albert or swallow tail coat striped trousers fancy vests and I still say is burnt cork face is an important part of a minstrel's appearance. Really a lot of nonsense. Of course blacking up is important but no reason to make a ritual of it. I mean and my lips are be

bigger than those of the rest of the company. Mix the cork with a little bit. Half an inch from the lips I dust the cork off with the brush and I'm finished now. Oh over there you're still fussin away at his mouth worrying about a sixteenth of an inch here and there wasting time in the superstition that his mouth is not just so he won't be able to work. Well celibacy is New Year's Day 60 years and the rest of it scared him. Let me speak and I have a Mr. Actually most of us are pretty superstitious so no wonder that such a chancy business too much rain and enough advertising transportation breaks down trying to play one of these religious towers that think the theaters and yeah you never know travelling minstrel troops have we have any kind of budget it doesn't take much to break them. I've lost my luggage three times for Alltel bill. It's an insecure business for the minstrels no doubt about that. But what about theatre

managers like me. Minstrels haven't any investment to protect all they own is their wardrobe a wig. First part suits in some weird outfit for the only pair of funny shoes and they're all set. But think what a chance I take when I bring these people into my theatre. They put on a good show fine everybody's happy but if their jokes aren't fit for the ladies if they don't pay their bills if they're rowdy and disorderly I get all the blame in that little busybody down at the newspaper write the whole thing up as if I book course shows a purpose. You can't help getting a bad lot every now and then. It just happens. It's always happened and always will. Theater manager is wonderful people no matter how big anybody else's problems are there isn't always much to go. I'm the company manager and I sing tenor. We're organized to work the provinces and so we get by with a $250 a week salary budget. The two men men get twenty five a week for the ten or fifteen and the clog dancer twelve we pay our advance agent thirty dollars a week and that's a little painful but he's exceptionally good. After

all if he didn't do his work well we shouldn't even have an opportunity to ours. Of course if we were playing the larger cities all these costs would be doubled or tripled. The whole business is getting so big these days. A small company finds it hard to compete if you're small. There's only one thing you can do. Put on a true minstrel show. Keep the southern atmosphere simple costumes and scenery and old sentimental songs. That's what the people want to hear. Fine old sentimental songs. He thinks we ought to sit around and sing all night. People want to laugh and Mr. Show was organized for a very special kind of humor and plenty of it. Now I'm the interlocutor and this is the key position in minstrel humor. I feed the gags to the endpin making myself seem as stiff and pompous as possible. I play in white face to contrast with the black clowns on either side of me and I wear my own hair. There I affect a very resonant speaking voice. And of course perfect English. The more

staid I can make myself seem the better foil I'll be for the end. Everybody up for the first like everybody else was a call boy makes his rounds and the men's groups line up in the weeks they all march out on stage grill back and forth several times and end up in front of their chairs just as the music stops. The band takes its place on the platform up stage and finally the curtain goes up quick. Thanks. Gentlemen be seated. Well Mr. Holmes how are you feeling this evening. Often a fine mist and a lot of fun. We had a big wedding in my family yesterday you know. Oh yes. Your cousin Sam got married.

Oh yes and it was a fun way. Everybody had a good time too. Did the bride get too many presents. Laughs You got a hundred silver spoon. You don't say a hundred silver spoon three you were marked just good enough. And number seven with the Washington Hotel was the. Price you sold one day Mr. Well after the minister pronounced death doom my cousin and I asked him how much he owed. And a minister he said to me whatever you think it's worth. Wow. Well what are you laughing at now. The first man I ever heard of who was willing to work for nothing was. Oh. I missed that Mr bro you know how come people always cry because they have been married before and know what the poor folks up again. Thanks. For.

That. I mean like this they call in the group and the best may best offer. Thank you. America. That. Was the name of the maid she gets married to she got everything she might just as well have. Thank you. Still the boys better told the rest of that ever popular ballad place it never when you were young back you. Right.

I see it is a well written. She was up. Your ass. This way. What's the goal.

How. Funny. Campbell Oh. Jondo How are you feeling this. Oh I did all the way oh I'm sorry to hear that. What's the matter. Oxfam out of bed last night. You bail out of jail where you must've slipped to near where you got to know no sound. I slipped to nearly half hour. At just asking them at the first time in the market. You were arrested you made no bones and I superstitious I said I never could see you superstitious half you would believe in a horse who's over a dog. Certainly not. You don't what I do.

I knew a horse threw over my dog and the next day somebody has stolen my wife the well I suppose you took it down after that oh no someone put up a new one was a wonder. What for. Oh I want them to come back up to my mother in law was. The best. Actor. Did you ever think that fish him lak folks. I don't know that I ever did. They ma'am for a fact. Time to look at you give us a few illustrations with the most excruciating pleasure. Well bad luck. There is a rich man very good and what would you call a fat man. He's away a little bit and tell me temple What would you call a great actor. Oh he's a staff fish Salah. What does a lawyer gaze a shot was and what is Sam's chamber here. Why did the catfish Mau Mau the great

temple. What about me. What would you call me. You Wow you son to auk's. Thanks. For. That scintillating comedian ever the huge pump will read the writings of realty entitled then the gem of Caroline thank. You. I've often heard it said the way that South Carolina was a state were some colors shine like handycam Caroline for my own man. I don't. Know. Just the massive Oh me oh. I dressed myself from top to toe and downs and Diana I did go with pantaloons great. Behind light. And jam of our own mind for my own massive homies on the bus looking fellow in the country. Oh. I'm looking like.

This. Just those massive tell me soul. No beauty is but skin deep. What was missed Diana non-compete she changed her name from you will be dying to Mrs. Jim of my for my old man. So I'm the best looking fellow in the going to Rio. I look at the glass on the shoulder just. Mad. As Hell. And every kid that she handles with the very image over there the heels to go three feet behind like Dandy Jim Caroline for my old man told me so I'm the best looking fellow in the country. I look in the glass I found showing just a mass of Kansas City. Now I took them all to church one day and had them Christian without delay. The preacher Christian young and the gems of care for my old man. Told me some on the best of them felt. Like. I look in the glass. Of.

That soldier. This man. Tells me. And when the preacher took his pen the sheep would be very much brighter for not come across as mine but dandy gems of Caroline for my own man on the planet. I look in the glass and I found it just a matter of time. See. This example doesn't that music make you feel happy. Oh you'd sure do it makes me feel sad. Tombo you I'm going to have you know more you know we're going to be a soldier and I'm going to train you first class train Ayers I'm going to train up you train and that's what I stand for.

Will Bo you is a liar and you've suddenly got the what do you say. I said I should like to try that when I says or try to go on you tried and not before. I'm going to see how much I mean you know Penshoppe you know what I said Tom but I said Penshoppe attention you his attention from your knees up but from your knees down you is put to rest. What's what's the matter with my tongue going too close to the ground forces your feet to me aim was to use the new. Course shoes on top of them. But if you want a minute army had feet to speak of them they'd only be able to get two hundred pretty grounds it was all the. TIME Would you ever run when there was any fly and did you run.

I wouldn't exactly call it ridden but I didn't. Some folks said why the YOU DIDN'T GET IT job didn't get hit but I hear one of them bullets to you. You wanted him to touch him. I heard a bullet when it passed. And how do we get the. Miracles Mr. Bones. You don't even know what a miracle is. I know what a miracle is Mr. Webb. Then what is a miracle. If you see a Buddha in a few. That's no that's true. That's no miracle. If you see that that's no miracle. Correct. That's no miracle. If you see only the medal around why that book is even official no miracle no miracle. But if you see don't know not this will seem like a long walk down

the. Center and then. We will know close the first part of our show with the entire company to sign up. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. OK.

Success. On the first part and the minstrels retire to catch their breath and patch up first firing burnt cork. One of them an elderly man who. Seems quite windy. He must be old enough to play in the first minute here. I played with Christie or not when he started out all right at first I joined him in 55 when they were playing mechanics Whoa New York pretty dear. They had a crowd every night and Christy made a fortune. It didn't seem to make him happy though or jump out of a window in 62 but Christie started the whole thing you know. Oh there was blackface performers around but no mistletoe as such. An OEP Christie who organized everybody in sort of a semi circle with a middle man and two end men on the ends one had a pair of bones and one had a tambourine and even to this day we call him I was in when

you know you know they talk about things I wouldn't care much to go back to those old and those old tours by stagecoach and if the minstrel shows are going to show you everything your life Rush is wrong we've still got the old jokes and folks still laugh and cry at us. Traditionally the second part or only all began with a stump speech on politics or are women more beautiful than men. Love and a woman's tongue. I favorite was a sermon on Kurds Haas's fiddlers and cooling with the gallows. There were many topics and many experts but essentially this is what they were like. Ladies get ready for a terrible shock. I am going to surprise you. It makes me pretty spot when I think of what I got the

tail but it's got to be done in the year book. I am married. I love but I have no excuse for Marion. See I was blind when I got there but you know that old expression Lumpy is blind. Well now I know that was the case with me. But let me tell you right here and the message you sent I. Was like when I met he's in love. He feels he's hot cool right out from him you know after he is married. Pocket book right. The hour I met my wife on a visit to Chicago. I'd seen the Masonic Temple 22 stories up. I went right through the Grand Union Hotel. I got three chains a hat and umbrella group and after that

I visited the widow's home. Not got acquainted with one of them. In three days after that I saw her home and she sued me for breach of promise come to us just the next day I saw her sister home and she sued me for breach of promise. Now you would naturally think that I had two suits but such is not the case. I just got a pair of great years with the works. The was secure seeing about not a marriage when I married my wife was a grass widow up in LA that was a grass widow up top. The question is if my wife was a grass widow you know how that was a grass widow. Will our children be grass hopper.

Thanks said extend the. Cool. OK for additional aid the second part was pretty much a hodgepodge. That were T-Mac struck sketches song and dance numbers and sometimes a complete drama presented as an after piece. It was mostly improvised and put together on the spur of the moment. But the old situations were always the basis for new gas or familiarity it was the essence of when they went to a minstrel show. Audiences were happy to feel that they were in some remembered comfortable place. Most traditional of the features of the second part was the grand finale. I want to hear all the performers want to run the semi-circle of minstrels and then came forward to do an individual song in there. Thank you thank you. Wow.

Wow. Wow. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Q. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you thank you x. Traditionally it was the curtain comes down and the audience from laughing and clapping. What a way the

hold up the fancy vest slipped the program in with the letters during the war. Goes back to work. But somebody down the street will be whistling Dixie snatches of the river will be heard at the butcher's and up and back yards small voices will echo the traditional gentleman be seated. The minstrel show belongs quite outside the boundaries of conventional drama. It relates more closely to

theater than life particularly the theater and miscellaneous variety entertainment its style resembles that of vaudeville a newsy call its techniques look forward to our modern musical comedy. It rarely pretended to give audiences a realistic portrait of the negro. The burnt cork makeup was nothing but a kind of abstract mask and even when actual negroes performed in minstrel shows they too made up their faces in the traditional mask like form. Yet however grotesque and removed from reality we cannot overlook the fact that the blackface performers of minstrelsy did impress upon thoughtless audience is a stereotyped image of the negro that many of his race would find objectionable. But this was in part balanced by the implication that the negro possessed a wonderfully exciting talent for the stage. This was the real truth that the minstrel shows asserted and the music. Above all Stephen Foster's beloved melodies which he composed for Christy's minstrels and labelled Ethiopian songs remains our most treasured inheritance from the minstrel shows.

The next American on stage program illustrates a facet of public taste in the theatre strikingly different from that which popularized the minstrel show. This is the taste for the exotic one that George Henry Bowker satisfied with his romantic tragedy. Francesca Doraemon e. Were. Program 9 of America on stage produced and recorded by the Wisconsin state broadcasting service under a grant from the Educational Television Radio Center. The programs are distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters consultant for the series is Jonathan W. curve and professor of speech at the University

of Wisconsin heard in the cast were cliff Roberts or Dean ness. Tom to Team Gary Nathan some Tom Grunewald Claire Prothero Norman Mickey Ed Sprague Ruth pluckiest Vera Dirk and Ken nosed music arranged and conducted by Don vaguely script by clear profit of all production by Karl Schmidt. This is D and E. B Radio Network.