The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-02-08
THE LADY MINSTREL SHOW.

How a Rehearsal Looked to a Journal
Reporter.
It is said that there's all sorts of trou-
BILE in town, domestic and otherwise, over
the lady minstrel 8 how.
1t is reported that one curious man
threatens to sue his wife for divorce on
the plea that woman who can keep
secret is an unnatural creature.
You see he thought AL the time that
he would be able to persuade her to tell
him all about it beforehand. but so bind
ing is the VOW of secrecy that even
ticular man, who is one of
a number of husbands, fathers, sweet
hearts and brothers who for week past
have been trying to find out who is to do
the s'TriIbv turn in the bill and whether
this turn is posing or singing. or
both, is, like his ompanions, still plunged
in darkness.
The funny part of all this is that even
after it is over, curious ones must needs
be gifted with unusual perception to tell
who is who.
All this week SO much of society has
been absorbed in the rehearsals for this
event, concerning which SO much inter
ested comment is rife, that it is a matter
of speculation whether enough of So
ciety, or at any rate the feminine element
of it, will be left to fill the boxes and the
parquet
A casual caller at the physical culture
rooms any afternoon this week naturally
wondered at the fearful din proceeding
from the gymnasium. Listening. one
hears the rafting of bones and the thrum-
ming of tambourines, interspersed with
the gay chorus of plantation melody or
| the march time of musical drill.
Now the touching strains of ballad
are waited out, to be followed almost in
stantly, by the rollicking time of a
real darkey song; again the tambos
| join in the merry chorus, and a fleet
| ing mental vision of a rag done by a
| conjured up, if you have heard there is
to be a lady minstrel show il town.
| ''What is that noise you hear?"
| No it is not the girls kicking the
| tambourines, for there is one horrid man
| in there, the drill master, though he is
| apparently in favor of suffrage, so far as
the show business goes. No you cannot
| go il; that is, l hear the line is drawn
very close on spectators at rehearsals, and
as consequence the ladies hope to give
a performance tonight that has not been
witnessed by half the people in town, as
amateur performances SO often have
| been.
So you may say the jokes are stale.
but you can't say you've seen the show.
Yes, the girls are really going to sully
their fair faces with burnt cork for sweet
! chariJy's sake.
1t is said the jokes will be new and
funny. though it has not been said that
| the ladies, with that proverbial lack of
humor peculiar to the sex, have ap-
| pealed to their sweethearts husbands.
or brothers for assistance in perDetratinc
them.
If you will come with me and watch a
rehearsal, or rather keep your face
turned away, and not watch it, I'll tell
you about it.
The ladies are not giving a full dress
rehearsal, they don't for minstrel shows
the black is too hard to get off, to be put
on unnecessarily.
They are sitting in a semicircle, and
hear that number of them will not be
BACKED making a sort of pearl SETTING
for the black diamonds The drill mas.
ter, who seems to put whole lot of whai
show managers call ginger" into his
| work. says, stattention ladies'"
Every body standing they begin E
catchy chorus, on the third note of which
they all sit down.
1neu follows the rest of the chorus
with dance steps.
1t Is not all play by any means, for they
try 1t over and over again.
Then the fair interlocutress calls OF
Miss Loie Fuller for song
In response one of Topeka's cleveres
and most popular society girls advance,
to the imaginary footlights and renders
darkey song, "killingly." The choru,
comes in strong.
"Who is she?"