The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-08-09
BY FRANKLIN FYLES.

such a gathering of switched people
as hadn't been possible on Broadway
in August before there were automo-
biles TO bring folks into town from any
where within fifty miles for the even
ing and get them home again, after a
Tenderloin late supper before the dawn
of the morrow. The reason for the
furry was that George NJ. Cohan had
labeled the show with a guaranty that
everything in ii had been made by him.
The Conan evening of negro minstrel
sy begins with first part of the famil-
lar sort. except that it is shortened to
a half hour. After two unknown end
men have given each joke and ditty,
and two tenors and yodler have sung.
George Thatcher and Eddie Leonard
hold the corners a short while: but the
middleman has not said. BE seated,
gentlemen" and no tambourine has
been thwacked nor any bones clapped.
when an entrance is worked up for
George Evans. the star actor of this
company. He Is a little man, who must
be older than enough TO vote, as he has
been the Honey Boy among vaudeville
humorists these dozen years; but burnt
cork smears the facial signs of his age
and I have never seen him white Fifty
TERED vocalists and instrumentalists
have celebrated him in the overture
with the refrain, IN be true TO my
Honey Boy" and a big noise is made
for his entrance by chorusing with all
possible vim: kiss your minstrel boy
goodbye" Evans saunters in wear
ing the eccentric duck suit unchanged
from his vaudeville. The smokeless
cigar that he has ever chewed is alb
sent, but when the scene has closed in
on the company. leaving him TO have
L h..
brings out the roll of tobacco and uses
it. as heretofore. to cover his papses for
laughter during a new monologue. Yes.
new. 1t is a wonder in minstrelsy if the
one George does no more than silence
the other Georges old jokes, and COM
pei him to use new lot. Some Igna
thus Donnelly of the future may write
a Shakespeare acOn sort of book to
prove that Conan, or Evans, one. or
t'other. wrote this new nonsense. The
present theatrical generation is joyed
that one jester among VaudeVille'S
many is made to talk like 1908 al
manac instead of a 'wayback holdoyer
from the past century.
The best third of an hour in the en-
suing olio is THE Belle of the BARRIERS
Ball." which contains three new songs
and choruses likely TO hit popularity
hard 1t reminds me of the Harrigan-
Hart illustrations of black life in New
York thirty Years ago, so racily rough
is its humor and so catchily smooth are
its tunes. 1t carries my memory still
further back to the civil wartime. when
the Kelly-Leon and Sam Sharply min
strel rivalry led to a murder because
brother DETAINED Leon for
being a female ilnpersonator. Leon was
a falsetto freak. Julian Eltinge, who
developed remarkable mimicry of girls
in Harvard university burlesques,
amaZes with the beauty of the Gibson
coon girl whom he presents at the bar
bers' ball. AS l remember Leon. he
was girlish because effeminate. Eltinge
saves himself from that dispersion
by pulling off his girl wig, discarding
the department of a belle. and striding
off the stage like a football athlete.
X x x
Another thing to win with in Co