Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1921-06-11

|
dramatic ability than | possessed,
rode i'll their limousincs. Tho laugh
lcd-"wcl |, | couldn't afford even a sec
ond hand flivvcr.
AS time went on, ! wanted to do
serious dramatic work. But IL | hail
contldcd that ambition 10 Il mana.;cy
Id have got the biGgc&C laugh IF my
career. Nobody THINKS ii strange that
Il white man shoG!G b!AVh -up AMI play
| 4 Negro role. But who would dream
| ol Letting Il Negro make up as Il white
| man and play such Il part? | have
| done it rcpcatCdly---bu where? In
! companies OF CoIorcd players, before
| colorcd audiences. No one csc knew
| or cared what we were doing No crit.
| les came to see us in order to judge
( the art OF our work. Only oncc,in
| Chicago-But I'll tell you how that
| happened.
| Il had been working in vaudeville;
| doing little act which Paul Dunbar,
the Negro poet, wrote and gave to De.
! years ago. 1t showed me as an old col.
ored Baptist preacher, who artr,
years of opposition to all kinds of gam
| bling and sporting life, sees his only
son ride horse race. had been do
ing similar old.men parts until l was
, afraid l was becoming ticketed as tia,
and nothing more.
| a. said just now, J wanted to at
AS | said just now, i wanted to act
i'll regular plays; but every door TO
realizing that ambition seemed to be
shut, locked, and doubled .deckcd. Once
when Lillian Morrison and 1 were do
ing turn together In vaudeville,
elaborated 1t and made it q genuine
Dlt or a story. But the manager snil.
See here! You can't do that That's
' a sketch!'
"Do you see? We were colored.
therefore, we must not be permitted
to act. Only white folks were allowed
10 DO that. Apparently ,colored folks
were not supposed to be regular I'm.
man beings. with knowledrc OF
life. They were just human cccentr,c,
Ties that did certain old tricks. wore
certain kinds of queer c,otbne ma
were funny, tho way monkeys in :,
zoo are funny.
wen, you can't blame NE If T wan,
ct to do something more than , mo,.
Key, can you? was getting fiftv Din
lars week then; which WASN'T h,1
considering my color. But | made nm
my mind that there must bc some ,var v
Ior ne 10 get chance at real oct;n,r
so | quit vaudeville.
Il had been playinr tho soco,,, ,,
s"m''' III me Mlddle-West. with Chi
'aso rs my headquarters And n rrnu,,
", 'n'r'v OF us colorcd people in Chi
@o ''o hceR getting together for
"s' whenever we could, AMI
,,, ''"S pays We took published
''o anu having cast ourselves for
'"e various characters, read the pats
"''' WIS not the only one thar
'n'e" 10 altcmpt serious dramatic
WIN, ~ lihally we organized what We
'iie" .ne fekln Players, after the
i'''''e OIL inc theatre where we were GO
ing 10 make the venture.
That was in 1906. There woro o1,,
th OIL us IN the company, and we nut
u,i Such plays as Young Mrs. Win
'nrop and other refined comedies nj
'h"I type. Some oSf the actors were
50 "hlte mat they needed no makc-uo
'ne rest OF us id use it. All Of us wern
SINCERE IN our attempt to Droducc
Ho'ie'hlhS OF genuine artistic worth
donbt II you could find an actrrss
OF greater dramatic power than orr
.eaulnS woman. Her name WAS Mary
"hlte; and she was, in fact, SO white
'hat no one would have suspected that
She had Negro blood. / don't know
"hat mas become Of her. Perhaps sno
lound that it paid better to be white.
"heh the rcpor; got out that 81
company OF cclored people was produc
Ing regular plays, quite = good m,,r
"h''e people thought it would be an
amusing experience to visit the Tho,
'rc' Ihey expected to find il very finn
nS-llke going to 4 darby camD.m,nt
ing, or something of that sort 81
me! came to laugh. But they romni,
ca 10 applaud. We proved to them thot
NEGROES can act. Even the critics nd
mitted it. "'
-, h'' we made very little money.
we could not have H. ftkst-c,ass ,hc,.
tre' nor charge hiMpriccA Our salor.
les were small. | WSApaid $50 4 wcclc
ut the start. Latter received $50 -
week, which WAS about the ton Gipu,n
compare that with thcssalaries, rnr.
hlhS INTO hundreds OF dollars Il we,k
received by white palyers doing royI
work in serious plays.
) Nllcr Il while we decided IN 1T.
tempt Il road tour. We took ninn ~
our original company and started ont
our manager had hcc,.~' - for fonr
, Teen weeks ut Il New Orleans theatre.
an" Tor Il month we played there T.,
crowded houses. You cant un1,.
stand how happy we n! were.
! IT seemed to me that [ could ask
hothlnS better than to stay there for
ever, doing the kind OF work [ hal
/ become so Interested in, feeling that
was developing what tnIent T had
Trying to depict life and human nature
as 1t ls--not simply making = mon.
key or myself for someone to laugh
at.
But when we had been there four
weeks the owner Of the theatre de.ia
ell that he wanted to break our RIM
ana let II minstrel show have tho
, mousse for week or two As soon g
our manager heard Of this, he told NJ
! not TO worry; that he would make Tho
proprietor stick to his contract IF wc
had been white, there would have
Doon no trOuD' n obout ~ d., a. ~,