Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-24

THE invasion of Washington this
l. week by the latest all-colored mu-
seal comedy, THE Jazz Regiment"
which is playing a limited engagement
at the Gayety Theater prior to its New
York premiere, brings sharply to mind
,, the present vogue for characteristic
| Negro entertainment.
Coincident with the arrival of this
production here news comes from New
Yorks Great White Way that another
theatrical effort with an all-colored cast
of players. Harlem is enjoying such
marked popularity that Standing room
oily" is available at the box office.
In Baltimore "Porgy' is playing fare
we'll performances at Ford's Theater be-
fore embarking upon an extended run
in London. where its sponsors the The
alter Guild hope it will remain for SO
| weeks. the actual time this outstanding
Negro drama was on display in New
York at the Guild and Republic
Theaters.
Philadelphia. too has it's sepia sue
cess in "Blackbirds" which still persists
at the Garrick and threatens to break
existing records for duration.
The citation of what colored artists
are doing in the theaters of the large
cities along the Atlantic seaboard mere
" demonstrates the extent of the fad
which exists for this thing known as
racial entertainment.
Just why the colored performers are
in the ascendency has been only par
TALLY explained by those who have in
tcrested themselves in the subject. The
reasons for the current vogue, however.
are to be found not In what the colored
performers have been doing of late, but
rather in what they have not been al
lowed to do by circumstances
Let us take quick glance at the
history of colored entertainment in
America. For all practical purposes the
span Of years In which the Negro has
perfored begins with the days OF the
romantic showboats which piled the
waters of the Southland. bringing song
and dance to both large and small COM
munities along the shores. The hair
raising melodrama also was part and
parcel of the repertory of these float
ing theaters. But it was not the melo-
drama, with its insidious villains and
haloed heroines and heros, that was the
most significant thing about the show
boats 1t was the lighter type of en-
tertainment, the song and the dance.
When the dusky cotton pickers and
sepia stevedores had finished their toll
In the fields and around the docks, they
often found a. showboat tied up at the
waters edge. These toilers. in whose
souls burned the unquenchable rhythm
which has an individuality so hopeless
for Nordic entertainers to initiate
watched with wide-open eyes what
| went on during the performances
aboard the boats. Many dusky spec
tator yearned to participate and carry
| he melodies which he or she sang around
| the cabin door as we'll as the dances OF
| their race, to the audiences of river folk.
| The proprietors of the showboats i'm
pressed many an ambitious plantation
| worker into service and so IL was
| that minstrelSy came into being.
! A few years passed by. The Nordic
performers. won over to the originality
of the art of their dusky brethren
then began initiating the Negro. Burnt
cork was freely applied, and minstrel
shows. in which Negro art was f1agrantly
initiated, swept the country in the late
90s and the first decade of the present
century. ,te ....
The rise of minstrelsy excited the col
ored performer to win back the art
which was really of his own manufac-
ture. He thought it downright robbery
| for the white performer to put on burnt
cork when the Negro could not possibly
| launch the counter attack by applying
| calcimime.
Deprived of his own art. the ebony
entertainer could only bide his time UNI
til circumstances should swing the PEN
| dulum.