Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1901 — DECAY OF MINSTRELSY. [ARTICLE]

DECAY OF MINSTRELSY.

•« Old MUt ” Barlow Telia of the Daye That Are Gone By. One of the greatest minstrels who ever blacked his face was recently in Baltimore vnth the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” company at the Holliday Street theater. The old-timer is “Milt” Barlow, who plays the part of Uncle Tom in a manner which has gained him praise wherever he has appeared. Mr. Barlow is between 55 and 60 years old, smooth shaven, an agreeable talker and a “gentleman of the old school.” He was seen at the Hotel National, says the Baltimore Sun, and talked interestingly of his ex’pcriences-on the stage. He said:

•t ■ “Modern black face minstrelsy retains nothing of the old except the I name. In my day we had some 16 men in the company, each one of 1 whom was a specialist whose style , was familiar to the public. ■ were fond of their work and proud , of the stuff that they originated. The l result was that-while there was not so much quantity in our shows, they were all quality. A gentleman called upon me when I was in Baltimore some years ago and in talking over old times said he remembered that as soon as the posters of a well-known , minstrel company were put up the i people began to smile and engaged i their seats in advance. When they , saw the show the witticisms were imI pressed upon them and a smile would , Break out now end again for weeks .after as the memory of some especially good line flitted through the mind. Nowadays the~ minstrel posters lack the genuine comic character and are more like oil paintings, nor do the people have the same pleasant reminiscences of the visit.

I- “The downfall of minstrelsy began when Thatcher raised the number of | his company from 16 to 40. After | he set the pace the rest of us had !to follow suit or fall behind. Therfj feet of the increase of numbers was 1 to obtain quantity at the expense of ! quality.' In my day the salaries of our small shows came to a total nearly f<s large as that of the present large ones, and the consequence is that I you find a few artists surrounded by mediocre men whose shortcomings detract from the work of those who are better. “You see an octette get up and instead of the splendid volume of sound which you would expect from eight good singers you find that several of them are 'soldiering’ and that hardly more than half of them are really singing. Or you see 16 buck dancers . come out on the stage and in the enI tire collection there will not be more than two or three who can do more than the ordinary steps, and the really accomplished dancers have to tone down their work to suit that of their fellows.

‘‘Many of the present minstrels also have no conception of the real darky, and while they blacken their faces, they do nothing more to enact the character. Taken all together, the modern minstrel show is little more than a vaudeville performance and bears practically no resemblance to that which used to be seen. “A man who has not studied the negro cannot give a truthful picture of him on the stage. Naturally the negro is the funniest man in America to-day, but he does not realize it. I do not speak of the city darkies who have learned to read and write and cipher, but of the kind that were known to southerners before the war and are now rapidly dying out. “The negro is in many respects but an ape minus the tail, and in no way does he so resemble the ape as in his love of mimicry. If you watch a darky and he becomes aware of’that fact he immediately tries to act end becomes forced, without being in the least funny, but observe him when unrestrained and you see a character worthy of close attention of the best actors.”