Emile Subor, blackface comedian, came next and exhaled a lot of old gags in a new way, but they seemed to have heard most of the gags before and didn’t get a whimper. However, he closed with a very funny song and went off to a good hand. Another single that seemed peeved and failed to return a single bow.
14 Mins.; One. This blackface team is seen as an entirely new vehicle, which, however, follows somewhat in the line of what they have done hitherto in vaudeville. One is short and dapper and the other tall and lanky, with a sort of Bert Williams style of humor, and yet not patterned after him at all. The men come on after the sound of pistol shots back stage. It is explained they have been in a “crap” game, but the dapper little one has made away with all the money, leaving the lanky one to fight it out with the belligerent darkies who remain. A comedy razor is used with laughable effect, and a crap game played in the footlights is another good laugh. The little one has a song and later the tall one ambles on in a woman’s gown, and there follows a travesty on the modern dance. The act closes with a quaint dance, while the men play harmonicas. Both have a rich dialect, redolent of the southern darkey. They offered a lugubrious joke or two about a medical college and a cadaver, which might be eliminated. The act is a fine one for small or middle time, and at the Lincoln Hippodrome it seemed it seemed to hit the audience right in their funnybones. The men depend on little too much on realism, and their own native wit, but when they have worked the act out a little more, it will be. Sure winner.
14 Mins.; One. This blackface team is seen in an entirely new vehicle, which, however, follows somewhat in the line of what they have done hitherto in vaudeville. One is short and dapper and the other tall and lanky, with a sort of Bert Williams style of humor, and yet not patterned after him at all. The men come on after the sound of pistol shots back stage. It is explained they have been in a “crap” game, and the dapper little one has made away with all the money, leaving the lanky one to fight it out with the belligerent darkies who remain. A comedy razor is used with laughable effect, and a crap game played in the footlights is another good laugh. The little one has a song and later the tall one ambles on in a woman’s gown, and there follows a travesty on the modern dance. The act closes with a quaint dance, while the men play harmonicas. Both have a rich dialect, redolent of the southern darkey. They offered a lugubrious joke or two about a medical college and a cadaver, which might be eliminated. The act is a fine one for small or middle time, and at the Lincoln Hippodrome it seemed to hit the audience right in their funny bones. The men depend a little too much on realism, and their own native wit, but when they have worked the act out a little more, it will be a sure winner.
Lubin and Lewis closed the bill with their blackface offering, in which the clever hard shoe dancing of one of the member’s proved the biggest feature and a good applause winner. The talk is along old lines and accordingly was only moderately received despite the fact that the comic and straight man are both good.
The third and last of the amateurs was Baird and Burns, a two-men blackface act. The boys seemed uneasy about the routine. They read their line through from a script. The act was slow and draggy and sagged in spots. For a finish they did a double dance, one as a wench.
Fred La France and Joe Kennedy in “The Party of the Second Part” (New acts) were a blackface hit. The act is running as smoothly as might be expected, but when it is once in real shape it will bring screams of laughter.
16 min. Except for a weak finish, this team kept the audience laughing with their blackface skit. They open with a lot of good comedy talk and do a bit of dancing, all of which got over, but the act slowed up considerably toward the finish.
18 min. This was one of the biggest applause hits of the bill. The blackface comedian has a fine lot of talk and handles it for good laughs. His comedy song finish brought him there extra encores.
They continued to walk out on so excellent an act as Fred LaFrance and Joe Kennedy’s new vehicle. “The Patty of the Second Part,” as funny a blackface duo as any of them. The situation of a “wise coon” fight promoter explaining the complications of a fight contract to a bonehead ducky pug has endless possibilities and they make the most of it. The exchange of talk about signing of the “black hope” with a wild man from Michigan who has only knocked out a dozen topnotchers “always by accident” and the stupid reluctance of the lazy coon is screaming comedy. But the audience had been killed off.
Howard and Fields, blackfacers assisted by Oscar Lee, passed along quietly with disconnected comedy talk songs offered in minstrel fashion in a dining car as a setting.
