Eva Tanguay

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28 Mins.; One. The same eccentric and erratic tempest of a couple of years ago, Eva Tanguay, made her return bow to vaudeville Monday afternoon at Keith’s. Her act, as always, is in a case by itself, but as a “Tanguay act” it outshines anything she has previously attempted. Her costumes are, to put it mildly bizarre, but without offense. Tanguay is carrying her own director and a trombone player, the orchestration having much trombone work. She has six costumes, but Monday afternoon used only five, the act running 28 minutes. Her shifts are made with startling rapidity and aid much in speeding up an act which travels in the high always. She opened to cordial applause with “That’s Why They Call Me Miss Tabasco,” the costume being a gold cloth creation, knee length, trimmed with fur and a sort of a toque made and trimmed with the same materials. The second number was “There’s Method in My Madness,” with another golden costume trimmed with bells that accentuated the Tanguay perpetual motion prancing. The song is another of those infectious lyrics dealing with why she behaves the way she does. Her entire act is now based on this theme, with such lines as “preferring to be a nut to working in a laund-ery.” In this costume Eva brings forth the famous Tanguay legs and the three succeeding changes retain that psychological line made famous by her. Her bodices fit even tighter with more form revelation than ever before, impossible though this may seem. Two fit like a coat of whitewash. Her third number is a little weaker and is entitled “I Wonder What I’ll be When I Come Back to Earth Again.” This had the wildest costume of her entire flock, a velvet anklet from which scores of loose velvet cords extend to her waist and from here in erratic bunches to a Tommy Atkins’ hat. It gives the effect of standing in an enormous pair of bird cages. Her forth number is “Stick and Stones Will Break by Bones, But Names Will Never Hurt Me.” The bodice of the costume for this is white silk and green triangular strips extending from what should be skirt to her shoulders and hanging loose. Her fifth song is “There Goes Crazy Eva.” It’s corker and her costume is appropriately unusual. It has a black bodice with starched lace upstanding in circlets from the top of her head, her neck, armpits and waist. She closed her made-to-order songs with “Father Never Brought Up Any Crazy Children,” using the same costume, and did “Peace! Peace! Let the Cannons Cease!” Miss Tanguay says she wrote it herself, but it’s nothing to be proud about. Her encore was “I Don’t Care” as always. Miss Tanguay’s reception was the usual one, a jammed house. Monday afternoon she went on a little late. The new Tanguay act is the best she ever had.
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Variety, Volume XXXVI, no.11, November 14, 1914