Literature Online - Print View 406, 557 PM Printed from Literature Online, http://literature.proquest.com April 1, 2016 Shipp, Jesse, 1859-1934 / Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 1872-1906: : In Dahomey Shipp, Jesse, 1859-1934 / Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 1872-1906 [from In Dahomey] In Dahomey, a Negro Musical Comedy [Page 63 ] Front matter IN DAHOMEY 1902 esse A. S hipp, book ( c. 1869-1934) ‘W ill M arion C ook, music (1869-1944) P aul L aurence D unbar, lyrics (1872-1906) S oon after the end of slavery, African American singers and dancers began to perform in theatrical ‘companies. Frequently they would appear in "colored" minstrel shows that toured the country from coast to coast, or would perform their specialities in dime museum vaudeville shows. One troupe, the Hyers Sisters Combination, toured with a different kind of show: a full-length musical. The sisters, managed by their father, presented, with some success, several full-length shows during the 1870s and 1880s, including Out of Bondage, The Underground Railroad , and Urlina, The African Princess . In 1890, a white Chicago theatre owner, Sam Jack, and the Black minstrel and vaudevillian, Sam Lucas, developed a minstrel show that hitp/iterstureproquest.conValeplay/arintView.do Paget of 73Literatura Orting - Print View 4nine, 5:87 PM included women performers in its song and dance. Their show, The Creole Burlesque Show , was so successful that it played in Chicago for nine weeks during the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and in 1896 was still on the road playing to mixed audiences. By 1896, several more musical shows were crisscrossing the country. The most important of these were South Before the War (produced by Whalen and Martell) and The Octoroons and Oriental America (produced by John W. Isham), Many of the young Black performers of the period polished their routines in these touring shows, as well as in the vaudeville and minstrel shows in which they appeared during the off-season. One successful team of singing and dancing comedians, Egbert (Bert) Williams (1876-1921) and George Walker (1872-1911), appeared at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City-—-one of the first Black acts to do so---where they received accolades from many critics. From 1898 to 1901, they starred in several full- length touring shows: A Lucky Coon (1898), The Policy Players (1899), and Sons of Ham [Page 64} (1900-01). All of these shows revolved around low comedy plot situations, and included opportunities for the entire cast to perform their specialities. In Sons of Ham , for example, Williams and Walker, in an attempt to fleece a rich Black man, impersonate two college students, Annie and Jennie, whom they assume, on the basis of the names, to be his daughters. When his real children show up, they are revealed to be sons whose names are really Aniesta Babdola and Jenarusha Hassambad. Furthermore, they are jugglers, since the parts were originally played by a team of jugglers, the Reese brothers. In 1902, Williams and Walker teamed up with writer Jesse A. Shipp, composer Will Marion Cook, and lyricist Paul Laurence Dunbar to produce a new show, Jn Dahomey . As was the theatre practice in those days, the creators reused lyrics from their earlier songs, brought in other composers to assemble a script that combined low comedy, ethnic jokes, and references to current social and political events. The names of the characters are drawn from minstrelsy. Reading through the program, one meets Shylock Homestead, a detective of sorts, whose name is certainly derived from Sherlock Holmes, the most famous fictional detective of the day. "Dr. Straight (in name only), street fakir," who is a faker, that is, a con man who runs a fraudulent lotion and cream scam; "George Reeder, proprietor of an intelligence office,” who is literate (a reader) and can sift through official documents; "Leather, a bootblack," and so on. the opening scene, Dr. Straight is attempting to persuade the crowd that his products, "Straightaline” na "blctucas are the best hair straighteners and skin lighteners, respectively, on earth. To Aftican ‘Americans in the audience, this scene was a satire of the many advertisements that appeared in Black newspapers of the day. Similarly, in act 2, scene 2, Shylock’s friend, Rareback, tells of the exploits of Nick Carter and Old Sleuth. The satirical references here refer to the dime-novel detective, Nick Carter, whose Indiana Jones-like adventures were read by large segments of the audience that attended those shows, and to the pscudonymous author of mystery novels, "Old Sleuth." Rareback's story is so incredible that Shylock has difficulty in accepting it, and forgoes hearing the conclusion. In act 2, scene 3, in a more serious vein, the playwright Jesse Shipp recounts some of the difficulties faced by ex-slaves in their dealings with whites, when Mr. and Mrs. Lightfoot voice their feelings over whether their benefactor should be called "Master (or Mars’) John" or "Mr. Goodman.” During its four-year run, Jn Dahomey was altered significantly, Several of the songs mentioned in this script were dropped in favor of new songs, and the final act, a pantomimed transformation scene (the version printed here) that left audiences somewhat confused was moved to the beginning of the show to serve as a bitpyriterature.proquest.comvaleplay/pritViow.do Page? of 73,Literature Online - Print View ante, 5:87 PM prologue. Although Paul Laurence Dunbar and Will Marion Cook are named as lyricist and composer, respectively, they were not the only writers of the songs that were performed during the run of the show. ‘Some songs, such as Harry Von Tilzer’s "I Wants to be a Actor Lady," were interpolated, and others were written by the musicians who replaced Cook as conductor when he moved on to new projects. At the tun of the century, the most popular songs from musicals were published as sheet music. A few composers, including Victor Herbert, were lucky enough to have all the music to some of their shows published in piano-vocal score. From all the Black musicals produced before 1920, In Dahomey is the only one that had a relatively complete score published. Surprisingly, it was not published in the United States, but in Great Britain, where [Page 65] the show, with Williams and Walker starring, played for eight months and gave a command before the royal family. Although this score represents only one early version of In Dahomey , it is still an important artifact since it is the most complete extant version. ! The songs in In Dahomey are characteristic of the many popular tunes around 1900. Some of Cook's songs reflect his training as a classical composer and violinist; for the close of the first scene of act 2, for example, he wrote "Society" in Viennese high operetta style. Others came from more popular genres, The finale, "The Czar of Dixie," was in the latest American vernacular style, ragtime. Similarly, the lyrics display a variety of styles. But Cook and Dunbar also use dialect as a device to represent class distinctions. Thus, in the opening of act 1, the chorus sings in dialect to reflect on the status of the "new Negro": Swing along chillun, swing along de lane, Lif yo! head an' yo! heels mighty high. Swing along chillun, ‘ain't a goin’ to rain, Sun's as red as de rose, in de sky, Come along Mandy, come along Sue, White forks awatchin' an' seein’ what yo' do, White fo'ks jealous when you'se walkin’ two by two. For the educated daughter of Cicero Lightfoot however, the lyric is high art: Love looks not at estate, oh No! "Twere folly one should think it so. ‘The beggar maid become a queen Who through her lover's eyes is seen. Although some earlier Black shows and their stars caught the public's attention, In Dahomey was the first full-length Black musical to make its stars, Bert Williams and George Walker, household names. It was also the first African American show that synthesized successfully the various genres of American musical theatre popular at the beginning of the twentieth century---minstrelsy, vaudeville, comic opera, and musical comedy. --- John Graziano 23 hitp/tterature.proquest.com/dleplay/printview.do Page 3 of 73