Wallack’s Theatre

“With Songs, Dance, and Banjo Solos.”

“Wallack’s Theatre. Miss Lotta’s success is the current subject of congratulation at this theatre.  The little lady has exhausted her admirers of their praises, and those have exhausted natural history in seeking comparisons for her.  Charles Reade, although not at all times the most tasteful of critics, appears to have ‘hit off’ Lotta, as the phrase goes in describing his little Princess, in Cloister and the Hearth: ‘Taking her lute, she sang a romant of the day.’ (Lotta’s romant is ‘Mickey has gone far away,” and her lute is a banjo.)  ‘Her little claw swept the cords and struck out the notes clear, distinct and bright, like twinkling stars; but the charm was her voice.  It was not mighty,  *  *  But she sang with a certain modest eloquence, though she knew none of the tricks of feeling.  She was too young to be theatrical, or even sentimental, so nothing was forced—all gushed,  *  *  and her little mouth seemed like the mouth of Nature.’”