San Francisco Minstrels

“Billy Birch and Charley Backus, those favored children of Momus, still keep ‘Barber Brown’ before the agonized public at the San Francisco Minstrels. Their orgies commence at eight every night, and promote the development of the risible muscles of their hearers.”

Brief: “‘Barber Brown’ is received uproariously, and the comicalities of Birch, Wambold, Bernard and Backus, keep the house in constant merriment.”

“The capital comic opera—or opera bouffe, as such compositions are now styled—of ‘Barber Brown’ was repeated at the San Francisco Minstrels last evening before a house thronged as few places of amusement have been, even on an occasion so favorable as a cool and breezy evening like that of yesterday. The author would have done better to have given the piece another name, as it is not a burlesque of the French opera, as its title might imply, but an original and novel metrical composition, delineating after the light and airy manner of opera bouffe the humorous and ridiculous in scenes and life nearer home. It is really English comic opera, such as it fills a gap long existing in our amusements, although its characters are [illeg.] with burnt cork.  ‘Barber Brown’ (would it had another name) strikes out in an original field of legitimate amusement, and its success shows the approbation which it has already met with from the public. It is well played where playing is required, and the ‘business’ is unusually funny under the management of Birch, Wambold, Backus, and Rice.”

“The sudden change in the weather the past week brought a great many people to town from their summer’s retreat, and, as a natural consequence, the different places of amusement exhibited a healthier appearance, peculiarly, than they have for some time. The San Francisco Minstrels came in for their share of public patronage, the hall being crowded to repletion. On Thursday evening the aisles were filled with stools and every available spot occupied by a sitter or a standee. Bobby Newcomb appeared the past week as Capt. Jinks, and in a song and dance, ‘I Feel So Happy.’ Lew Brimmer, acknowledged by all good performers on the instrument to be one of the best banjo players that appear in public, is delighting the patrons with pickings on the old Cremona, including imitations of the Trinity Church chimes. The burlesque sketch called ‘Barber Brown’ improves with every performance, as a little new business is constantly being added. It is a laughable affair, and sends the audience away in the best of good humor.”