Bryants’ Minstrels

“The great attraction this week at the hall of these dusky warblers is “The Flask of Jersey Lightning,’ which was produced last evening for the first time, and fairly intoxicated the large audience with delight. It is an exaggerated Ethiopian sketch founded upon the play now performing at the Broadway theatre, and is exceedingly funny and clever. Old Smeilium receives a ‘flask of Jersey lightning’ for a birthday present, takes a few smells of the cork, and then imbibes quite freely of its contents. He is suddenly called away, leaves the ‘flask’ on the table, and returns to find it gone. Betty, his daughter, who was alone in the room with the flask, is accused of haveing made away with it; but her lover Pompey, who happened to come along during the old man’s absence, seeing the flask labelled with the ‘eight of clubs,’ and having the ‘ten of clubs’ in his pocket, concludes that it is a fair deal, deposits the ‘ten of clubs’ on the table and walks off with the ‘lightning.’ The next scene is in the engine room of a steamboat, and ‘Pompey,’ who is the captain, is anxious to ‘chuck’ everybody overboard. An opposition boat is travelling in the same direction and ‘Pompey’s’ pride will not permit jhim to be beaten. Wood is plied in the furnace by the cord, but without effect; a ‘nigger’ is next ‘chucked’ in, with a like result, and finally ‘Pompey’ conceives the brilliant idea of ‘chucking’ in the ‘flask of Jersey lightning,’ which is accordingly done, and the boat is immediately blown to pieces, all hands are killed and the audience sent home delighted.”

“Bryants’ Minstrels, who are giving a pretty good Ethiopian entertainment, are doing a good business, the hall being comfortably filled, but not crowded, each evening. The first part is received with considerable applause and the several songs encored. Dan Bryant has the tambourine end, while Unsworth keeps up the bones, and Nelse Seymour assists them at their gags in the middle. The ballad singing of Charles Henry and Monroe Dempster is a feature of the first part, and they are encored each evening. In the olio, Eugene leads off with a sentimental song, and for an encore gives the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’ in a style that elicits shouts of laughter. In his easy, quiet representations of a young lady, Eugene has no superior, for his every movement is graceful and lady-like. The burlesque on Lingard by Unsworth and Bryant was better rendered the past week than during its first representations.  Dan’s ‘Guinea Pig Boy’ and ‘Captain Jinks’ are his best, while Unsworth is good as ‘Old Hats’ and ‘As Thro’ the Park.’ Hogan and Hughes are two very clever performers. Last week they did the ‘Belle of 14^th Street,’ and it was one of the neatest and best executed double song and dance acts we have seen for some time. They are both young men, and since they first came to this city have made great improvement and appear to do better every time we see them. Unsworth continues to give a stump speech, but he should try and introduce hits at the popular topics of the day. Joseph Emmett made his first appearance in this city during the past week. He is a Dutch nigger, and a good one too. He sings comic songs in Dutch, which take very well. His style of business is somewhat different from that heretofore seen in a minstrel band, and it pleases. The burlesque of “A Flask of Jersey Lightning’ concluded the performance. It consists of two scenes, the last one being a steamboat, and the old business of ‘Life on a Mississippi Steamboat’ is introduced, concluding with firing up with the freight and lastly a nigger, when an explosion takes place and the curtain falls. The steamboat scene is very cleverly done, so is the explosion.”