Max, the Merry Swiss Boy

Event Information

Venue(s):
Broadway Theatre (728-30 Bdway.; Aug. 1873-)

Proprietor / Lessee:
Augustin Daly

Manager / Director:
Augustin Daly

Price: $1.50 orchestra, balcony; $1 dress circle, general admission; $.50 family circle

Event Type:
Play With Music

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
11 March 2025

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

06 Oct 1873, 8:00 PM
07 Oct 1873, 8:00 PM
08 Oct 1873, 8:00 PM
09 Oct 1873, 8:00 PM
10 Oct 1873, 8:00 PM
11 Oct 1873, 1:30 PM
11 Oct 1873, 8:00 PM

Program Details

The different citations note all the different songs that were performed in the course of the play, of which there seem to be almost too many to count.

Performers and/or Works Performed

1)
Max, the merry Swiss boy
Text Author: Byron
Participants:  Joseph Kline Emmet (role: Max);  G. F. [actor] DeVere
2)
There’s where the laugh comes in
aka That's where the laugh comes in

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New-York Times, 05 October 1873, 7.
2)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 05 October 1873, 11.

Full cast list with roles. Description of play that includes list of songs. “The Music throughout the play is original, and the Songs composed and selected by Mr. J. K. Emmet far transcend in variety and effect any collection previously introduced in drama…”

3)
Review: New York Post, 07 October 1873, 2.
“…The play is designated on the bills as ‘an entirely new and original musical romantic modern drama.’ It is a sensational drama of life, mystery and crime in Switzerland, knit together with improbably incidents, so as to make occasions for Mr. Emmet’s dialect songs. The songs are good of their kind, and are rendered in a style well nigh perfect, but belong to the variety show rather than to the theatre. But upon this point criticism is impossible.
 
…The presence of a colored servant in the Alps was in character, since he went as an attendant upon the American tourists, and the part was creditably rendered by Mr. F. Curtis; but the introduction of a banjo air played by a Swiss boy surely is anomalous.
 
The company seems to have good material for a fine presentation; but something better than this ‘musical romantic modern drama’ must be the play.”
4)
Review: New-York Times, 07 October 1873, 5.

“…[W]e are told that [the new play] is original, musical, and romantic… it is musical inasmuch as Mr. Emmet, who takes the part of Max, is found singing in the beginning of the play, sings all through it, and finishes with yet another song. Max is about the most stupid hero imaginable, but is gifted with a capacity for singing, doubtless in deference to Mr. Emmett’s [sic] inclinings [sic] in that direction. After singing throughout the first two acts, he occupied the entire first scene of the third by giving a kind of variety entertainment in which he sang some half-dozen songs at a village féte whereat he was the only entertainer…” No further mention of music.

5)
Review: New York Herald, 07 October 1873, 7.
“The Negro Melodist Drama at the Broadway.
 
There are a great many people in the populous and cosmopolitan city of New York, and where there are a great many people there must necessarily be a great variety of tastes…We cannot all afford the opera and we should not all enjoy Nilsson and Lucca if we could; so it is as well that we can descend through all the stages of dramatic merit down to Byron and Emmett.
 
…There is so little in [Max] that but little can be said about it…Its object is to enable the principal actor to sing a tiresome number of free and easy songs, to play on a mouth-organ and a banjo, to dance breakdowns over and over again, and to dress himself up in half a dozen different character dresses, male and female. The only wonder is why Mr. Emmett does not go through his songs, dances and performances as the colored negro minstrels do, without exhausting the patience of the audience by filling up the intervals with a long, stupid play.” Concludes by summarizing the plot.
6)
Review: New York Herald, 12 October 1873, 7.

“The variability of a tune was scarcely well illustrated until Mr. Emmett began his performances at the Broadway Theatre. One air is tortured into about fifteen shapes, but through all of them comes the plaintive tone of the request, ‘Oh, Dear Mother, Can I go Swim?’”

7)
Review: New York Clipper, 18 October 1873, 230.

Long plot summary. “…The music throughout the drama is original, and the songs composed and selected by Mr. Emmett are pleasing, and likely to become quite popular. Mr. Emmet as Max displayed great vivacity of manner, and was easy and natural, while his singing and musical performances met with unqualified favor. In the first act he performed on a mouth harmonicon, and sang ‘I Come! I Come!’ ‘I Love the Little Babies,’ ‘Wenk,’ and a serenade entitled ‘Wake Out.’ In the second, ‘Spring, Spring, Gentle Spring,’ ‘Sauerkraut,’ with banjo accompaniment, and ‘Oh, a Jolly Good Time We Have! Oh, Yes, Das So.’” Continues on with detailed description of the performance and characters.