A quartette is announced, made up of people who really can sing, and whose success is laid at the door of the director who has devised a new and highly successful method of getting the best out of one’s voice. He stands back of the quartette, which is seated facing the audience. When they are ready he starts the music by pushing down the head of the one who sings first, and thereafter keeps on the jump, pushing down the heads of the music-makers. When all four sing together he has a lively time, but by using both his elbows and his hands he manages to push down all four heads at once.
Usually they are heartily applauded, both for their nonsense and for their really good music. Even if they are not, however, they bow and respond with an encore. This time something goes wrong with the mechanism, and though they sing something old and familiar like Home Sweet Home, when a head is pushed down for a certain necessary note, a certain other note comes forth instead, and what is worse, a note gets loose, and doesn’t wait for the push on the head that insures harmony. It all ends in one final blare of awful discord, and the master drives them out in despair.
The Pygmy Choir.
Another stunt that is both delightful to listen to and highly interesting to watch is that of the pygmy choir. When the curtain of the stage is drawn a large sheet of paper is seen, with eight heads shown through holes cut in the paper, and eight pairs of long legs charcoaled on the paper below the dresses, and eight artistic charcoaled hats on the paper above the heads. The holes must be large enough to plainly show the faces of the singers, who are men. The effect is grotesque, to say the least—eight masculine faces attached to eight frivolous little bodies dressed in crêpe paper.
There is nothing frivolous about their music, however, until just at the last of the encore, when one man loses his dress, which had not been pasted on, but which he held on by means of a pin. His distress, which is loud and lamenting, breaks up the choir.
Bedlam.
One person comes out and sings a well-known song in English. It is heartily applauded, but instead of an encore someone else comes out and sings the same song in French; then it is sung in Spanish; in Swedish; Italian; Dutch; and Norwegian. Finally, all of them come out and sing the song together, each in his own language, and each trying to outdo the other in being heard. It is always appreciated by an audience, this melody!
A Chinese Reading.
Some well-known local person is announced as about to give a reading, with no hint in the announcement of any foolishness. The reading is extraordinary, only in that it is given backwards!
It really is not difficult to memorize a piece backwards, if one will write it out that way before attempting to memorize it. The difficult part comes in listening to it!