HARRY HUNTER AS THE LONE FISHERMAN.
Bottom was his most finished and artistic assumption, Hamlet probably his most amusing, and Humpty Dumpty his most successful. He played the latter part some fifteen hundred times in New York and elsewhere. It was the last part he ever attempted to play, and only as a clown does he exist in the minds of the men of to-day who think of him at all. He first appeared in New York at the National Theatre, in 1850; he was last seen at Booth’s Theatre on the 25th of November, 1875—the saddest clown who ever chalked his face. After twenty years of constant, faithful service as public jester—shattered in health, broken in spirit, shaken in mind—he disappeared forever from public view. Alas, poor Yorick!
One of the most popular as well as the longest lived of the contemporary burlesques is Evangeline, in the construction or reconstruction of which Mr. Brougham is known to have had a share. As a travesty upon a purely American subject, originally treated, of course, in all seriousness by an illustrious American, Mr. Longfellow, and at the suggestion of an American equally illustrious, Mr. Hawthorne, Evangeline may surely claim to be an aboriginal production; it merits its success, and with a certain degree of national pride it may be recorded here that it has been repeated upon the American stage over five thousand times. In it, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, in Twenty-eighth Street, New York, during the summer of 1877, Miss Eliza Weathersby, as Gabrielle, made a pleasant impression, William H. Crane appeared as Le Blanc, George H. Knight gave a series of wonderful imitations of the Hero of New Orleans, N. C. Goodwin came prominently before the public, and Harry Hunter, although not the original in the part, created a decided sensation as the Lone Fisherman, one of the drollest dramatic conceptions of modern times. He had no connection whatever with the play, had not a word to say, was entirely unnoticed by his fellow-players, paid no attention to anybody, but was always present—the first to enter, the last to leave every scene. With his ridiculous costume, his palm-leaf fan, his fishing-rod, his camp-stool, he pervaded everything, was ever prominent, never obtrusive, and exceedingly mirth-provoking. It may be added that Henry Dixey, whose Adonis is one of the best of modern burlesque performances, made, during the long run of Evangeline, his New York début as the fore-legs of the heifer!
Amusement seekers in the metropolis will remember with pleasure Willie Edouin, Mrs. James Oates, and scores of other burlesque actors, excellent in many ways, whom it will not be possible even to mention here. N. C. Goodwin burlesqued a burlesque at Harrigan and Hart’s first theatre, when he played Captain Stuart Robson-Crosstree to the Dame Hadley of Mr. Harrigan and the Black-eyed Susan of Mr. Hart; at the same house G. K. Fortescue played Lousqueeze to Mr. Hart’s Hungry-Yet and Mr. Harrigan’s Pierre, in a play styled The Two Awfuls. The San Francisco Minstrels at the same time presented The Four Orphans and the Big Banana, a burlesque upon two dramas of great popularity and no little merit.
FRANCIS WILSON IN THE “OOLAH.”