Lorgnettes, Opera-hoods, and white kids are not exhibited here in such profusion as in some other places of amusement; on the contrary, green spectacles, sun-bonnets, and calico dresses are rather in the ascendant.
As a phase of city life which does not often turn its side to the public, and as a place to enjoy an unlimited amount of fun for a little money, the Church street colored Theatre is well worth visiting.
A grand Shakspearean festival was lately announced to come off here, on which occasion the tragedy of Macbeth was to be performed with "all the original music, new and gorgeous scenery, rich and elegant costumes, magnificent scenic appointments, &c.," according to the time-honored "gag" in such case made and provided.
The novelty of seeing a black Macbeth with the entire tragedy done in colors by the best artists, promised to be almost as good a burlesque as the bearded Indian exhibition made by the great American Tragedian at the Broadway; and so with a varied assortment of friends I started to witness the unusual spectacle of a Bowery darkey representing a Scotch king.
Paid the entrance fee all in dimes, as the door-keeper couldn't read the Counterfeit Detector, and wouldn't take bills for fear he would get stuck with bad money.
Orchestra consisted of a bass-drum, one violin, and a cornet-à-piston. Seats, new benches with coffee-sacks spread over those constituting the Dress Circle.
Orchestra essayed the Prima Donna Waltz, which gradually degenerated into "Wait for the Wagon," and concluded in "Few Days."
Great deal of whispering and shuffling about behind the scenes, a great deal of emphatic ordering about from the unseen prompter, who was trying, as nearly as I could judge, to have Macduff take his chew of tobacco out of his mouth, and at last the curtain rolled up.
Macbeth was a fat gentleman of jetty hue who might have been head-cook at Delmonico's for twenty years, and who would, had he been subjected to a melting process, have furnished soap and candles enough for a small chandlery business.
Whether he intended to give the tragedy a gastronomical interpretation or not is uncertain, but it is a veritable fact that he dressed the character in a cook's apron, had a paper cap with a long turkey feather in it on his head, his steel by his side, a butcher-knife in his hand, and the cover of the soup-pot for a shield.