Jack
Yes, yes! [He is now in full comedy costume and is kneeling before his mother.] Mama, there’s my introduction—wait here fifteen minutes—I haven’t got time to tell you.... Yudelson! Please talk to my mama.
Gene
[Enters again]. Mr. Robin, they’ll blame me for this!
Jack
Yes, yes, I’m coming. Mama—Yudelson—wait! Please!
[He goes. The door is open. We see the changing lights through the door. Yudelson gently forces Sara into a chair by the door as we hear Jack off-stage shouting the comedy lines of the beginning of the act.... “I’m going down South to the land of cotton and jasmine, where the watermelons grow, where I can be with my Mammy. If you’ll all sit down I’ll sing you a song all about it”....
Then the orchestra throbs into wailing, syncopating life, and Jack is heard, off-stage singing a verse and chorus of “Dixie Mammy.” His rendition is excellent jazz—that is, it has an evangelical fervor, a fanatical frenzy; it wallows in plaintiveness and has moments of staggering dramatic intensity, despite the obvious shoddiness of the words and the music. We are listening to a Cantor in blackface, to a ritual supplication on the stage, to religion cheapened and intensified by the trappings of Broadway. He finishes his first chorus.]
Yudelson
[Crosses to the door, listens]. That’s Jakie.