201:, which white audiences loved despite not realizing that it originated with plantation slaves imitating their masters' walks. The troupe was then seated in a semicircle, with one member on each end playing the tambourine or the bones. The endmen were named Brother Tambo and Brother Bones, and they engaged in an exchange of jokes between the group's songs and dances. It was customary for Tambo to be slim and Bones to be fat. A character called Mr. Interlocutor sat in the middle of the group, acting as the master of ceremonies. As the interlocutor took his place in the middle of the semicircle he uttered the time-honored phrase: "Gentlemen, be seated. We will commence with the overture." During the performance he conducted himself in a dignified manner that contrasted well with the behavior of the rowdy endmen.
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208:. It included singers, dancers, comedians and other novelty acts, as well as parodies of legitimate theater. A preposterous stump speech served as the highlight of this act, during which a performer spoke in outrageous malapropisms as he lectured. The performer's demeanor was meant to be reminiscent of the hilarious pomposity of
118:, often considered the greatest blackface comic of the era. When by September 1855 George and Edwin Christy had retired from the group, the company continued under the name of 'Christy's Minstrels', until Edwin Christy took out an injunction to prevent them. Edwin Christy was emotionally affected by the
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and were sued for contempt of court. The judge, Mr
Justice Clerke, dismissed the contempt charge after the defendants claimed they had announced to the audience prior to the performance that they were not now 'Christy's Minstrels' and had expressed an intention of continuing under a different name.
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According to the New York Times report, Edwin
Christy took out an injunction against the troupe calling themselves 'Christy's Minstrels' "though there was no person among them by the name of Christy." The troupe, then headed by a Joseph Murphy, did perform on September 10th as 'Christy's Minstrels'
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Or possibly in 1842: In 1855 the New York Times reported a law case in which
Christy took out an injunction against the troupe continuing to call themselves "Christy's Minstrels" even though he no longer had a connection with them; in it the 1842 date is given. "In 1842 Edwin P. Christy established
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was published in 1852 and the play became famous, minstrel shows appropriated the major characters for sketches that changed the abolitionist themes in the original into an argument for the supposedly benign character of slavery.
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into a fixed three-act form. The troupe also invented or popularized "the line", the structured grouping that constituted the first act of the standardized three-act minstrel show, with the
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J. W. Raynor and Earl Pierce formed a new troupe, using many of the former
Christy Minstrel members. It opened in London, England, as "Raynor & Pierce's Christy Minstrels" at the
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Christy's novel three-part shows began with a "walkaround", the company marching onto the stage singing and dancing. A staple of the walkaround was the
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in 1865. The Dublin performances were evidently popular enough that James Joyce mentions them in his short story collection
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Part three ended the show with a one-act play, typically a vignette of carefree life on the plantation. After
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and later the "Polygraphic Hall" on King
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group from the 1960s, were named with reference to this group, but they did/do not perform in
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Frederic Burgess surviving into the 1870s. Therefore, the troupe changed its name to the
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in this city the band, which since has become so celebrated as "Christy's
Minstrels".
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at the
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Besides
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1844 sheet music cover for a collection of songs by
Christy's Minstrels.
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Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class
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Part two (the "olio") was the variety section, a precursor to
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Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-century America
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Edwin Pearce Christy, at the University of Pennsylvania site
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in the middle and "Mr. Tambo" and "Mr. Bones" on the ends.
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September 14, 1855:'LAW INTELLIGENCE: MINSTRELS IN COURT'
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In 1846 they first performed in Polmer's Opera House in
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