The name of the
upcoming performance was certainly titillating
and it was noticed, not by potential paying customers to the show at the Grand
Opera house, but also by many of those leading various churches in Hamilton who
made their concerns known to the proper authorities.
As reported in the
Hamilton Spectator:
“Several
city clergymen requested the chief
of police to prevent the performance of an Adamless Eden last night in the
Grand Opera House. The chief did not stop it, but he was there in uniform and a
proscenium box, ready to interfere if anything were said, sung or done that would
cause the blush of shame to suffuse the cheeks of the modest occupants of the
front row.”1
1“Music and
the Drama : Information Concerning Singers and Players : Music, Mirth and
Undraped Limbs.”
Hamilton
Spectator. May 15, 1886.
The Spectator
reporter, present at the Grand Opera House to review The Adamless Eden, was
withering in his comments:
“The house was about
half full of men; there was only one female in front of the footlight – an
elderly lady who stoically sat out the whole performance. It was not a good
show. The company was not nearly as good the one which produced burlesque here
last season.
“There were some
score of women in it, including the orchestra which, by the way, was an inexecrable
one. The burlesque has been cut down and altered to suit the company, and every
vestige of artistic coherence, if ever it had any, has disappeared from it. As
presented by the company, it is simply without any cleverness to sugarcoat its
inherent vulgarity. Nothing openly indecent was uttered last night, but the
prurient portion of the audience was not disappointed, for there were many
covert remarks and gestures which made men giggle and poke one another’s ribs
in ecstasy.
“The costumes looked
as if they had seen long service, and so did the wearer. Actually, big Marie
Sanger looked young and charming among this company of archaic and uncomely
chestnuts of the burlesque stage. The spectators, however, satisfied, because
there was plenty of lower limb on view, and each anatomical extremity was as
sprightly and expressive as possible.1
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