PART ONE
Black practitioners and international performance networks
The 1900s in context
During the 1900s, pioneers of Black performance practice were consistently among the first to engage with new forms of technology, in particular the early music recording and film industries. The further development of international travel and communication networks, and the affordability of such travel, served to support international theatrical touring in ways which, more than 100 years later, are startling in their geographical scope. In 1907, the Mauretania broke the speed record for a transatlantic crossing in four and a half days, though five to six days was more usual.
When making Atlantic crossings for performances and productions, African American performers were not unaware of its history; their crossings assert resistance to the continuing impact of slavery in US life. Saidiya Hartman positions the Atlantic as an essential part of Black history: âThe sea is history ⊠the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.â1 During the Middle Passage alone, chattel slavery led to the deaths of more than 2 million enslaved Black people; slave traders threw the bodies of enslaved people into the Atlantic Ocean.2 To speak of transatlantic performance travel requires noting which ocean is being crossed.
Black practitioners were able to move across the world, performing in front of all social classes through extensive performance opportunities. In the UK, Black performers worked across regional theatres of all sizes and locations, and even in front of the Royal Family in the case of In Dahomey. Though there was already an existing presence in the UK of Black performers, the arrival of Will Marion Cookâs In Dahomey in May 1903, fresh from its success on Broadway, helped establish a network of Black British and African American as well as Caribbean and African performers (see Key Figure 1).
Black practitioners seem to seamlessly move between small British theatres to major London variety houses, into Europe and beyond, even on to Australia. Some performers move freely between centres of performance like London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Chicago, New York and New Orleans. Performance practice in this first decade clearly emerged from the minstrel traditions of the nineteenth century: minstrel companies and amateur minstrel performances form a great deal of British theatre.
The breadth and legacy of their work in this decade may be surprising to our modern eyes, purely in geography alone. Three key Black performers during this period point to the extent of this work. Four African American members of the second company of In Dahomey established the Darktown Entertainers: Pete (George) Hampton (b. 1871, Kentucky; d. 1916, New York City), a baritone singer, banjo player and actor; Hamptonâs wife Laura Bowman (alt. Bauman) (b. 1881, Quincy, IL; d. 1957), a singer and performer; Fred Douglas (dates unknown); and William âWillâ Garland (b. 1875, Iowa; d. 1938, London; for more, see Chapter 4). Will Garland, like many practitioners, drew on his professional experience of transcontinental touring in the United States. There, he had worked alongside W. C. (William Christopher) Handy, now regarded as the father of the blues, in a minstrel show, where he worked as a musician, performer and vocal director. Will Garland, along with other cast members of the production, brought his knowledge of touring theatre to establishing companies that toured the UK and beyond for the following thirty years (see Chapter 4).
Extensive professional versatility frequently occurs during this period. It is possible that performers may appear as a performer and comedian, singer or dancer, and instrumental musicians, as well as operating as a producer, agent and even as choreographers and teachers. This versatility demonstrates practitionersâ savvy business sense, for example in cashing in on named recognition of hit shows. Until the middle of the 1910s, Garlandâs early revues namechecked In Dahomey in their advertising to assure audiences they would like his new work.
Social and political context
Britainâs quest to colonize African regions continued throughout this decade (and throughout the next). Britain had already seized control of many African regions, including what is now Kenya (1888); Ghana (1821, known as the Gold Coast for what Britain was able to export out of it); Malawi (1907); the Republic of The Gambia (1821, then the Gambia), Somaliland (c.1884), areas of Sierra Leone (1896), and regions of southern Africa, including parts of Zambia (1900). Driven by competition with other European nations, Britain continued to push to colonize more of Africa.
This was justified through the promise of Africaâs rich material resources as well as what David Olusoga calls ârapidly evolving forms of racismâ,3 which placed white people in a position of moral, intellectual and, above all, evolutionary superiority to people of African descent. Olusoga argues that the contemporaneous idea that Africans were âovergrown infants with the same predilections, weaknesses and irrationalityâ had first emerged through the slave trade,4 and now Britain once again employed the concept to justify its actions in âthe civilising mission in Africaâ.5
In 1900, Britain took control of the âNorthern Nigerian Protectorateâ (a region of northern Nigeria); in 1903, Eswatini became a âBritish protectorateâ (then known as Swaziland); in 1910, the Union of South Africa became a self-governing country within the British Empire with policies that would later serve to formalize racial segregation. Britainâs actions in committing human rights atrocities in pursuit of these goals remain rarely discussed or acknowledged 120 years later. During the Second Boer War (1899â1902) â a British campaign for control for what is now part of South Africa â Lord Kitchener placed women and children in concentration camps, an action which led to âperhaps up to 45,000 deaths, approximately 25,000 Boers [largely white Dutch settlers] and 14,000 to 20,000 Africansâ due to the despicable conditions.6
As a response to aggressive and destructive European colonialism, Black activists and intellectuals such as Henry Sylvester Williams (c.1867â1911), a Trinidadian lawyer, developed the Pan-African movement through the 1890s, building on W. E. B. Du Boisâ earlier concept of Pan-Negroism. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868â1963) was a key African American writer and activist; he published The Souls of Black Folk in 1903 and was one of the founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
London became a meeting point for Pan-Africanism, a movement which was formalized after the first Pan-African conference in the city in 1900, when the Pan African Association (PAA) was formed. The PAAâs aims included âto secure to Africans throughout the world true civil and political rightsâ and âto ameliorate the condition of our brothers on the continent of Africa, America and other parts of the worldâ.7
On stage
Many of the artists of African descent who toured the UK during this decade played across different sorts of British theatre, including variety theatres and music halls. Vocalists like Morcashani (Laura Steer), Cassie Walmer (for details on both, see Chapter 2) and the currently unknown, possibly African American performer Bessie Lee.
A broad range of practices are represented in touring Black performersâ work and output during this period. Choirs included Abbie Mitchellâs Tennessee Students who toured the UK. Abriea âAbbieâ Mitchell Cook (1884â1960) was Will Marion Cookâs wife and an important performer in her own right. The Jamaican Choir also toured, with their members Louis Drysdale, Carlton Bryan and Frank Weaver (the choir also featured dancing)8 and the pianist Henry âHarryâ Nation.9 Drysdale (b. 1883, Jamaica; d. 1933, London) became a music teacher from his home in Forest Hill, London, and became an important part of the Black community in London. Frank Weaver later performed with Will Garland, but very little is currently known about him.
Dance groups included Belle Davis and her company of children (see Chapter 2), as well as all-round entertainers like Jasper White (no further details emerge) and the prolific Garland himself. Dance styles during this period focused on early tap styles, sand dancing and buck and wing dancing, though it is very difficult to identify dancers in this period as individuals are unnamed or hard to trace.
Music styles reflect the ongoing popularity of banjo music, with the continued touring of the African Canadian George Bohee (1857â?) and the African American Silas Seth Weeks (1868â1953), a composer and banjo player who performed a banjo concert at St Jamesâs Hall, Piccadilly before touring extensively across the UK.10 There was a declining presence of minstrel troupes in this decade, though they had a lasting presence in British theatre. The white cast of the Moore and Burgess Minstrel troupe (which ran for more than forty years at the St Jamesâs Hall venue) closed in 1904. Many white artists continued to perform in blackface during this decade as a particular âblackâ character, reinforcing racist tropes and ideas that were common at the time.
In 1909, the African American double act Harry Scott and Eddie [Peter] Whaley arrived in the UK from the United States for a nine-week tour and stayed for the rest of their lives. Scott (1879â1947) and Whaley (1877â1960) were a comedian and singer who played across West End revues and variety theatres across the UK.11 Scott married Belle Davis in 1929.12
Many of the Black performers in the UK in this period must have faced extremely challenging circumstances in operating in a theatre industry which had such pervasive expectations of minstrel performance. Key African American composers and activists J. (John) Rosamond Johnson (1873â1954), James Weldon Johnson (1871â1938) and Bob (Robert Allen) Cole (1868â1911) performed in British variety theatre; coverage at the time reflected on their musical accomplishments in the United States.13
1
Will Marion Cook and In Dahomey (1903)