New York Audience Gives Noted Dramatic Reader Great Ovation
Miss Henrietta Vinton Davis was given a royal reception at Beth. Tphillah Fourth Moravian church the latter part of October, when she appeared in Shakespearean readings and electrified and charmed a large and appreciative audience by her splendid interpretation and rendering of the lines of the immortal bard. In scenes from “Macbeth,” “Richard III.,” “Romeo and Juliet/’ she follows to the letter Hamlet’s advice to the players, speaking “the speech trippingly on the tongue.” and as she proceeds we see Macbeth or mad Richard III. or the loving Romeo and Juliet as we imagine Shakespeare saw them after he had created them. It is difficult to say in which role Miss Davis excels, the humorous or the dramatic, for in response to an encore she gave in her most inimitable way a selection (humorous) from Dunbar, “Mammy’s Li’l Baby Boy/’ which completely convulsed the audience with applause. It was so perfectly natural and realistic one could almost hear •‘mammy’s Li’l baby boy” squall—a sort of black squall. When Miss Davis left the platform after this number had been given the audience lay back and roared its delight. The sexton of the church on the following day swept up nearly a dustpan full of buttons which Miss Davis’ contagious humor had burst from the garments of some of her pleased hearers. Professor Freeman of the Choral society and a number of his scholars furnished an excellent musical program.
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