Some newspaper and magazine clippings related to The Glass-Blowers / The American Maid.
See also The American Maid’s entry in Paul E. Bierley’s The Works of John Philip Sousa (1984).
“The Casual Chronicles of a Captious Critic.” By George Jean Nathan. In The Green Book Magazine of July 1913 (volume 10 number 1), pages 105-106.
Early last spring, it may be remembered by the four or five persons who hrough some inscrutable accident happened to see it, a piece was shown on Broadway for a couple of nights or so, said piece being called “The American Maid,” the sounds of speech in which were the labor of Herr Leonard Liebling and the other sounds the labor of Herr J. P. Sousa. Although, to be sure, it is the critical custom always to wax saucy over the lyrics in all native-made musical shows (albeit with adipose justice), the epic truth is that the lyrics in this particular exhibition were as doltish and dolorous a set of rhymes as ever extruded their visages from the proscenium arch. As a sample of the freshness, the up-to-the-minuteness, of ideas in these lyrics, give ear to the following quoted stanza:
I’m just ashore from dear New York, Where at the present time the talk Is centered on a new idea That brings the ends of earth quite near. It seems a man from Italee Has found that over land or sea A message can be sent—don’t laugh— Upon a wireless telegraph. Marconi, Marconi, That’s his name.As a sample of the lyric finales, the following well-bred excerpt from the finale to the first act will suffice:
A duchess so grand of Britain’s best brand, Our Annabelle soon will be made. The ways she’ll affect of England’s elect, In pomp and purple all arrayed. The king she will meet quite en famille, I wish I was she and she was me, A crown on her head by day and in bed, To tell her from common bourgeoisie. Allow me to state, Before it’s too late, She’ll sit on a throne of plush. All hail to the twain, long may they reign. I wish them hailing and raining and slush. Ah, with a tiara-ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, ray. A-visiting at Windsor Castle twice a day. Going to the tower, Almost every hour, And driving to the Abbey With your private cabby, As befits your very high degree; Carrying a scepter down through Regent Street, Into Piccadilly, Don’t you care how silly; Trotting in your suite a bunch of the elite, And then you’ll be a real grandee.In the entire welter, the critical confraternity, and the few members of what for want of a less elegant term may be called the public, agreed that Mr. Liebling had displayed only one instance of half-way valid rhyming skill and originality—this in a song called “Cleopatra’s a Strawberry Blonde,” rendered (no, not sung) in the first act. What with the Cyclopean fortitude and perseverance of my secret agents and the unsuspecting innocence of the Liebling outriders, I have been enabled to procure a copy of the lyric in point, and before informing you of the ghastly scandal connected therewith, will divulge it to you:
The dramatist of yesterday was certainly yap; He did not cater to the mob, he knew not vim or snap. The Bard of Avon—this is not a knock, not yet a boost— Would have an awful time to-day to get “Macbeth” produced, Unless he made the witches six tall show girls dressed in green, A pony ballet full of ginger in the cauldron scene, With up-to-date vocabulary for each pretty miss, To follow with a swishly dance, the lines to go like this: “Thrice the brindled cat hath mewed, Thrice and one the hedge pig whined. Harpies cry, “Tis time, ’tis time.” J. Cæsar’s Roman soldiers, as they journeyed to their fights, Would have to pose as Amazons and march in purple tights. King Richard Third would no more spring that old and honored spiel, About his kingdom for a horse, but an automobile. Othello’d have to have a song in baritone, Like “The Sun Shines on Morocco,” or “My Darling Desdemone,” While Anthony, of regal Cleopatra growing fond, Might get a hand with his new song, “My Gal’s a Strawb’ry Blonde.” “Call to me all my sad captains, Fill our bowls once more; Let’s mock the midnight bell.” Cleopatra’s a strawb’ry blonde, Of dat lady I sho’ am fond. She’s a beautiful red On the top of her head, Cleopatra’s a strawb’ry blonde.Now—the scandal! In their search for the lyric, my spies discovered that it was the work, not of Mr. Liebling, but of that merry and talented soul, F. P. Adams, chief roysterer of the New York Evening Mail.
I tell this, for though it is my personal opinion that “Cleopatra’s a Strawberry Blonde” must have been written by the good Fra Franklin during a severe illness five or six years ago, gauging things by his very witty “Tobogganing on Parnassus” and equally witty “In Other Words,” it still remains that, so long as the critical gentlemen admired the lyric, proper discredit should go where it is due.