Considering the extraordinary performers and the conduct of an audience which ran wild, this little review is not offered as something worthy of emulation. Nor is it to be construed as criticism. Rather, it is something to be contrasted with the newer interpretations and renditions, something to be compared with present-day reactions as against old-time unbridled responses.
As aforesaid, with other local talent—grownups, and some lesser lights, including an injection of members of “that tanyard gang”—I was cast for a minor part in that show. To give you the right slant on this last mentioned group of my theatrical co-workers, I should say here that my father operated a tannery in the old days, and “the gang” — frequenters of the yard—included just about all the happy-go-lucky youth of the town, vividly alive, and callow. Collectively, we made quite a record—something short of enviable, it now pains me to relate.
It was my dear old Sunday School superintendent who had selected me for one of her characters in this Biblical show. I had been marvelous—so she said—in her Sunday School, committing and reciting as many as twenty Bible verses on a Sunday morning, for which I would sometimes be given a little up-lift card. She said that my good work in her Sunday School was guarantee enough for her that I would handle the part assigned me creditably. I would not need to attend rehearsals. All that I should do was to have my good mother make for me a heterogeneous coat according to specifications. She would instruct me at the last minute so that I wouldn’t forget.
I was to take the part of Joseph—Joseph, the boy. And, although a bit irregular, and I might say diabolically devised, to save the stage-carpenter the trouble of making a pit to cast me into, one of my Hebrew brothers—I think it would have been Judah, who, off stage, was a big Swede — was to have batted me on the “bean” so that I couldn’t protest when he and my other naughty brothers would sell me to the Egyptians, and thus banish me to the Land of Bondage. I wouldn’t need to rehearse? Oh, no, of course not! And as it turned out I didn’t perform, either.
The show was going strong. The audience applauded and yelled itself hoarse. After a particularly exciting scene, Rolland Van Amburg, the town clown, jumped up from his seat and yelled, “It’s the best thing Wetmore ever had—I’ve had my money’s worth already! Come and get another quarter!” Van was ably assisted in this demonstration by one William Morris, leading merchant.