The Wild, Wild West of 'Africa'
A spectacular comic opera takes over the Marquam Grand Theatre, featuring a cast of seventy and a plot about a gullible college student misled into thinking he's exploring the Dark Continent.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The company presenting the new spectacular comic opera 'Africa' at the Marquam Theater for three nights, beginning tonight, numbers over seventy people and includes popular entertainers like George Thatcher, Otis Harlan, John Coleman, and others. The play is entirely new and hinges upon the eccentric conduct of Maurice Merrill (John Coleman), a cigarette-smoking collegian who insists upon going to Africa to discover Tippoo Tip. Deceived by his doting father, the youth believes he is being escorted through the heart of the Dark Continent, while in reality, he is on a West Indian island peopled with made-to-order cannibals. The youth is captured and ordered to be stewed for the royal table before he finally discovers the ruse. The production features magnificent scenery, gorgeous costumes, and a wealth of paraphernalia. The Marquam stage is taxed to accommodate the cast and chorus. A pleasing incident not on the programme was the Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club's welcome to Mr. Harlan; when he made his first entrance, about 100 clubmen greeted him with their familiar yell, and a lad presented him with a club badge.
“The misguided youth is in reality on a West Indian island, which the old man has peopled with made-to-order cannibals.”
While the name 'Africa' is a product of 1890s orientalist stage tropes, the story captures a moment in Seattle's theater history when local audiences flocked to elaborate, touring spectacles. It serves as a reminder of the city's early hunger for grand entertainment, even if the content reflects the era's problematic obsession with 'exoticism'.
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