SAMPLES from Potash & Perlmutter. Now on display at the COHAN Theatre Broadway and 42nd Street

New York: Printer: The Chronicle Press, Orange, New Jersey, 1915. Wraps. Stapled on top edge. Wraps are paper textured on one side like alligator skin. Fine. A most extraordinary and unique Broadway show promotion and/or souvenir, from 1916. To clarify first, "Potash and Perlmutter" was the name of the play, not the actors. An ethnic Jewish comedy, it was a huge hit comedy which opened in 1913, and ran for 441 performances. This souvenir was issued when the play had been running for two years, as indicated on the first page. Curiously, the souvenir doesn't tell us the actors' actual names although it boasts about its "All-Star Cast". But the two leads playing Potash and Perlmutter, the actors Alexander Carr and Barney Bernard, reprised their roles in a 1923 movie, the very first release by Samuel Goldwyn's production company, and which had a screenplay co-written by Frances Marion. Goldwyn went on to make two sequels during the Silent era, with Bernard replaced after he passed away. Bernard, for example, was in the very first Ziegfeld Follies, that of 1908. Carr lived until the forites and played non-starring roles in a number of sound movies. The brochure measures 16 by 10 cm. Unpaginated, eight pages not including the wrap covers. Although small in size, it makes playful use of trompe d'oeil to simulate a fabric swatch book and the fabrics that might be contained therein. Front and rear cover are made to look like alligator skin. They go beyond the visual with their illusion. Through stamping they actually have a hint of the texture of alligator too. The front cover has a perfectly round die-cut window,through which one can see the two leads, Potash and Perlmutter, in a colorized photo. That first leaf, when one looks at it fully, has a background pattern of a fine check pattern of green and white -- the kind of pattern one might see on a business or casual cotton shirt, or perhaps a wool suit, etc. The two comedians here are shown emerging from a hole in the fabric, with their images surrounded by the frayed threads. Adding to the trompe d'oeil of the chromolithographic is a tag with a string attached such as one might still see in a garment factory. On this illusory tag is promotional information about the production. Scarce -- no copies found anywhere! (Inventory #: 19922)