Original Broadway Production
The critic who reviewed the play for the Tuesday, April 16th, Times was friendly but not very impressed. This review does provide the best summary of the drama I've found:
The reviewer from The New York Tribune emphasized Mayo's performance in the title role. The review ends with a reference to the interest MT showed in the play's reception in New York:
At the end of the play's first week in New York, the Sunday Times printed a second review of it -- probably the work of a different critic. Of the reviews I've seen, this is the one that puts the most emphasis on race; it reads Chambers and Tom as determined by their respective Caucasian and Ethopian "natures":
The Sunday New York Herald reviewed the play under an illustration of its last act. It called the play an "unquestioned success." It ends by referring to "the evils of slavery," but focuses chiefly on Mayo's work as both dramatist and actor:
