... employing the Edison Minstrels and the Edison Kinetophone during the couple of years that Edison was making such short films.
Unlike other minstrel shows of the time where everybody wore loud comical suits, these minstrels are dressed in medieval costumes. The interlocutor - front and center - and the orchestra - seated in the back - are wearing costumes from the period of George III. The rest of the company is wearing costumes that appear to be of the Elizabethan period. There are a couple of jokes, a baritone solo by John McCormick, and a tenor solo by George Ballard.
The finale involves a British flag appearing on the left side of the screen and an American flag appearing on the right side. The company then sings the chorus from an American patriotic song, then sings Dixie - probably in tribute to the origin of the minstrel show - and finally the company sings "God Save the King" while standing with the interlocutor actually saluting at this point. The rest of the company points backwards but not towards either flag.
Why all of this deference to Great Britain? Maybe Edison was aware that if talking film became practical that silent film, employing the universal language of pantomime, was finished? In that case the makers of English language films were going to need each other's audience! Or maybe it was just the same old story with Edison - great on the technical matters, pretty goofy on artistic points, and this short film was a case in point of that goofyness.
Edison's Kinetophone films are interesting, but the issue of synchronization - which is what would be the issue with Vitaphone 15 years later, with the fact that films could not be made that were any longer than six minutes, as well as the static camera, and last of all the film projectors' union doomed this invention for the long haul and widespread adoption.