No. LXIII. THE MOUNTAINEERS A Play IN THREE ACTS. BY GEORGE COLMAN THE YOUNGER. WITH THE STAGE BUSINESS, CAST OF CHARACTERS, COSTUMES, RELATIVE POSITIONS, ETC. NEW YORK: No. 18 ANN-STREET. EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION. "THE MOUNTAINEERS" is from the prolific pen of the youn. ger Colman. It was produced in 1791, at his own theatre, the 1793 Haymarket, London, with triumphant success; and it still continues its place upon the stage, as a popular acting piece. This drama is among the first of those hybrid productions of the stage, which, combining tragedy and comedy, with operatic embellishments, still retain their hold upon modern audiences, with undiminished attraction, notwithstanding the mutations that time and taste have produced in other branches of dramatic composition These productions first made their appearance on the English stage, when the drama had sunk into an apathetic insipidity, that required some peculiar galvanic process to revive it. Tragedy had become almost extinct, and comedy, dressed in sentimental weeds, was lachrymose and mawkish. Colman stands first among the dramatic writers of the period who may be said to have resuscitated the English drama, at this particular crisis. Having early in life become the manager of his father's theatre in the Haymarket, he threw himself into the duties of his vocation, with all the ardor of youth, and the fer- . vor of a highly cultivated and poetical imagination; and it may with justice be said, that "no modern dramatist has added so many stock-pieces to the theatre as Colman, or imparted so much genuine mirth and humour to all play-goers." The muse of Colman was essentially comic, even to exaggeration; but he combined with the flights of his comic fancy powers of a more serious cast, which he knew how to blend together with great effect; and possessing as he did, an intimate knowledge of the stage, the characters, incidents, and dramatic action of his pieces, presented together an irrisistible charm, that made them the favourites of his own time, and have secured for them a permanent place in the modern acting drama. Colman has been charged with drawing the subjects of his plots from cotemporary authors. In the "Mountaineers" he is indebted to Cervantes for the chief character in his piece; Octavian being but an adaptation of Cardenio in "Don Quixote." It must be confessed, however, that if Colman adopted this practice of stealing his plots, or characters, (a practice common with most of our leading dramatists,) yet he uses both the incidents and the characters he purloins, with such consummate skill in the transformation, and invests them so completely with the native genius of his own fertile imagination, that they stand out as almost new creations, under the touch of his magic and transforming pencil. Octavian, too, in all the higher attributes of his character, and even in his physical conformation, is supposed to have owed much of its merit from being a faithful likeness of John Kemble. The following passage, in which Floranthe describes Octavian, is supposed to have been intended by the author for a portrait of the great actor: "6 Lovely as day he was-but envious clouds But if it be not changed-I think it cannot- Would charm the towering eagle in her flight, The play owed much of its original success to the exquisite performance of Kemble in Octavian. He completely realized the poet's conception, and was, indeed, all the author has embodied in the description we have quoted. We e saw this great actor only in the wane of his powers, but we can readily imagine the effect he must have produced in the part. We have heard his acting of the scene with Floranthe, in the third act, described to us, as being one of the most powerful efforts of his mighty genius. Elliston, in the meridian of his fame, succeeded Kemble in the character, and drew crowded and admiring audiences. Kean, also, acquired some degree of celebrity in Octavian, but it was too melo-dramatic in its style. |