Westland Marston (1819-1890) attempted to bring tragedy to the plane of contemporary life. The Patrician's Daughter (1842) has a singularly clear plot and one that touched very vitally the English life of the day. An able man of affairs of humble rank is cultivated for political reasons by a family of aristocratic birth. In course of time he aspires to the hand of "the patrician's daughter," but his proposal is spurned by the family. Later, however, the family is forced to turn to him for assistance and is now willing that he should marry the young woman. He now in turn spurns the suggestion, and the shock kills the heroine, who had really loved him all the while. This play showed more than ordinary ability and was well received. Among Marston's other dramas, all generally meritorious, are Strathmore (1849), Marie de Méranie (1850), A Life Ransom (1857), and Life for Life (1869). He was hardly as good in comedy as in tragedy. The Favorite of Fortune (1866), which in the character of Mrs. Lorrington gave some opportunity for a comic actress, is his most successful attempt in this field. Out of the comedy, melodrama, adaptation, and farce of the period, engaging the attention of such men as Isaac Pocock, Douglas William Jerrold, John Baldwin Buckthorne, Charles Reade, Tom Taylor, and Henry James Byron, somehow rises the name of Dion Boucicault (Dionysius Lardner Bourcicault, 1820-1890). This prolific author and adapter especially excelled in construction, and though he borrowed from many sources he generally wove his materials together in a swiftly moving plot, and he did more than any other man to fix the type of melodrama in his period. Early in his career he produced two of his best comedies, the famous London Assurance (1841) and Old Heads and Young Hearts (1844). He it was who adapted The Corsican Brothers (1852) from the work of Dumas. He it was also who showed the possibilities of the Irish drama in The Colleen Bawn (1860), Arrah-na-pogue (1865), and The Shaughraun (1875). His work was light and for a day, but it has a very genuine importance in the history of the national drama. 86. Robertson, Gilbert, and the Transition.-Boucicault was largely a transitional figure. He was "at the turning-point between the purely theatrical drama of the first half of the century and the more naturalistic drama which was to put forth a bud while he was at the height of his career as a dramatist." 11 Quite as indicative of changing taste, though in a way somewhat different, was Thomas William Robertson (1829-1871). This dramatist, who came of a family thoroughly acquainted with the English theatre, served a long apprenticeship, making many adaptations, especially of French dramas and farces. To his more mature work he brought a realistic method of treatment that depended for its merit most largely on its simple revelation of life. While he came into notice in 1864 with David Garrick, it was with Society (1865), a play somewhat reminiscent of Thackeray, that success really came to him. With this drama he placed on the stage the new commercial class, the power of the press, and other themes of social interest, always in natural dialogue and with the utmost care for truth. Interestingly enough, this highly successful play passed from one hand to another until H. J. Byron recommended it to Marie Wilton (later Mrs. Bancroft), who had recently taken the Prince of Wales's Theatre in hand; and there is no better instance 11 H. Child, C. H. E. L., XIII, 296. of fine faith in the history of the English stage than the confidence reposed in the struggling dramatist by the young manager, the enthusiasm with which his plays were acted, and his gratitude as expressed in his series of wellreceived comedies. Delicate in quality and with some touch of the patriotism evoked by the Crimean War, was Ours (1866). Caste (1867), however, is generally considered Robertson's artistic masterpiece. Here again, with some influence from Thackeray, the dramatist dealt in simple emotion. "The story of George D'Alroy's love for Esther, of his sudden departure for the war, of his reported death, and of his return to find his wife mourning his loss, and himself the father of a boy, strikes to the root of true pathos, and can never grow stale or unimpressive while human nature remains what it is." 12 Robertson at the height of his success supplied two or three theatres with plays at a time, and among his later titles were Play (1868), School (1869), M. P. (1870), and War (1871). He never surpassed Society and Caste, however, and his contribution to the drama remains a simple reliance upon nature that helped to free the form from romanticism. He deserves credit also for his emphasis on the care in production that helped to make the company of the Bancrofts famous in their time. He founded no school, though he might easily have done so had not the Continental influences which we are soon to consider cut across his path. Before this new influence rose to its height, however, there appeared on the scene a dramatist of singularly original and brilliant quality, William S. Gilbert (1836-1911), most famous in his later years for his association in light opera with Sir Arthur Sullivan. After some early work 12 Pemberton: Introduction to Society and Caste, xxxiii. in burlesque, Gilbert passed to a period that included such plays in verse as Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), The Wicked World (1873), and Broken Hearts (1875). "These plays and others of their kind are all founded upon a single idea, that of self-revelation by characters who are unaware of it, under the influence of some magic or some supernatural interference. The satire is shrewd, but not profound; the young author is apt to sneer, and he has by no means learned to make the best use of his curiously logical fancy. That he occasionally degrades high and beautiful themes is not surprising... In Pygmalion and Galatea, and still more in Gretchen (1879), a perversion of part of the story of Faust, the vulgarity is cynical and bitter. And in Gilbert's prose plays the same spirit may be found in greater degree." 13 By this time, however, he had already shown his skill in the Bab Ballads (1869), and his extraordinary ability in the writing of graceful songs is the outstanding feature of the series of comic operas which began with Trial by Jury (1875), developed into a vogue with H. M. S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1878), and The Mikado (1885), and ended with The Grand Duke (1896). Gilbert was a man with a singular gift of light satire and with a serious undercurrent to his humor. In such a record as this he wears an air of detachment, like that of a sophisticated but urbane man of the world. Withal there was something very practical about him too, and he deserves much credit for his insistence on the rights of an author in a production. Robertson exerted some little influence on one or two of his contemporaries, but Gilbert's singular genius de 1 H. Child, C. H. E. L., XIII, 304. |