Tag Archives: Augustin Daly

On the run from Seven Pistols

Bronson Howard (aka the Dean of the American Drama) was born in Detroit, MI. As a young man he made the decision to forgo an education at Yale for the excitement of newspaper journalism in New York City.  Howard always felt that there was a great void in American theatre . He wanted to write  dramas about everyday American life at a time when British dramas were all the rage. Howard had his first success with Saratoga:Pistols For Seven, produced in 1870 by Augustin Daly. It was wildly popular and ran for over 100 nights at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, a rare achievement for an American playwright. The success of Saratoga influenced other native playwrights and started to change the face of late 19th century American theatre.

On March 23,1877 Nannary’s company (including Lizzie May and George) produced Howard’s play Saratoga at the Academy of Music in Halifax. It was a comedic society drama in five acts.

Saratoga was a fun, light romantic comedy. The lead character named Bob Sackett is engaged to the beautiful young Effie Remington, but he has also, through much bumbling and misunderstanding, promised himself to the widow Olivia Alston , the newly wed Lucy Carter AND the flirtatious Virginia Vanderpool . Attempting to escape from the mess he has gotten himself into, Bob runs off to Saratoga, where he is confronted by all four angered women. Lucy’s wildly jealous husband, Frederick and the senior Vanderpools also join the fray and add to the confusion.

The madcap feel of the play reminds me of films from the 1940’s such as The Philadelphia Story or His Girl Friday. I can completely see Cary Grant in the role of Bob Sackett, Rita Hayworth as the flirtatious Virginia and maybe Shirley Temple (in her twenties) as the young newlywed. Anyone else have any suggestions?

While I have not been able to dig up  a playbill for this performance, I would surmise that our Lizzie May played the flirtatious Virginia Vanderpool. Sweet, comedic and flirty appears to have been Lizzie May’s trademark. I can picture her now in a somewhat daring dress swaying back and forth across the stage flirting with our lead and keeping audience members in on the joke. She was gaining confidence with each role and each performance. Soon it would be her name that brought in the crowds!

Under The Gaslight

undergaslight

Thanks again to The University of New Brunswick I continue to enjoy peeking into the past to follow Lizzie May’s first big season as an actress.  As a soubrette in William Nannary’s troupe, Lizzie May was part of the extremely popular production of  Aristophanes’ The Clouds . 

The dramatic season at the Academy of Music lasted 11 weeks. The popular Clouds was followed by New Men and Old Acres, My Mother-In-Law and many others.

Audiences were soon entranced by the company’s production of Under The Gaslight. Under the Gaslight written in 1867, is such a fantastic example of the melodramatic plays of the day.  The story reads like a soap opera… Laura Cortlandt  is jilted by her lover, Capt. Ray Trafford  when he discovers she is merely an adopted daughter (the scandal!) and actually of mere humble parentage. Laura in shame runs away from home but is dragged into court, where the villainous Byke  claims that she is actually his child and so is given custody of her. He attempts to take poor Laura to New Jersey but is stopped by a one‐armed ex‐soldier named Snorkey (you can’t make this stuff up!), and the dashing Captain Trafford. In the ensuing tussle, Byke throws Laura into the river, but she somehow swims to safety and returns to the family who adopted her. It gets even better. The furious Byke then decides to rob the Cortlandt home. Snorkey overhears his plans, but then the evil Byke catches him and ties him to the railroad tracks (!) knowing that an express train will soon pass by and crush him! Laura out for a walk just happens to see Snorkey tied there and releases him moments before the train comes. She then returns home to live happily after ever with the handsome Captain Trafford.

Apparently the famous railroad scene that thrilled audiences was said to have been borrowed by an English play written a few years before called The Engineer. Later, the hero or heroine tied to the train tracks became a staple of early cinema.

Daly’s play is famous for introducing the cliched “thrill” device…offering one sublime, extremely realistic wow moment such as a fire rescue, a volcano erupting, a shipwreck etc… These so-called “sensation plays” were used by many theatre companies to draw in the crowds.

Whether Lizzie May played the lead is not clear but I think she would have made a wonderful Laura.