Dion Boucicault

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This article is about Dion Boucicault Senior. For his actor and stage director son (1859 -1929) , see Dion Boucicault Jr..
Dion Boucicault, ca. 1862.
Dion Boucicault, ca. 1862.

Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot (born December 26, circa 1820 – died September 18, 1890) was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-manangers then in the English speaking theatre, eventually heralded by The New York Times in his obituary as "the most conspicious English dramatist of the 19th century,"[1]

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[edit] Life

Though his mother is known, the identity of his father is questionable. His father may have been French; hence the most common spelling of "Boucicault" (pronouced BOO-see-coe), but Dion appears to have been raised Protestant. He was born and educated in Dublin, Ireland until he moved to London. He was enrolled at University College School at the age of thirteen and also studied for a year at the University of London.

[edit] Work as actor and playwright

After a year in London, England, Boursiquot/Boucicault left to pursue acting in Cheltenham. He joined William Charles Macready while still young, and made his first appearance upon the stage with Benjamin Webster at Bristol, England. Soon afterwards he began to write plays, occasionally in conjunction.

His first play, A Legend of the Devil's Dyke opened in Brighton in 1838. Three years later he found immediate success as a dramatist with London Assurance, produced at Covent Garden on March 4, 1841, with a cast that included such well-known actors as Charles Mathews, William Farren, Mrs Nesbitt, and Madame Vestris. He rapidly followed this with a number of other plays, among the most successful of the early ones being The Bastile [sic], an "after-piece" (1842), Old Heads and Young Hearts (1844), The School for Scheming (1847), Confidence (1848), and The Knight Arva (1848, all at Her Majesty's Theatre),[2] as well as The Corsican Brothers (1852), Louis XI (1855), the last two plays being adaptations of French plays.

In his play The Vampire (1852), Boucicault himself played the lead role of the vampire 'Sir Alan Raby'. Though the play itself had mixed reviews, Boucicault's characterization was praised as "a dreadful and weird thing played with immortal genius".[3]

From 1853 to 1860 he resided in the United States, where he was always a popular favorite. Boucicault and his wife toured the nation and he wrote many successful plays there.

[edit] The actor/playwright becomes theatre manager and producer

In the summer of 1859, this actor/playwright took over as manager of Burton's New Theatre (originally Tripler's Theatre) on Broadway just below Amity Street, and, after extensive remodeling, renamed his new showplace The Winter Garden Theatre. There he premiered his new sensation, the anti-slavery potboiler, The Octoroon on December 5, 1859.

Poster for a production of Boucicault's farce Contempt of Court, c. 1879. From the Library of Congress.
Poster for a production of Boucicault's farce Contempt of Court, c. 1879. From the Library of Congress.

On his return to England he produced at the Adelphi Theatre a dramatic adaptation of Gerald Griffin's novel, The Collegians, entitled The Colleen Bawn. This play, one of the most successful of those times, was performed in almost every city of the United Kingdom and the United States, and made its author a handsome fortune, which he lost in the management of various London theatres.

After his return to England, Boucicault was asked by the noted American comedian Joseph Jefferson, who also starred in the production of Octoroon, to adapt Washington Irving's Rip van Winkle. He obliged and produced a version of the beloved American classic in 1866 that would make Jefferson one of the most famous and well-respected comedians of his age.

Boucicault's next marked success was at the Princess's Theatre, London in 1864 with Arrah-na-Pogue, in which he played the part of a County Wicklow, Ireland carman. This, and his admirable creation of "Conn" in his play The Shaughraun (first produced at Wallacks Theatre, New York City, Nov. 14, 1874, and then at Drury Lane, Sept. 4, 1875), won him the reputation of being the best stage Irishman of his time. In 1875 he returned to New York City and finally made his home there, writing the melodrama Contempt of Court (poster, left) in 1879, but he paid occasional visits to London, where his last appearance was made in his play, The Jilt, in 1885. The Streets of London and After Dark were two of his late successes as a dramatist.

Boucicault was thrice married (per IMDB), his first wife Anne Guiot being all but unknown; his second wife being Agnes Robertson (1833-1916), the adopted daughter of Charles Kean, and herself an actress of unusual ability who would bear Dion three children (Dion Jr., born in 1859 d. 1929; Aubrey, born in 1868 d. 1913; and Nina, born 1867 d. 1950; who all became distinguished in the profession). His granddaughter Rene Boucicault (1898-1935), Aubrey's daughter, became an actress and also acted in silent movies. In 1885, Boucicault suddenly left Agnes to marry a young actress, named Louise Thorndyke, arousing scandal on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Boucicault was an excellent actor, especially in pathetic parts. His uncanny ability to play these low-status roles earned him the nickname "Little Man Dion" in theatrical circles. His plays are for the most part adaptations, but are often very ingenious in construction, and have had great popularity.

He married Louise Thorndyke on September 9, 1885 and died five years later in New York City.

[edit] Selected works

  • London Assurance (1841)
  • The Bastile [sic] (1842)
  • Old Heads and Young Hearts (1844)
  • The School for Scheming (1847)
  • Confidence (1848)
  • The Knight Arva (1848)
  • The Corsican Brothers (1852)
  • The Vampire (1852)
  • Louis XI (1855)
  • The Poor of New York (1857)
  • The Octoroon or Life in Louisiana (1859)
  • The Colleen Bawn or The Brides of Garryowen (1860)
  • Arrah-na-Pogue (1864)
  • Rip van Winkle or The Sleep of Twenty Years (1866)
  • After Dark: A Tale of London Life (1868)
  • The Shaughraun (1874)
  • The Jilt (1885)

[edit] References

  1. ^ The New York Times, September 19, 1890.
  2. ^ Victoria Web accessed 1 June 2007
  3. ^ David J. Skal (2001) Vampires: Encounters With The Undead: 47-8
  • Asimov's Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan, Patience, note 31

see also Dion Boucicault by Richard Fawkes, (Quartet books, 1979)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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