Last Days of Dion Boucicault . . :(

         "Boucicault died of pneumonia on 18 September 1890.  Dion had many accomplishments over his active career of more than fifty years.  The fact that he was constantly in financial duress actually pushed him to improve the plight of the playwrights' condition. 

          He was a pioneer of sensationalistic scenes and an advocate for fireproofing scenery in the American Theatre.  He can also be credited, "with having written two of the best comedies and three of the best melodramas of the nineteenth century." Dion Boucicault led a highly colored life filled with the melodramatic material that he wrote about in his plays; he was a child without a father, a lover, a spendthrift, poor, rich, arrogant, a philanderer, but above all things he was a dramatist."

New York

                 Me and my wife Agnes Robertson was forced to leave England. We settled in New York, and I began to make a name for myself there with spectacular melodramas including The Poor of New York (1857) and The Octoroon, or Life in Louisiana (1859). The Colleen Bawn (1860), with its comic stage Irishness, was a huge success.     

                After the death of my wife, I returned to London, staging plays at the Adelphi in partnership with the actor-manager Benjamin Webster, but soon afterwards a new venture sent me into bankruptcy. I renewed success came when I transposed The Poor of New York to his native land to become The Poor of Liverpool. Back in New York another Irish play, The Shaugraun, was another hit in 1874. In it I took the title role of Conn, the boozy but benign Irishman.

London Assurance ..

          

             London Assurance had its first performance in 1841 at London's Olympic Theatre, under the management of Charles Mathews and Madame Vestris. London Assurance has recently been revived at London's National Theatre, was one of the best loved playwrights by Queen Victoria.

Mathews himself performed the role of the wide boy Richard Dazzle, combining elegant languor with the deft delivery of a patterer.

             Returning to London to make my play come to life was wonderful. I was thrilled when Queen Victoria stated that she enjoyed my play. At that moment, I felt as if everything that I have ever worked for was paying off. I know that if the Queen watches my plays then I will get more persons at my plays. I cannot wait for my next play to be in the Globe Theatre !

 

Comments On My Plays..

"The Octoroon is based on the novel by an Irish-American novelist Thomas Mayne Reid, The Quadroon (1856). Neither Boucicault nor Reid actually resided in the South." -Anonymous

"Mr. Moreton, we presume, is labouring under the peculiar and unfortunate malady commonly expressed by the phrase of being 'stage-struck': you are a young man, and this renders the circumstances more excusable.  Your friends, too, have doubtless persuaded you that you have talent…Your performance did not fail from a want of that confidence and knowledge of the business of the scene which are the usual stumbling blocks in the way of you as a young actor…On the whole, it is evident to us that "Mr. Moreton's" friends have very much overrated your powers." -Paul B. Reuben

In 1856 Boucicault agitated for new legislation to protect the rights of American dramatists, then settled down to a steady dramatic output: The Poor of New York (1857), Dot and The Octoroon (1859), and the highly-successful Colleen Bawn. His son, Darley George, Boucicault nicknamed "Dot" after the Winter Garden play of September, 1859. Certain Americanisms such as "jail" (p. 21), "color" (p. 34) and possibly "furrin" (p. 30) point to the play's having been written in the United States. In the summer of 1860 the Boucicaults returned to London, where Agnes had engaged with Webster to open in the title role of Colleen in September at the New Adelphi. The play had a then-record run of two hundred seventy-eight performances, providing the theatrical couple enough money to take over the lease of Drury Lane in 1862, and begin refurbishing Astley's Amphitheatre as The Theatre Royal, Westminster."
-E. L. Bulwer Lytton

My Children . .

                   The Streets of London and After Dark were two of my late successes as a dramatist. I was twice married, my first wife being Agnes Robertson, the adopted daughter of Charles Kean, and herself an actress of unusual ability. I had three children, Dion (b. 1859), Aubrey (b. 1868) and Nina, who also became distinguished in the profession of acting and writing.

                   My daughter Nina was married twice. First marriage was E.H. Kelly and the second marriage was Donald Innes Smith. During the week the Theatre Royal has been closed, my son Don Jr got elpoed to an unknown female. They were later divorced because of unknown reasons. Nina and Dion Jr Dion formed the influential Brough-Boucicault Comedy Company.

The Shaughraun

             Dion Boucicault was an opportunist, a plagiarist, and a living legend not only of the Irish, but the British and American stage of the nineteenth century. Irish-born, latterly established in England as an "adapter" of French plays, finally hitting the big time in the United States in the 1850s (where he was instrumental in the development of copyright law), Boucicault was, as writer Chris Morash describes him "Irish theatre’s first international superstar." His trio of "Irish plays," The Colleen Bawn, Arragh-na-Pogue, and The Shaughraun firmly established the stock characters and standard themes associated with "Irishness." Bringing the structuring force of the Victorian melodrama to bear on existing stereotypes and adding a touch of political agitation amid the safe boundaries of romantic comedy, he practically invented the theatrical vocabulary which still haunts the imagination of the world when it thinks of Ireland.
               The Shaughraun is the story of how a roguish poacher named Conn becomes embroiled in personal, social, and political struggles in County Sligo amid a plethora of comic situations while he aids Fenian escapee Robert Ffolliot. Dastardly magistrate and landlord Corry Kinchela has conspired with slimy informant Harvey Duff to have Ffolliot deported so Kinchela can seize his estate and move in on his bride-to-be, Arte O’Neill. Arte’s best friend is Robert’s sister Claire, a girl who has attracted the romantic attentions of well-meaning British Officer Captain Molineux under the watchful eye of local priest Fr. Dolan.
             

Accomplishments..

             Dion Boucicault directed the first production of Peter Pan that was an instant success when it opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on December 27, 1904. His sister, Nina Boucicault, who was then 37 years old, played the title role.Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree established an Academy of Dramatic Art at His Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket. In 1905, the Academy moved to its own premises and, shortly afterwards, Irene Vanbrugh was invited to join the Managing Council that already, in addition to Tree, included her friends, J. M. Barrie and Arthur Wing Pinero. (In 1909, her younger brother, Kenneth Barnes, was made the Principal of what, in 1920, became the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He held the post till 1955. Throughout her life, Irene Vanbrugh was an enthusiastic supporter of the Academy, and the students' theatre there was named 'The Vanbrugh' in her honor.). He had many wonderful performances in the theatre.
             
In 1921, G B Shaw invited Irene Vanbrugh to star in and Dion Boucicault to direct his latest play Jitta's Atonement. They were so busy that they had to decline. Perhaps it was just as well. The play did not have its premiere until January 17, 1923 at the Shubert Theatre, New York, to a less than enthusiastic reception. It was not presented in Great Britain for another two years when Shaw arranged for it to be performed during a provincial tour organized by Irene Vanbrugh's older sister Violet. The other play in the program was The Letter of the Law by Kenneth Barnes, Violet and Irene's brother. The tour was not a success. Dion Boucicault, who was in his mid-sixties, began to decline and Irene Vanbrugh was absent for a while from the West End. On her return, she was greeted with universal critical praise. In March, 1926, she starred in All the King's Horses by Charles Elton Openshaw at the Globe Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, transferring on April 5 to the Playhouse, Charing Cross

My Life

            My name is Dionysius "Dion" Lardner Boucicault. I was born December 26,1820. As a young boy I knew that I wanted to write magnificent plays. I have been married twice times and I have two children. Their names are Nina Boucicault and Dion Jr. I wanted to go to New York to write and perform my plays. So I eloped with my first wife Anne Guiot in 1845. She was french and alsoa widow. but she died three years later in 1848. I remarried to Anges Robertson, but we divorced. I remarried again to Mies Thorndyke.
           Once  began writing my own plays, I was unsure whether the townspeople would be interested in them, so I went by a fake name. I began writing as LeeMorton. I would also act in my own plays if I did not find anybody that fit the character. Hundreds of people would come see my plays, so I began writing more.