A
Glimpse of Theatre History
THOMAS
ROBERTSON (1829-71),
Playwright, Regisseur
Thomas William Robertson was born into a touring theatrical family. His father was a member of the Lincoln circuit company which toured England during the early 19th Century. Typically these touring companies would play three or four weeks in each town and return for special events such as a fair or race week. TWR played children's parts and made himself generally useful around the theatre. At the tender age of seven, as was the custom of the English middle class, he was sent to a boarding school, attending Spalding and Whittlesea academies. At fifteen, his studies were interrupted when he was obliged to return to the circuit since things were "not going well."
Young Tom did anything and everything around the theatre. He acted, playing everything from Hamlet to low comedy; managed; prompted; painted scenery; wrote songs and vaudeville skits, and adapted stories for the stage. Tutored by his father during this time, TWR became sufficiently proficient in French that he was later able to earn some money as a hack translator of French plays for the English stage.
After a few unpleasant experiences on the continent (he had to return from Utrecht through the assistance of the British Consul), Robertson returned to London where he joined an informal literary society centered on the home and person of Thomas Hood, editor of Fun, and a punning poet.
Robertson's success came in 1865 as author and "manager" with the Bancrofts at the Prince of Wales Theatre with his production of his play Society. A rival manager pronounced it "rubbish" but it ran a remarkable 150 nights. Then followed Ours (1866), Caste (1867), Play (1868), and School (1889) which last ran nearly 400 nights!
Probably the best of the lot is Caste. To modern eyes, Caste may seem a rather naïve morality play with black and white heroes and villains, but the dramaturgical skill with which it is instructed cannot be denied. It deals with a situation with which Robertson no doubt had personal experience. Esther, the heroine, is an actress, plucked from the ballet by dashing George D'Alroy, son of an imperious Marchioness. At the climactic moment in the third act, when we believe dashing George has been killed by treacherous Sepoys in India, these two castes have their obligatory moment. The Marchioness offers to take her grandson (yes, Esther was preggers when George went away). Esther replies (and strikes a blow for the dignity of the acting profession):
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ESTHER: [before the cradle] Master George D'Alroy will remain with his mother. The offer to take him from her is an insult to his dead father and to him. ECCLES: (Esther's drunken father who only wants money for drink) [aside] He don't seem to feel it, stuck up little beast. MARQUISE: But you have no money-how can you rear him?-how can you educate him?-how can you live? ESTHER: [tearing dress from the bandbox] Turn columbine-go on the stage again and dance. MARQUISE: [RISING] You are insolent-you forget that I am a lady. ESTHER: You forget that I am a mother. Do you dare to offer to buy my child-his breathing image, his living memory-with money? [Crosses to the door and throws it open] There is the door-go! [Picture] ECCLES: [to Marquise, who has risen, aside] Very sorry, my lady, as you should be tret in this way, which was not my wishes. MARQUISE: Silence! [Eccles retreats, putting back chair, Marquise goes up to the door.] Mrs. D'Alroy, if anything could have increased my sorrow for the wretched marriage my poor son was decoyed into, it would be your conduct this day to his mother. [Exit] |
Esthers's drunken father comes in for rather more abuse than modern allowances would allow, but his affliction was viewed at that time as a character flaw, not a disease. Full of fairly subtle coups d' theatre (if there can be such animals), Caste stated some sentiments that in their day must have sounded almost revolutionary. Says George-who was not killed after all-just before the final curtain:
| Oh, Caste's all right. Caste is a good thing if it's not carried too far. It shuts the door on the pretentious and the vulgar; but it should open the door very wide for exceptional merit. Let brains break through its barriers, and what brains break through, love may leap over. |
Said George Bernard Shaw of the 1897 revival of Caste:
| After years of sham heroics and superhuman balderdash, Caste delighted everyone by its freshness, its nature, its humanity. You will shriek and snort, O scornful young men, at this monstrous assertion. "Nature! Freshness!" you will exclaim. "In Heaven's name…where is there a touch of nature in Caste?" I reply, "In the windows, in the doors, in the walls, in the carpet, in the ceiling, in the kettle, in the fireplace, in the ham, in the tea, in the bread and butter, in the bassinet, in the hats and sticks and clothes, in the familiar phrases, the quiet, unpumped, everyday utterance: in short, in the commonplaces that are now spurned because they are commonplaces, and were then inexpressibly welcome because they were the most unexpected novelties." [GBS: Dramatic Opinions and Essays, Brentano's, 1907, Vol. II, p. 283.] |
Shaw did not perceive-or did not want to acknowledge-the beginnings of
the "social drama" in England which he himself was to champion
in not too dissimilar ways…