'Translation and the British Stage; Or, How to Deform Esmeralda.'
©Katya Bargna and John Whittaker
From the early nineteenth century through to the present day, the stage of every European and North American town and city has been subject to an unbroken succession of different dramatic idioms. However, although the nature of the successive generic mutations has generally given rise to considerable scholarly analysis, little attention has been paid to the fact that in a considerable number of cases translation has been a central factor in the reception process.
In July 2000, the Performance Translation Centre at the University of Hull began a three-year project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board and entitled ‘Translation and the British Stage, 1800-2000’, in order to catalogue the extent of the impact of translation on the repertoire of major British theatres and explore the overall trends which emerge from that study. The aim of this article is to present some preliminary findings, which relate to the history of the Theatre Royal Hull, one of the most successful provincial theatres throughout the nineteenth century.
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Part of the ‘York Circuit’ – which initially included the York, Hull, Leeds, Wakefield, Doncaster and Pontefract Theatres – the Hull Royal Theatre was, according to Thomas Sheppard, ‘second only to the great national theatres in Drury-Lane, London; and many of the best actors, who at different times adorned the London stage, went there from the Yorkshire “boards”’.(1) Originally named Finkle Street Theatre, and run by Tate Wilkinson – who made his first appearance in Hull as a self-proclaimed ‘star’ in November 1765 (2) – the Hull Royal Theatre’s biography is explosive in more than one sense: it was opened in 1768, moved to new premises in 1810, burnt by fire in 1859, reopened in 1865, destroyed again by fire at Christmas time in 1869, re-launched in 1871 as a successor of the Queen’s Theatre, and so forth until its closure in 1909. A number of more or less eccentric celebrities of the time became associated with it: from Tate Wilkinson, who eventually published his Wandering Patentee; Or, A History of the Yorkshire Theatres in 1795, to ‘General Jarvis’, a strolling player, and W. F. Wallett, who claimed to be ‘the Queen’s Jester’ despite ample proof to the contrary. Robert Mansell, manager of the Theatres Royal in York and Hull in the early part of the nineteenth century, counted about one hundred and fifty private subscribers to the Hull Royal Theatre, proudly adding that their places of provenance ranged from Yorkshire to Norwich to London to Worthing.(3)
A remarkable number of playbills relating to the theatre have been preserved. For the purposes of the present research five dramatic seasons spanning, at regular intervals, between 1800 and 1900 have been taken into consideration: 1800-01, 1825-26, 1850-51, 1875-76, 1900-01 – (4) a procedure which has involved the cataloguing of some 1,263 playbills and the subsequent creation of a database. The categories considered can be grouped as follows:
Information relating to the Hull productions:
- date of first performance;
- theatre of provenance (generally London);
- cast, setting etc.
Information relating to the original text upon which the performances were based:
- title (possible title change) and number of acts;
- attributed genre;
- author (nationality, gender, language).
Information relating to the source text(s) on which the original was based:
- title (possible title change) and number of acts;
- attributed genre;
- author (nationality, gender, language).
The preliminary findings which emerge from the data collected and analysed do not merely provide fascinating insights into long forgotten theatrical customs, but show the extent to which one’s traditional expectations are in constant need of testing and modification. A significant number of productions staged at the Hull Royal Theatre, for example, consisted of Covent Garden, Drury Lane and Princess Theatres successes which the Hull artistic directors had managed to appropriate or borrow: 24 in 1800-01; 14 in 1825-26; 20 in 1850-51; 37 in 1875-76; 144 in 1900-01. The pattern emerging from an examination of the playbills moreover implies that the great majority of productions staged in the early part of the nineteenth century had no authorial attribution, and that only with time (and, no doubt, copyright regulations), did the ratio change. Interestingly, where authorial attribution is provided, one is faced with a number of surprises: Shakespeare’s name appearing only twice in the first and second dramatic season considered, ten times in the third and fourth, and fifteen in the fifth, and, more generally speaking, being soundly beaten in terms of popularity by lesser known figures such as Matthew Gregory Lewis, William Rowley, Edward Stirling, Henry J. Byron, E. Hill-Mitchelson and the like.
As for genre attributions, one can sometimes hardly repress a smile when reading some of the most inventive dramatic idioms created, ranging from ‘new grand pantomimical drama’ to ‘burlesque tragedy’, ‘original originality’, ‘ludicrous quizzical comical nautical burlesque burletta’, and, our current favourite, ‘new, original, historically historical, local, imaginary, operatic, romantic, melodramatic, tyraunic [sic], pathetic, allegoric, eccentric, heroic, magical, legendary, comic Christmas Pantomime’ – a description relating to an equally long-titled production, Harlequin Jack the Giant Killer; Or, The Elfin Fairies of St. Michael’s Mount, and the Naiades of the Silver Stream, which ran from 26th December 1850 to 15th January 1851 and for which, perhaps unsurprisingly, nobody claimed authorship.
When casting a glance at some of the less ‘creative’ genre attributions, however, one can begin to form a pattern of development relating to dramatic idioms still in use today. At the beginning of the nineteenth century farces, comedies, and musical entertainments of sorts clearly dominated the theatrical programmes – with 77 out of 112 evenings (68.75%) devoted to them. By 1825, alongside farces and comedies still going strong, one can witness the emergence of the melodramatic genre (26 evenings out of 131, 19.8%). In mid century, the shift moves to dramas and operas, which occupy 80 and 21 evenings out of 233 respectively (34.3%, 9%). Towards the end of the century the theatrical season appears to be more domesticated and balanced, offering farces, comedies and dramas in equal measure. By 1900, melodrama makes a comeback, and, generally speaking, the stage appears to be positively invaded by American plays and dramas of the realistic kind.
The extent to which even a provincial theatre such as the Hull Royal can be seen to have appropriated and cannibalised texts from other cultures – mainly the French in the first and second half of the nineteenth century, followed by the American at the turn of the twentieth century – also emerged from our analysis.(5)
The 1800-01 season began on the 3rd November with Mrs Elizabeth Inchbald's Lovers Vows, from Kotzebue's Das Kind der Liebe. It has been said of Mrs Inchbald's work that it ‘is not a translation at all in the modern sense of the word’, and that ‘she based her version on a translation by an anonymous person, and only respected the text when it suited her purpose, which was to produce a play to please a contemporary audience’. To this extent, the modern use of the ‘literal’ was already current at the beginning of the nineteenth century.6 Kotzebue was also translated to the Hull stage in Sheridan's Pizarro, based on Rollas Tod, which was performed on the 21st of the same month. Thomas Dibdin's The Birth-day, a version of Kotzebue's Die Versöhnung, appeared on the 26th. There is an interesting note on the playbill for The Stranger, performed on the 3rd December, to the effect that this translation of Menschenhaß und Reue was ‘from the German by Benjamin Thompson jnr of Hull’. This certainly appears to have been the version which had appeared at Drury Lane, and to which Mrs Inchbald responded with Lovers Vows, and one may conclude that performance translation was alive and flourishing in the provinces. Pizarro appeared again on the 27th December, and Mrs Inchbald's Wise Men of the East, an adaptation of Das Schreibpult, was performed on the 9th January. Dibdin's adaptation of Der Wildfang, Of Age To-morrow, a musical entertainment in two acts, appeared on the 23rd. The Stranger was again performed on the 2nd February. As the ‘height of the Kotzebue fever’(7) is identified as occurring in 1799, it is logical that its manifestation should be evident in the Hull theatre programme.
The first hundred performances of the 1800-01 season also include versions of plays by Molière and Marivaux. Molière’s L’Avare, The Miser, is that by either Fielding or Ozell, and that of Georges Dandin, Barnaby Brittle; Or, A Wife at her Wit’s End, is undoubtedly based on Thomas Betterton. Marivaux’s L'Heureux stratagème, takes the form of O’Keefe’s musical comedy The Agreeable Surprise. It seems likely that the audience would have considered Sheridan’s The Duenna as an original comic opera, though it is probably based on Charles-Simon Favart’s La fausse duègne ou le jaloux corrigé par farce. The same is true of O’Keefe’s The Farmer, though it may be traced back to Le roi et le fermier, by Michel Jean Sedaine and Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny. In the same way, Isaac Bickerstaffe’s The Spoil’d Child can be linked to Jean-Joseph Vadé’s L’enfant gâté and Love in a Village to Favart’s L’amour au village. Charles Kemble’s The Point of Honour is also a version of Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s Le Déserteur.
It appears therefore that seventeen of the first hundred performances of the 1800-01 season were based on translations. The evolution of theatre translation is striking in the subsequent samples of performances. In 1825-26, 19% of the samples can be identified as translations. In 1850-51, the figure reaches 42%. It must be said that our research is still at an early stage, and the further identification of translations may increase this percentage. Translations represent 26% of the sample for 1875-76, but we have so far been unable to identify any translations in the first 100 performances of 1900-1901. The explanation of the varying proportion may well be that translations tend to be produced in response to a cultural need for new ideas, imagery and genres. We may find that, by 1900, the development of Anglophone culture on the other side of the Atlantic has enabled a source of new material which would require no translation.
The 1825-26 season saw three performances of Florian’s Guillaume Tell, probably in the version by William Hewetson, William Tell; or, Swisserland delivered. J. Kerr’s The Wandering Boys, or the Castle of Olival and Theodore Hook’s Tekeli; or, the siege of Montgatz are both from Pixérécourt. Kotzebue’s Rollas Tod appears again in Sheridan’s version, as does Favart’s La fausse duègne. As for opera, the two performances of Weber’s Der Freischütz were subtitled The Seventh Bullet, suggesting Walter McGregor Logan’s translation of Kind’s libretto. The Barber of Seville may have been sung in Italian but, if so, the British Library catalogue reveals that audiences would have had access to an anonymous bilingual version, the predecessor of surtitling, to assist their comprehension. One observes a predilection for French plays, though we may not now recognise the names of all the authors: Baudouin d’Aubigny, Caigniez, Desforges, Duval, Lombard de Langres, Monsigny, Regnard, Sedaine.
No less than seventeen of the first hundred performances of 1850-51 can be attributed to works by Eugène Scribe. Eleven of these are of The Jewess; Or, The Council of Constance, a version of La Juive by a key figure of nineteenth-century performance translation, James Robinson Planché. Victor Hugo’s hunchback has long been present on the British stage, though the alarming title of Edward Fitzball’s 1834 version, Esmeralda; or, The Deformed of Notre Dame, is amended in the playbills for the four performances in 1850. Fitzball is also responsible for a version of Dumanoir and D’Ennery’s musical drama Don César de Bazan which accounts for two performances. Duvert and de Lauzanne’s L’Homme blasé appears four times as Used Up!, the version by Dion Bourcicault and Charles Mathews, who produced a considerable number of translations for the stage. As both they and Planché produced original plays, we observe the emergent influence of the translator-adaptor-dramatist on the British stage. Henry Sutherland Edwards also falls into this category, working not only from French but also from Russian, and his version of Victorien Sardou’s Fernande accounts for two of the performances in our sample. Once foreign plays had been brought to the English stage, they tended to be treated as part of an English repertoire. This is the case of John Payne’s Charles the Second; Or, The Merry Monarch, based on Duval’s La Jeunesse de Henri V, which we encountered in the 1825-26 season and which appeared three times in 1850-51.
Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris is the source of thirteen of the first hundred performances of 1875-76, though now it appeared in the version by Andrew Halliday. The second most frequently adapted French playwright in this sample was the lesser-known Charles-Augustin Bassompierre, whose Les Deux Orphelines of 1798 was taken up by John Oxenford as The Two Orphans: A Story of the Streets of Paris!, described by the playbills as a ‘realistic drama adapted to the English stage’. Again, we find translations which appear to have entered the nineteenth-century theatre canon, such as Kotzebue’s Menschenhaß und Reue, which finds its place in the first hundred performances of all seasons considered so far.
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The greater scope of this project will be to link preliminary results to developments on the London stage and, further afield, on the European and North American stages over the past two centuries, and to examine a number of issues which have emerged so far: whether performance translation has moved in the direction of greater fidelity to the original (and if so, why); what impact translation has on the construction of genre(s); whether the decline in the rate of translation – currently around 12% of new productions staged – has been constant or whether it did occur, as would seem to be the case with narrative prose, relatively swiftly at a particular historical juncture. More generally, the link between translation and original writing, both historically and in terms of contemporary theatre practice, will need to be established.
Translation processes are an integral part of the theatre culture of the nineteenth century. The conclusions which we draw may positively rewrite cultural history.
1. Sheppard, Thomas, Evolution of the Drama in Hull and District (Hull, London and York, 1927), p. 38
2. Ibid., p. 80.
3. Mansell, Robert, Free Thoughts upon Methodists, Actors and the Influence of the Stage (Hull, 1814). Quoted by Sheppard, p.135.
4. The different duration of the dramatic seasons is itself worthy of analysis. The first two lasted approximately four months, the opening in November, coinciding with the annual Hull Fair, and ending in March. From 1850, almost certainly as a consequence of the Theatre Regulation Act of 1843, dramatic seasons doubled in length, and by 1900 the theatre was open throughout the year.
5. As the length of the seasons is not comparable, the first hundred performances of each season were taken as a sample in the following section.
6. Thompson, Lionel Field, Kotzebue: A Survey of his Progress in France and England (Paris, 1828), p. 63.
7. Ibid., p. 60.