Page:Representative American plays.pdf/21

4

,

, and

To which will be added, A Ballad Opera, called

The CONTRIVANCES.

To begin exactly at Seven o'clock.Vivant Rex & Regina.

Seilhamer, in his History of the American Theatre, suggests a probable cast, based on the advertisement, which he curiously attributes to the Pennsylvania Chronicle, in which it does not appear. Considering the relative importance of the actors in the American Company, it is likely that this cast is correct, and it is given here, with an indication that is only problematical. A similar advertisement but without the actors' names appeared in The Pennsylvania Gazette of the same date.

The Prince of Parthia was revived by the Zelosophic Society of the University of Pennsylvania on March 26, 1915, at the New Century Drawing Room, Philadelphia, and proved to be an actable play, though the absence of any comedy element was noticeable. The play shows clearly the influence of Hamlet, Julius Cæsar, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and also of Beaumont's Maid's Tragedy, but the blank verse is flexible and dignified and the correspondence of Godfrey proves that he conceived it with the purpose of actual stage representation and not merely as a closet play.

For an account of Godfrey see Juvenile Poems on Various Subjects, with The Prince of Parthia, by Nathaniel Evans, Philadelphia, 1765, and for criticism of the play, see Moses Coit Tyler, A History of American Literature during the Colonial Time, 2 vols., New York, 1878, Vol. 2, pp. 244–251, and George O. Seilhamer, History of the American Theatre, 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1888, Vol. 1, Chap. 18.

The Prince of Parthia is now reprinted, for the first time, from the original edition of 1765.

Shortly after the appearance of the first edition, a very interesting reprint of The Prince of Parthia was edited by Archibald Henderson, Boston, 1917. Mr. Henderson has reproduced the costumes worn by the members of the Zelosophic Society at the revival in 1915, has investigated the sources of the play in Parthian history and has written attractively of the life in Philadelphia and in Wilmington, North Carolina, that surrounded Godfrey.