Page:Representative American plays.pdf/228



The Broker of Bogota represents the romantic verse tragedy, written under the inspiration of Edwin Forrest. It represents also the interest in the Spanish colonies in America, in which its author, Robert Montgomery Bird, laid so many of the scenes of his plays and novels. Bird was born February 5, 1806, in New Castle, Delaware. After completing his school life at Germantown Academy, near Philadelphia, he entered the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating on April 6, 1827. Although he started practice and at a later time (1841–3) was a member of the Faculty of the Pennsylvania Medical College in Philadelphia, medicine was never the main interest in his life. While still attending the University he was writing plays, and completed in 1827 two romantic tragedies, The Cowled Lover and Caridorf, and two comedies, A City Looking Glass (1828) and News of the Night, both dealing with life in Philadelphia. None of these was acted.

Pelopidas or The Fall of the Polemarchs, a tragedy laid in Thebes, was finished in 1830 and was accepted by Edwin Forrest. It was, however, not played by him, probably since it did not provide an opportunity for Mr. Forrest properly to exhibit his talent. Instead The Gladiator, which was based on the revolt of Spartacus against the tyranny of Rome, was substituted and was played for the first time in New York City, September 26, 1831, at the Park Theatre, and for the first time in Philadelphia at the Arch Street Theatre, October 24, 1831. The Gladiator has been produced by Edwin Forrest, John McCullough, Robert Downing and other actors, hundreds of times since that day. Of Dr. Bird's other successful plays, the first, Oralloossa, was produced for the first time at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, October 10, 1832, and was a tragedy founded on the Spanish Conquest of Peru. It was successful, running at its initial presentation for five nights against the strong counter-attraction of the Kembles at the Chestnut Street Theatre, but it never had the wide popularity of The Gladiator.

The Broker of Bogota was put on at the Bowery Theatre in New York, February 12, 1834, and was played by Forrest at least thirty years. Among the Bird manuscripts is a letter from Forrest to Dr. Bird, dated February 12, 1834, in which he says: "I have just left the theatre—your tragedy was performed and crowned with entire success. The Broker of Bogota will live when our vile trunks are rotten." Certainly in the character of "Febro," with his middle-class mind, lifted into tragedy by his passionate love for his children and his betrayal