Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/286

 268 The Drama, 1860-1918 When i86p dawned, Dion Boucicault ( 1 822-1 890) and John Brougham (1810-1880) reigned supreme in American popu- larity, and they were both Irish. The former had yet to do his most popular and characteristic pieces, in which he won de- served success both as an actor and playwright : to read Jessie Brown; or, The Relief of Lucknow (Wallack's Theatre, 22 Feb- ruary, 1858) and The Colleen Bawn (Laura Keene's Theatre, 29 March, i860), and to compare them with the later Arrah-na- Pogue; or. The Wicklow Wedding (London, 22 March, 1865) and The Shaughraun (Wallack's Theatre, 14 November, 1874), is to sound the genial depths of a flexible workman, who could find it as easy to shape a drama for Laura Keene as to re-fashion Charles Burke's version of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle for presentation by Jefferson (London, Adelphi, 4 September, 1865). One would say of Boucicault, as one would claim of John Brougham, that his local influence was due to local popularity rather than to any impetus he gave to native drama. While Brougham's Po-ca-hon-tas; or, The Gentle Savage (Burton's Lycexxm, 24 December, 1855) and his Colum- bus et Filibustero (Burton's Lyceum, December, 1857) exhibited the good-nature of his irony; while his dramatizations of Dickens's David Copperjield and Dombey and Son were in accord with the popular taste that hailed W. E. Burton's Cap'n Cuttle — ^these dramatic products were exotic to the American drama, while reflecting the fashion of the American stage. Yet nothing Boucicault enjoyed better than to descant on the future of the American stage. Like Palmer, like Daly, he was continually writing about the reasons for its poverty and the possibilities of its improvement. No one of these men, however, had any real faith in the American drama or in the native subject. Edwin Forrest (i 806-1 872) encouraged the Philadelphia group of writers, ' but the topics chosen by Bird, Conrad, Stone, Smith, Miles, and Boker were largely in accord with English romantic models. Stone's Metamora; or. The Last of the Wampanoags spoke the language of James Sheridan Knowles; Boker's Francesca da Rimini reflected the accents of the Elizabethans. Forrest, therefore, encouraged the American drama indirectly. Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876) never even went so far, though her friendship with Bryant, R. H. Stod- ' See Book II, Chap. 11.