Theatre
The Contrast
Royall Tyler · 1787
Opening lines
Letitia
AND so, Charlotte, you really think the pocket-hoop unbecoming.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
In New York, shortly after the war, Maria, promised by her father to Billy Dimple, who has come back from England with London manners, discovers that this suitor is also courting her friends Charlotte and Letitia. Colonel Manly, Charlotte's brother, arrives in town to obtain a pension from Congress for his former soldiers, with his servant Jonathan, a country boy who, looking for a showman, walks into the theatre and thinks he sees a neighbour's house opening up. London fashions and American simplicity size each other up in the manner of comedy.
Context
It all begins with an evening in New York, the author's first at the theatre, at Sheridan's The School for Scandal, whose manner the play retains, and with a meeting with Thomas Wignell, leading comic actor of the American Company. Written in a few weeks, it was first performed on 16 April 1787 at the John Street Theatre, with Wignell in the role of Jonathan, to whom the author ceded his rights. It was not printed until 1790, in Philadelphia, by subscription, the list opening with the name of Washington. Several of the plays that the same author later gave to the stage are now lost.
Who it is for
Five short acts in prose. The servant speaks the language of the New England countryside in the eighteenth century. No French translation.
Prizes and reception
The first comedy written by a citizen of the United States to be staged by a professional company; its Jonathan fixed for a long time the type of the stage Yankee.
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