First Theater in America / When was the drama first introduced in America? An inquiry, including a consideration of the objections that have been made to the stage.

by Charles P. Daly

But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself.

How did it chance that Mr. Effingham led the enthusiastic applause and absolutely arose erect in the excess of his enthusiasm?

As she passed him in going out he made her a low bow and said, “Pardon me! You are a great actress.”

The play proceeded and ended amid universal applause. Mr. Hallam led out Portia in response to uproarious calls, and thanked the audience for their kindness to his daughter. Beatrice received the applause with her habitual calmness, inclining her head slightly as she disappeared, and the audience separated, rolling well pleased to their homes.[21]

In 1886 a large quarto volume was published entitled “A History of the American Theatre before the Revolution,” by George O. Seilhamer. There appeared to be no occasion for a special history of this particular period of twenty-nine years, that is from 1749 to the Revolution, as Dunlap’s history extended from 1752 to about 1817, and what was known at the time of Mr. Seilhamer’s publication respecting the theater in North America before 1752 had already been published in Ireland’s “History of the New York Stage,” and in the paper here reprinted, except one item to be referred to hereafter.

There were some further corrections to be made to Dunlap’s history, but they were not very important or numerous, and some additional information to be added respecting theatrical performances in Maryland and Pennsylvania that was new and interesting. This was included in this special history, which, in addition to what had been previously published, was largely made up of the full casts, as they are called in theatrical parlance, of plays given at particular dates during the Colonial period; that is, the name of the performer of each part, taken from the small play-bills that are printed for the use of the audience. As it is the custom in theaters for the prompter to keep a file of these bills each season, and the habit of some persons to keep the play-bill of any performance they have seen, considerable collections of these small play-bills have been preserved, and exist in private collections or in institutions or clubs, of which Mr. Seilhamer has made copious use, and has also inserted in this volume long lists of the performances given at particular dates and tabulated statements of the leading parts of actors and actresses, and the statements of performances, culled from the Colonial newspapers, by all of which insertions the volume is augmented to the magnitude of a large quarto.

Dunlap, while stating that play-bills and theatrical advertisements are of assistance, or, as he expressed it, “throw light” (that is, they may assist the historian in the construction of his narrative), evidently thought that this minute information, or detail, of this kind was not, save in exceptional instances, to be inserted bodily in a history, for he apologizes to his readers for inserting three full casts of plays that were performed in the years 1752, 53, and 54, in these words: “Particularity of this kind would be unnecessary in regard to events of more recent date and out of place in a history of a theatre, but in this early stage of the work before us, we think a play-bill a valuable source of information and gladly insert it,”[22] and in this respect we incline to the opinion of Dunlap.

But Seilhamer does not. In this age of many books, the aim of able historical writers is condensation with clearness, but with him it appears to have been expansion with plenty of material; for while Dunlap, in a history extending over sixty-five years, inserts but three full casts of plays, Seilhamer, in one extending over only twenty-nine, years, inserts 253, and adds also one-fifth of that number of theatrical advertisements and numerous lists of performances at different dates, and tables of prominent performers’ leading parts, which are all incorporated with the text, and form a part of the narrative. I apprehend that it was the chief material that he had; that he meant to supplant Dunlap as the future historian of the American Theater, and that the amount of other information that was new, that is, that had not previously been published, would have been for such a purpose so insufficient that it was necessary to swell the book out to the dimension of a large quarto with material of this kind, connected together by a slight thread of narrative; material of which there was an abundant supply, for he followed up this publication by two more of the same kind in the years 1889 and 1891, each, however, distinguished from the other by a different title, the whole ending in 1797.

To his manifest desire to supplant Dunlap there could be no objection, if he had the ability to produce a better and more interesting book. On the contrary, a history of the American Stage from the earliest knowledge we have of it to the time of publication, by a writer who had the leisure to make the necessary research, and the art so to arrange his material as to make the work reliable and readable, would be a contribution to literature. Seilhamer’s opinion of what he could do, and had done, is subsequently shown by his constant abuse of Dunlap throughout these three volumes, for Dunlap’s name rarely, if ever, occurs without his applying to it some derogatory, contemptuous, or other abusive epithet. Such as the “marvelous chronicler,” “the quality of blundering for which he was remarkable,” or some like term or phrase to belittle him. He says in respect to his history, that “never was a book written to throw light upon a subject that so completely confused it.” “His dates are always wrong.” “He presents to the world the remarkable example of a man who wrote the annals of the American Stage from some scattered memoranda, and out of his own head,” and refers to the “readiness of assumption he was apt to resort to in the absence of facts,” “the consequences of which are” he says, “that the stream of American theatrical history was poisoned at its source”; that “his inaccuracies are so many and so unreasonable that it is impossible not to wonder at the mental equipment of a man that could be guilty of them.” “His statements of facts are” declared to be “always misstatements in whole or in part.” He finds him “inexcusable for not knowing the date of the first appearance of a certain actress and for his want of knowledge of an early American play.” He is declared to have been a failure in everything; as an historian, a novelist, an artist, a theatrical manager, and as a dramatist. A drama of his is a failure for the want of skill in the management of the plot, and the insufficiency of the characters and the incidents; another is disposed of as a “turgid melodrama without action”; all his plays and adaptations of plays are condemned as having passed into deserved oblivion; but as regards the history something had to be conceded, and it is therefore said that, “full of mistakes as it is—mistakes for which it is impossible to forgive him,” it has some features that commend it; such as the account he was able to give from personal knowledge of the players that were on the American stage in the first quarter of the century after the Revolution, which it is conceded “the world could ill afford to lose,” and might well be conceded, as it is more interesting than anything in Seilhamer’s three volumes. But even this is qualified by his saying, in respect to the Dunlap Society being named after him, that “there probably never was a writer less deserving of such an honor than Dunlap,” that his plays were “without merit, either for stage representation or as literary productions,” and that his history was “at once dull and inaccurate,” with the further observation that he “might have been looked upon as an interesting character, had he not been at once jealous and abusive of every one outside of his circle of friends, ignoring the efforts of others not inferior to his own.”

It may be said of this array of accusations against Dunlap that, except in some matters of little importance, they are merely Seilhamer’s own conclusions or assumptions, and derive no additional weight from any facts stated in his volumes. It is a literary mistake for an historical writer to indulge in such continued abuse as this of a previous writer on the same subject. If the first historian has made errors or mistakes, it is sufficient quietly to correct them; but to constantly abuse and belittle him is objectionable and offensive on the part of the second, for it is continually reiterating his own superiority and importance as an historian.