Unquestionably, Mr. Forrest’s great success with Metamora, a prize drama for which he paid its author, John Augustus Stone, five hundred dollars—a large sum of money for such an effort half a century ago—was the secret of the remarkable run upon Indian plays from which theatre-goers throughout the country suffered between the years 1830 and 1840. Forrest, even at that early period in his career, was the recognized leader of the American stage, the founder of a peculiar school of acting, with a host of imitators and followers. Metamora was one of his strongest and most popular parts; its great effect upon his admirers is still vividly remembered, and, naturally, other actors sought like glory and profit in similar roles.
Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags, was produced for the first time on any stage at the Park Theatre, New York, December 15, 1829. Mr. Forrest, Peter Richings, Thomas Placide, John Povey, Thomas Barry, Mrs. Hilson (Ellen Augusta Johnson), and Mrs. Sharpe were in the original cast. As Metamora Mr. Forrest appeared many hundreds of nights, and in almost every city of the American Union. Wemyss, at the time of the first production of the play in Philadelphia (January 22, 1830), wrote of him and of Metamora as follows: “The anxiety to see him crowded the theatre [Arch Street] on each night of the performance, adding to his reputation as an actor as well as to his private fortune as a man. It is a very indifferent play, devoid of interest; but the character of Metamora is beautifully conceived, and will continue to attract so long as Mr. E. Forrest is its representative. It was written for him, and will in all probability die with him.” Mr. Wemyss’s prophecy was certainly fulfilled. No one after Mr. Forrest’s death, with the single exception of John McCullough, and he but seldom, had the hardihood to risk his reputation in a part so well known as one of the best performances of the greatest of American actors; and Metamora and Mr. Forrest have passed away together.
JOHN McCULOUGH.
Metamora owed everything to the playing of Forrest; if it had fallen into the hands of any other actor it would no doubt have been as short-lived as the rest of the Indian dramas generally—a night or two, or a week or two at most, and then oblivion. As a literary production it was inferior to others of its class; not equal to The Ancient Briton, for which Mr. Forrest is said to have paid the same author one thousand dollars; or to Fauntleroy or Tancred, dramas of Mr. Stone’s, which met with but indifferent success. John Augustus Stone’s history is a very sad one; in a fit of insanity he threw himself into the Schuykill, in the summer of 1834, when barely thirty years of age; after life’s fitful fever sleeping quietly now under a neat monument containing the simple inscription that it was “Erected to the Memory of the Author of Metamora by his friend, Edwin Forrest.” With all of his faults and failings, the great tragedian was ever faithful to the men he called his friends.
The Indian of Fenimore Cooper is the father of the stage Indian; and both have been described by Mr. Mark Twain as belonging to “an extinct tribe which never existed.” A full list of the Indian plays more or less successful, known in other days and now quite forgotten, would be one of the curiosities of American dramatic literature. A few of them are here preserved:
Sassacus; or, The Indian Wife, said to have been written by William Wheatley, then a leading young man at the Park Theatre, New York, where Sassacus was produced on the 8th of July, 1836, Wheatley playing an Indian part, Pokota; his sister, Miss Emma Wheatley, then at the height of her popularity, playing Unca, and John R. Scott Sassacus. This latter gentleman, as a “red man of the woods,” was always a great favorite with the gallery, and he created the titular roles in Kairrissah, Oroloosa, Outalassie, and other aboriginal dramas with decided credit to himself. In the course of a few years, while the stage-Indian was still the fashion, were seen in different American theatres The Pawnee Chief; Onylda; or, The Pequot Maid; Ontiata; or, The Indian Heroine; Osceola; Oroonoka; Tuscalomba; Carabasset; Hiawatha; Narramattah; Miautoumah; Outalissi; Wacousta; Tutoona; Yemassie; Wissahickon; Lamorah; The Wigwam; The Manhattoes; Eagle Eye; and many more, not one of which lives to tell its own tale to-day.