Anna Cora Mowatt, Gulzara, and the Well-Made Play

Anna Cora Mowatt, Gulzara, and the Well-Made Play

Parlor theatricals were a popular culture phenomenon of the Victorian era. As such they have received a certain amount of attention from academics for the insights they reveal about societal attitudes and anxieties. The scripts for these “home dramas” have gotten less serious attention. These dramatic texts tended to either be written by amateurs for amateurs or by commercial writers for a mass…

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The Lost Plays of Walter Watts - “Which is the King?” Part I

The Lost Plays of Walter Watts – “Which is the King?” Part I

Admittedly, my title for this series of entries is a bit hyperbolic. It’s closer to the truth to say the writings by Walter Watts that I am going to be covering are not actually so much lost as no one has been looking for them. Although Watts’ “An Irish Engagement” (see previous entries here and here and the Librivox reading of the comedy here) is included in several collections of one-act plays…

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A Movie That Was Not About Walter Watts

A Movie That Was Not About Walter Watts

If you are a fan of Charles Dickens or Derrek Jacobi, you have probably seen the acclaimed 1987 film adaptation of “Little Dorrit.” You need to be a more hardcore Jacobi aficionado to have any familiarity with 1990’s “The Fool” produced by the same husband and wife team, Richard Goodwin and Christine Edzard. Any reader of this blog will have no trouble understanding why my heart skipped a beat…

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Anna Cora Mowatt and the March Sisters versus the Ogden Sisters

Anna Cora Mowatt and the March Sisters versus the Ogden Sisters

Without doubt, the most famous parlor theatrical in the history of literature is the “operatic tragedy” of Roderick and his lady love performed by the March sisters for their mother one Christmas Eve during the years of U.S. Civil War as described in Chapter Two of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved “Little Women.” The episode was based on experiences drawn from Alcott’s childhood. Like Anna Cora…

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Anna Cora Mowatt, Gulzara, and the Parlor Theatrical

Anna Cora Mowatt, Gulzara, and the Parlor Theatrical

I have never come across any laments from theatre historians bemoaning the fact that so few scripts of the parlor theatricals popular in the U.S. in the 1840s-60s have survived to this day. Frankly, having read a number of these texts, I can understand why. These productions were a popular culture phenomenon. They were not intended to be great art. The texts were written by amateurs for amateurs…

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Anna Cora Mowatt, Evelyn, and the Tableaux Vivant

Anna Cora Mowatt, Evelyn, and the Tableaux Vivant

Victorian tableaux vivant existed in a gauzy liminal safe space halfway between games and theatre. In the first part of my discussion of this activity, I gave you examples of the forms of tableaux closer to charades, this week we will look at tableaux that told stories. These amateur presentations could be quite elaborate, perhaps surprisingly so. Despite the prejudices that might scare…

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Anna Cora Mowatt, Gertrude, and Blanche

Anna Cora Mowatt, Gertrude, and Blanche

[Librivox’s recording of this play can be heard here.]
Although she was called upon to play the character frequently throughout her career as actress, Anna Cora Mowatt grew to despise the role of Gertrude in her play “Fashion.” She termed performing the part a “severe punishment” in her autobiography and even admitted to delaying productions of her hit comedy during tours until demands from the…

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Anna Cora Mowatt and the Tableaux Vivant

Anna Cora Mowatt and the Tableaux Vivant

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the early Victorians’ ambiguous attitude towards theatre better than the popularity of parlor theatricals. In the 1830’s and 40’s when Mowatt’s play “Gulzara” was written, respectable middle-class and upper-class ladies and gentlemen in the U.S. who wouldn’t be caught dead in a theater delighted in staging charades, tableaux, and even full productions in their…

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Mr. and Mrs. Mowatt

Mr. and Mrs. Mowatt

Dear Reader, pure of heart and mind as doubtlessly you are, I know you do not waste much time pondering matters such as this blog will prove that I have. However for this entry, I crave your indulgence. Two unrelated incidents in the past few weeks have prompted me to spend some time reflecting upon the state of marital affairs between Anna Cora Mowatt and her first husband, James Mowatt.
First,…

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Anna Cora Mowatt, Armand, and Uncle Sam

Anna Cora Mowatt, Armand, and Uncle Sam

Perhaps the most incredible thing that I am going to tell you about Anna Cora Mowatt’s play centered around the story of Richelieu’s long-lost daughter, set in eighteenth century France, is that one of the strongest appeals of “Armand; or the Peer and the Peasant” in 1847 New York was good, old, red-white-and-blue, Fourth-of-July, flag-waving, apple-pie U.S. patriotism. On second thought, perhaps…

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Anna Cora Mowatt, Armand, and the Museum Crowd

Anna Cora Mowatt, Armand, and the Museum Crowd

Last week, I talked about the triumph of Anna Cora Mowatt’s “other play” in London. This week, I want to examine how it fared in the U.S. Although “Armand” failed to match “Fashion’s” phenomenal longevity, the drama equaled the comedy’s initial success.
As I asserted last week, I believe that the primary appeal of “Armand” for English audiences was in terms of its incorporation of spectacle and…

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Anna Cora Mowatt, Armand, and the Fast Man

Anna Cora Mowatt, Armand, and the Fast Man

In past entries, I have talked about Mary Warner’s renovation of the Marylebone Theater and how her work was heralded by critics as a triumph because it represented a heroic effort to bring the so-called “legitimate” theater to the audience of this lower class neighborhood. There was, of course, another side to this argument. There were individuals who preferred exactly the kind of melodramas and…

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Anna Cora Mowatt and the Woman Who Didn’t Write “Fashion”

Anna Cora Mowatt and the Woman Who Didn’t Write “Fashion”

Anna Cora Mowatt’s success as a playwright in the spring of 1845 was as unprecedented as it was unexpected. Not only was she a complete unknown with no ties to New York’s theatre scene, she was a woman. At that time, women who published wrote poems, romance novels, and sentimental short stories. They did not write plays. They definitely did not write hit comedies for Broadway.
To deal with this…

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Anna Cora Mowatt and a Pair of “Breeches”

As a woman who simultaneously achieved international fame as both a playwright and an actress, Anna Cora Mowatt holds a unique position in early Victorian theatre history. As someone who knew the world of the playhouse from both backstage and front of house, she brought an impressive breadth of knowledge about theatrical practices and tastes to bear when composing her dramas. On the topic of the…

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While researching for this week’s blog, I found – as I frequently do – information that I wish I could have included in last week’s entry. Rather than saving these bits to build a future essay, I decided to present them in this short addendum. Both of these items came from a re-reading of Marius Blesi’s 1838 thesis, “The Life and Letters of Anna Cora Mowatt.”

First – Mowatt added the role of…

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Anna Cora Mowatt in the Forest of Arden

There is perhaps no more perfect encapsulation of the ambiguity of the Victorian stance towards the propriety of women playing men on stage than the fact that although one of the only publicity photos we have of Anna Cora Mowatt presents her in the doublet and hose of Ganymede standing in the forest of Arden, it is not difficult to find quotes written after her death asserting that she never…

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Anna Cora Mowatt as Rosalind (Detail)

Colorized version of an engraving from Tallis’ Dramatic Magazine, 1851

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

Anna Cora Mowatt and Her Lady Romeos – Part II

Last week, listening to several interviews with Tana Wojczuk, author of a new book on the life of Charlotte Cushman, titled “Lady Romeo; The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity”, inspired me to spend some time thinking about Anna Cora Mowatt’s experiences in productions of “Romeo and Juliet.” Mowatt was a friend and contemporary of the Cushman sisters.…

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Anna Cora Mowatt as Juliet

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.

Anna Cora Mowatt in Green

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.

Anna Cora Mowatt and the Lady Romeos – Part I

Periodically, theatre historians seem to re-discover Charlotte Cushman. A new volume on her life and career was released this summer titled “Lady Romeo; The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity” by Tana Wojczuk. I have not yet read this book, but have listened to several interviews with the author and podcasts about Cushman inspired by interest in the…

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Anna Cora Mowatt and Matthew Hopkins, the Witch-Finder

After reading up on the historical Matthew Hopkins, I think we’re remiss not to number “witch-finder” among the roster of monsters who appear at Halloween. I believe I may have mistakenly referred to Hopkins as a “witch-hunter” previously. This is misleading. He did not merely hunt for witches, he found them. As the Henry Spicer’s play says,

Sir G: He’ll find you out,
If there’s a witch…

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Anna Cora Mowatt in White Lace

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.

Anna Cora Mowatt Oval Portrait

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.

Anna Cora Mowatt as Imogene

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.

Anna Cora Mowatt and Cecil Howard

I hope that by now you have had an opportunity to listen to our recording of Henry Spicer’s serio-comic 1849 melodrama, “The Witch-Wife; a Tale of Malkin Tower” at librivox.org (Click here to listen.) This is your spoiler warning. I am going to proceed assuming that you are familiar with all plot points. (Also, it is a delightful drama! I think you will enjoy it.)

Spicer created the part of…

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Anna Cora Mowatt in Black Ruffled Evening Gown

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.

Anna Cora Mowatt as Ariadne

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.

Anna Cora Mowatt as “Ariel” in “The Tempest”

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.

Anna Cora Mowatt in a Walking Costume

Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1870) was an actress/playwright/poet/novelist whose short, but spectacular career has been largely lost to history.

To learn more about her,  you can watch this short video youtu.be/Icb8NA-4glc

or visit this website alphacentauri2.info/AnnaCoraMo…

read these blogs  www.tla.wapshottpress.org/

or read my book www.amazon.com/Lady-Actress-Ke…

or follow me on twitter twitter.com/TheLadyActress

This is NOT an actual historical engraving of Anna Cora Mowatt but rather a composite of disparate elements from pictures from the correct era manipulated to create a vision of how publicity material released for her at the time might have appeared based on descriptions and other pictures.