The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife's First Lesson

The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife's First Lesson is a farce in one act by Mrs Kemble (1774-1838)[]

Also found simply as The Day after the Wedding or A Day after the Wedding

The original text

It is usually ascribed to Mrs Kemble as an original work, though one London edition , that of 1856, refers to it as “An Interlude in One Act. Adapted from the French by Mrs Charles Kemble”. The work is also credited to Mrs Charles Kemble, Marie Thérèse Kemble or Marie Thérèse De Camp Kemble in various editions.

First produced at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 18 May 1808, as a benefit for her husband Charles Kemble.

The second edition, published in London 1811 by C. Chapple, has the title as The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife’s First Lesson and calls it "An Interlude in One Act", credited to Marie Thérèse Kemble.

Published in New York in 1846 as The Day After The Wedding only, and called "A farce in one act", credited to "Mrs. Charles Kemble".

Published in 1856 by Lacy in London as The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife’s First Lesson; and referred as "An Interlude in One Act, Adapted from the French by Mrs. Charles Kemble". If this is true, a candidate for the original may have been La Grand'maman, ou Le Lendemain de Noces, a one-act "comedie-vaudeville" by Armand Francis and Achille D'Artois.[1]. First performed at the Theatre du Vaudeville, on the 30th of April, 1825.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1823: Performed as The Day after the Wedding in the African Theatre, Cape Town by the Garrison Players on 27 September, as afterpiece to Folly As It Flies (Reynolds).

1833: Performed as The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife's First Lesson in the African Theatre, Cape Town by the All the World's a Stage on 21 September, with the interlude A Race for Dinner (Rodwell), the comic sketch of The Actress Of All Work (by Oxberry, though the author is said to be unknown in the source) and the farce The Rival Valets (Ebsworth).

1866: Performed as The Day after the Wedding in the Harrington Street Theatre, Cape Town by the Le Roy-Duret Company on 11 May, as afterpiece to the "Grand Shakespearian Entertainment" of Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) and The Married Rake (Selby).

1874: Performed on 27 January as The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife's First Lesson in the Mutual Hall, Cape Town by the Disney Roebuck company, with Lady Audley's Secret (Hazlewood).

1875: Performed on 23 June as The Day After the Wedding in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town by the Disney Roebuck company, with The Daughter of the Regiment (Fitzball) and a "new South African burlesque" called Princess Pocahontas (Anon.). The evening as benefit for Miss Montague.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kemble

Facsimile version of the 1856 Lacy text, Internet Archive [2]

Facsimile of the second London Edition,1811[3].

Facsimile version of the 1846 USA text, Internet Archive[4]

The Cabinet: Or, Monthly Report of Polite Literature, Volume 3, June 1808, p. 427.[5]

D.C. Boonzaier. 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman, 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [6]: pp. 185 and 227

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 204, 311-314, 325.

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