Belphegor the Mountebank, or Pride of Bath

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Belphegor the Mountebank, or Pride of Bath is a play by Benjamin Nottingham Webster (1797-1882)[1].

The original text

A play about a character named Belphegor, one of a number of translations and adaptations of the French play Paillasse by Adolphe d' Ennery and Marc Fournier. Webster's English version of the French work was first performed by Webster himself in the Adelphi Theatre, London, during January 1851.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1877: A play simply called Belphegor was performed by the Disney Roebuck company in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town, on 19 September. According to F.C.L. Bosman (1980: p. 363), it may have been this play by Webster, but it is far more likely to have been the four act play Belphegor, or The Mountebank and His Wife by John Courtney (1804-1865)[2], which Roebuck had already staged a few times in 1865 and 1866.

Sources

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Webster,_Benjamin_Nottingham_(DNB00)

https://www.amazon.fr/Paillasse-%C3%A9preuves-Belph%C3%A9gor-Adolphe-dEnnery/dp/B0068FAC9A

Facsimile version of the original Le Long text for Paillasse, Google E-book[3]

Allardyce Nicoll. 1975. History of English Drama 1660-1900[4]

Facsimile version of the original Dondey-Dupré text for Paillasse[5]

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: p.363.

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