Les Deux Galériens
Les Deux Galériens ("The two galley slaves") is a French prose comedy by Victor Ducange (1783–1833)[1]
Contents
The original text
Ducange was active as playwright between 1813 and 1831, but must have been written no later than 1821. The French play is seldom mentioned, not even in the existings lists of Ducange's works, and is therefore largely known though the 1822 translation by Payne.
Translations and adaptations
Translated into English as The Two Galley Slaves, a "Melo-drama, in Two Acts" by John Howard Payne (1791-1852)[2]. The translation first performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden 16 November, 1822, and the Park Theatre New York on October 27, 1823. Published by John Cumberland (no date given in the text, but it is clearly in 1822).
Performance history in South Africa
1831: Performed as The Two Galley Slaves in Cape Town by All the World's a Stage on 12 November, as afterpiece to The Innkeeper of Abbeville, or The Ostler and the Robber (Fitzball) and Blue Devils (Colman the Younger).
1866: Performed in English as The Two Galley Slaves by the Le Roy and Duret Company in the Harrington Street Theatre, on 20 October, with A Ticket of Leave (Phillips) and Look Before You Leap (Lovell).
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Henri_Joseph_Brahain_Ducange
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Payne
Facsimile version of the Cumberland edition of the English translation of the play, Google E-Book[3]
"The Dramatic Genius if Eugene Scribe" in H.W. Herbert (ed) The American Monthly Magazine, Volume 4 No 1 (1835): p. 40[4]
F.C.L. Bosman. 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [5]: p. 218
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: p.213
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