Difference between revisions of "Ambrose Gwinett, or A Sea Side Story"
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== The original text == | == The original text == | ||
| − | Based on a tale by Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733 – 1812?)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Bickerstaffe], it tells the story of a man wrongfully accused of murder. | + | Based on ''The Life of Ambrose Guinet'' (1770), a tale by Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733 – 1812?)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Bickerstaffe], it tells the story of a man wrongfully accused of murder. |
Jerrold's stage adaptation opened at the Coburg Theatre on 6 October, in 1828. It became widely popular in Great Britain and the United States, Published in 1828. | Jerrold's stage adaptation opened at the Coburg Theatre on 6 October, in 1828. It became widely popular in Great Britain and the United States, Published in 1828. | ||
Revision as of 06:36, 26 July 2016
Ambrose Gwinett, or A Sea Side Story is a melodrama in three acts by Douglas Jerrold (1803 – 1857)[1].
The name of the lead character is most often rendered as above, but sometimes sources do have it as Ambrose Gwinnett, and in South Africa the name of the character is wrongly given as Ambrose Guinett and the play sometimes simply referred to as Ambrose Gwinett or Ambrose Guinett.
Contents
The original text
Based on The Life of Ambrose Guinet (1770), a tale by Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733 – 1812?)[2], it tells the story of a man wrongfully accused of murder. Jerrold's stage adaptation opened at the Coburg Theatre on 6 October, in 1828. It became widely popular in Great Britain and the United States, Published in 1828.
An interesting aside:
According to a "Researcher's Note" in the online Encyclopædia Britannica[3], the American author Ambrose Bierce[4]’s full given names are Ambrose Gwinett (or Gwinnett) Bierce and derived from the title of Jerrold's popular play.
Translations and adaptations
Performance history in South Africa
1831: Played for the first time on 8 October by the All the World's a Stage in the African Theatre as Ambrose Guinett, or a Sea-Side Story, with as afterpiece Amateurs and Actors, or A Peep Behind the Curtain (Peake).
1832: Played as Ambrose Gwinett on 1 September by the All the World's a Stage in the African Theatre, as afterpiece to The Mountaineers (Colman).
1838: Performed by the English Amateur Company in the Cape Town Theatre on 13 October, 1838, with as afterpiece The Spectre Bridegroom, or A Ghost in spite of Himself (Moncrieff). The title again wrongly given as Ambrose Guinett, or a Sea-Side Story. According to Bosman (1928), this was to be the last production mounted in the African Theatre before it was sold and turned into a church, and it was also the last production by English amateurs in Cape Town till 1843, for the Methodist anti-theatre movement had temporarily won the battle.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_William_Jerrold
http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1694744/Ambrose-Bierces-middle-name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce
Frederick Burwick. 2015. British Drama of the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: p. 198[5].
F.C.L. Bosman, 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [6]: pp.208, 217, 224
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