Black-Eyed Susan

There are three related plays popularly known as Black-Eyed Susan (or Black-Ey'd Susan):

1. The famous melodrama by Douglas Jerrold (1829)

2. An shortened two act version by Jerrold published by William V. Spencer (1856)

3. A burlesque version of Jerrold's work by F.C. Burnand (1867).

The plays

Black-Ey'd Susan, or All on the Downs (Jerrold, 1829)

An immensely popular comedy in three acts, written by Douglas Jerrold (1803–1857)[1], it is often simply referred to as Black-Eyed Susan, Black Eyed Susan, Black-Ey'd Susan and so on.

Based on John Gay's well known ballad by that name, it has been described as "a nautical melodrama (with all its stock characters) that praises the patriotic British tar (sailor) while critiquing authoritarianism in the British Navy"[2], it was the playwright's Jerrold's first successful play, opening at the Surrey Theatre on 26 January 1829 and setting a new record of over 150 performances. It is a key play in the history of English melodrama, and became a stock play across the Empire, also in South Africa, till well into the 20th century. It was for example was the first professionally produced play in Australia, performed in Sydney at Barnett Levey's Theatre Royal in 1832.

Black-Ey'd Susan (Jerrold, 1856)

An American version, published in 1856 by William V. Spencer, Boston, is apparently an adaptation, as it is called "A nautical and domestic drama, in two acts" (1856), based on the "carefully marked copy" of a performance in the Boston Theatre.

Black-Eyed Susan, or The Little Bill That Was Taken Up (Burnand, 1867)

Entitled The Latest Edition of Black-Eyed Susan, or The Little Bill That Was Taken Up it is a burlesque by F.C. Burnand (1836–1917)[3]. It is also known in South Africa as Black-Eyed Susan, or The Little Bill That Was Taken Up.

The play was first performed in the New Royalty Theatre in Soho, London, on 29 November, 1866, and published by the Strand Printing and Publishing Company in 1867.

Performance history of all three versions in South Africa

The problem with some South African performances is that the sources are at times unclear as to which play is being referred to by the shortened title Black-Eyed Susan. For example, while it is assumed from the evidence that the burlesque version was brought to South Africa by Disney Roebuck in the 1870s,it is not always certain from the sources whether the play referred to as Black Eye'd Susan or Black Ey'd Susan by F.C.L. Bosman, and listed by him for Roebuck between 1875 and 1877, is always a reference to the burlesque by Burnand, and not to the original play by Jerrold.

1829: Jerrold's version first performed in Cape Town by H. Booth and local amateurs on 10 November as an afterpiece to Pizarro, or The Death of Rolla (Sheridan), with Booth as "William".

1858: Performed (under the full title) by Sefton Parry and his company on 17 June in the Cape Town Theatre. Also performed was Buried Alive, or The Illustrious Stranger (Milligan and Kenney).

1861: Performed as Black-Ey'd Susan by Sefton Parry and his company on 19 September in the Theatre Royal, with To Oblige Benson (Taylor).

1866: Performed as Black-Ey'd Susan by Le Roy and Duret Company on 28 June in the Theatre Royal, with Charles the Second, or The Merry Monarch (Duval).

1874: Performed in the Mutual Hall, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company (in a shortened version Possibly the Spencer version?) on 28 February, with Our Wife (Morton).

1875: Performed in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 10 April and billed as a "new Burlesque" (so most probably the version by Burnand), with Aurora Floyd (Braddon).

1875: Performed in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 20 March, with Who Speaks First? (Dance).

1875: Performed in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 22 March, with A Happy Pair (Smith).

1875: Performed in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 12 April, with Aurora Floyd (Braddon).

1875: Performed in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 13 April and billed as a "Naughty-Gal-Burlesque", with Black Sheep (Yates).

1875: Performed in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 28 July, with Brown and the Brahmins (Reece).

1876: Performed in the Athenaeum Theatre, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 23 June, with A Rough Diamond (Buckstone).

1877: Performed in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 6 September, with The Wonderful Woman, or The Marquis and The Cobbler (Dance).

1877: Performed in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town, by Disney Roebuck's company on 15 December, with The Man with the Iron Mask (Lucas).

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-Eyed_Susan

Facsimile of the 1856 Boston version, Internet Archive[4]

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

Black-Ey'd Susan in The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Oxford Reference[5]

Facsimile version of the 1867 text of the burlesque, Google E-book[6]

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. [7]: pp. 209-10, 242, 406.

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 68, 70, 73, 94,99, 110, 134, 211, 214-5, 312-3, 322-3, 326, 329-331, 334, 336, 340, 349, 360, 364.

William Groom. 1899-1900. Drama in Cape Town. Cape Illustrated Magazine, 10(4): 478-481, 517-520, 547-552, 580-584, 640-643, 670-672, 706-708.

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