Captain Carter
Captain Carter (17**-18**) was a soldier and amateur actor.
Contents
Biography
Little is known of him, except that he appears to have been a very talented amateur actor. F.C.L. Bosman (1928: p.170) for example cites an advert referring to him as "the celebrated amateur tragedian" and Jill Fletcher (1994: pp. 55-6) notes that he had early in 1817 played "Shylock" in The Merchant of Venice and had done so well that he had been offered £50 a night by managers in London to remain as performer - a sum he turned down.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
He was one of the many regimental officers stationed in Cape Town on their way to India at the turn of the nineteenth century. Like many of them he then performed at the African Theatre in Cape Town, inter alia taking the lead role of "Octavian" in Colman's The Mountaineers in Cape Town on 30 August and 13 September 1817, and in 1818 possibly appearing in The Honeymoon (Tobin), The Devil To Pay (Coffey) and The Weathercock (Tobin) , as well as taking on other roles in 1818.
Sources
F.C.L. Bosman, 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy[1]: pp. 150, 170
Fletcher, Jill, 1994. The Story of Theatre in South Africa: A Guide to its History from 1780-1930. Cape Town: Vlaeberg: pp. 55-6.
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