Dalle Case

(18*?-) Circus owner and performer, theatre impressario. First appeared in the Cape in 1847 with his partner Signor Severo, with whom he managed an “Italian Circus”, which staged a variety of circus-style programmes as well as several pantomimes at the Victoria Theatre and the Garrison Theatre in Cape Town. In February 1848, the partners went their separate ways, each with his own circus (case continued with the Italian Circus, Severo started an African Circus).

Dalle Case, however, also acted as impresario for a professional French theatre-company (the French Dramatic Artistes), freshly arrived from Mauritius, which made their debut in the Hope Street Theatre in 1848 with a show featuring mainly song and dance. However, Case failed to make a financial success of this venture, and the company soon abandoned him, becoming known as Theatre de l’Union. Shortly thereafter he appears to have left the Cape (and show-business) for adventures in the interior.

[TH,JH]