Coelina, ou l'Enfant du Mystère

("Coelina, or The Child of Mystery" - Also written Cœlina ou l’Enfant du mystère ) A drama in three acts (“drame en 3 actes, en prose et à grand spectacle”) by René Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt (1773-1844)

The original text

It was first produced at le Théâtre de l’Ambigue-Comique , Paris on 2 September, 1800 and published in Paris by J. N. Barba in the same year. The play was to be the playwright’s first great success.

Translations and adaptations

Translated into English (without acknowledgement) by Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809) as A Tale of Mystery (or originally: “A tale of mystery, a melo-drame “) and was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 13 November 1802, published the same year in London by R. Phillips. It was first play to bill itself as a melodrama (or “melodrame”) on the English stage.

Performance history in South Africa

1818: Performed as The Tale of Mystery by the Gentlemen Amateurs (Garrison Players) with the help of Mr Cooke and his company of ladies, in the African Theatre, Cape Town on 8 August, with the "Musical Farce " A House to be Sold (Cobb).