Pamela
Pamela is the name of a character about whom a number of literary works, including a number of plays, have been written and produced. Pamela is often used as a shortened title for the works in question.
Contents
The original text
The original work to introduce the character, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded[1], is a celebrated epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)[2], first published in 1740.
Translations and adaptations
There have been many stage versions of the novel, beginning with a number of Italian and French texts.
(On more on this, see for example: Thomas Keymer and Peter Sabor. 2005. Pamela in the Marketplace: Literary Controversy and Print Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland, Cambridge University Press)
Below are some of the texts of importance in South African theatre.
It was adapted for the stage by Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793)[3] as La Pamela, interestingly enough a straight comedy rather than a commedia del'arte version.
The Goldoni text was first translated into English by John Nourse as Pamela, a Comedy, performed and published in a bilingual version in 1756.
Paméla Mariée, ou Le Triomphe des Épouses ("Pamela married, of the triumph of virtue") is a three-act play French version by Benoît Pelletier-Volméranges (1756-1824) and Michel de Cubières de Palmézeaux, based on Goldoni's play. It was first performed in Paris, at the Théâtre de l'Ancien Opéra, in 1804 and published in Paris by Barba in the same year.
The French version by Pelletier-Volméranges and Cubières-Palmézaux was in its turn translated into Dutch by an anonymous author as Pamela, of De Zegepraal der Onschuld, and published in Amsterdam by Abraham Mars in 1805. This apopears to have been the first version of a "Pamela" play to be done in South Africa.
Performance history of Pamela in South Africa
1825: Performed in Dutch translation as Pamela, of De Zegepraal der Onschuld by Tot Nut en Vermaak in the Amateur Theatre on 16 April 1825, with De Grijze Man, of De Rondborstige (Baudouin and Poujol).
Sources
Facsimile version of the original French publication by Barba, Warwick Digital Collections[4]
Facsimile version of the 1805 Dutch text, Google E-book[5]
http://global.britannica.com/topic/Pamela-A-Comedy
Thomas Keymer and Peter Sabor. 2005. Pamela in the Marketplace: Literary Controversy and Print Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland, Cambridge University Press[
J.A. Worp. 1972 Geschiedenis van het Drama en van het Tooneel in Nederland (Deel 2: p. 449)[6]
F.C.L. Bosman, 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [7]: pp. 235.
Go to ESAT Bibliography
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(Michel de Cubières de Palmézeaux) Pelletier Volméranges, B., en Cubières-Palmezeaux, M. de, Paméla mariée, ou le Triomphe des épouses (1804) - Pamela, of de zegepraal der onschuld, 1805.
Pelletier Volméranges, B., en Cubières-Palmezeaux, M. de, Paméla mariée, ou le Triomphe des épouses (1804) -
Pamela, of de zegepraal der onschuld, 1805.
Published by Abraham Mars, Amsterdam in 1805
J.A. Worp. 1972 Geschiedenis van het drama en van het tooneel in Nederland. Deel 2: p. 449[8]
A drama in 3 acts , freely adapted in French from Carlo Goldoni's stage version of Samuel Richardson's English novel Pamela , or, Virtue Rewarded (1740). The French version was by Benoït Pelletier Volméranges and Cubières-Palmézeaux. Full original French title: Paméla mariée, ou le Triomphe des épouses. Published in Paris by Barba, 1804.
Performance history in South Africa
1825: Performed in Dutch translation of the French version by Tot Nut en Vermaak in the Amateur Theatre on 16 April 1825, with De Grijze Man, of De Rondborstige (Baudouin and Poujol).
Sources
Bosman, 1928: pp 235 Go to South African Theatre/Bibliography
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