Personation, or Fairly Taken In

Defiance et Malice, ou Le Prete Rendu is a one act French comedy in verse, by Michel Dieulafoy (1762-1823)[].

Also found simply as Defiance et Malice.

The original text

A play about two lovers who disguise themselves to test each other's affections, first published in Paris by Barba in "An X" (i.e.1802).

Translations and adaptations

First adapted into English as an afterpiece in one act called Doubt and Conviction by James Wild (active 1803-1816)[]. The text was published in London by J. Hayes, 1804.

The play was then adapted as Personation, or Fairly Taken In, a comic interlude in one act, by Mrs. Charles Kemble (née Maria Theresa Decamp, and later known also as Marie Thérèse Kemble De Camp). It is very often (wrongly) cited as an original piece by Mrs Kemble, though some editions do mention that it had been "taken from the French"). First performed under this title at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 29 April, 1805, with the Mrs Kemble herself as "Lady Julia".

The Kemble version was published by Samuel French, in The Minor Drama series no CXX, in 1860; and by John Dicks (748 Dicks' Standard Plays, one volume with Antony and Cleopatra, Married and Settled by Charles Selby) in 1886.

Performance history in South Africa

1866: Performed as Lucretia Borgia by the Le Roy-Duret Company in the Harrington Street Theatre, Cape Town, on

Sources

Catalogue entry, National Library of Australia (Bib ID: 2548029)[1]

The Monthly Mirror, Vol. XIX, 1805: p. 346[2]

Facsimile version of the 1860 edition by Samuel French, Google E-book[3]

Facsimile version of the 1886 version by Dicks, Warwick Digital Collections[4]

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 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.241,

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