Janus Tulp

Janus Tulp is a Dutch comedy in four acts by Justus van Maurik Jr (1846-1904)[1].

The original text

The play is said to have been inspired by Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and was apparently (also?) based on Barber Cox, and The Cutting of His Comb, a story by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 – 1863) published in George Cruikshank's Comic Almanak for 1840.

Van Maurik created "Janus Tulp" as a type of "Hollandse burgeredelman" (lit "citizen aristocrat"), a barber and ** who had become rich.

The play was first performed on 5th November 1877 in the Amsterdam Schouwburg and published by Scheltema and Holtema, Amsterdam, 1879.

The name "Janus Tulp" has since become a metaphor in the Netherlands.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1891-1892: Performed in Pretoria by the rederykerskamer Oefening Baart Kunst ("practice brings art") in this period.

Sources

Facsimile version of the original published text of 1879, Google E-book[2]

ONSTAGE (Online Datasystem of Theatre in Amsterdam from the Golden Age to the present, University of Amsterdam)[3]

https://www.ensie.nl/scheldwoordenboek/janus-tulp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justus_van_Maurik

Lewis Melville. "The Life of William Makepeace Thackeray" in: Richard Pearson (ed.). 2016. The William Makepeace Thackeray Library: Volume VI. Routledge[4]

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.203-205

Go to ESAT Bibliography