The Sightless Bride

The Sightless Bride is a play by an unnamed author.

Probably the same work as the plays known as Sightless Bride and The Devil of Paris, or The Sightless Bride.

The original text

There are a few candidates for the play and author in this case. Probably all the same work.

A play by an anonymous author, called Sightless Bride and described as "a play with music" that "includes an Irish song and jig", was performed at the New Bowery Theatre, New York, 22-23 August, 1864 and a play called The Sightless Bride was performed in the Metropolitan Theatre, California, on 2 November, 1870 (again, no author mentioned).

A play called The Devil of Paris, or The Sightless Bride is listed in Popular Stage: Theatre in Nineteenth Century England (p.30) and is there ascribed variously to J.B. Johnstone (John Beer Johnstone, fl. 1860s), T. Archer Surrey () and "Anon." Dated 1865 in the listing.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1876: Performed as The Sightless Bride (Anon.) in the Theatre Royal, Burg Street, Cape Town by Disney Roebuck's company, under the temporary management of C. Wilstone, on 27 July, with The Momentous Question (Fitzball).

Sources

https://www.musicingotham.org/event/52677

Daily Alta California, Volume 22, Number 7530, 2 November 1870

Popular Stage: Theatre in Nineteenth Century England (Series One, Manuscript and Typescript: Parts 1-5: Author Index. Page 30), Gale (microform.gale.com).

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.341, 346

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