Three and the Deuce!

A comic drama in three acts by Prince Hoare (1755-1834), with music by Stephen Storace (1762-1796).

(Storace is credited as main author in some references)

First performed in English at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1795. Revived in 1805 and played at the Theatres Royal Haymarket and Drury Lane. Published by Barker and Son, 1806.

The original text

According to the published English text of 1806, the plot was taken from the French comedy Les Trois Jumeaux Vénitiens ("The three Venetian twins") by Antonio Collalto (also known as Antonio Collalto Mattiuzzi - 1717?-1778), as well as a Spanish comedy Los Tres Mellizos ("The three twins"), performed in Madrid in the late 1700s or early 1800s.

In actual fact they are all basically the same play: I Tre Gemelli Veneziani ("The three Venetian twins") by Antonio Collalto Mattiuzzi. Originally written in Italian when Mattiuzzi was at the Theatre Italien in Paris (1759-1778). (According to the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani[1], this was in its turn an adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s 1750 play I Due Gemelli Veneziani - "The two Venetian twins", also formally translated as The Venetian Twins.)

Matiuzzi’s original was translated into French by P.-A. Lefèvre de Marcouville as Les Trois Jumeaux Vénitiens; performed for the King at Versailles on 31 December 1773, and in Paris at the Theatre Italienne in 1774. Published in Paris 1777, also in 1792. Apparently translated into Spanish by an unknown author, as Los Tres Mellizos, and performed in Madrid under that title. Hoare had access - directly or indirectly - to at least the plots of both the French and Spanish versions.

A Dutch version of I Tre Gemelli Veneziani, De Venetiaanse Drielingen, was published by Henrikus Spruit, Utrecht, in 1781, possibly based on the published French version.

Performance history in South Africa

1823: A copy of the English text was sought by the Garrison Players in Cape Town . Bosman (1928) has no record of a public performance of the play by them though.