There are two French one-act plays by this name:

There is a Dutch play called Het Testament, said to be adapted "from the French" by P. van der Velde ()[], which could be version of either, though the likely candidate would be the Radet work, but is most likely to be a Dutch version of L'Héritière (1834), a "comédie-vaudeville" by Augustin Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne.

See L'Héritière

Le Testament ("The will") by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle

Le Testament ("The will") is a one act comedy by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle()[]

Published in Volume 8 of Oeuvres de Monsiour De Fontenelle by Bernard Brunet, Paris, in 1751.

Facsimile version of Oeuvres de Monsiour De Fontenelle, Google E-book[1]

Le Testament ("The will") by J.B. Radet

Le Testament, is a vaudeville style one act play ("comédie en un acte et en prose, mêlée de vaudevilles") by J.B. Radet ()[]

First performed at the Theatre de Vaudeville on 5 October, 1797 Published 1797

It may have been the source for the Scribe and Delavigne play of 1834.

facsimnile version of the 1797 edition, Google E-book[2]

The original text

First performed at the Théâtre du Gymnase Dramatique in Paris 20 December, 1823. Clearly popular it was published in Paris by Pollet, 1823, in Brussels by Dupon, 1827 and again in Paris by Barba, 1834.

It was possibly derived from one of two 19th century French plays called Le Testament, the one a one act comedy by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle()[] published in 1751 or the other a vaudeville style one act play ("comédie en un acte et en prose, mêlée de vaudevilles") by J.B. Radet ()[] from 1797. Judging from internal evidence, the latter is the most likely candidate.

Translations and adaptations

Translated into Dutch as Het Testament ("Blijspel, met sang") by an anonymous author, first performed in Amsterdam and published in there by Westerman en Zoon and Van der Hulst in 1834.

The same translation, listed as Het Testament, of De Erfgename ("The will, or the heir"), was performed at the Royal Dutch Theatre at the Hague in 1836.

It is most probably the translation listed by F.C.L. Bosman (1980) as Het Testament ("The will") and described as a Dutch one act play adapted "from the French" by P. van der Velde ()[].

Performance history in South Africa

1870: Possibly the play performed in Dutch as Het Testament in the Germania Hall, Cape Town, by Aurora II on 9 August, with Twee Emmers Water (). (According to Bosman (1980) a one act play by a "P. van der Velde").

1910: According to Bosman (1980), Het Testament (similarly credited) was again was performed in Dutch in the A.N.V. Hall, Cape Town, by Aurora III on 3 March.