The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife's First Lesson

The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife's First Lesson is a farce in one act by Mrs Kemble (1774-1838)[]

Also found simply as The Day After the Wedding or A Day After the Wedding

The original text

It is usually ascribed to Mrs Kemble as an original work, though one London edition , that of 1856, refers to it as “An Interlude in One Act. Adapted from the French by Mrs Charles Kemble”. The work is also credited to Mrs Charles Kemble, Marie Thérèse Kemble or Marie Thérèse De Camp Kemble in various editions.

First produced at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 18 May 1808, as a benefit for her husband Charles Kemble.

The second edition, published in London 1811 by C. Chapple, has the title as The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife’s First Lesson and calls it "An Interlude in One Act", credited to Marie Thérèse Kemble.

Published in New York in 1846 as The Day After The Wedding only, and called "A farce in one act", credited to "Mrs. Charles Kemble".

Published in 1856 by Lacy in London as The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife’s First Lesson; and referred as "An Interlude in One Act, Adapted from the French by Mrs. Charles Kemble". If this is true, a candidate for the original may have been La Grand'maman, ou Le Lendemain de Noces, a one-act "comedie-vaudeville" by Armand Francis and Achille D'Artois.[1]. First performed at the Theatre du Vaudeville, on the 30th of April, 1825.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1823: Performed as The Day After The Wedding in the African Theatre, Cape Town by the Garrison Players on 27 September, as afterpiece to Folly As It Flies (Reynolds).

1833: Performed as The Day After the Wedding, or A Wife's First Lesson in the African Theatre, Cape Town by the All the World's a Stage on 21 September, with the interlude A Race for Dinner (Rodwell), the comic sketch of The Actress Of All Work (by Oxberry, though the author is said to be unknown in the source) and the farce The Rival Valets (Ebsworth).