The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish

The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish is a romantic drama by William Bayle Bernard (1807-1875)[]

The original text

Bernard's play is based on James Fenimore Cooper's tale The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (published in the USA in 1829, and as The Borderers in England, 18??), which tells the story of Ruth Heathcoat, who had been abducted by Narragansett Indians as an infant, raised by the tribe and fully adopted its culture. When found by her relatives she had married, taken a tribal name, "Narra-mattah", and given birth to a son. (The novel was published as The Borderers in England.)

According to Hugh MacDougall's "Introduction" to the play on the James Fenimore Cooper Society Website[1], Bernard's version was not the first dramatization of the book, since two earlier versions (Miantonimoh and Narramattah, or The Lost Found) were both performed in New York, 1830. However, Bernard's was the first version done in London, where premiered at the Adelphi Theatre on November 21st, 1831, with Mme. Celeste in the lead. She would go on to tour with it in America (1834-1843, 1851-52) and revive it at the Adelphi (of which she eventually became the manager) once more in 1850 and 1857.

The text was published as The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish by John Dicks (No. 546 of Dicks' Standard Plays)

F.C.L. Bosman (1980: p. 221) - or possibly his sources?- lists the play's name (wrongly) as The Weft of the Wish-ton-Wish.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1867: Performed, as The Weft of the Wish-ton-Wish (?), by "Le Roy's Original Company" in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town on 28 February, with The Legend of St Croix (Anon.).

Sources

Hugh MacDougall. 2004. "Introduction" to a facsimile version of the text, Cooper Society Miscellaneous Papers, No. 19, August 2004, James Fenimore Cooper Society Website[2] (Placed on line July 2009 - consulted 21 June 2020)

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: p.221

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