Hippodrama, horse drama, or equestrian drama is a genre of theatrical show blending circus horsemanship display with popular melodrama theatre.
Hippodrama, horse drama, or equestrian drama is a genre of theatrical show blending circus horsemanship display with popular melodrama theatre.
Kimberly Poppiti defines hippodrama as "plays written or performed to include a live horse or horses enacting significant action or characters as a necessary part of the plot." [1] Arthur Saxon defines the form similarly, as “[...] literally a play in which trained horses are considered as actors, with business, often leading actions, of their own to perform.” [2] Evolving from earlier equestrian circus, pioneered by equestrians including, most famously, Philip Astley in the 1760s, [3] it relied on drama plays written specifically for the genre; trained horses were considered actors along with humans and were even awarded leading roles. [4] A more negative assessment came from Anthony Hippisley-Coxe, who described hippodrama as "a bastard entertainment born of a misalliance between the circus and the theatre ... that actually inhibited the development of the circus". [5]
Horses appeared in Western European theater in the second half of the 18th century, both on stage and in aerial stunts (flying Pegasus). [4] Hippodrama emerged at the turn of the 19th century in England, introduced by Philip Astley in outdoor settings. At this time, the Licensing Act 1737 was in effect, which allowed only three venues to perform “legitimate theater” (patent theatre). These included Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the summer theatre in the Haymarket. These theaters had patents on real drama. Other theaters, such as Astley's Amphitheatre and the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy (latterly the Surrey Theatre), were only granted licenses for “public dancing and music” and “for other public entertainments of the like kind”. [6] Astley's horse acts in his circus were allowed within his license. However, Astley wanted to produce shows more like “legitimate theater.” He soon realized that he could produce real drama as long as the action was performed on horseback. Thus, hippodrama was born. He adapted common stories and plays in a way where they could be performed on horses. Not only that, but the horses were the main actors. The horses had their own business, or leading actions, to perform that helped carry out the plot. [7] Also at this time, gradual closing of country fairs and discharge of cavalrymen and grooms after the end of the Continental Wars [4] provided both experienced staff and public interest to the new show.
Early hippodrama were presented in London at Astley's Amphitheatre, Royal Circus and Olympic Pavilion; and in Paris at Cirque Olympique, [4] where 36 horse riders could perform simultaneously. [3] Theatres built for hippodramas combined proscenium stage with a dirt-floored riding arena separated by orchestra pit; scene and arena were connected by ramps, forming a single performing space. [3] Signor Manfredi presented the first equestrian drama in the United States with his production of "La Fille Hussard" during the 1802–1803 season in New York at the Park Theatre. [8] The Circus of Pepin and Breschard presented an adaptation of Don Quixote de la Mancha "on horseback and on foot, with combats" in New York City on August 12, 1809. [9] Pepin and Breschard's company presented hippodramas in the United States from at least 1809 until 1815. Christoph de Bach produced similar entertainment in Vienna. [4] Astley's 1810 financial success with The Blood Red Knight may have influenced the decision of reluctant management of Covent Garden and Drury Lane theatres to join the lucrative business. [4] The first hippodrama on the legitimate stage of London was an equestrianized production of "Blue Beard" at Covent Garden in February 1811.
The same stage later that season saw the debut of the first play written specifically to include horses, Timour the Tartar , which premiering at New York's Olympic Theatre the following year. [10] Hippodrama plays, tailored for the masses, revolved around colourful Eastern subjects (Timur/Tamerlane, the conqueror of Central Asia, or the Ukrainian military leader Mazepa) and the European military past ( Marlborough's Heroic Deeds ). [4] Mazeppa, or the Wild Horse of Tartary , first staged in England in 1823, became a hit of Astley's Amphitheatre in 1831 and was performed by travelling companies in the United States from 1833; in the 1860s it became a trademark show for Adah Isaacs Menken. [11] Adaptations of William Shakespeare ( Richard III ) were another common choice. [3] Highwaymen real and fictional proved figures to hang stores on: Dick Turpin's Ride to York [12] and Paul Clifford [13]
Equestrian drama became popular in the United States, as well as in England and France, and the Lafayette Circus in New York City, inaugurated in 1825, was the first American theatre building specifically designed for hippodrama, followed by the Philadelphia Amphitheater and the Baltimore Roman Amphitheatre. [3] Hippodrama shows attracted working class audiences that included labourers and seamen, [14] "ready to riot at the slightest provocations"; [15] "in fact, much of recorded rowdyism of the mid-1820s in New York City took place at Lafayette Circus. [14]
Hippodrama traveled all the way to Australia. Hippodromes were built in Sydney and Melbourne in the 1850s. “The year 1854 was also the year in which the Crimean War began, so Lewis’s mention of the military value of sport and drama was a pointed one; hippodramas by implication assisted in encouraging men to keep themselves fit and trained in military skills such as horse-riding” (Fotheringham 12). However, hippodrama was not as big in Australia as it was in England. It did leave an impact, though. Hippodrama helped change Australian theater building designs. There had to be a way for the horses to get onstage, so the theaters started to build ramps leading up to the stage. Also, the stages had to be big enough to hold a circus ring. From then on, the stages were built bigger. [16]
The Equestrian Circus in Saint Petersburg, Russia was built by Alberto Cavos in 1847.
The American Hengler's Circus prospered in the 1850s under the heading of Hengler's Colossal Hippodrama, [17] but elsewhere popularity of the genre faded by the middle of the century. [4] It was revived in France under Napoleon III, especially with the 1863 production of the Battle of Marengo and in 1880 Michel Strogoff . [4] The United States saw a brief revival of the genre in the late 1880s and 1890s, helped by the invention of specially designed stage machinery built for the production of equestrian dramas that included movement by horses on stage that could range from simple horse and buggy rides, to displays of circus equestrianism, to (most notably) onstage horse races.
The 1899 hippodrama Ben-Hur was notable for its elaborate use of spectacle, including horses running inside elaborately constructed cradles to create the optical illusion of the famous chariot race. The stage production opened at the Broadway Theater in New York City, became a hit Broadway show, and travelled the United States for 21 years. (Versions also reached Great Britain and Australia.) By the end of its run in April 1920, the play had been seen by more than twenty million people and earned over $10 million at the box office. The key spectacle of the 1899 show recreated the novel's chariot race with live horses and real chariots running on treadmills against a rotating backdrop. [18] [19] When the novel's author Lew Wallace saw the elaborate stage sets, he exclaimed, "My God. Did I set all of this in motion?" [18] [20]
Film, introduced at the turn of the 20th century, finally replaced hippodrama as the show for the masses. [4]
In recent times, the Cavalia circus/show/production company (and other similar companies) have produced a well-received modern form that can be considered hippodrama, which tours internationally, using as many as 30 horses per show and playing for up to two thousand people at a time. [21]
A modern one-of-a-kind hippodrama directed by Franz Abraham, an equestrian reenactment of Ben Hur , took place at the O2 arena, London on September 15, 2009. The show employed one hundred animals (including thirty-two horses) and four hundred people. [22]
The hippodrome was an ancient Greek stadium for horse racing and chariot racing. The name is derived from the Greek words hippos and dromos. The term is used in the modern French language and some others, with the meaning of "horse racecourse". Hence, some present-day horse-racing tracks also include the word "hippodrome" in their names, such as the Hippodrome de Vincennes and the Central Moscow Hippodrome. In the English-speaking world the term is occasionally used for theatres.
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclists as well as other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. The term circus also describes the performance which has followed various formats through its 250-year modern history. Although not the inventor of the medium, Philip Astley is credited as the father of the modern circus. In 1768, Astley, a skilled equestrian, began performing exhibitions of trick horse riding in an open field called Ha'Penny Hatch on the south side of the Thames River, England. In 1770, he hired acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers and a clown to fill in the pauses between the equestrian demonstrations and thus chanced on the format which was later named a "circus". Performances developed significantly over the next fifty years, with large-scale theatrical battle reenactments becoming a significant feature. The traditional format, in which a ringmaster introduces a variety of choreographed acts set to music, developed in the latter part of the 19th century and remained the dominant format until the 1970s.
Philip Astley was an English equestrian, circus owner, and inventor, regarded as being the "father of the modern circus". Modern circus, as an integrated entertainment experience that includes music, domesticated animals, acrobats, and clowns, traces its heritage to Astley's Amphitheatre, a riding school that Astley founded in London following the success of trick-riding displays given by him and his wife Patty Jones in 1768. Astley's first competitor was equestrian Charles Hughes, who had previously worked with Astley. Together with Charles Dibdin, a famous author of pantomimes, Hughes opened a rival amphitheatre in London, which Dibdin called the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy.
The equestrian theatre company of Pépin and Breschard, American Victor Pépin and Frenchman Jean Baptiste Casmiere Breschard, arrived in the United States of America from Madrid, Spain, in November 1807. They toured that new country until 1815. From their arrival until the present day, what is now known as the traditional circus has had a presence in North America.
Pablo Fanque was a British equestrian performer and circus proprietor, becoming the first recorded Black circus owner in Britain. His circus was popular in Victorian Britain for 30 years, a period that is regarded as the golden age of the circus.
The Bowery Amphitheatre was a building in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City. It was located at 37 and 39 Bowery, across the street from the Bowery Theatre. Under a number of different names and managers, the structure served as a circus, menagerie, theatre, a roller rink, and a branch of the Peniel Mission. The site is now part of Confucius Plaza.
Astley's Amphitheatre was a performance venue in London opened by Philip Astley in 1773, considered the first modern circus ring. It was burned and rebuilt several times, and went through many owners and managers. Despite no trace of the theatre remaining today, a memorial plaque was unveiled in 1951 at its site at 225 Westminster Bridge Road.
The Surrey Theatre, London began life in 1782 as the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy, one of the many circuses that provided entertainment of both horsemanship and drama (hippodrama). It stood in Blackfriars Road, near the junction with Westminster Bridge Road, just south of the River Thames in what is now the London Borough of Southwark.
Andrew Ducrow was a British circus performer, often called the "Colossus of equestrians". He was the originator of horsemanship acts and proprietor of Astley's Amphitheatre, and remains one of the few giants of equestrian drama whose name is still familiar in the twenty-first century.
Ben-Hur was an 1899 theatrical adaptation of the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) by Lew Wallace. The story was dramatized by William W. Young and produced by Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger. The stage production was notable for its elaborate use of spectacle, including live horses for the famous chariot race. The hippodrama had six acts with incidental music written by American composer Edgar Stillman Kelley. The stage production opened at the Broadway Theater in New York City on November 29, 1899, and became a hit Broadway show. Traveling versions of the production, including a national tour that ran for twenty-one years, played in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. By the end of its run in April 1920, the play had been seen by more than twenty million people and earned over $10 million at the box office. There have been other stage adaptations of Wallace's novel, as well as several motion picture versions.
John Bill Ricketts (1769–1802) was an English equestrian who brought the first modern circus to the United States.
Henry M. Milner was a 19th-century British playwright and author of melodramas and popular tragedies. Milner wrote numerous plays, including two popular equestrian dramas/hippodramas featuring live horses on stage. These are: Mazeppa; or, the Wild Horse of Tartary, which kicked off a wave of interest in the legend and Dick Turpin's Ride to York; or, Bonny black Bess, about the famous highwayman and his horse. Both of these plays included great spectacle in performance and enjoyed great popular success during the mid to late nineteenth century. ' 'Mazeppa' ' was extremely popular and often produced; it is recalled as one of, if not the most, significant and popular equestrian drama of all time.
Lafayette Circus Theatre emerged in Manhattan in 1825 as an equestrian circus arena; in 1826–1827 it was rebuilt into a conventional theatre hall with an orchestra pit and advanced rigging. It boasted equipment for both equestrian (Hippodrama) and aquatic drama. The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1829.
William Batty (1801–1868) was an equestrian performer, circus proprietor, and longtime operator of Astley's Amphitheatre in London. Batty was one of the most successful circus proprietors in Victorian England and helped launch the careers of a number of leading Victorian circus personalities, such as Pablo Fanque, the versatile performer and later circus proprietor, and W.F. Wallett, one of the most celebrated clowns of the era. Also, while in operation for only two years, Batty's most lasting legacy is probably Batty's Grand National Hippodrome, also known as Batty's Hippodrome, an open-air amphitheatre he erected in 1851 in Kensington Gardens, London, to attract audiences from the Crystal Palace Exhibition nearby.
Thomas Barry was an Irish circus clown. He worked with various circuses but was associated most with Astley's Circus. Barry was a traditional "buffoon" whiteface clown whose performances were based on physical humour. In 1844 he featured in a famous stunt whereby he appeared to be towed along the River Thames in a tub pulled by four geese. Barry left Astley's Circus in 1848 after falling-out with another clown, though he later returned, he retired permanently in 1856 after another disagreement. Whilst out of the circus Barry was landlord of the Crown Tavern in Lambeth.
Cooke's Royal Circus (1780–1912) started as a circus show travelling around Britain in the late 18th century. It was primarily an equestrian show with over half the acts involving horses.
The Anthony Street Theatre was an early New York City theatre which operated intermittently from 1812 to 1821. It opened as the Olympic Theatre in May 1812 and had multiple names during its brief existence.
Marie Elizabeth Macarte was an English equestrienne and circus performer who found success in Britain and the United States in the 1840s to 1860s.
Timour the Tartar is an 1811 hippodrama play by English dramatist Matthew Lewis. The equestrian drama was a popular success.
The Secret Mine: An Equestrian Melo-Drama, in Two Acts is an 1812 equestrian play by Thomas John Dibdin and John Fawcett.
hippodrama.
Lafayette Circus.
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