The Italian Father

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The Italian Father: A Comedy, in Five Acts (1799) is an American comedic play by William Dunlap, though substantially adapted from Part II of The Honest Whore (c. 1606) by Thomas Dekker.

William Dunlap American playwright, producer and actor

William Dunlap was a pioneer of American theater. He was a producer, playwright, and actor, as well as a historian. He managed two of New York City's earliest and most prominent theaters, the John Street Theatre and the Park Theatre. He was also an artist, despite losing an eye in childhood.

<i>The Honest Whore</i> play written by Thomas Dekker

The Honest Whore is an early Jacobean city comedy, written in two parts; Part 1 is a collaboration between Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, while Part 2 is the work of Dekker alone. The plays were acted by the Admiral's Men.

Thomas Dekker (writer) 16th/17th-century English dramatist and pamphleteer

Thomas Dekker was an English Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer, a versatile and prolific writer, whose career spanned several decades and brought him into contact with many of the period's most famous dramatists.

Contents

Dunlap considered it his best play. It was popular with the public at the time (who mistakenly believed it to be a translation of August von Kotzebue and approved it accordingly as a great work), [1] [2] and considered positively by modern critics. [3] [4] It debuted at the Park Theatre in New York City on April 15, 1799, and played for three performances that season. It also played in Boston in the fall, and was revived in New York for one performance in 1802. [4]

August von Kotzebue German dramatist

August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue was a German dramatist and writer who also worked as a consul in Russia and Germany.

Park Theatre (Manhattan) former theater in Manhattan, New York City, United States

The Park Theatre, originally known as the New Theatre, was a playhouse in New York City, located at 21, 23, and 25 Park Row, about 200 feet (61 m) east of Ann Street and backing Theatre Alley. The location, at the north end of the city, overlooked the park that would soon house City Hall. French architect Marc Isambard Brunel collaborated with fellow émigré Joseph-François Mangin and his brother Charles on the design of the building in the 1790s. Construction costs mounted to precipitous levels, and changes were made in the design; the resulting theatre had a rather plain exterior. The doors opened in January 1798.

New York City Largest city in the United States

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States and thus also in the state of New York. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

The play was published in 1810, wherein Dunlap admitted he had "enriched his work" from old English sources but claimed it was "without forfeiting his claim to originality in the composition." [1] When writing his History of the American Theatre twenty years after that, Dunlap admitted that "Decker furnished many of the finest passages in this drama." [5]

The 1830 play The Deformed by Richard Penn Smith is based both on The Honest Whore and Dunlap's adaptation. [6]

Richard Penn Smith American playwright

Richard Penn Smith was a minor American playwright who is best known for writing a largely fictitious account of events at and leading up to the Battle of the Alamo, which was presented as the work of Davy Crockett.

Original New York cast

Thomas Apthorpe Cooper American actor

Thomas Abthorpe Cooper was an English actor.

Joseph Jefferson American actor and author

Joseph Jefferson, commonly known as Joe Jefferson, was an American actor. He was the third actor of this name in a family of actors and managers, and one of the most famous of all 19th century American comedians. Jefferson was particularly well known for his adaptation and portrayal of Rip Van Winkle on the stage, reprising the role in several silent film adaptations. After 1865, he created no other major role and toured with this play for decades.

Giles Leonard Barrett was an English actor who came to the United States in the 1790s, and was most popular in Boston.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Dunlap, William. A History of the American Theatre, pp. 265-66 (1832)
  2. ↑ A History of the American Theatre from Its Origins to 1832, p. xvi (2005)
  3. ↑ Burt, Daniel S., ed. The Chronology of American Literature, p. 108 (2004)
  4. 1 2 Coad, Oral Sumner. William Dunlap: S Study of His Life and Works of His Place in Contemporary Culture, pp. 67, 167, 287 (1917)
  5. ↑ Hoy, Cyrus. Introductions, Notes and Commentaries to Texts in 'The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker', Vol II, pp. 74-75 (1979)
  6. ↑ Quinn, Arthur Hobson, ed. The Literature of the American People: An Historical and Critical Survey, p. 470 (1951)
  7. ↑ Ireland, Joseph Norton. A Memoir of the Professional Life of Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, p. 90 (1888)
Internet Broadway Database online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel

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