The Shaughraun is a melodramatic play written by Irish playwright Dion Boucicault. It was first performed at Wallack's Theatre, New York, on 14 November 1874. [1] Dion Boucicault played Conn in the original production. The play was a huge success, making half a million dollars for Boucicault.
Robert Ffolliott, fiancé of Arte O'Neale, has returned to Ireland after escaping from transportation to Australia. He was in part sent as a result of Kinchela's desire for ownership of the O’Neale property. However, two things stand in Kinchela's way: a curse on the property that brings death to all inhabitants that are not a part of certain Irish gentry families (Arte O’Neale being from one of said families), and the engagement of Robert to Arte. Kinchela thus conspires with police informant Harvey Duff to have Robert arrested as a Fenian fugitive, [2] and sent on a ship to Australia. However the true nature of Robert’s possible Fenian political status and theoretical involvement is left ambiguous throughout the play. Kinchela then defrauds Claire and Arte by lowering the rent of the properties surrounding theirs, deceitfully forcing them to have him purchase the property. Robert escapes due to Conn the Shaughraun (Irish seachránaí = wanderer, errant person, a roguish poacher who provides a great deal of comic relief) conning his way onto the ship. The two of them then con their way onto another ship heading back to Ireland and Robert is reunited with Arte at Father Dolan’s. Robert sees Duff’s face in the window and begins to panic, but Duff flees before the others can see him as well. Molineaux searches the house for Robert with great disdain, willing to call off the search if he receives the trustworthy word of a catholic priest (Father Dolan). Father Dolan struggles greatly, unable to lie, and Robert gives himself up so that the Father does not need to.
Kinchela receives a letter detailing the Queen's pardoning of the Fenians. Kinchela and Duff fear the freedom of Robert foiling their plans, so they plot to kill him by having Kinchela come to Robert as a 'friend' and convince him of an escape plan, ultimately having the police intercept and shoot him due to their current inclination to result to "extreme measures". [3] Conn interferes with their plans, bursting Robert out of prison and playing the red herring so the henchmen shoot him dead. However, he is not actually dead, but uses the faking of his death and following wake to assist in catching the culprits. Meanwhile, Kinchela and Duff abduct Arte and Moya, planning to take them away with them.
Robert's sister, Claire Ffolliott, is in love with an English soldier, Captain Molineaux, who is tracking down Fenians in the area. She cannot decide whether or not to protect her brother or betray the Captain. She takes the side of her brother, fooling Molineaux and leading him away, but cannot go through with it and comes clean to him.
The wake is held for Conn, allowing him to eavesdrop on the henchmen and discover Arte and Moya's location. Molineaux, having received news of the pardon, joins Conn to catch the culprits. Meanwhile, Arte and Moya overthrow Duff and Kinchela, and all ends well. The Fenians receive a general amnesty, the couples marry, Kinchela is arrested, and Harvey Duff falls off a cliff.
The Shaughraun was met with great success upon its first production in New York (1874). Understandably so as the play possesses a sort of Fenian hero, and the United States is credited as the country where the Fenian movement was first initiated. It was met with equal success in its London production (1875) [5] at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in a production staged by F. B. Chatterton.
The play is attended by the protagonist, Newland Archer, in Edith Wharton's novel The Age of Innocence which is set in 1870s New York. [6]
Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English-speaking theatre. The New York Times hailed him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century,"; he and his second wife, Agnes Robertson Boucicault, applied for and received American citizenship in 1873.
The history of Irish theatre begins in the Middle Ages and was for a long time confined to the courts of the Gaelic and "Old English" – descendants of 12th-century Norman invaders – inhabitants of Ireland. The first theatre building in Ireland was the Werburgh Street Theatre, founded in 1637, followed by the Smock Alley Theatre in 1662.
The Mechanics' Hall, also known as the Hibernian Theatre of Varieties, was a theatre and music hall in Lower Abbey Street, Dublin. It stood at the site of the current Abbey Theatre at 26 Lower Abbey Street.
Philadelphia, Here I Come! is a 1964 play by Irish dramatist Brian Friel. Set in the fictional town of Ballybeg, County Donegal, the play launched Friel onto the international stage. The play was first staged at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin on September 28, 1964.
Ada Dyas was an Irish actress. She made her London debut in 1861 in Henry IV, and became famous in the 1871 play based on Wilkie Collins's novel The Woman in White.
Dion Boucicault Jr. was an actor and stage director. A son of the well-known playwright Dion Boucicault and actress Agnes Robertson, he followed his father into the theatrical profession and made a career as a character actor and a director. In addition to extensive work in the West End of London, he spent considerable time in Australia, where he went into management in the 1880s.
The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off Broadway theatre founded in 1988.
Stage Irish, also known as Drunk Irish, or collectively as Paddywhackery, is a stereotyped portrayal of Irish people once common in plays. It is an exaggerated or caricatured portrayal of supposed Irish characteristics in speech and behaviour. The stage Irishman was generally "garrulous, boastful, unreliable, hard-drinking, belligerent and chronically impecunious". This caricature includes many cultural outlets, including the stage, cartoons published in Punch and English language clichés, including terms such as "Paddywagon" and "hooligan".
Nina Boucicault was an English-born actress, daughter of the Irish playwright Dion Boucicault and his wife, actress Agnes Kelly Robertson. She had three brothers, Dion William (1855–1876), Dion Boucicault Jr. and Aubrey Boucicault, and two sisters, Eva and Patrice.
Edmund O'Flaherty, also known as William Stuart, was an Irish MP who hurriedly emigrated to the United States in 1854. In New York City he was the business partner of the actor-managers Dion Boucicault and Edwin Booth, and with them leased and managed the Winter Garden Theatre. He managed the New Park Theatre on Broadway from 1874 to 1876.
Conn, the Shaughraun is a 1912 Australian silent film directed by Gaston Mervale starring Louise Lovely based on a popular play by Dion Boucicault. It is considered a lost film.
Rose Leclercq was an English actress, possibly best known for creating the role of Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895.
Aubrey Boucicault was a British born stage actor, playwright and matinee idol. He came from a famous family of actors and playwrights, his father being Dion Boucicault.
Sarah Frances Marie Martinot was an American actress and soprano singer who performed on stage in dramas, musical comedy and comic opera. Her career began at the age fifteen as Cupid in Ixion; or, the Man at the Wheel and, but for a few years absence, she remained active on stage in America and abroad until 1908. She was the first to play Hebe in an American production of H.M.S. Pinafore, the first Katrina in the comic opera Rip Van Winkle and the first to play the title role in an English adaptation of the operetta Nanon. Late in her life Martinot would fall victim to mental illness and spend her last few years confined to psychiatric institutions.
The Shaughraun is a 1912 American silent film produced by the Kalem Company and distributed by the General Film Company. It was directed by Sidney Olcott with himself, Gene Gauntier, Alice Hollister and Jack J. Clark in the leading roles.
Peadar Lamb was an Irish actor. He was known for his roles in numerous Irish-language stage productions, including playing King Fin Varra in the television series Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog, and lending his voice to Old Piggley Winks on the children's television series Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks.
My Wild Irish Rose is a lost 1922 American silent drama film directed by David Smith and based on Dion Boucicault's 19th century play The Shaughraun. It was produced and released by the Vitagraph Company of America.
Frederick Balsir Chatterton, known as F. B. Chatterton was a 19th-century British theatre manager and impresario who was lessee of the Theatre Royal in London's Drury Lane from 1866 to 1879. He is credited with originating the famous quote, "Shakespeare spelt ruin and Byron bankruptcy".
Arrah-na-Pogue, also known as Arrah-na-Pogue; or the Wicklow Wedding, is a play in 3 acts by Dion Boucicault. Along with The Colleen Bawn (1860) and The Shaughraun (1874), it is considered one of the three major Irish plays penned by Boucicault. Set during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the play popularized the street ballad The Wearing of the Green; a rendition of which was included in the play with lyrics by Boucicault. It has had an enduring place in the canon of dramatic literature on the stage internationally, and has been adapted into other media.
Milton of Campsie Football Club was a football team from Milton of Campsie, Stirlingshire.
