The Melodrama Fad

Like our fluctuating interests in reality shows now,  from Survivor to Top Model to The Bachilor, so was the changing interests in types of Melodrama of the 19th Century. The style always the same, as is the formula for reality shows, but the details changed to match the fickle audience and change in trends.

Thomas Holcrofts A Tale of Mystery was the first labeled melodrama, an English Translation of Pixerecourt's Coelina. In Coelina the heiress Coelina is kept apart from her lover by a scheming uncle who wants to marry her for her money, and a dumb beggar with his tongue cut out holds the secret to her birth. The play climaxes in a chase scene with the beggars, who is caught and the truth found out. Everything ends happily, and the young lovers get to marry. (Coelina)

The faithful dog jumping in to save a person
something seen at Sadler's Wells Theatre
http://www.dogdrama.com/ddhistory.html

Pretty basic melodrama set up?
This sensational form attracted large audiences, many who probably read Gothic novels, which was picked up by minor and major theatres alike. And with this stiff competition, new gimmicks and spectacle had to be found.

At the Astley Theatre and the Royal Circus (before it became The Surrey) melodrama with feats of horsemanship (the taking of the citadel) and dog drama, which were melodrama tales with canine hero's incorporated into the action.

At the Sandler's Well's Theatre a water tank was installed in 1804, and aquatic melodramas then became the rage. Melodramas at this time were moving towards more contemporary stories.  With Douglas William Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan (1829) and many of Edward Fitzball's melodramas at the time, nautical melodrama became the fad.

Fitzballs is given credit for initiating the trend in melodrama's based off of real crimes of the time with his play Murder at the Roadside Inn (1833).

John Buckstone, with Luke the Laborer (1826) began the growing interest in domestic drama.
Then followed "gentlemanly" melodrama, which brought more uppercrust audience approval of melodrama.  (Brockett, pg. 299)


So, rather than thinking of The Inchcape Bell, which is a blend of nautical, Gothic, and domestic melodrama (Thanks Fitzballs), as being outdated and the style old fashioned, many conventions of the story can be applied to appeal to modern audiences. Melodrama has not died away. It's in Indian Bollywood stories, filled with good guys and bad guys and song and dance numbers. Its in our reality shows, with heighten emotions and incidental music (common for most movies).

My suggestion to the director thinking of doing this piece; honor it's history, know that people WILL enjoy this, but also make it apply to today's audience. Following trends and making the audience happy is what melodrama does best.



Resources Used:

"Coelina (Coelina, ou L'Enfant du mystère)." Net Industries. N.p., 2011. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. <http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages/10536/Coelina-(Coelina-ou-L'Enfant-du-mystère).html>.


Brockett, Oscar G., and Franklin J. Hildy. History of the Theatre. Foundation ed. N.p.: Pearson Education, Inc,, 2007. 296-97. Print.




RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

View Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Beginning of movie shows an accurate protrayl of what 19^th century would have been like. 

And if you are curious about what nautical melodrama is:

"Nautical Drama"  The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Central Washington University.  8 March 2011  http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t79.e2179

Mr. Edward Fitzball

Edward Fitzball was a popular melodramatists of the Romantic and Victorian periods, and a very prolific one as well; he produced about 170 melodramas, opera librettos, burlettas, tragedies, comedies, and farces. But he is best know for his melodramas. The peak of his success was between the 1920's and 1930's.

Fitzball was not his original last name. His real name was Ball, which he added his mother's maiden name too. He produced his first three plays in Norwich, Edwin (1817), Bertha (1819), and The Ruffian Boy (1819). It wasn't until his play The Innkeeper of Abbeville (1821) at the Surrey Theatre did he find an appreciative audience. 

He gained a reputation of writing plays that were '"fantastically staged" and "highly intricate."' (Schneider) He was also known for his innovations in theatre special effects, such as back projection, which is "using light set on a track backstage to project a shadow on cotton gauze in the forestage so that the shadow of the object increased as the light moved further back from the object."

In a historically daring move, in the crime melodrama The Murder at the Roadside Inn (1827) he had a cross section of a building with 4 rooms, and simultaneous and overlapping action sequences in each. This was protested by his co-workers, but became a huge success for The Surrey Theatre, running 264 nights. (Schneider)

From 1835 to 1838 he was the resident dramatist and reader at Covant Garden. His popularity waned in the late 1830's when the publics interest in realistic drama increased. 

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/ablit/britlit/Lacy71_80.html

His play The Inchcape Bell opened at The Surrey Theatre on May 26 1828, and was later published in the first volume of Cumberland's Minor Theatre in 1828, and then in Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays Vol. 79 in 1851. (Booth, pg xxvii)

Other plays he is well known for:

The Flying Dutchman (1827)

The Pilot (1825)

Resources Used:

Schneider, Jacob. "British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries." The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska . University of Nebraska , Dec. 2004. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. <http://www.unl.edu/Corvey/html/Projects/Corvey%20Poets/BallEdward/BallBio.htm>.

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

Language in Discerning Character

The Surrey Theatre, located in the East side of Londan in the Lambeth Bourough, was situated in a place where workers were the vast majority. These sailors and carpenters used (and people in the are still use) an English dialect called Cockney. They would have vastly enjoyed the comic characters of Jupiter Seabreeze,   Sampson Sawdust and Beckey Butterfly, with their particular dialect and malapropisms and working man puns. 

In the play, certain spelling of words gives the impression of a dialect. Certain characters, such as Sampson Sawdust, places an extra "s" on ends of words. For example "Here's my pocket vial; fill it,Mother Tapps; it is but a little one, but it sarves a purpose...my hatchet I takes with me; I never travels without my hatchet."(Booth, pg. 7)

 

This way of talking would be useful in letting the audience know the class level of the characters. As well as their theatrical purpose. Their speech is set up very much like Shakespeare's fools. Other lower class characters, such as Hans Hattock, you find less playfulness in his language and more short cutting sentences. For example: "'Tis the place: luckily, I have discovered it just ere nightfall, which has screened me, also, from further pursuit."(pg. 12) In none of his lines is there evidence of an excessive use of "s" at the end of words.

http://www.amazon.com/Lights-London-Other-Victorian-Plays/dp/0192827367

For the three comical characters, carpenter and sailor words abound. Michael Booth has a wonderful Explanatory Notes section at the back of his book The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays, which I highly recommend be read to have a full idea of the puns in the play.

An example:

Beckey reads a love letter from Sampson the carpenter, to her, and in it he says "I love you a great deal" and she puns on the word deal.

Deal- A plank sawn from a log of particular width, length and thickness. 

*The actor, having a full understanding of the terminology and how it was being used, could then produce a clearer comedic performance. Just as any Shakespearian actor would need to prepare by looking up words, so is the case here. 

Resources Used:

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

Recommended Reading:

MacKenzie, Mike. Seatalk Nautical Dictionary . N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. <http://www.seatalk.info/>

Melodrama Types and Acting Conventions

When people are asked to describe melodramatic acting, words like "big gestures," "intense emotions," and "poetical speaking"find their way in. This style of acting was very well suited to the larger than life stories, high stakes, and extreme good fighting against extreme bad.


For serious characters, this style was necessary to the story. For the more comedic folks, such as Sampson Sawdust, Jupiter Seabreeze, and their sweetheart Beckey Butterfly, this acting was not needed. 
They perhaps would be played with a farcical emphasis based on real working class people. 


According to Oxford reference online, some stock characters from melodrama might be "noble heroes, persecuted maidens, aristocratic villains, stalwart British sailors, but before melodrama actors throughout the European tradition had specialized in noble fathers, male romantic leads, tyrants, soubrettes, and ingénues." (MC "Stock Characters")  Knowing what stock character you were (which most, if not all, actors knew which they were) and what was expected of that character was important for the style of the play. 


"Some special acting techniques"(Booth, pg. xvii) might be required for the villain, on top of his particular outfit. 


Acting conventions for melodrama were taken from classical and "legitimate" drama; codified gestures were used to convey certain things, the acting style was very presentational, with the actors facing out to the audience, and facial expressions and elocution were exaggerated. A well-received speech might be encored two or three times before the play moved on. (Huntley)

The descriptions of the Dumb Sailor Boy in the text are interesting, and the acting gestures of the time would have been very important to this character. One of my favorite acting moments in the directions;
"The boy starts up, throws down the buckets; stretches out his hand, in token of Heaven's Vengeance, and his own resolution still to effect his escape." (Booth, pg. 19)

Yeah, actor, take that. Go!

In the short silent film below, dating back to 1900, you can get an idea of the types of gesturing that would have been used onstage.

Other conventions of theatre at this time would be the use of "pictures" or  "tableaux" at certain moments of heightened emotion. The actors would group in a series of striking poses at the end of acts, and hold them for a minute or two, to help increase the emotion and relationships in the scene. (Booth, pg xiv)

There is one stage direction for a "picture" in In defenceless chcape Bell: at the end of act one, during the chase scene between the dumb boy and Hans the pirate, after Guy Ruthven's powerful line "and he amongst ye that dares to advance a single step to harm one hair of his defenceless head dies instantly!" (pg 18)


Resources Used:

Huntley, Buff. "Melodrama." Dog Drama. N.p., 2006. google.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://www.dogdrama.com/ddhistory.html>.

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

MC "stock character"  The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance. Edited by Dennis Kennedy. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Central Washington University.  11 March 2011  <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t315.e3774>

The Villian Wore Red: Costumes for Victorian Melodramas

As the 19th century progressed, Victorian theatre audiences began to expect realism onstage, in sets and in costumes. However, before that, historically accurate costumes was not required. 

What the hero or heroine might wear would be fashions of the time:

http://www.victoriana.com/Victorian-Fashion/

http://www.victoriana.com/Victorian-Fashion/

Add caption

For the villains of the show, they did something a big more menacing. Tom Robertson describes the transformation of the "Heavy man" of the company into his pirate's costume:

"The baggy trousers of private life are discarded for the tight-fitting pantaloons of the brightest red. The well-trodden boots, familiar with the pavement, give place to a pair of patent-leather curiosities, which run up the leg considerably higher than the knee, and which are lined with morocco as scarlet as the tights...A short white shirt, bordered with a broad stripe, still redder than the tights or the morocco of the boots, descends from the waist to his knees...A striped Guernsey shirt cover his herculean chest, over it he wears a scarlet waistcoat, infinitely more scarlet than the hem of the petticoat-trousers, the morocco fo the boots, or the colour of the tights"

The description goes on to the wig "With a black wig, black whiskers, black mustaches, black eyebrows, and a broad black line under each eyes, intended to represent black eyelashes, every trace of the good-humor of his face has vanished." (Robertson, Theatrical Types No. X)

Victoria Theatre Scenes 1880 Russian Trotting Horses

The illustration to the left is from the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, June 10 1880, and the top section was from a show done at the Victoria Theatre. The gentleman in the center looks how I imagine the Villain Pirate Hans Hattock would have looked.

Resources used:

Robertson, Tom. "Theatrical Types. No. X: Heavy Men and Character Parts" Illustrated Times, 26 June 1864

Victoria Theatre Scenes 1880 Russian Trotting Horses. 1880. Old-print.com. Google.com. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. http://www.prints-4-all.com/cgi-bin/item/MAR1057241/7/19%2DVictoria%2DTheatre%2DScenes%2D1880%2DRussian%2DTrotting%2DHorses#

Dum dum da: Music of the Melodrama

As mentioned in the post about the Surrey Theatre, it hosted a 22 piece orchestra, which was not uncommon for the day. Rather, this was a vital piece to theatre for the melodrama. The orchestra would play, not only at particular songs, but as transitions between scenes and as background incidental music to  heighten the emotions of the scene. (Booth, p.xiv)

Here is a wonderful example in The Inchcape Bell, when the dumb sailor boy is being chased by the villain Hans Hattock:

Sir John: ...Who knocks?
Music. The window is hastily opened by the Boy, who enters, and, throwing himself at Sir John's feet, indicates that he is pursued, and that he is dumb
Sir John: Dumb and pursued. Ah! Captain Taffrail here; is it of him you are afraid?
Music. Enter Taffrail, and two sailors. The Boy runs towards Taffrail, embraces him, places his hand on his heart, and indicates that he is his friend
(Booth, pg 11)

Booth makes an interesting observation: "Actors must have used the music to enhance their own vocal delivery." And besides being used in a creative way, the music would have the mundane task of covering loud noises from backstage scene changes.

Particular kinds of music would be associated with certain stock characters when making entrences and exits. A comic man would have a different musical motif assigned to him than a hero motif. (Booth, pg xiv)

As mentioned above, there would be songs with lyrics meant for the actor to sing. Only two characters, Sampson Sawdust and Amelia had songs to sing, the other two sung by the chorus of seamen and pirates. The play only gives the lyrics to these songs, not the sheet music, and the only hint to the tune of Sampson's song  is "Air- 'Blue Bonnets'" (pg. 7) Michael Booth elaborates on this, saying that it was probably set to a loose version of All the Blue Bonnets are Over the Border, which is a traditional Scottish song.

Above is the original version being sung, which I think might have come closest to what was done. If you follow Sampson's lyrics along with the melody, it works very well.

Here are a sample of Sampson's Lyrics:

Drink, drink, lovers of every sort:

Then, my boys, boldly you Cupid may throttle.

Drink, drink, while you can get a drop;

Often man's courage lies hid in a bottle.

Many a Captain Bluff

Feels his pulse low enough,

Nor dares the question pop, though e'er so handy.

Boys, when you kiss again,

Smacks for the lasses, and bravos for brandy.

Drink, drink, else you may shut up shop;

All know that love is an awkward disorder;

Drink, drink, while you can get a drop.

Apart from the lyrical songs sung by major characters and directions for music to accompany action, there is a direction for a hornpipe song on the pirate ship. (pg 19)  What was usual for nautical melodramas was to have skilled dancers then dance the Sailor's Hornpipe. (pg 238)

Resources Used:

M, H D. The two "Circuses and the two "Surrey Theatres". London: Theatrical Publisher, 89, Strand, 1866. google.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=j1ZDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=The+Surrey+Theatre+of+Blackfriars+road+dimensions&source=bl&ots=1oP5ZXXhgE&sig=xpIdTWt4VE0etsP0l4BLj-OGJ8s&hl=en&ei=MwN5TZ3UFoG-sQO73c>.

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

Here Comes the Storm: Set Spectacle

Spectacle was the name of the game for Victorian theatre, and especially for Gothic Melodrama which generally had some sort of storm, or ship wreck, or ghost appearance.

The climax of The Inchcape Bell is during a storm, which wrecks the villain pirate's ship. In the description it goes "the wreck of the rover's vessel on the Inchcape Rock, during a storm. As the scene changes, a dreadful crash is heard."(Booth, pg. 29) The boat also

Sound effects would have been used plentifully, and would have been made by specialized instruments, such as "rolling cannon balls down a wooden trough" to produce thunder, or rain might be crushed peas in a wooden box, which would then be shaken. Wind could be produced by a wind-machine that "resembled a paddle-steamer wheel." (Malheiro, Sound Effects)

Lighting effects would have been more minimal. Sources of light came from oil and gas lamps. Gas-lit chandeliers would have illuminated the Auditorium, and would have been kept on for the run of the show, expect when they may have been minimized for a moonlit scene. (Malheiro, Lighting)

At one point the mast is struck by a lightning bolt. (Booth, pg. 30) I can only imagine a set piece, such as a painted lightning bolt, being brought in to "strike" the mast, since control of light at this time was limited.

There are other, smaller effects, that I imagine a hidden crew of stage hands would assist with. Such as "the raft is lifted up and down by the rising and receding of the tide" (Booth, pg. 21) Another, small effect may be when Sampson "breaks away one side of the Bell with his hatchet," which would require a special properties bell to make happen. This bell, according to Michael Booth in his Explanatory Notes states that "large bells, cast from bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were highly susceptible to fracture" and this would be possible to break with a hatchet.

Another effect was "a boat is seen leaving the shore in the background" after the storm has destroyed the shop, and this was likely done, again according to Mr. Booth, by having an upstage miniature boat in profile drawn along by a crew member offstage. (pg. 238)


Resources Used:

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

Malheiro, B. "Victorian Playhouse and Production." Victorian Theatre Management. N.p., 1999. google.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://logicmgmt.com/1876/theatre/production.htm>.

Here to there: Secenery and their changes

Reading over a melodrama, especially The Inchcape Bell, one may notice that there are a ridiculous amount of scene changes, and scene changes that require drastically different sets. Scene changes were not indicated in the dialogue, as seen in many Shakespeare plays. An Elizabethan play was about the words and the acting then the spectacle of the show. 19th century Victorian audiences like their spectacle, so a large backstage crew of carpenters and sailors were need to hoist set pieces in and out, and quickly, so the audience wouldn't get restless. 

Where were all these scenic pieces kept?

High above the stage was the gridiron and was filled with flying mechansims  and scenery pieces, and right below that was the fly-gallery, where the intricated painted scenes would hang. Hidden on the sides would be wings and shutters that could be slid on as other scenery peices (such as trees if an outside scene). It was average for theatres to have 4 sets of grooves.

And on top of all this, with pulleys and ropes everywhere, would be trap doors in the stage itself with places called "sloats," which were a system of bridges and traps and narrow cuts in the floor to raise up actors and scenery from below, or bring them down. (Booth, pg. xi)

Victorian theatre equipment, much of it salvaged and restored by Dr. David Wilmore from other theatres contemporary to the Gaiety
http://iangrey.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

In The Inchcape Bell there are 8 completely different scenes. In the first act, the sets go from the exterior of a public house on the sea coast, to a Gothic Castle room, to a "miserable hut," then back to the castle, but this time behind it. (Booth, pg. 3-14) This is not unusual for gothic stories, according to Thomas Crochunis. Scenes are presented to contrast each other, and depict areas that constrain the characters (the pirate ship, for example), as well as establish a mood for characters and watchers. (Crochunis, pg. 160) All which boils down to the importance of the set in Gothic Melodramas. 

One of the more complicated set pieces is in Act 1 Scene 4, which describes the back of the castle 

"composed of a turret occupying half the stage, beyond which, over a rampart of rocks, the sea, by moonlight. A verandah and window, practicable in the turret, beneath which is a skylight; on the R,  a rampart overhung by a tree; near the rampart, a ladder." (pg 14)

What makes this a challenge is that the verandah and window need to be able to be acted on and through, and the rampart also needs to be acted through. As well as having mutli-level scene pieces, a realistic and beautiful backdrop of the sea by moonlight would have been painted. These painted back drops would have been of the highest artistic talent, beautiful and realistic to appease the audiences expectation for book illustration performances. (Booth, pg. xiv)

Victorian Theatre 1950

http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/collection/4341/entertainment-ephemera/

* Over and over it is stressed in primary documents the importance of scene painters and their work, and if doing a more historical recreation of a Victorian melodrama, this is not something to overlook. 

Resources Used:

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

Crochunis, Thomas C. "Writing Gothic Theatrical Spaces." Gothic Studies 3.2 (2001): 156. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

M, H D. The two "Circuses and the two "Surrey Theatres". London: Theatrical Publisher, 89, Strand, 1866. google.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=j1ZDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=The+Surrey+Theatre+of+Blackfriars+road+dimensions&source=bl&ots=1oP5ZXXhgE&sig=xpIdTWt4VE0etsP0l4BLj-OGJ8s&hl=en&ei=MwN5TZ3UFoG-sQO73c>.

The Surrey Theatre

The Surrey Theatre of Blackfriars Road place where The Inchcape Bell was first performed, May 26 1828. (Booth, Pg. 2)

The Surrey was considered a minor theatre, where it specialized in the "English sensational melodrama" (Berg, pg 184)

The theatre did not begin originally as a theatre however, but rather was the Royal Circus and  Equestrian Philharmonic Academy in 1782, where equestrian shows, dog shows, and melodramas were put on. A showcase during the second season of The Royal Circus  had a huge assortment of entertainment: "The Beggers Opera" was the leading piece, followed by a "gunpowder piece" where a citadel was stormed (with horses), then followed by a dog melodrama based off of a ballad. The Royal Circus burnt down in 1805 and was remodeled to become The Surrey in 1816 by Tom Dibdin. The center ring for the horses was changed into a "commodious pit for the spectators" while the horse stalls became the retiring saloons. (M, H.D, Pg.9)

Surrey Theatre Blackfriars Road C1860 London News.

In 1865 the theatre was re-modeled again due to fire. To the right is a picture of the inside of the New Surrey Theatre. The Old Surrey was smaller than the newly reconstructed Surrey. The New Surrey was 200 ft in diameter at it's widest, and 110 ft in width.(M, H.D, Pg. 13) The auditorium is horseshoe shaped, about 68 x 62 feet. The Dome above is 50 ft in diameter, and rises 55 ft from the pit. (pg. 14)

The stage is huge 60 feet deep, and about 100 feet wide for working room (including Scene docks) (pg. 15)

For the people that made up the theatre, a wonderful account by the owner Mr. Dibdins is given in a 1866 book The Two "Circuses" and the two "Surrey Theatres", who, after his new lesseeship, wanted to make the Surrey a place that would deserve attention.  Many painters were employed to produce masses of scenery, with well known artists "Greenwood, Wilson, H. Wilson, Luppino, Whitmore, Senta, Wilkins, H. Smith, Kirby, and Meyrick." (pg. 10)

The band consisted of 22 people, at first led by the conductor of the Drury Lane theatre, Mr. Woodcock, then after his return to the Drury Lane the conductor was Mr. Sanderson. The acting company was made up of 35 men and 32 women, as well as a corpse de ballet. 


What amuses me, is that this type of playhouse would now be seen as a very well thought of modern theatre, whereas at this time it was a lesser theatre. Though it made its name with being the home of Douglas Jerrold's Black Eyed Susan a year after The Inchcape Bell was produced.  (pg 10)

* An idea of the size and shape of the theatre would help the scenic designer and director have a better understanding of the size of this show originally, and how the Inchcape Bell  could be altered to suit a more modern stage.


Resources Used:

Berg, Albert E. The Drama, Painting, Poetry, and Song. New York: P.F. Collier Publisher, 1884. 183-85. Google.com. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. http://books.google.com/books?id=Y5tNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=Danby+scene+painter+for+The+Surrey&source=bl&ots=ZDMPzER0cl&sig=JP_OnfM8htUIiteaK6EkkBLwXHo&hl=en&ei=Ff53TdriJYvksQOOtezHBA&sa=X&oi=

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

M, H D. The two "Circuses and the two "Surrey Theatres". London: Theatrical Publisher, 89, Strand, 1866. google.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=j1ZDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=The+Surrey+Theatre+of+Blackfriars+road+dimensions&source=bl&ots=1oP5ZXXhgE&sig=xpIdTWt4VE0etsP0l4BLj-OGJ8s&hl=en&ei=MwN5TZ3UFoG-sQO73c>.

Surrey Theatre Blackfriars Road C1860 London News. 1860. Old-print.com. Google.com. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. <http://www.old-print.com/cgi-bin/item/8260000337/search/3%2DSurrey%2DTheatre%2DBlackfriars%2DRoad%2DC1860%2DLondon%2DNews#>.

Legend of Inchcape Rock

Inchcape or Bell Rock is an actual reef off the coast of Angus Scotland, notorious for being dangerous for near passing vessels. Only a small portion of the reef is above the water, the rest of the area is shallow. And treacherous.

The lengend of the Bellrock has to do with an attempt by the Abbot of Arbroath to install a warning bell to the rock, by having a buoy in the water ring a bell when the water would get too low.

A famous poem by Robert Southey called Inchcape Rock goes on about how a spiteful pirate cut the rope, and then only a year later finds himself crashed on the same rock in poetic justice.

                                            The Bellrock Lighthouse by JMW Turner (1824)

                                       http://www.bellrock.org.uk/lighthouse/lighthouse_1811_1823.htm

Here is the poem in its entirety:

Inchcape Rock

By Robert Southey

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,

The Ship was still as she could be;

Her sails from heaven received no motion,

Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,

The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;

So little they rose, so little they fell,

They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The worthy Abbot of Aberbrothok

Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;

On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,

And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surge’s swell,

The Mariners heard the warning Bell;

And then they knew the perilous Rock,

And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok

The Sun in the heaven was shining gay,

All things were joyful on that day;

The sea-birds scream’d as they wheel’d round,

And there was joyaunce in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcpe Bell was seen

A darker speck on the ocean green;

Sir Ralph the Rover walk’d his deck,

And fix’d his eye on the darker speck.

He felt the cheering power of spring,

It made him whistle, it made him sing;

His heart was mirthful to excess,

But the Rover’s mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape Float;

Quoth he, “My men, put out the boat,

And row me to the Inchcape Rock,

And I’ll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok.”

The boat is lower’d, the boatmen row,

And to the Inchcape Rock they go;

Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,

And he cut the bell from the Inchcape Float.

Down sank the Bell with a gurgling sound,

The bubbles rose and burst around;

Quoth Sir Ralph, “The next who comes to the Rock,

Won’t bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok.”

Sir Ralph the Rover sail’d away,

He scour’d the seas for many a day;

And now grown rich with plunder’d store,

He steers his course for Scotland’s shore.

So thick a haze o’erspreads the sky,

They cannot see the sun on high;

The wind hath blown a gale all day,

At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand,

So dark it is they see no land.

Quoth Sir Ralph, “It will be lighter soon,

For there is the dawn of the rising Moon.”

“Canst hear,” said one, “the breakers roar?

For methinks we should be near the shore.”

“Now, where we are I cannot tell,

But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell.”

They hear no sound, the swell is strong,

Though the wind hath fallen they drift along;

Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,

“Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!”

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,

He curst himself in his despair;

The waves rush in on every side,

The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

But even is his dying fear,

One dreadful sound could the Rover hear;

A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,

The Devil below was ringing his knell. 
(http://www.bellrock.org.uk/misc/misc_poem.htm)

If Edward Fitzball was inspired by this popular poem, then he gave homage to it with the Pirate Hans Hattock's lines in Act 2 Scene 4, 

"I hear the strokes of the accusing bell, knelling me to perdition. Mercy! Mercy!" and then the directions have him tear his hair.(Booth, pg 29)

This almost directly quotes the last phrase in Robert Southey's poem. I can imagine that the audience, familiar with the poem, would have made the connection instantly. 

* In the actualization of the play, I would recommend using this poem and likewise the painting somewhere in the design, since all three tie together so completely. 

                                                      Bellrock Lighthouse as it is today

                                                 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchcape

References Used:

Booth, Michael R., Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and Martin Wiggens, eds. The Lights O' London and Other Victorian Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. N. pag. Print.

Taylor, David. Bellrock.org.uk. N.p., 2000. www.google.com. Web. 9 Mar.  2011.http://www.bellrock.org.uk/misc/misc_poem.htm




Extended Resources:

*Taylor, David. Bellrock.org.uk. N.p., 2000. www.google.com. Web. 9 Mar. 2011. <http://www.bellrock.org.uk/>

*BBC News: Arbroath marks bicentenary of Bell Rock Lighthouse                             

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-12323928

* The area near the lighthouse (if being historically accurate for the play)

http://www.arbroath.com/