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/>