Society (play)

Background and premiere

Beginning his career by 1851, T. W. Robertson had met with little success as an actor, playwright and journalist.

Society was rejected by many theatrical managers in London before finally being produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, Liverpool, through the influence of Robertson's friend H. J. Byron, under the management of A. Henderson, opening on 8 May 1865. There it was a critical and popular success. Byron recommended the play to Effie Wilton, who had begun managing the Prince of Wales's Theatre in London's West End; Byron had been writing Victorian burlesques for her. Producing the play was a risk for a theatre manager to take: in his introduction to his edition of Society, Thomas Edgar Pemberton writes:

Society opened at the Prince of Wales's on 11 November 1865. Wilton starred in the play opposite Squire Bancroft, who went on to marry her in 1867 and become her co-manager.

Success and aftermath

Pemberton wrote that on the morning after the London opening, "Robertson awoke to find himself famous. ... [T]he fortunes of a luckless theatre and a hitherto misunderstood dramatist were made." *Society'''s run of 150 performances, closing on 4 May 1866, established the fortunes of the struggling theatre, as well as those of the playwright.

The success of Society encouraged Robertson to continue along the same realistic path in a series of plays that dealt seriously and sensitively with social issues of the day: Ours (1866), Caste (1867), Play (1868), School (1869), and M.P. (1870). These plays, together with Society, inspired playwrights such as W. S. Gilbert and George Bernard Shaw. Gilbert's biographer Andrew Crowther wrote that Society "was written in a colloquial style that came as a breath of fresh air after the bombast and staginess of much of the drama of that age. ... [Robertson] gained a reputation as a theatre reformer, with his gift for easy, natural-seeming dialogue and his appreciation of what we would now call subtext – the idea that apparently trivial conversations can hide deep emotions." A reviewer wrote:

Robertson directed his own plays, which was a radical change from the usual system in Victorian theatre of the manager of the theatre company staging the work around its star player. Squire Bancroft later said, "[H]ow much of the success I was fortunate enough to achieve [in Society] was due to the encouragement and support I received from the author, who spared no pains ... to have his somewhat novel type of characters understood and acted as he wished."

Society was revived several times during the next two decades, and it was given nearly 500 performances under Wilton's (later the Bancrofts') management. Robertson's original manuscript of Society was donated to the Shakespeare Memorial Library at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Original cast

• Maud Hetherington – Effie Wilton
• Sidney Daryl – Squire Bancroft
• Lord Ptarmigant – John Hare
• John Chodd, Jnr – John Clarke
• Tom Stylus – Fred Dewar
• Lady Ptarmigant – Sophie Larkin

References

References

1. Knight, Joseph. [https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/odnb/9780192683120.001.0001/odnb-9780192683120-e-23814 "Robertson, Thomas William (1829–1871)"], ''Dictionary of National Biography'', Smith Elder, 1896 and Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 9 February 2021 {{ODNBsub
2. Crowther, Andrew. (2011-04-11). "Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan: His Life and Character". The History Press.
3. Pemberton, T. Edgar. (1905). "Society and Caste". D.C. Heath & Co..
4. "The Prince of Wales Theatre", ''Liverpool Mercury'', 9 May 1865, p. 6
5. Savin, Maynard. (1950). "Thomas William Robertson: His Plays and Stagecraft". Brown University Press.
6. Londré, Felicia Hardison. (1999). "The History of World Theater: From the English Restoration to the Present". Continuum International Pub..
7. In a highly favourable notice the reviewer in ''[[The Times]]'' wrote, "The piece was vehemently applauded from beginning to end. Success could not be more unequivocal"."Prince of Wales's Theatre", ''The Times'', 14 November 1865, p. 7
8. (1907–21). "T. W. Robertson". Cambridge University Press.
9. The London stage was at once inundated with imitations of the new style of acting and the new kind of play.{{EB1911 |wstitle=Robertson, Thomas William |volume=23 |page=406 |inline=1}}
10. Press review, unsigned, ''quoted'' in Savin, p. viii