Charles Burke - Representative Plays by American Dramatists - 1856-1911 - Rip van

This is the history of the evolution of a play. Many hands were concerned in its growth, but its increase in scenic effect as well as in dialogue was a stage one, rather than prompted by literary fervour. No dramatization of Washington Irving's immortal story has approached the original in art of expression or in vividness of scene. But, if historical record can be believed, it is the actor, rather than the dramatist, who has vied with Irving in the vitality of characterization and in the romantic ideality of figure and speech. Some of our best comedians found attraction in the r�le, yet, though Charles Burke and James A. Herne are recalled, by those who remember back so far, for the very Dutch lifelikeness of the genial old drunkard, Joseph Jefferson overtops all memories by his classic portrayal.

As far as literary value of the versions is concerned, it would be small loss if none of them were available. They form a mechanical frame-work as devoid of beauty as the skeleton scarecrow in Percy Mackaye's play, which was based on Hawthorne's “Feathertop” in “Mosses from an Old Manse.” It was only when the dry bones were clothed and breathed into by the actor's personality that the dramatizations lived. One can recall no plot that moves naturally in these versions; the transformation of the story into dialogue was mechanical, done by men to whom hack-work was the easiest thing in the world. Comparing the Kerr play with the Burke revision of it, when the text is strained for richness of phrase it might contain, only one line results, and is worth remembering; it is Burke's original contribution,—“Are we so soon forgot when we are gone?”

The frequency with which “Rip Van Winkle” was dramatized would indicate that, very early in the nineteenth century, managers of the theatre were assiduous hunters after material which might be considered native. Certainly Rip takes his place with Deuteronomy Dutiful , Bardwell Slote , Solon Shingle and Davy Crockett as of the soil.

Irving's “Sketch Book” was published in 1819, and, considering his vast interest in the stage, and the dramatic work done by him in conjunction with John Howard Payne, it is unfortunate that he himself did not realize the dramatic possibilities of his story. There is no available record to show that he either approved or disapproved of the early dramatizations. But there is ample record to show that, with the beginning of its stage career, nine years after publication, “Rip” caught fire on the stage both in America and in London. Mr. James K. Hackett is authority for the statement that among his father's papers is a letter from Irving congratulating him upon having made so much from such scant material.

The legendary character of Irving's sources, as traced in German folk-lore, does not come within the scope of this introduction. The first record of a play is Thomas Flynn's appearance as Rip in a dramatization made by an unnamed Albanian, at the South Pearl Street Theatre, Albany, N. Y., May 26, 1828. It was given for the benefit of the actor's wife, and was called “Rip Van Winkle; or, The Spirits of the Catskill Mountains.” Notice of it may be found in the files of the Albany Argus . Winter, in his Life of Joseph Jefferson, reproduces the prologue. Part of the cast was as follows:

Derrick Van Slous—Charles B. Parsons

Knickerbocker—Moses S. Phillips

Rip Van Winkle—Thomas Flynn

Lowenna—Mrs. Flynn

Alice—Mrs. Forbes

Flynn was a great friend of the elder Booth, and Edwin bore Thomas as a middle name.

In 1829, Charles B. Parsons was playing “Rip” in Cincinnati, Ohio, but no authorship is mentioned in connection with it, so it must be inferred that it was probably one of those stock products so characteristic of the early American theatre. Ludlow, in his “Dramatic Life,” records “Rip” in Louisville, Kentucky, November 21, 1831, and says that the Cincinnati performance occurred three years before, making it, therefore, in the dramatic season of 1828–29, this being Rip's “first representation West of the Alleghany Mountains, and, I believe, the first time on any stage.” Ludlow proceeds to state that, while in New York, in the summer of 1828, an old stage friend of his offered to sell him a manuscript version of “Rip,” which, on his recommendation, he proceeded to purchase “without reading it.” And then the manager indicates how a character part is built to catch the interest of the audience, by the following bit of anecdote:

It passed off there [in Cincinnati] without appearing to create any interest more than a drama on any ordinary subject, with the exception of one speech, which was not the author's, but introduced without my previous knowledge by one of the actors in the piece. This actor was a young gentleman of education, who was performing on the stage under the name of Barry; but that was not his real name, and he was acting the part of Nicholas Vedder in this drama. In the scene where Rip returns to his native village after the twenty years of sleep that he had passed through, and finds the objects changed from what he remembered them,—among other things the sign over the door of the tavern where he used to take his drinks,—he enquires of Vedder , whom he had recognized, and to whom he had made himself known, who that sign was intended to represent, saying at the same time that the head of King George III used to hang there. In reply to him, instead of speaking the words of the author, Mr. Barry said, “Don't you know who that is? That's George Washington.” Then Rip said, “Who is George Vashingdoner?”To which Barry replied, using the language of General Henry (see his “Eulogy on Washington,” December 26, 1799), “He was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen!” This woke the Cincinnatians up.

Joseph Jefferson rejected this emendation later on, giving as his reason that, once an audience is caught in the flare of a patriotic emotion, it is difficult for an actor to draw them back effectively to the main currents of his story. We have Ludlow's statement to the effect that Burke's version was not unlike that produced by him as early as 1828–29, in the middle West. Could it have had any relationship to the manuscript by Kerr?

In Philadelphia, at the Walnut Street Theatre, on October 30, 1829, William Chapman appeared as Rip , supported by Elizabeth and J. (probably John) Jefferson. Winter suggests that the dramatization may have been Ludlow's, or it may have been the first draft of Kerr's. Though it is generally conceded that the latter play was the one used by James H. Hackett, in a letter received by the Editor from Mr. James K. Hackett, it is suggested that his father made his own version, a statement not proved, but substantiated by Winter.

The piece was given by Hackett, at the Park Theatre, New York, on August 22, 1830, and Sol Smith, in his “Theatrical Management in the West and South,” declares, “I should despair of finding a man or woman in an audience of five hundred, who could hear [his] utterance of five words in the second act, ‘But she was mine vrow’ without experiencing some moisture in the eyes.” While the Galaxy , in a later year, for February, 1868, states: “His Rip Van Winkle is far nearer the ordinary conception of the good-for-nothing Dutchman than Mr. Jefferson's, whose performance is praised so much for its naturalness.” The statement, by Oliver Bell Bunce, is followed by this stricture against Jefferson: “Jefferson, indeed, is a good example of our modern art. His naturalness, his unaffected methods, his susceptible temperament, his subtleties of humour and pathos are appreciated and applauded, yet his want of breadth and tone sometimes renders his performance feeble and flavourless.” On the day before its presentment by Hackett, the New York Evening Post contained the following notice: