Description

A Trip to Niagara; or, Travellers in America, a three-act comedy, opened at New York’s Bowery Theatre on November 28, 1828, for a long run. Scripted and later published by William Dunlap (1766–1839), the so-called “father of the American stage,” this play offers a bounty to theater historians, dramatic critics, and all those interested in the American culture during Dunlap’s lifetime. This study explores the Bowery, the play’s moving diorama, the text, and the playwright, and emphasizes their interrelationships. This analysis of A Trip to Niagara as a theatrical event joins hands with dramatic criticism. An annotated transcript of the play is helpfully provided in the appendix of the book.

That the so-called moving diorama in the play put “in play” the drama surrounding it speaks to the production’s unusual genesis. A proto-cinematic effect, the spectacular moving diorama was a long backdrop representing a segment of the Hudson River shoreline that unscrolled to give the audience the illusion of steamboating up the river from New York City. In the text, the moving diorama appears only as a list of scenes placed midway in the play and may be easily overlooked by a reader; however, on the stage the moving diorama was the raison d’être and what the public flocked to see. The analysis of its British origins and its multivalence (e.g., its promotion of civil religion and its associations with landscape painting) constitutes a large portion of this study.

This book contends that had there been no moving diorama, there would have been no play. Since William Dunlap called his text a “running accompaniment,” it should be analyzed in terms of this function. The play’s few critics have failed to do this. Hence, the interplay of the moving diorama (and conventional scenic backdrops) with the plot and characters comprises another significant segment of this study.

The simple storyline traces the scenic journey of a cantankerous Englishman, Wentworth, who calls for universal brotherhood after his masquerading cousin, John Bull, finally convinces him to view America more tolerantly. John Bull’s reward is the hand of Wentworth’s sister, Amelia. Through this simple plot, the travelers connect us with such matters as Anglo-American relations (The Paper War), tourism, British classicism, American democratic values, Irish immigration, commerce (the Erie Canal), landscape aesthetics, the erosion of wilderness, racial prejudice, and above all, American humor. America’s four primary comedic types take the stage––the Irishman, the Frenchman, the Yankee, and the African American. In addition, Leatherstocking (adapted from Cooper’s The Pioneers) is part surrogate Indian. In sum, A Trip to Niagara is a guide for exploring American theater and culture.

In addition, hitherto unmined sources, while modifying interpretations of the text, produce keys to the workshop of Dunlap’s mind, showing us that Dunlap received more than a little help from others. This biographical information is especially valuable since his diaries from this period have disappeared. Besides the obvious Leatherstocking-Cooper link, we also meet the following influential contemporaries: Frances Wright, Noah Webster, James Kirke Paulding, James Hackett, members of New York’s African Theatre Company, and the celebrated British comedian Charles Mathews. Multum in Parvo.

Moving Diorama in Play makes significant contributions to studies of antebellum American theater, the Nationalist Period in American culture, and William Dunlap.