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The Dawison-Booth Polyglot Othello
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2009
Extract
Fifty years ago, the renowned American humorist, Don Marquis, creator of the ‘Archy and Mehitabel’ stories, sat in the dining room of the Players Club and contemplated a playbill: ‘Mr. Bogumil Dawison will appear at the Winter Garden as Othello. Mr. Edwin Booth will play Iago.’ Who was Bogumil Dawison, he wonders? Why did his name appear at the top of the bill above Booth's? Perhaps he had a European reputation like Salvini or Coquelin, but if so why had Marquis never heard of him? He could not have been a Nobody, Marquis concludes, otherwise Booth would never have acted with him. Marquis thinks that perhaps he should find out all he can about Dawison, but then decides that he'll have another brandy instead: ‘Damn Bogumil Dawison! Maybe he was a bad actor, he mooned around and drank himself to death, because the wind was cold and wet … a ridiculous person undoubtedly, and I don't want to know his ghost.’
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References
Notes
1. Marquis, Don, ‘Bogumil Dawison,’ Saturday Review of Literature 23 06 1934: 756–6.Google Scholar
2. Edwin Booth, letter to Thompson, Launt, Fall 1866Google Scholar, ALS in Billy Rose Theatre Collection at NYPL Lincoln Center.
3. Winter, William, Shakespeare on the Stage, New York: Moffatt, Yard, & Co., 1911, p. 402.Google Scholar
4. See R. Engle entry under “Stadt Theater” in Vol. I of Durham, Weldon B.'s American Theatre Companies, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986.Google Scholar
5. The principal Dawison biography is Kollek, Peter's Bogumil Dawison: Porträt und Deutung eines genialen Schauspielers, Die Schaubühne 70, Kastellaun: Henn, 1978Google Scholar. For a brief account of his life in English see Williams, Simon, German Actors of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Idealism, Romanticism, and Realism, Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies 12 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985) 100–111.Google Scholar
6. New-Yorker Staalszeitung 21 09 1866Google Scholar. See also the review of Dawison by Narciss in the New York Tribune 25 09 1866Google Scholar, where he is described as a “sort of German Macready”.
7. According to the Allgemeine Theater-Chronik 26 (22 06 1867): 256–7Google Scholar, Dawison appeared thirty different roles for seventy-six performances during his America tour. The Shakespeare roles were Richard III (7 perfs.), Othello (7), Shylock (5), King Lear (2), and Hamlet (3). The statistical information published in the Leipzig trade publication was based on reports in the New-Yorker Handels-Zeitung. Kölbel summarizes the tour information: 255–6. The Thalia Theater referred to here lasted for only one season and should not be confused with the Thalia Theater organized by Heinrich Conried and Gustav Amberg in 1879. For a comparison of Dawison's Hamlet with Booth's, see Kollek, 147.Google Scholar
8. Edwin Booth, letter to Murray, John, 16 10 1866Google Scholar, ALS letter, Hampden-Booth Theatre Library at The Players, New York.
9. Bogumil Dawison, letter to Kölbel, Victor, 10 01 1867Google Scholar, Theatermuseum Munich. Written from Belvedere House on Union Square where Dawison resided during his New York engagement.
10. Murray, , op. cit.Google Scholar
11. For details on Booth's management, see Shattuck, Charles H., “The Theatrical Management of Edwin Booth,” The Theatrical Manager in England and America: Player of a Perilous Game, ed. Donohue, Joseph W., Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971, 143–188.Google Scholar
12. Bogumil Dawison, letter to Kölbel, Victor, 10 01 1867Google Scholar, Theatermuseum Munich. In an article published in the Allgemeine Theater-Chronik 26 (22 06 1867): 256–257Google Scholar, Dawison's income from the tour was reported as $49,059: first engagement Stadt Theater $22,870, Philadelphia $1,360, Thalia-Theater $3,124, Winter Garden $2,200, first engagement Baltimore $1,930, second Stadt Theater $10,390, benefit performances Stadt Theater $3,212, benefit in Baltimore $812, and one performance in Boston $1,002. He earned $1,218 in interest from investments, and paid the Internal Revenue Service $938. In his letters Dawison is careful to note that although he was making huge amounts of money, it was not easy and he ‘earned’ all that he received. Although some of the Winter Garden Account Books are extant at The Players, they do not include receipts or disbursements for these performances. Receipts of $3,000 per night would not have been unusual for such performances. Adelaide Ristori averaged this amount for her New York engagement. See Carlson, Marion, The Italian Shakespearians, Washington: The Folgu Shakespeare Library, 1985, p. 29Google Scholar. See Kollek, 146Google Scholar, and letters in Theatermuseum Munich. In the Allgemeine Theater-Chronik 52 (22 12 1866): 1Google Scholar, Adolph von Hirsch's poem ‘An Bogumil Dawison’ praises him as a ‘Civilisator!’ whose mission it was to cross the ocean and in a “Kriegsfahrt” conquer and deliver German art ‘unto’ the people. And behold: ‘Der Yankee staunt – “Hurrah for Dawison!”’
13. Unidentified clipping in a scrapbook, Hampden-Booth Theatre Library at The Players, New York.
14. T. W. Parson, letter to Edwin Booth, undated but probably from early 1860s, Hampden-Booth Library at The Players, New York. For a description of Booth's lago, see Watermeier, Daniel J. ‘Edwin Booth's Iago,’ Theatre History Studies 6 (1986) 33–55.Google Scholar
15. Laube, Heinrich, Das Burgtheater, vol. 30 in Gesammelte Werke, ed. Houben, H. H. (Leipzig, 1909) 35Google Scholar. Also see Kollek, 90–91.Google Scholar
16. Kollek, 172–174.Google Scholar
17. von Hirsch, Adolf, Bogumil Dawison (Leipzig, 1866) 17Google Scholar. Also see Kollek 91 and Banck, Otto, Dresdener Journal, 293, 1854.Google Scholar
18. Winter, , op. cit., 401–2.Google Scholar
19. Bogumil Dawison, letter to Kölbel, Victor, 10 01 1867Google Scholar, Theatermuseum Munich. Kollek quotes Dawison as writing in the letter ‘Das war ein lago!’ (146). This author reads in the letter ‘Das war ein Empfang und ein Jubel!’
20. See note 12.
21. Allgemeine Theater-Chronik 13 (23 03 1867): 123Google Scholar. This is the earliest record of an approach to Booth concerning a tour of Germany.
22. Goodale, Katherine, Behind the Scenes with Edwin Booth (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931) 116–117.Google Scholar