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Frederick Brown and Montreal's Doomed Theatre Royal, 1825–26
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
Extract
The health and vigour of a theatre in a provincial town in North America in the nineteenth century may in part be judged from the dimensions and technical facilities of its building, the number of competent performers, and the support of its patrons. Late in 1825, Montreal acquired a well-equipped theatre with a professional company in residence, and one would have assumed that the publicity and excitement surrounding the new enterprise would ensure its success during its first year of operation. The Theatre Royal, however, did not draw full houses even though its management had spared no expense “in obtaining the first performers or in getting up the most attractive pieces.” The small size of the city's population, the linguistic division of the province into English and French sections, the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church to the theatre, the shareholders' preference for a legitimate theatre in English over the more popular combination of circus and light drama, and the political strife engendered by the bitter English-French conflict in Quebec in the 1820s can be cited here as some of the factors that doomed the theatre in Montreal. Some of these — the small size of the town, for instance — made theatre building an unprofitable business in many provincial centres in North America; the elements of language, politics, and religion, however, were peculiar to Quebec. The prospects of theatre managers in Montreal at this time were governed by highly complex forces that did not influence the work of others trying to start provincial theatres elsewhere in Canada and the United States. Focusing on the demographic, linguistic, and religious features of Quebec in 1825–26, this study examines the difficulties of operating an English-language theatre in a country without a common culture and also stresses economic mismanagement as a factor in the failure of the Theatre Royal.
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References
Notes
1 Montreal Gazette, 20 August 1825Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., 13 May 1816.
3 Canadian Courant, 24 March 1821.
4 The Scribbler, 13 September 1821.
5 Canadian Courant, 24 March 1821.
6 John Duplessis Turnbull, who first brought Frederick Brown to Montreal in 1818, tried three times to operate a theatre in Montreal and ended in insolvency each time.
7 “Articles of Agreement between John Molson, Sr., and others for Establishing a Theatre in Montreal by Joint Stock,” document prepared by Henry Griffin on 1 February 1825, National Archives of Quebec, Montreal.
8 Journey to America, ed. Mayer, J. P. (London: Faber & Faber, 1959), p. 184Google Scholar.
9 Breton, Raymond, Reitz, Jeffrey G., and Valentine, Victor, Cultural Boundaries and the Cohesion of Canada (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1980), p. 303Google Scholar.
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12 Jacques Viger's tabular returns of the census of Montreal in 1825, cited by Brown, T. S., “Montreal Fifty Years Ago,” New Dominion Monthly (March, 1870), pp. 26–29Google Scholar.
13 The Scribbler, 13 September 1821.
14 Ibid., 4 December 1823.
15 Le Canadien, 21 January 1824.
16 The Blanchard family built its first theatre in Montreal late in 1820.
17 Canadian Courant, 13 November 1824.
18 Ibid., 20 October 1824.
19 Ibid., 13 November 1824.
20 Ibid., 19 November 1825.
21 Ibid., 21 December 1825.
22 The Dalhousie Journals, ed. Whitelaw, Marjory (Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1978), p. 22Google Scholar.
23 Montreal Herald, 23 November 1825.
24 Canadian Courant, 17 August 1825.
25 Montreal Gazette, 24 September 1825.
26 For a biographical note on John P. Drake, see Harper, J. Russell, Early Painters and Engravers in Canada (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1970), pp. 93–94Google Scholar.
27 The employment contracts and salary records for Brown's employees have not been found in the Molson Archives in the Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa, or the National Archives of Quebec in Montreal.
28 Montreal Gazette, 23 November 1825.
29 Montreal Herald, 23 November 1825.
30 Ibid., 26 January 1826.
31 Montreal Gazette, 23 November 1825. See Klein, A. Owen, “The Opening of Montreal's Theatre Royal, 1825,” Theatre History in Canada, I (Spring, 1980), 24–38Google Scholar.
32 19 November 1825.
33 1 March 1826.
34 Montreal Gazette, 20 July 1826.
35 Jacques Viger's returns cited by T. S. Brown.
36 Montreal Gazette, 21 December 1825.
37 Ibid.
38 Montreal Herald, 21 December 1825.
39 Canadian Courant, 18 January 1826. Many provincial managers did not make money because of the size of their companies. In Albany, New York, the South Pearl Street Theatre, which opened on May 13, 1825, showed small profits: “Thus far, the theatre had been well patronized, although the heavy rental demanded by the stock-holders and the expense of so strong a company prevented Manager Gilfert from making much money” (H. P. Phelps, Players of a Century [1880; rpt. New York: Blom, 1972], p. 100). In 1826, this theatre suffered further losses when it could not compete with the New Circus: “The city was clearly not large enough to support two such expensive places of amusement, and the older enterprise was, naturally, the first to suffer, the novelty of the ring, cheaper rates of admission, and the sensational nature of the performances, all acting strongly against Mr. Gilfert and his corps of artists” (Phelps, p. 101).
40 Upper Canada Herald, 8 August 1826.
41 Montreal Herald, 1 July 1826.
42 Montreal Gazette, 2 April 1829.
43 Theatre in America: The Impact of Economic Forces 1870–1967 (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1968), p. 3Google Scholar.
44 The research for this study was supported in part by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.