Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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magnificent thon sensitive; but it numbers among
its members surely one really able come aim ami
several persons i;ho at least ere not anacquainted
with the grammar of their art.
Subsequent visits made Daly's company as familiar to London
aa the French troupes which appeared annually at the Royalty
or the Gaiety after the winter season 1 . The staple of Daly's
repertoire was farcical comedy, for the most part adapted by
the manager from German sources: from Julius Rosen's Halbe
Dichter was created ^ancy and Company, given at the 3trend
Theatre in May 1886, arid from Goldfische by bchoenthan and
Kadelberg, ceme The Railroad of Love» first seen in London et
the oaiety in p ay 1688. Most of Daly • s plays, including
POliars and Cents (sometimes celled Dollars rnd sense). The
Countess uucki. and y_2c ^or^ Casting the! Moftc^ran^ were of
such parentage, the other chief, component of his programmes
,;as "old comedy" - adapted from eighteenth-century authors
or Shakespeare*
It is for his Shakespearean adaptations, and, speciiicslly,
for Sha ;»s attacks on them, that Dely is best remembered. A
representative passage is the beginning of the notice oi As
You Like It hich appeared in The Saturday Reviev. on 9 October
1897*
I never se^ Mis - Ada Rehyn tct ithout burning
to present Kr Au^,ustin Daly v:ith s aeli uhtful
Villa in St. Helena, en. & comraisuion from an
influential committee of his admirers to produce
at r.is lesure a complete set oi iihckespoir's
plays, entirely re-Written, reformed, reerran^ed, £nc
brought up to the most acvrnced requirements oi
the year 1850. 2
Shav goes on to particularize Dily'^ offences as & procucer:
...I se.v Amiens under the Ljre ,n ood tree, br^vint,
winter and rou^h ,-eather in a o: ir oi crimson
and pjush breeches, a specttcla to benumb the ndnc
and obscure the passions. There v. a Qrlanao -. ith
the har ony of his bro. n boots £na tumic tom auunccr
by piercing discord oi cu rk vole nic ^reen, r
v/aIking tribute to Mr Dely's t^oto in tights, ihere
did I he-r slo*^ music stealing up ct the vxell-kno. n
recitetions of Adera, Jaques rad Kodelincc, lest ve
should for a no me at forget th&t v.e w^.re in a tr.ef.tre
ana not in the iorest of Arden. liiero did I look
through practicable doors in the vails 01 su,iny