Herman, Mr. Richings; Dame Rip Van Winkle, Mrs. Wheatley; Alice, Mrs. Hackett; Lowenna, Mrs. Wallack.
Durang refers to the dramatist who is reputed to have done the version for Mr. Hackett, as “Old Mr. Kerr,” an actor, who appeared in Philadelphia under the management of F. C. Wemyss. However much of an actor John Kerr was, he must have gained some small reputation as a playwright. In 1818, Duncombe issued Kerr's “Ancient Legends or Simple and Romantic Tales,” and at the Harvard Library, where there is a copy of this book, the catalogue gives Kerr's position in London at the time as Prompter of the Regency Theatre. He must have ventured, with a relative, into independent publishing, for there was issued, in 1826, by J. & H. Kerr, the former's freely translated melodramatic romance, “The Monster and Magician; or, The Fate of Frankenstein,” taken from the French of J. T. Merle and A. N. B�raud. He did constant translation, and it is interesting to note the similarity between his “The Wandering Boys! or, The Castle of Olival,” announced as an original comedy, and M. M. Noah's play of the same name.
There is valuable material in possession of Mr. James K. Hackett for a much needed life of his father. This may throw light on his negotiations with Kerr; it may also detail more thoroughly than the records now show why it was that, when he went to England in 1832, he engaged Bayle Bernard to make a new draft of the piece, given in New York at the Park Theatre, September 4, 1833. It may have been because he saw, when he reached London, a version which Bernard had shaped for the Adelphi Theatre, 1831–32, when Yates, John Reeve, and J. B. Buckstone had played together. But I am inclined to think that, whatever the outlines of the piece as given by Hackett, it was his acting which constituted the chief creative part of the performance. Like Jefferson, he must have been largely responsible for the finished product.
Hackett's success in dialect made him eager for any picturesque material which would exploit this ability. Obviously, local character was the best vehicle. That was his chief interest in encouraging American plays. Bayle Bernard had done writing for him before “Rip.” In 1831, J. K. Paulding's “The Lion of the West” had proven so successful, as to warrant Bernard's transferring the popular Col. Nimrod Wildfire to another play, “The Kentuckian.” Then, in 1837, Hackett corresponded with Washington Irving about dramatizing the “Knickerbocker History,” which plan was consummated by Bernard as “Three Dutch Governors,” even though Irving was not confident of results. Hackett went out of his way for such native material. Soon after his appearance as Rip, the following notice appeared in the New York Evening Post, for April 24, 1830:
Prize Comedy.—The Subscriber, desirous of affording some pecuniary inducement for more frequent attempts at dramatizing the manners and peculiarities of our own country, and the numerous subjects and incidents connected with its history, hereby offers to the writer of the best Comedy in 3 acts, in which a principal character shall be an original of this country, the sum of Two Hundred and Fifty Dollars—the decision to be made by a committee of competent literary gentlemen, whose names shall duly be made public. The manuscripts to be sent to the address of the subscriber through the Post Office, before 1st September, next, each accompanied with a letter communicating the address to which the author would desire his production returned, if unsuccessful, together with his name in a sealed enclosure, which will only be opened in the event of his obtaining the Prize.
Many such prize contests were the fashion of the day.
Mr. James K. Hackett, in reminiscence, writes: “My mother used to tell me that Joe Jefferson played the part like a German, whereas Rip was a North River Dutchman, and in those days dialects were very marked in our country. But my father soon became identified with the part of Falstaff, and he used to say, ‘Jefferson is a younger man than I, so I'll let him have Rip. I don't care to play against him’.”
A stage version of the Irving story was made by one John H. Hewitt, of Baltimore, and during the season of 1833–34 was played in that city by William Isherwood. It was after this that Charles Burke (1822–1854) turned his attention to the play, and, as is shown in the text here reproduced, drew heavily upon Kerr. Winter says that he depended also upon the dramatic pieces used by Flynn and Parsons. The date of the first essayal of the part in New York was January 7, 1850, at the New National Theatre. But, during the previous year, he went with the play to the Philadelphia Arch Street Theatre, where his half-brother, Joseph, appeared with him in the r�le of Seth. Durang, however, disagrees with this date, giving it under the heading of the “Summer Season of 1850 at the Arch Street Theatre,” and the specific time as August 19. In his short career Burke won an enviable position as an actor. “He had an eye and a face,” wrote Joe Jefferson, “that told their meaning before he spoke, a voice that seemed to come from the heart itself, penetrating—but melodious.” He was slender, emaciated, sensitive,—and full of lively response to things. Like all of the Jeffersons, he was a born comedian, and critics concede that W. E. Burton feared his rivalry. Between Burke and his half-brother, there was a profound attraction; they had “barn stormed” together, and through Burke's consideration it was that Joe was first encouraged and furthered in Philadelphia. Contrasting Burton and Burke, Jefferson wrote in his “Autobiography:”
Burton coloured highly, and laid on the effects with a liberal brush, while Burke was subtle, incisive and refined. Burton's features were strong and heavy, and his figure was portly and ungainly. Burke was lithe and graceful. His face was plain, but wonderfully expressive. The versatility of this rare actor was remarkable, his pathos being quite as striking a feature as his comedy. … His dramatic effects sprung more from intuition than from study; and, as was said of Barton Booth, “the blind might have seen him in his voice, and the deaf have heard him in his visage.”
But the height of Jefferson's praise was reached when he said: “Charles Burke was to acting what Mendelssohn was to music. He did not have to work for his effects, as I do; he was not analytical, as I am. Whatever he did came to him naturally, as grass grows or water runs; it was not talent that informed his art, but genius.”
Such was the comedian who next undertook the r�le of Rip. How often his own phrase, “Are we so soon forgot,” has been applied to the actor and his art! The only preservative we have of this art is either in individual expressions of opinion or else in contemporary criticism. Fortunately, John Sleeper Clarke, another estimable comedian of the Jefferson family, has left an impression of how Burke read that one famous line of his. He has said:
No other actor has ever disturbed the impression that the profound pathos of Burke's voice, face, and gesture created; it fell upon the senses like the culmination of all mortal despair, and the actor's figure, as the low, sweet tones died away, symbolized more the ruin of the representative of the race than the sufferings of an individual: his awful loss and loneliness seemed to clothe him with a supernatural dignity and grandeur which commanded the sympathy and awe of his audience.
Never, said Clarke, who often played Seth to Burke's Rip, was he disappointed in the poignant reading of that line—so tender, pathetic and simple that even the actors of his company were affected by it.
However much these various attempts at dramatization may have served their theatrical purpose, they have all been supplanted in memory by the play as evolved by Jefferson and Boucicault, who began work upon it in 1861. The incident told by Jefferson of how he arrived by his decision to play Rip, as his father had done before him, is picturesque. One summer day, in 1859, he lay in the loft of an old barn, reading the “Life and Letters of Washington Irving,” and his eye fell upon this passage:
September 30, 1858. Mr. Irving came in town, to remain a few days. In the evening went to Laura Keene's Theatre to see young Jefferson as Goldfinch in Holcroft's comedy, “The Road to Ruin.” Thought Jefferson, the father, one of the best actors he had ever seen; and the son reminded him, in look, gesture, size, and “make,” of the father. Had never
