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Creatures of Impulse

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Ben Greet in the role of Boomblehardt

Creatures of Impulse is a short story by English dramatist W. S. Gilbert, which he later adapted for the stage as a "musical fairytale"[1] with composer-conductor Alberto Randegger. In both versions, the plot concerns an unwanted and ill-tempered old fairy who enchants people to behave in a manner opposite to their natures, with farcical results. Gilbert, who had already written a considerable body of stories, plays, poems, criticism and other works, would later go on to write the libretti to the famous Savoy operas with Arthur Sullivan.

The short story was written for The Graphic's Christmas number of 1870,[2] and the play was first produced at the Court Theatre in April 1871. It originally included six songs, but this was eventually reduced to three, and some productions dispensed with the music entirely. While the lyrics survive, the music was never published, and is now lost.

Reviews of the play were mostly positive, though it was criticised for the lack of a significant plot or superstructure behind the fun.[3] Nonetheless, reviewers found it enjoyable,[2][4] and it was a modest success, running for 91 performances, and enjoying revivals into the early part of the 20th century.

Background

Gilbert's early career
W. S. Gilbert, c. 1870

From the mid 1860s through early 1870s, W. S. Gilbert was extremely productive, writing a large quantity of comic verse, theatre reviews and other journalistic pieces, short stories, and dozens of plays and comic operas. His output in 1870 included dozens of his popular comic Bab Ballads; two of his blank verse comedies, The Princess and The Palace of Truth; two comic operas, Our Island Home and The Gentleman in Black; and other short comic pieces appearing in various journals. In 1871 he was even busier, including the production of seven of his plays and operas.[5][6]

Gilbert's writing, during this time, was developing from his early musical burlesques to a more restrained style, as exemplified by his string of blank-verse fairy comedies.[7] The first of these was The Palace of Truth, opened in November 1870 to widespread acclaim.[4] He was also developing his unique style of absurdist humour, referred to as "Topsy-Turvy", made up of "a combination of wit, irony, topsyturvydom, parody, observation, theatrical technique, and profound intelligence".[8] The story and play Creatures of Impulse date from the middle of this period, when Gilbert was still trying different styles and working towards the mature style of his later work.[9]

Alberto Randegger

Italian-born Alberto Randegger was better known as a conductor than as a composer, although he produced a number of works in England in the 1860s and 1870s. He is also remembered for his important 1879 textbook entitled Singing.[10] His music for Creatures of Impulse was criticised as "extremely undramatic",[4] and much of it was cut from revivals of the piece.[11]

Genesis of story and play

Gilbert first published Creatures of Impulse as a short story, under the title "A Strange Old Lady", in the 1870 Christmas number of The Graphic, an illustrated weekly newspaper. It was selected by Gilbert for inclusion in the only collection of his short stories published during his lifetime, Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales (1890), at which point it was renamed to match the theatrical adaptation. Gilbert did not originally intend for the story to be turned into a play;[12] nonetheless, a few months later, it was on stage.

The play Creatures of Impulse was written for Marie Litton's Royal Court Theatre. Litton took over the proprietorship of the New Chelsea Theatre in 1871 and renamed it the Royal Court. Its opening attraction was the première of Gilbert's Randall's Thumb, and when it proved successful, it was no surprise, as the London Echo pointed out, that she followed it with another work by Gilbert.[3] Gilbert often used his previous prose work as the basis of later plays,[12] and "The Strange Old Lady" was no exception: Under the new title of Creatures of Impulse, it opened on 2 April 1871, starting as a companion piece for Randall's Thumb[4] and proved another success, lasting 91 performances and acting as a companion piece to five different plays.[11] Marie Litton would continue to produce premières of other Gilbert's plays, including an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations in May 1871, Broken Hearts in 1875, various translations, and The Happy Land in 1873,[5] which portrayed members of the British Government on stage and caused such a scandal that it ran for 222 performances.[13][14]

Subsequent productions and publications

The play was revived in 1872 at the Court Theatre,[11] in 1873 at the Queen's Theatre,[15] and in 1874 at the Vaudeville Theatre, all in London.[11] It appears to have gone through several changes during these revivals, the first of which was described on its playbill as a "shortened version", and the last as an "altered" one.[11] Various versions continued to be produced by amateurs into the 20th century,[16][17][18] as well as occasional professional groups, such as Ben Greet's Elizabethan Stage Society of England.[19][20][21][22] An acting edition was published by Samuel French until about 1971.[11] The piece was presented in 2006 at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival.[23]

Some substantial cuts were made in the text by the time the play was collected for Original Plays, Fourth Series (1911), the last volume of the only large-scale collection of Gilbert's stage work.[24] Victorian plays had to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain for decency before they were performed, and the archives now reside in the British Library. Comparison of this "licensing copy" with the one printed in Original Plays reveals lyrics for three additional songs, and a second verse to the opening chorus and finale.[11]

Synopsis

The short story takes place on the road from London to Norwich, but the play calls for Alsatian costumery. Otherwise, the plots of the short story and play are nearly identical. This summary uses the names from the short story, and significant changes for the play are noted below.[25][26]
The first page of Creatures of Impulse in Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales.

Mistress Dorothy Trabbs is the landlady of the Three Pigeons Inn and is assisted in her work by her daughter, Jenny, and her cowardly nephew, Peter.1 Jenny is "a very pretty girl, but so absurdly shy that her prettiness went for nothing".[27] This shyness had encouraged Peter to fall in love with her, but when he told her about his feelings, she overcame her shyness long enough to box his ears, and nothing came of it. She is now in love with Sergeant Brice, who has returned in glory from the Battle of Malplaquet with a bullet in his leg but otherwise healthy. She is, however, too shy to declare her love.2

Mistress Dorothy is being courted by the miser Verditter, which is convenient, because staying at the inn is a strange old lady, a mischievous fairy, who refuses to pay or to leave. A council of war is held among Peter, Dorothy, Jenny, Brice, and Verditter, and they decide to attempt to make her leave, to restore Mistress Dorothy's profits. Peter, not so cowardly as to be afraid of an old woman, and insufficiently superstitious to believe her to have any power, threatens her. She casts a spell to force him to threaten anyone he comes in contact with, and, should none be present, he must try to fight invisible enemies. In confusion, he calls down to the parlour that he has failed, and retires to his room. Jenny tries next, coaxing and making much of the old woman, and appealing to her good nature. However, the old lady finds that "this show of affection for one you don't care twopence about, is very disgusting, and, as a punishment, you will be so good as to kiss and coax everybody you meet until further notice".[28] The sergeant approaches her next, but she attacks him with her stick, which he dodges and ducks, and he ends up compelled to continually dodge and duck. The miser Verditter attempts to bribe the old woman and is compelled to keep handing out coins to everyone.

Pipette (Jenny) throws herself at the Sergeant, in an illustration from The Graphic, 1871

Soon, complications begin to arise from these curses: The shy Jenny throws herself at the detested Peter, who unwillingly forces her away. When she switches her affections to the sergeant, he ducks and dodges from her. The terrified Peter faces the sergeant at fisticuffs, and the sergeant is forced to cower and dodge in a manner unbefitting a soldier. The miser keeps handing out money, his fortune dribbling away. Meanwhile, Dorothy tries to chase the old lady out with a broom and is then compelled to chase out all her customers.

Now the old lady makes her crucial mistake: She heads downstairs to check on her mischief, and Peter threatens her, Jenny tries to kiss her, the sergeant ducks away from her, the miser offers her money, and the landlady keeps trying to shove her out the door. In short, she finds herself in the centre of utter chaos and has no choice but to relent, release the spells, and leave, vanquished and embarrassed.

At this point, the play ends, but the story goes further:

The really curious part of this story is that, after everything had been explained, and all had been restored to their normal courses of action, none of the personages involved in it married each other. They were all so annoyed at having made such fools of themselves that they walked out of the inn in different directions, and were never seen or heard of again.

Except Peter, who, seeing nothing to be ashamed of in showing such undaunted courage, remained and kept the "Three Pigeons," and prospered remarkably to the end of his days.[29]


1 In the play, only her niece (and a few servants) live with her, and Peter instead becomes a farmer. This has no effect on the plot.
 2 Jenny's love for the sergeant has very little role to play in the story, and no direct reference occurs in the play.[25][26]

Characters and original cast

Name in play[30] Name in short story[31] Play description[30] Short story description[31] Originator of role[11][30]
Sergeant Klooque Sergeant Brice A soldier in the King's Hussars, just returned from Johannesburg1 A soldier in Her Majesty Queen Anne's Foot Guards, just returned from Malplaquet. W. M. Terrott
Boomblehardt Verditter A miser2 same Edward Righton
Martha Dorothy Trabbs Landlady of the Three Pigeons same Miss L. Harris
Peter Peter A young farmer The Landlady's nephew Maggie Brennan
Pipette Jenny The Landlady's niece The Landlady's daughter Kate Bishop
Jacques3 — A villager — Charles Parry
A Strange Old Lady same same same Lucy Franklein

There are also two or three additional unnamed villagers with speaking lines and individual stage directions.2

In some productions of the play, the original names from the story were used.[11]


1 Taken from descriptions in the play,[32] all other descriptions are slightly adapted from those in the dramatis personæ.[30]
2 Many of the reviews name Boomblehardt as a Jew in their plot summaries.[2][3][4] However, while Righton played the role as a Jewish caricature, Gilbert's script did not use a Jewish dialect, and historian Jane Stedman suggests that Gilbert did not authorize this interpretation.[33]
 3 Jacques has no more lines than any of the numbered villagers, and disappears after the first page of the script.[34] Given the exit of each villager is individually specified,[35] he may be renamed to the third of the three numbered villagers.

Songs

The number of songs varied from production to production. The version submitted to the Lord Chamberlain had six songs,[11] and an early review in The Times wrote that it was "overweighted with a quantity of extremely undramatic music",[4] though the London Echo thought the music was "pretty".[3] Nonetheless, the version printed in Gilbert's Original Plays (1911) cut these six songs to three, and some productions left the songs out entirely.[11]

The list of songs in the licence copy is:

  1. Did you ever know a lady so particularly shady – Jacques and Villagers1
  2. Some people love Spring – Boomblehardt
  3. At home at last all danger past – Sergeant Klooque
  4. A soldier in the King's Hussars – Sergeant Klooque, Pipette, and Peter
  5. With furious blow – Peter, Pipette, Sergeant Klooque, and Martha
  6. Finale: Go away, ma'am, go away, ma'am – Ensemble.

While the lyrics survive, none of the music was ever published, and it is now lost.[11] The version in Original Plays omits the second verse of Nos. 1 and 6, and cuts Nos. 2, 3, and 5.

1 Jacques and the villagers are said to be on stage when the curtain rises, it is not actually specified that Jacques or anyone else sings in the opening chorus.[34]

Critical reception

Reviews for the play were generally favourable, but it was criticised for its loose structure and lack of any substantial plot. The London Echo summarised it as a "burletta of the stamp that was in vogue a hundred years ago, resembling Midas, perhaps, more nearly than that of any modern burlesque", and said it "contains pretty music, and smart if not witty dialogue, a semi-moral and a semi-plot".[3] The Graphic wrote that "Although it occupies only an hour in performance, the story is well told and the piece is exceedingly amusing" and praised the acting, with Righton's portrayal of Boomblehardt coming in for special praise: "No character on stage perhaps ever made audiences laugh more in so short a time."[2] In an 1882 assessment of the piece for amateur theatre societies, M. E. James noted that "The singing is a great addition. It is altogether an amusing bit of nonsense, and very original."[36]

The Times review was less positive than most, saying that although the play was good, they expected more of Gilbert:

As noblesse oblige, so does great success become liable to a certain penalty. Had the little piece we have just described been the work of some unknown hand we might have accepted it as an agreeable trifle, displaying more than common ingenuity in its invention, and, with the aid of picturesque costumes, lively setting, and a pretty decoration, gracefully concluding the evening's entertainment, although overweighted with a quantity of extremely undramatic music. But with the remembrance of The Palace of Truth fresh in our minds, we cannot help a feeling of disappointment when we find the author of that really poetical work coming forward as the writer of another "fairy tale," so immeasurably inferior.... [T]he fairy only enchants her victims to disenchant them at pleasure, without arriving at any result, and we have a good foundation with scarcely any superstructure whatsoever.[4]

Notes

  1. ^ Gilbert (1911), p. 309
  2. ^ a b c d "The Theatres" in The Graphic (London, England), 22 April 1871, Issue 73
  3. ^ a b c d e The London Echo, quoted in "Foreign Affairs", The New York Times, 7 May 1871, p. 5
  4. ^ a b c d e f g "Court Theatre" in The Times, 19 April 1871, p. 8, col. 2
  5. ^ a b Template:Cite web2
  6. ^ Template:Cite web2
  7. ^ Template:Cite web2
  8. ^ Template:Cite web2
  9. ^ Crowther (2000), p. 67
  10. ^ Template:Cite web2
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Template:Cite web2
  12. ^ a b Gilbert (1890), p. 5
  13. ^ Stedman, pp. 106–07
  14. ^ Meisel, pp. 278–300
  15. ^ Template:Cite web2
  16. ^ "Theatricals at Newport: Amateur Performance at the Casino Under the Management of Lord Yarmouth a Great Success", Special to The New York Times, 6 September 1899, p. 6
  17. ^ "Little Plays at McDowell Club" in The New York Times, 13 January 1922, Section: Business & Opportunity, p. 32
  18. ^ "The News of Newport" in The New York Times, 4 June 1899, p. 12
  19. ^ "Society Home and Abroad" in The New York Times, 20 December 1908, Section: Part Six Dramatic and Fashions Section, Page X1
  20. ^ Template:Cite web2
  21. ^ "Notes" in Time, 9 July 1923, Retrieved on 21 March 2008.
  22. ^ Template:Cite web2
  23. ^ "Buxton Latest", G&S Festival Newsletter, June 2006, p. 2, Retrieved on 22 May 2008.
  24. ^ Gilbert died before he could check the proofs of the last few works in that volume, and so we cannot be sure that this state of the libretto is what he intended. See Rees, pp. 90–94
  25. ^ a b Gilbert (1890), pp. 161–73
  26. ^ a b Gilbert (1911), pp. 309–27
  27. ^ Gilbert (1890), p. 161
  28. ^ Gilbert (1890), p. 164
  29. ^ Gilbert (1890), p. 173
  30. ^ a b c d Gilbert (1911), p. 310
  31. ^ a b Gilbert (1890), pp. 161–62
  32. ^ Gilbert (1911), pp. 314 and 316
  33. ^ Stedman, p. 88
  34. ^ a b Gilbert (1911), p. 311
  35. ^ Gilbert (1911), p. 313
  36. ^ James, p. 30

References

  • Crowther, Andrew (2000). Contradiction Contradicted: The Plays of W. S. Gilbert, Associated University Presses, London, ISBN 0-8386-3839-2.
  • Gilbert, W.S. (1911). Original Plays, Fourth Series, Chatto and Windus, London.
  • Gilbert, W. S. (1890). Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales, George Routledge and Sons, London.
  • James, M. E. (1882). What shall we act?, G. Bell, Oxford University.
  • Meisel, Joseph S. (1999). "The Importance of Being Serious: The Unexplored Connection between Gladstone and Humour", History, vol.84, issue 274, April 1999.
  • Rees, Terence (1964). Thespis – A Gilbert & Sullivan Enigma. London: Dillon's University Bookshop.
  • Stedman, Jane W. (1996). W. S. Gilbert, A Classic Victorian & His Theatre. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816174-3.
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