THE LONDON STAGE 1600-1800, PART 4, 1747-1776.

Edited by George Winchester Stone Jr. '30. Carbondale, Ill.:University of Southern Illinois Press, 1963.1993 pp. $75.00.

In dealing with a work of research and scholarship so vast and detailed, anyone attempting to comment on it must, out of sheer modesty, admit that there are few who would be competent to judge it really adequately. One can only be admiringly grateful that the series of volumes dealing with The London Stage during the years of the 17th and 18th Centuries have been carried through with such loving care and attention to the minutiae as well as the grand and successful peaks of these eras. Twenty-five years have been spent on gathering the materials for these volumes. Programs, and playbills, of this long vanished period have all been gathered and printed in these two volumes and they make exciting reading for anyone interested in theatre lore. And yet there is another element of interest for the American reader in these volumes, for these two centuries of theatre production are quite literally the beginning of the American Theatre.

It was this theatre in London that the American colonist looked to for his theatre. It was the footloose troupe from The LondonStage that ventured to the American scene and presented plays in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Williamsburg, and Charleston, presenting near facsimiles to these London originals. One comes occasionally on the name of Hallam in the listings from time to time and suddenly the ocean seems to vanish between America and England for the Hallam troupe was the first real troupe of English actors who played our shores.

Here, in detail, is the full 18th Century repertory which included all of the Restoration Drama, decently scrubbed for 18th Century tastes. Here are the plays of Shakespeare in their 18th Century guise, rendered less crude and with the tragedies made palatable with a happy ending. Here, also, are the full programs of a night at the theatre which included special dances and pantomimes, as well as short pieces which filled out the whole evening's bill.

Recreating an era, especially a theatrical era, is always a difficult, not to say, hazardous undertaking. Theatre history, in par-ticular, is full of pitfalls. What is recalled in later years are the peaks of drama of any period. The plays which succeed are repeated and eventually embalmed in anthologies. The others, the less successful ones, are dropped by the wayside and forgotten. Perhaps this is inevitable, and yet it omits completely the whole pell-mell rush and color of the theatre life of the time. We are constantly aware of John Gay, and TheBeggar's Opera, Henry Fielding, George Lillo, and David Garrick and his emendations on Shakespeare and the Restoration wits, but we forget Isaac Bickerstaffe and his delightful little opera Thomas and Sally, or The Sailor's Return which he wrote with Thomas Arne. Suddenly, in this book, here they are. The whole bustle and noise of the 18 th Century playhouse comes to life in a way that no theatre commentary however gayly written can recreate them for us.

Here in these two volumes, as in few other accounts of the British 18th Century Theatre, are the stuff of our own American beginnings. It was from the hurly-burly of the London offerings in New York and Philadelphia that our own first successful play-wright, Royall Tyler, gathered the materials for his own The Contrast which swept the American scene with its anti-British tone and solid American patriotic theme: but ironically, the play is based on English models and actually glories in them.

To any student of the theatre this is invaluable lore, and for any lover of the theatre with a fair knowledge of the period and imagination, these books can recreate a lost era in a way that is unique and delightful.

Professor of English