John Lang's play 'The Actor's Triumph'

MARGIN: Life & Letters in Early Australia, July-August, 2009 by Victor Crittenden

John Lang had a great ambition to write for the stage. In his attempts to fulfil this desire he was never successful. He made a number of attempts but his plays never appeared under his name. His first attempt was in Sydney when he started to write a play for his friend Eliza Winstanley. This was Isabel of Valois. The play was eventually finished by Eliza herself after John Lang departed for India in 1842. The play was presented at the Royal Victoria Theatre in Sydney with Eliza Winstanley in the leading role. The subject was an historical one of the Queens of Spain (consort of Phillip H 1559-1568). Phillip had four wives of which Isabel of Valois was the second. Queen Mary I of England was the third. It was a subject with which Lang would have been familiar from his extensive reading of books of history. Eliza may have known of the story but her education was not extensive. Her husband may also have helped in writing the remainder of the play. John Lang never claimed the play leaving it to Eliza Winstanley. The manuscript copy of the play in the Colonial Secretary's office in Sydney appears to be partly in John Lang's handwriting. The play was submitted to the Colonial Secretary to obtain permission for it to be publicly performed. Eliza's husband, a violinist in the theatre orchestra, submitted the play.

When later in London Lang approached Tom Taylor, a celebrated playwright, with the idea for a play. Taylor was well known for writing plays in collaboration with other writers. Lang suggested the plot of a play based on Henry Fouche the minister of police in Napoleonic France. Fouche had a group of beautiful women who acted as spies for the Minister. The plot involved one of these women who was sent out to discover a writer of pamphlets against Napoleon and who was supporting the Bourbons. She falls in love with the pamphlet writer which complicates the ending of the plot. John Lang claimed later that he had commenced the story as a serial for The Mofussilite but then decided it would make a better play. Tom Taylor took the plot and wrote a play called Plot and Passion. which was successfully produced in London in

1853. Lang claimed joint authorship but it was essentially Tom Taylor's play. Tom Taylor in his defence wrote that John Lang had only provided the plot.

The actor's triumph: A Story of the Stage an Interlude

John Lang

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Lang made another attempt at a collaboration with Tom Taylor. He wrote a farce called In a Dawk Bungalow. It is set in India in one of those staging houses that were built along roads to enable Europeans to travel through India and have accommodation provided in Dawk Bungalows. There were no inns or hotels in India at the time. The farce was sent by John Lang to Tom Taylor with the manuscript headed, 'by Tom Taylor and John Lang'. The manuscript in Lang's handwriting is held in the Tom Taylor papers in the Theatre Museum in London. It does not appear to have been staged. Lang published a version in The Mofussilite a little later and signed it simply by John Lang. It differed from the version in the Tom Taylor Papers having an Indian servant girl who has an active part in the plot which does not appear in the Tom Taylor version. It is not known if The Mofussilite version was ever produced in India.

The play The Actor's Triumph was published in The Mofussilite on the 11 March 1854. There is no copy in the Tom Taylor papers so it must be assumed that it was never performed in London or even submitted to Tom Taylor. There is no indication that it was performed in India in Meerut where John Lang lived and where he produced his newspaper. Lang went to England for a few years in 1854. It is unlikely that the play was ever performed on the stage. This is difficult to establish because these short comic plays were performed in the same programme as the major work presented at the evening performance. Tom Taylor did write a number of farces as did David Garrick. One can never be definite about whether Lang's farce was performed on a stage. It could have appeared in India. Lang was involved with the theatre in Meerut. A short play or farce by John Lang was announced to be performed in the local 'army' amateur theatre. It was called Diamond cut Diamond. It was not published in The Mofussilite, at least not in the surviving copies of that newspaper. There is no record that this farce was actually presented.

The Actor's Triumph is about a young girl from the country who was taken to London to see a play for the first time. The play was Romeo and Juliet and the famous actor David Garrick played the part of Romeo. The young girl was engaged to Garrick's friend whom she had met in the country. She falls in love with 'Romeo'. She went round the house quoting large speeches from the Shakespeare play. She would not accept her fiancee's repeated attempts to dissuade her from her fantasy. She continued to maintain that she loved Romeo. The fiancee finally called in his friend David Garrick to try and prove that Romeo was not a person.