RAS-1989 — Page 225

200

rash decision to marry the first that came". Another actor who was to become a local Roscius. Mr. Phunago BRUSHWOOD, "gave the somewhat unusual stage character of a double-faced farmer (Wurzel) all the selfish cunning and irritable a tone which it needed". Other parts were taken by Miss Polly DEXTER, Mr. HEAVISWELL, Mr. Jehoshaphat SNAKES and Mr. PLEADWELL (as the lawyer!).

In Box and Cox Messrs PROTEUS, BRUSHWOOD and Mrs. CLAY "kept the audience in a roar" (NCH 22.2.1857).

3.3, 1857 (Tue)

Dramatic readings from Charles Dickens by Mr. Benjamin SEARE. Th: C

―

R: In the Herald of February 28 it was announced that "we are apprized by 'Circular

that an entertainment of a novel character in Shanghai, but one which has greatly attracted the fashionable and literary world elsewhere, will be given by Mr. Scare in the Hall of the Shanghai Theatre on Tuesday Evening next the 3rd prox. The subject - The Early Writings of Charles Dickens is a theme affording scope for great versatility of talent. (...) The Community are much indebted to Mr. Scare for his gratuitous offer of an evening's intellectual amusement to diversify and enliven the monotony of Shanghai life. The Circular notifies that the divertissement will commence at half past & precisely, that no personal invitations will be issued and that a syllabus of the

8 Lecture will be placed in each seat for the use and acceptance of its occupant”. Then, in the issue of March 7, a report was published: "A large and select circle of residents had met in the New Theatre". It became a kind of one man show by Mr. Seare, as the "requirements of versatility and mimic power were most successfully supplied. (...) The lecturer was perfectly at home in each and all of the various characters as they turned up, passed from one to another with an ease that was admirable and portrayed each with a force of comic power which elicited much applause, and, to select the most appropriate compliment we can bestow, did justice to the author. All in all the audience was "kept in a roar”. Mr. Seare concluded with some general remarks on the necessity of some recreation of this kind in a community so distant from home and so isolated and comprising at the same time so much intelligence and ability" (NCH 7,3,1857). One wonders how Mr. Seare was able to give these lectures free of charge; had he been a touring artist that would of course have been impossible. But as it turns out he was a mercantile assistant in the employment of Gilman & Co (this according to the Shanghai Almanac for 1858). In May 1865 he gave another performance (see 27,5.. 3.6.1865). No further details are available about the programme, but no doubt the characters from The Pickwick Papers figured largely in it. Who, after all, can resist Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Jingle and Sam Weller? Dickens himself began readings from his own works one year later, in April 1858, in Britain and the United States.

26.3.1857 (Thur)

1.B. BUCKSTONE: "A Kiss in the Dark" (1840)

T: Farce (1 act)

M.B.W. JERROLD: "Cool as a Cucumber" (1851)

T: Farce (1 act)

H. DANVERS: "A Conjugal Lesson" (1856)

T: Farce (1 act)

C: Amateurs

Th: N.N. (CH

R: In a witty mind "The Man on the Bund" informed us that "by way of introduction there was a kiss — and in the dark too! — perhaps the sweetest kiss of all, administered with enviable gusto by Mr. SNAKES as Fathom. Mrs. Pettibone submitted to it with less indignation than the fact of her being so much respected led us to suppose. But then, it was to punish the odiously jealous Mr. Pettibone who would insist on making

Page 225Page 226