Cumberland’s Plays:
Sherbo, Arthur. ‘Cumberland, Richard (1732–1811)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 26 May 2008. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6888
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Keenan, Joseph J.,Jr., ‘Richard Cumberland: February 19, 1732-May 7, 1811’. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 89: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Dramatists, Third Series. Edited by Paula R. Backscheider, University of Rochester. The Gale Group, 1989. Literature Resource Center. 26 May 2008. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=utoronto_main&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U13602361&n=10&docNum=H1200002662&ST=cumberland+richard&bConts=10927
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Synder, E.D. “The Wild Irish: A Study of Some English Satires against the Irish, Scots, and Welsh.” Modern Philology 17, 12 (1920): 687.
The Summer’s Tale: “Cumberland's entry upon the stage began with the somewhat successful musical drama The Summer's Tale, produced at Covent Garden on 6 December 1765” (Sherbo).
“Despite its being elaborately overplotted, The Summer's Tale shows Cumberland's comic ability to blend the moral and the laughable. The complex love plot is replete with sententious statements to the effect that true love and virtue are the only basis for marriage. To this moral seriousness Cumberland added his first sympathetic portrait of a character usually the subject of national or ethnic prejudice: his first noble Irishman, Paddy. Paddy, who had resigned his faith to bear arms for England, robs lawyer Shifter of money Shifter had bilked out of the honest Bellafont. Bellafont pronounces Paddy's blessing in sweeping terms of the Irish character: "To trace actions apparently good from dishonourable motives is no uncommon thing; but it is the peculiarity of his nation to commit the wildest extravagancies upon principles of the most exalted magnanimity." The pointing of morals in stilted language, the championing of the downtrodden, and the worldly rewarding of the noble hearted are the hallmarks of Cumberland's sentimentality, but there is much of The Summer's Tale that is very funny: good satire of lawyers in the person of the disreputable Shifter and some rather bitter satire of the government's mistreatment of soldiers during peacetime, but the greatest fun lies in the character of Sir Anthony, who sees all events in light of the good reading they will make in his diary. This blend of the serious and the humorous is what Cumberland found in Greek new comedy, and it is what he brought to the late eighteenth-century stage” (Keenan).
The Brothers: “This was followed by the very successful sentimental comedy The Brothers, also produced at Covent Garden, four years later, on 2 December 1769” (Sherbo).
“The Brothers as serious comedy that develops into melodrama and the problem play” (Keenan).
“a play in which Cumberland puts forward one of his strongest themes: worldly wisdom pales in the light of natural virtue. Worldly wisdom is embodied in Belfield, Senior, a thoroughgoing villain, a man of infinite avarice, a man capable of bigamy, a man so caught up in vicious machinations that he utters the now stereotypical line of "foil'd again" when his plans go awry. Cumberland introduces this darkest of villains into comedy, and in the fifth act brings about his reformation, one of the falsities that mark sentimental comedy, one of the exaggerations that mark melodrama… in a letter to George Montagu, Horace Walpole says of The Brothers: "It acts well, but reads ill."” (Keenan).
The West Indian: “His next play, The West Indian, produced at Drury Lane under the direction of David Garrick on 19 January 1771, was phenomenally successful, with a run of twenty-eight nights. Cumberland sold the copyright for £150 and claimed that 12,000 copies were sold…Possibly because of the success of The West Indian, in that same year Cumberland received the honorary degree of doctor of civil law from the University of Dublin” (Sherbo).
“The West Indian in 1771 ran twenty-seven nights at Drury Lane and was transferred to the Haymarket for a summer performance. Moreover, contemporary reviewers, well aware of the tension between the moralistic, preachy comedy called sentimental and the satiric, laughing comedy--well before Goldsmith's famous essay on the subject--heaped praise upon the piece as a comedy as comedy should be… The play has a serious moral purpose: to dispel the prejudice that existed against those British who lived in the West Indies and the long-standing prejudice against the Irish. Belcour is the most engaging of West Indians; although impetuous and improvident, he is never cruel. His blood may run too warm form the island sun, but his heart is open and sensitive to human virtue and suffering. Not only is he a man of feeling, but he is a laughable one. His fight with the customs officials over his menagerie proves funny because it illustrates Belcour's naiveté as well as the oversophistication of Londoners; his impetuousness and gullibility in mistaking the most virtuous Louisa for a whore produce comic incidents and laughable cross-purpose dialogue.
O'Flaherty takes up where Paddy of The Summer's tale left off. A robust example of the noble-hearted Irishman, O'Flaherty's zest for life, marriage, fighting, and drinking makes him a comic, but wholly sympathetic character. He sees the values of life in their true light, and he pursues them despite conventions, ranks, and titles. O'Flaherty and Belcour are naive proponents of the goodness of heart; their clumsiness is amusing; their triumph is satisfying. Before them fall the affectations of society-from the hypocrisy of the puritanical Lady Rusport to the false delicacy of Louisa and Charles Dudley. Cumberland steers clear of the sentimental and the melodramatic not only through laughter, but by maintaining a light-hearted tone throughout.
Primarily, he creates no false suspense. From page one, the audience knows that Stockwell is Belcour's father, and this knowledge creates delightful opportunities for dramatic irony. Belcour's being duped of jewels and being misled as to Louisa's character pose no serious threat, for Belcour has plenty of money, and Charlotte Rusport could dispel the misunderstanding in an instant, but she (and the audience) are rather enjoying the folly. Without serious suspense, the audience is free to laugh-especially since there are no serious villains.
The Fulmers have wicked intentions, but they bicker and complain of their long history of failures in business and in evil. One cannot take them seriously. Nor can one take Lady Rusport seriously; she may intend to deprive the Dudleys of their just inheritance, but she is vain, cheap, and petty. Putty in the hands of O'Flaherty, Lady Rusport poses no genuine threat.
Free from serious suspense and effective villains, The West Indian satirizes human folly and weakness, extols the human heart, brings all of its characters to a recognition of the value of benevolence, and sends the audience home pleased, amused, and contented-just as does She stoops to Conquer (1773) or The Rivals (1775). Delighted with The West Indian, Garrick wrote to Dr. John Hoadly in May of 1771 that Cumberland's prospects as a comic writer were limitless.” (Keenan).
“Prominent among his many other plays, not wholly in terms of their relative merits, are Timon of Athens (1771), The Fashionable Lover (1772), The Choleric Man (1774), the tragedy The Battle of Hastings (1778), The Walloons (1782), The Jew (1794), and The Wheel of Fortune (1795)” (Sherbo).
The Fashionable Lover: “The Fashionable Lover (1772), a piece more akin to The Brothers than to The West Indian…” (Keenan).
“The Fashionable Lover still possesses an overly complicated plot of coincidence and intrigue. Lord Abberville, the fashionable lover, must learn the true value of human virtue by first falling to a baseness in which he attempts to rape Augusta and in which he gambles to the brink of bankruptcy. The Bridgemores must learn that fraud and cruelty bring true emptiness, and Augusta's virtue must be rewarded with an honest lover, the return of a long-lost father, and a fortune: pure virtue, unmitigated evil, and moral sentiment pervade the whole in a setting as melodramatic, though different, as that of The Brothers. The mysterious seascape (nature's brooding violence) is replaced by the opulence of Lord Abberville's mansion, and the menace of the interior of a house prostitution (the violence of human corruption).
Rape, bankruptcy, and plotted murder underlie the central action of the play, and, whatever comedy there is, is secondary. Cumberland introduces the Welshman, Dr. Druid, to take advantage of a comic stage accent and to point the satire of scientific pedantry. While Cumberland uses the stage Welshman for comic effect, he does present the generous, benevolent Colin Macleod, who challenges the English aversion to Scots. As such he joins Paddy, O'Flaherty, and Belcour as an example of Cumberland's humanitarian crusade against national prejudice. Macleod's integrity and ingenuity eventually lead to the destruction of Bridgemore and the conversion of Lord Abberville, but he is comic in his addiction to Scotland and in his outspoken, openhearted view of the world. He is the element of comic relief, the forerunner of the comic man so much a part of melodrama” (Keenan).
“Still more important is Richard Cumberland’s The Fashionable Lover, with Colin Macleod, who poses as a Scot (though he had once been known as “plain Nan Rawlins of St. Martin’s Parish”), with Mrs. Macintosh, and, best of all with Dr. Druid, the Welsh antiquary. This last play rises considerably above the average mere satire of a type, of which I have noted so many cases, by giving Dr. Druid eccentricities typically Welsh but at the same time individualized” (Snyder, 709).
The Note of Hand: “Then, in 1774, he produced The Note of Hand, his first effort at farce. In it he employs once more his noble-hearted Irishman, this time named MacCormuck-an upstanding young man who will not tolerate affectation or cheating, and one who is outspoken in his grievance about England's treatment of Ireland. MacCormuck is Cumberland's Irishman who not only works toward dashing the prejudice against his nation, but who brings an element of political satire to the play. Overall, The Note of Hand is an attack against gambling and other frivolities that distract members of Parliament (Revell) from their duties and obligations. While the play contains some sententiousness regarding gambling, it is mostly a piece of comic situation and character, even making a satiric comment on plays like The Brothers when Revell accuses Rivers, after a particularly sententious speech, of being "as dull as a sentimental comedy." Although The Note of Hand shows some genuine comedic skill in Cumberland, it is too short to sustain a weighty moral message against gambling, and it becomes a rather unhappy blend of platitude and comic character” (Keenan).
The Choleric Man: “Also in 1774, Cumberland produced The Choleric Man, a solid comedy in the laughing tradition… The Choleric Man, a solid laughing comedy, builds on the conventional theme of demonstrating correct social values based on humanitarian benevolence; it laughs at the folly of these who have incorrect values while presenting the right way through exemplary characters. Its strength lies in its satire. At the heart of the play is the question of education: which brother will be the better man, the one grounded in the classics and the ground tour (Charles), or the one brought up to the fowling piece and the stable (Jack)? The answer is that a humanistic education improves natural goodness, but a country education creates a booby unprepared for and insensitive to the world. This theme is further embodied in the educators: Manlove, the town lawyer, has learned the value of humanity while his half-brother, Nightshade, has lived so long in the country that he thinks a pheasant as important as a man. The plot of the play turns upon a series of mistaken identities caused by Jack's disguising himself as Charles, proving himself a booby and creating one comic situation after another, culminating when the irascible Nightshade hits the postman on the head, and everyone avows he has killed him. The whole business is a ruse to make Nightshade aware of humanity, and as he stands aside to ponder his action, Laetitia, the heroine, reflects "that even the worst of men have moments of compunction." While this seems a natural opportunity for sentimental reformation, Cumberland instead shows Nightshade's mind wherein there is no repentance but a scheming to have his servant Gregory take his place at the trial. This most pleasing play enjoyed as much success as Sheridan's The Rivals, but it marked a falling off from Cumberland's extraordinarily popular West Indian and Fashionable Lover” (Keenan).
The Walloons: “The Walloons, performed on 20 April 1782, grew out of Cumberland's experiences in Spain and owed what success it had to the actor John Henderson, for whom the part of the principal character, Father Sullivan, was created. The public was unenthusiastic, and Cumberland, hoping to benefit financially, was disappointed” (Sherbo).
“The Walloons is most patriotic, reflecting Cumberland's own disappointment only in the failure of England to appreciate fully the loyalty of its sons. Written at the request of John Henderson, an excellent actor in search of a "fine bald-faced villain," The Walloons offered him Father Sullivan, a priest who breaks the seal of confession, practices extortion, moves to betray English military secrets to the Spanish, and finally betrays his fellow conspirators. In the end all of his machinations are discovered, and he goes off to execution without the slightest repentance. In contrast to Father Sullivan are Montgomery and Drelincourt, both Catholic, who serve with Spain against England only because English anti-Catholicism will not allow them in the English service. Their true patriotism, however, is never in question, and for their refusal to carry out Father Sullivan's plan, poetic justice smiles on them when the king in his mercy restores their estates and accepts them as full-privileged citizens” (Keenan).