THEATRE REVIEWS

8. The Mormons: or St. Abe and his Seven Wives (1881)

The Mormons: or St. Abe and his Seven Wives
(Original title: The Exiles of Erin: or St. Abe and his Seven Wives)
by Robert Buchanan (partly based on his poem, St. Abe and his Seven Wives).
London: Olympic Theatre. 7 May to 2 June, 1881.

(Harriett Jay played the role of Hester Fitzgerald.)

[Advert for The Exiles of Erin (aka The Mormons) from The Times (12 May, 1881 - p.8)]

Glasgow Herald (9 May, 1881)

MR ROBERT BUCHANAN’S NEW PLAY.
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(FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.)
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                                                                                                                      London, Saturday Night.
ALTHOUGH in some quarters a disposition is evinced to be rather hard upon Mr Robert Buchanan’s new drama, produced to-night at the Olympic, it is difficult to see how praise which has been accorded to such sensational plays as “The World,” “Drink,” “Branded,” and other popular successes can be withheld from “The Exiles of Erin.” A sensational piece the new drama undoubtedly is, nor are many of its incidents much more probable than those ordinarily found in plays of its type; but Mr Buchanan’s literary talent is, of course, far in advance of that of the average writer of sensational drama, and if only in this respect “The Exiles of Erin” has the advantage. The play is founded upon Mr Buchanan’s “St Abe and his Seven Wives,” a satire which a leading newspaper declared would “do more to destroy Mormonism than any number of Acts of Congress.” In the introduction or prologue we find that the villain of the piece, Denis Corcoran, having seduced his sweetheart, discards her and causes her death. Her brother, Henry Desmond, however, arrives in time to witness his sister’s disgrace and death, which he swears to avenge. The next scene is laid in the prairie camp of the Mormon emigrants, where the villain Denis Corcoran has become one of the destroying angels, and the avenging brother appears disguised as Uncas, a trapper. On the route Uncas falls in love with a young Irish colleen, the pretty Hester Fitzgerald, whom an elder named Swayne intends to add to his Mormon harem. The action now becomes somewhat complicated. Swayne induces Corcoran to kill the trapper, who is only saved by the courage of Hester and the intervention of a friendly Indian who rejoices in the name of Chingachook. Hester now arrives at Utah, where we are introduced to the household of Abraham Clewson, St Abe, and his seven wives. Very amusing and highly realistic is this scene, in which seven real wives with real babies and real cradles, and all the domestic paraphernalia of a much married man are seen. The trapper and the Indian rescue Hester from the Morons, but the girl is recovered, and is at the point of being sealed to the Mormon Swayne when the young trapper again rescues her. A flight over the prairie follows, and, to cut a long story short, Swayne is at length shot by the trapper, who, after a hand-to-hand knife fight with Corcoran, exacts dramatic vengeance by slaying his sister’s betrayer. That such a story affords many thrilling situations such as the patrons of melodrama enjoy may be taken for granted. Parts of the play, such as a portion of the third act, will, of course, have to be pruned, but for the most part the interest of the story is sustained throughout, while the scene in the Mormon’s house is of the most humorous description. Mr R. Buchanan was fortunate in the cast selected to interpret his play. The talent of Miss Harriett Jay has already been shown both in London and Glasgow as the heroine of “The Nine Days’ Queen,” and the part of the impulsive and courageous Hester Fitzgerald is even better suited to display her at her best. Mr William Rignold, both in appearance and by his acting, quite realised the character of the handsome young trapper. Mr Dolman played the part of Brigham Young, Mr M^cIntyre that of the Mormon elder Swayne, Mr Arnold the villain, and Mr Calhaem the Indian. The drama was capitally mounted, and although at the end there were, as has now become almost habitual on first nights, a few sounds of disapprobation, Mr Robert Buchanan was called before the curtain and loudly cheered. “The Exiles of Erin” must not be considered more than it pretends to be—that is to say, less a political piece, lightly glancing over the question of Fenianism and satirising Mormonism, than a romantic, sensational, and humorous drama. As such it abundantly fulfils the purpose for which it was written.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (12 May, 1881 - Issue 5059)

     A drama founded upon a portion of Mr. Buchanan’s poetical satire of “St. Abe and his Seven Wives” has been produced at the Olympic, under the title of “The Exile of Erin.” With the comic story of the Mormon elder who, though married to the woman he prefers before all others, finds the presence in the same house of six other wives to whom likewise he is sealed so distasteful and destructive of domestic serenity that he faces all the risks attending the escape from Utah, and comes with the favourite wife to Europe to enjoy the pleasures of monogamy, is associated a melodramatic interest of the most pronounced kind. A pair of young lovers are members of a band of emigrants which crosses the prairies in the direction of the Salt Lake. Covetous eyes are cast upon the young heroine by a Mormon elder, and her ultimate escape from the toils in which she is entrapped is not effected without many hair-breadth escapes. In her numerous adventures the white men are her constant foes, and her chief protectors are the redskins, whose zeal on behalf of distressed virtue is only matched by their affection for the fire-water of the palefaces. There are some good if familiar scenes in the play, and the interest in it is both strong and sympathetic. Brigham Young, the Mormon Governor, is introduced in full conclave with his elders, and his conduct is painted in the darkest colours. Miss Harriett Jay, whose last appearance in London took place in “Lady Jane Grey,” now plays the heroine, a young Irish girl. Among the more prominent of her supporters are Mr. Percy Compton (a son of the well-known comedian), Mr. William Redmund, Mr. St. Maur, and Miss L. Williams.

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The Graphic (14 May, 1881 - Issue 598)

     The new piece at the OLYMPIC called The Exiles of Erin; or, St. Abe and his Seven Wives, and founded on a humorous poem by Mr. Robert Buchanan, both amazed and amused those who witnessed its first performance on Saturday night. It had no doubt a certain charm of its own, for the spectator felt impelled to remain till he had seen how the extraordinary production should end. Its comic situations represent the trials of a Mormon saint, whose seven wives of different nationalities, all in full-dress, national costume, are a great deal too many for him. Difficulties are increased when he falls madly in love with one of the number, and at last he resolves upon an elopement with his own wife. The imagination which runs riot in the tragic passages of the piece is somewhat deficient in these scenes, which ought to be much firmer. Out of them a farce might perhaps be constructed, while the rest of a play, so absurd in its suggestions and its situations, might be banished from the stage, or stored away to furnish hints for some tragedy-burlesque. The good humour of Miss Lizzie Williams, acting as Biddy Linny, a roving Irish colleen, the melodramatic fervour of Mr. William Redmund, and the performances generally of Miss Harriet Jay, Mr. Calhaem, Mr. Compton, Mr. M^cIntyre, Mr. Arnold, and others of the cast received fair recognition from the audience, which, comprising a number of the class who delight in sensational scenes, were at times prodigal of applause, and were laughingly joined in their demonstrations by playgoers who manifestly treated the whole performance as a joke.

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The Era (14 May, 1881 - Issue 2225)

THE OLYMPIC.
On Saturday, May 7th,
“THE EXILES OF ERIN; OR, ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES.”
In a Prologue, Four Acts, and Seven Tableaux.

Henry Desmond     . . . . . . . . .     Mr WILLIAM REDMUND
Maurice Fitzgerald  . . . . . . . . .     Mr HARRY ST MAUR
Denis Corcoran      . . . . . . . . .     Mr J. A. ARNOLD
Rory of the Hills      . . . . . . . . .     Mr MACARTNEY
Andy Blane             . . . . . . . . .     Mr DANIELS
Brigham Young       . . . . . . . . .     Mr DOLMAN
Silas Swayne           . . . . . . . . .     Mr WILLIAM M^cINTYRE
Black Jack              . . . . . . . . .     Mr TULLY THORNTON
Nathan                    . . . . . . . . .     Mr JONES
Abraham Clewson   . . . . . . . . .     Mr PERCY COMPTON
Ghingachook           . . . . . . . . .     Mr STANISLAUS CALHAEM
Dacomah                 . . . . . . . . .     Mr MORRELLI
Hester Fitzgerald      . . . . . . . . .     Miss HARRIETT JAY
Norah Corcoran      . . . . . . . . .     Mrs DIGBY WILLOUGHBY
Biddy Linney           . . . . . . . . .     Miss LIZZIE WILLIAMS
Tabitha Clewson      . . . . . . . . .     Miss AGNES CLIFTON
Jessie Clewson        . . . . . . . . .     Miss LAWRENCE
Kathleen Clewson     . . . . . . . .     Miss LESLIE BELL
Gretchen Clewson   . . . . . . . . .     Miss COLLINS
Hortense Clewson   . . . . . . . . .     Miss CHAPMAN
Tessa Clewson        . . . . . . . . .     Miss ST CLAIR
Anna Maria Clewson   . . . . . . .     Miss LETTY LIND
Alice Young             . . . . . . . . .     Miss BELMORE

     This “grand, romantic, sensational, and humorous drama, partly taken from an American source, and partly founded on the well-known poetical satire of ‘St. Abe,’” may, we think, be fairly called the most extraordinarily ridiculous play that has been put upon the stage in recent years. The audience that sat it through on the first night was a very friendly one, and must have suffered much for the sake of friendship. Had not this self-sacrificing spirit prevailed we fancy that The Exiles of Erin would have been howled down long before the four acts and seven tableaux had been completed. Our annoyance arose chiefly from the fact that with so many people around who, it was evident, were well disposed towards the author and his work, we could not well, without running the risk of appearing rude, indulge in a good, hearty roar of derision just in those passages of the play where Mr Buchanan intended to be most serious. In the “humorous” parts we could, of course, shed a silent tear without attracting much attention or becoming the object of tremendous frowns, but there was not much consolation or gratification to be derived from this. Once or twice we almost persuaded ourselves that to go to sleep would be the proper thing, but Mr Edward Jones, who presided over the orchestra, was a very determined foe to anything in the shape of repose. His baton seemed to direct some electric battery, and, now and again, at the sign of indifference or a slight drooping of the eyelids on the part of any unhappy individual seated behind him—he evidently knew what was going on—his musical myrmidons struck a chord which acted like a spur upon the drowsy and fairly made them jump. Mr Jones, perhaps, was not so responsible in this matter as was Mr Buchanan, for we think we shall be right in saying that the latter thought and arranged to get some fine “effects” out of his “situations” by the aid of the gentlemen with the fiddles. There was slow music and there was fast music—music that was of the creepy, ghost-like order and music that seemed to be made of fireworks and to go off with a bang. Indeed, we think it may be said that The Exiles of Erin is made up of Mormonism and music, and we are quite certain that in the way of a mixture of mirth and murder, plottings, fights with knives, and fights with pistols, schemes to assassinate this one and to marry that one against her will, to drug here, to hang there, and to carry on sorry work with the assistance of Brigham Young and a mysterious individual who is everlastingly spoken of as a doomsman, nothing so remarkable in the way of a dramatic hash has been seen since the days when there was prosperity at the Bower Saloon. The prologue takes us to Queenstown Harbour in winter. The snow falls fast just when anything startling is going to happen, and that something startling does happen may be guessed from the words in the playbill. Here they are:— “The Mormon Missionary. The Emigrants. A Marked Man. The Deserted Wife. When the Snow Falls. The Face in the Snow.” The fact is that there is a poor Irish girl, who has been betrayed and deserted by a scoundrel named Denis Corcoran. He is responsible for her death, and her brother, Henry Desmond, coming home from his wanderings and learning of the treatment to which she has been subjected, swears to be revenged, and starts in pursuit of her murderer. Corcoran, we presently find, has located in America, and has become one of the Mormon leader’s “destroying angels.” He is in the emigrant camp with the “Exiles of Erin” on the prairie. So, too, is Henry Desmond, who is now passing as Uncas, the trapper. The latter has fallen desperately in love with Hester Fitzgerald, who, with her brother, is on her way to join the Mormons. He tries to persuade her to abandon her purpose, and to avoid the society of the polygamists; but her brother fiercely rebukes him, and a certain Elder Swayne, who seems to be in charge of the party, gives orders to Corcoran to give “Uncas” quick despatch; in other words, to murder him as soon as possible. The attempt is made, but “Uncas” finds a friend in Chingachook, “an Indian, not of the type drawn by Cooper, but good-hearted and given to fire-water.” In the second act we are permitted entrance to Utah. The first scene shows us the “Prophet’s” office, with Abraham Clewson, “known as St. Abe, a recalcitrant polygamist,” pleading to be released from six out of his seven wives. The third scene takes us to this young gentleman’s home. We are allowed to go into the garden of this very much married man, and to make acquaintance with the ladies who have vowed to love, honour, and obey him. They seem to be of all sorts and all sizes, and to be proud of their nationality and their babies. For, be it said, Mr Buchanan brings on some real babies—actors and actresses in swaddling clothes; quiet, well-behaved, and seeming thoroughly to enjoy the novelty of their surroundings. There is a very lame attempt to get something like fun out of the scene by showing us “St. Abe’s” seven wives contending for the first place in his affections, and the Red Indian Chingachook indulging in encounters with the eldest of the ladies, who rejoices in the name of Tabitha. He calls her a squaw, and he thinks it the right thing to be continually squaw-ling at her. Now, it appears that Elder Swayne has made up his mind to add Hester Fitzgerald to his stock of wives, and to this arrangement “Uncas” very naturally objects. Swayne would marry her at midnight, and here we get about the most stupid scene of the whole production. Hester has been brought to the scratch by force; her brother, who has been initiated, and who has received the “pass word,” enters a protest, and is handed over to the doomsman, a funny fellow, who lifts up a trap door to show him the way to the vaults that mean death. But the doomsman presently turns out to be none other than Henry Desmond disguised. He contrives to carry off Hester, but she is recaptured, and is condemned to look on while her lover is executed. Her lover, however, is not executed. He is reserved by a benificent Providence to bring Denis Corcoran to his doom. Denis compares himself to Cæsar, and would like to “beware the Ides of March,” but he has to give up his game and to give up the ghost ere, upon “Sunrise in the Golden Valley,” the curtain finally falls. We sincerely hope we have done Mr Buchanan no injustice in our description of his play, but we think it very likely that we have got some of the incidents rather mixed. That, however, is no fault of ours. We found no natural sequence and it was impossible to make one. Love, murder, Mormonism, cradles, babies, wives, knives, scoundrels, Indians, and destroying angels pressed sorely on our memories as we left the Theatre, and we fear it must be confessed that trying to unravel the mysteries of Mr Buchanan’s play sadly interfered with the attention we should have paid to the following Sunday morning’s sermon. Miss Harriett Jay, who is called “the popular young actress,” represents the heroine, Hester Fitzgerald. She is a little crude at times, but it may be said she played her part with pleasant earnestness, and almost made us regret that she had such poor stuff to interpret. Miss Lizzie Williams is to be complimented on her impersonation of Biddy Linney, “a roving Irish colleen,” who roves all over the world with bare arms and without a bonnet. Her animation made amends for any deficiencies in the dressing of the part. Mrs Digby Willoughby, too, did well in the comparatively small part of Norah, the betrayed young damsel of the prologue. Miss Letty Lind and Miss Agnes Clifton were conspicuous among the seven wives of At. Abe, and merit special mention. Mr W. Redmund was very earnest as Henry Desmond, but we may say this young actor will do much better things when he can be persuaded to moderate his ardour. His elocution is invariably pitched in too high a key. Mr H. St. Maur was but a mild Fitzgerald. Mr J. A. Arnold gave melodramatic force to the part of the rascally Denis Corcoran, and Mr M^cIntyre was, as usual, very vigorous as the villainous Elder Swayne, a very remarkably unpleasant personage. Mr Dolman’s Brigham Young was what he did not mean it to be, funny; and we may say that Mr Calhaem’s Chingachook, although clever in its way, will not bear comparison with his marvellously skilful portraiture of Jacky in It’s Never Too Late to Mend. Mr Percy Compton was amusing as Abraham Clewson, the gentleman with seven wives, but it was curious to note that he fell alternately into imitations, now of Mr Buckstone and now of his own father. Mr Buchanan was called to the front at the end, but the compliment could not be considered of much value.

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Reynolds’s Newspaper  (15 May, 1881 - Issue 1605)

OLYMPIC.

     The new play by Mr. Robert Buchanan, produced the other night at this theatre, is one of those pieces in which, to use a fragment of theatrical slang, there is a good deal of money out of London. The author is far too practical a man to suppose that “The Exiles of Erin; or, St. Abe and His Seven Wives,” is likely to hold the attention of a metropolitan public. The play is professedly taken from an American source, and supplemented by the broad humour of Mr Buchanan’s satirical poem attacking the Mormon philosophy and styled St. Abe. The work, essentially a melodrama, complicated by coarse fun, suggests Mr. Boucicault’s Irish manner, while now and again the scenes suggest the Indian tales of Fenimore Cooper and Gustave Aimard. Nor is the comic Indian which Mr. Boucicault imported into the Octoroon absent from last night’s dramatic effort. The play is in four acts, preceded by a prologue, in which we have a young Irish lady betrayed by a villain and reduced to rags, who is murdered before the audience upon her entreating that her destroyer will marry her. The assassin is a Fenian, who has betrayed the brotherhood, and has been condemned to death. Under these circumstances he is glad to avail himself of the offer of a Mormon elder to follow him to Utah. The act drop falls upon the discovery by her outlawed brother of the dead girl—the motive of the piece being the pursuit of the villain by the avenging brother. The piece now carries us to America, where we are in a prairie encampment of the Mormons, who have attracted one Maurice Fitzgerald and his sister Hester (Miss Harriet Jay). The avenger, now called Uncas, is condemned by the Mormons, and their destroying angels, with knife, pistol, and cord, are upon him, when he is saved by Hester’s rifle and an Indian chief’s tomahawk. In the next act we are plunged into the supposed daily life of Utah. We are introduced to Brigham Young, who is dreaming of the disruption of the Union and his own elevation to imperial power in the States, where he will have lived as a ruler, and after death be adored as a canonized saint. The Indian chief appears in a corded striped shirt, “worn over,” as he puts it, and is made drunk by Brigham Young; the Ojibbeway, however, recovering sufficiently to visit St. Abe and his seven wives, who, with their babies, are presented bodily to the public. Hester escaping from Utah to her lover Uncas, who is with the Indians, is of course again captured by the Mormons, aided by chloroform, while Uncas faints upon the stage. In the third act we are presented with the mysteries of a Mormon wedding, where the unwilling bride, refusing the sacrifice, she and her brother are left to the tender mercies of a masked destroying angel, who should be the villain of the prologue, but who is the heroine’s lover. They escape, only to be caught again in the fourth act, and once more finally released by the death of the early assassin at the hands of the victim’s brother, while the elder is shot through the head, virtue being left triumphant. The gloom of this final act is, however, relieved by the tearful widowhood of six of St. Abe’s wives, he having eloped with the loved seventh, while the half-dozen appeal to Brigham Young for new settlements, one of them finally pairing off with the Indian chief. It is perhaps needless to say that the piece did not succeed, although the author, in answer to some faint applause, came before the curtain. The piece is well played. Miss Harriet Jay is always intelligent, even engaging, and would under happier dramatic circumstances than those in which she has yet been seen make her mark. Mr. Redmund, as the hero, is vigorous and good, while Mr. Calhaem is quite a treasure as the Indian chief. The actor’s ability in playing aborigines is well known. Mr. Percy Compton as St. Abe, to some degree, reminds the spectator of his clever father.

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The Times (16 May, 1881 - p.10)

     There have been one or two recent changes of less note in the substantial programme of our theatrical entertainments. At the Olympic, for instance, the place of Jo—that version of “Bleak House,” which Miss Lee’s sentimental crossing-sweeper has helped to make so very popular—has lately been supplied by a curious work known as The Mormons, but first appearing as The Exiles of Erin, a title discovered to have been anticipated. The author is Mr. Robert Buchanan, and the principal part is played by Miss Jay, the lady who recently figured as the heroine of the same writer’s poetical tragedy, The Nine Days’ Queen. This later work is not poetical, though certainly tragic enough, with a large mixture of comedy, or farce—the two are now so closely allied that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them. The piece aroused a good deal of laughter on its first appearance, sometimes in the comic scenes, sometimes in the tragic.

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The Brisbane Courier (2 July, 1881 - p.5)

Old-Country Notes.
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[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

                                                                                                    LONDON, 20th May.

.....

     Robert Buchanan, the poet, has produced a play called “The Mormons.” It is a dramatised version of a poem published some time ago in the “Gentleman’s Magazine.” Miss Harriet Jay, his niece, and authoress of the “Queen of Connaught,” appears as the heroine. The critics do not like Buchanan, and are making a dead set against him. According to the papers, therefore, the play is a failure; if the rapturous applause of big houses may be taken to mean anything, it is a marked success.

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From London’s Lost Theatres of the Nineteenth Century by Erroll Sherson (London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1925 - p. 109)

     Next year [1881], there was a very curious play by Buchanan and Harriet Jay called “The Mormons: or St. Abe and His Seven Wives.” The cast was composed of a lot of nobodies except the veteran McIntyre (who had played Mogg, the convict, in “The Great City” at Drury Lane in 1865 and had been known at the Surrey and other transpontine houses before that), and Stanislaus Calhaem, also somewhat of a veteran whose Australian aborigine in “It’s Never Too Late to Mend” was long remembered. These dramas by Buchanan and Jay (of which there were several) hardly ever succeeded, in London at any rate, and in 1881 the Olympic took a new line and went in for comic opera, though I believe it was not actually the first time that light opera had been done there for, in 1869, “L’Oeil Crevé” in an English version by Burnand was given under the title of “Hit and Miss: or All My Eye and Betty Martin.”

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