Representative American Plays/Fashion

by Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

Layout 2

FASHION
BY
Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

 

FASHION

Fashion, while not our first dramatic social satire, for that honor belongs to The Contrast, is of special interest as inspiring a series of plays dealing with the follies of those who aspire to secure an assured position without being aware of social values. The best of this later series is Nature's Nobleman, by Henry O. Pardey, (1851), for Mrs. Bateman's Self, (1856), E. G. Wilkins' Young New York, (1856), and Cornelius Mathews' False Pretences, or Both Sides of Good Society (1856) are merely caricature.

Anna Cora Ogden, the author of Fashion, was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1819, the daughter of Samuel G. Ogden, of New York, who was tried and acquitted for complicity in the Miranda expedition to liberate South America. She was interested in the stage from childhood, taking the part of a judge in a French version of Othello when she was five years of age. At fourteen she had put on an English translation of Voltaire's Alzire at her home in Flatbush. She married James Mowatt, a barrister in New York, when she was fifteen. At sixteen she published her first literary venture, a poetical romance, Pelayo or the Cavern of Covadonga. Being threatened with tuberculosis of the lungs, she took a sea voyage and went to London and to Hamburg, and later to Paris, where she saw Rachel act, and where she wrote Gulzara or the Persian Star, a play in six acts which was acted afterwards at her home in Flatbush by her sisters, and on two other occasions, at least. It was published in the New World in 1840. Mr. Mowatt lost his fortune and Mrs. Mowatt began to give public readings with considerable success. Notwithstanding her constant struggle against ill health, she wrote copiously for the leading magazines, sometimes contributing several articles under different names to the same journal. Her novel of The Fortune Hunter (1842), had quite a wide sale and was translated into German. Her other novel, Evelyn, a domestic story, was published after her debut, in 1845.

Fashion was produced first at the Park Theatre, New York, March 24, 1845. An interesting account of its production is given in her Autobiography. It ran for three weeks and was withdrawn only owing to engagements of stars at the Park Theatre. It was played in Philadelphia at the Walnut Street Theatre while the New York engagement was on. The success of the play and also her financial necessities induced her to go on the stage and she made her debut at the Park Theatre as "Pauline" in the Lady of Lyons, on June 13, 1845. Her modest accounts of her stage beginning show that she made a success from the first and she toured the country, going as far south as New Orleans. She played "Gertrude" in Fashion for the first time in Philadelphia apparently and repeated it in other places several times but the part was not a favorite one with her.

During the summer of 1847 she wrote Armand, the Child of the People, intending the name part for E. L. Davenport, her leading man, and the part of "Blanche" for herself. It was produced at the Park Theatre, September 27, 1847, with success and "Blanche" became one of her leading characters. It is a comedy melodrama, laid in the time of Louis XV, partly in blank verse. Mrs. Mowatt appeared at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, December 7, 1847, as "Pauline" and made so favorable an impression that she and Davenport were engaged to take Macready's place at the Theatre Royal, Marylebone, London, when the latter came to America. During this engagement she put on Armand, January 18, 1849, when it ran twenty-one consecutive nights. Fashion was played at the Royal Olympic Theatre, where she and Mr. Davenport were playing, on January 9, 1850, and ran for two weeks. In January, 1851, she went to Dublin and was given a wonderful reception. Mr. Mowatt died in 1851 and she returned to America on July 9th of that year. She continued her stage career under the discouragement of ill health and accident until 1854, when, after a long illness, she retired. Her last performance was on June 3, 1854, at Niblo's Garden, in the character of "Pauline," in which she had made her debut. It was made the occasion for a great testimonial to her. In 1854 she published her Autobiography, a fascinating account of her experiences from childhood to that time. She married William F. Ritchie, of the Richmond Enquirer, June 7, 1854.

Her later publications include a number of works of fiction, the most important of which is Mimic Life, or Before and Behind the Curtain, (1855), a series of stories dealing with life on the stage in which her own experiences are to a certain extent reflected. After 1861 she lived mostly abroad and died in London, July 28, 1870.

For an interesting contemporary criticism see Edgar A. Poe, The New Comedy by Mrs. Mowatt, Broadway Journal, March 29, 1845, and Mrs. Mowatt's Comedy, Broadway Journal, April 5, 1845, reprinted in the Virginia Edition of Poe's Works, Vol. 12, pp. 112-121 and 124-129. His criticisms of her acting may be found in Vol. 12, pp. 184-192, also reprinted from the Broadway Journal, of July 19 and 26, 1845.

Fashion was published in London in 3850, and was reprinted, with Armand, in Boston, in ]855. The present edition is based upon a collation of these two texts, which differ very slightly.

The play was revived by the Zelosophic Society of the University of Pennsylvania, May 19, 1919, on which occasion its acting qualities were clearly shown.