The Shaughraun Collection

Perhaps Boucicault’s most enduring play is “The Shaughraun,” first staged in New York in 1874 and played as recently as 2004 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Although it centered on an escaped Fenian prisoner, Boucicault was careful not to show overt sympathy for the cause of Irish rebellion, and instead made his own character, loveable scamp Conn the Shaughraun, the focal point of the play. Boucicault continued to portray the youthful Conn well into his sixties, as audiences still clamored for his signature performance. Although many tried to get Boucicault to change the title of the play (it derives from the Irish seachránaí, meaning a wanderer or vagabond), he held firm and gave an added level of Irish mystique to the drama.

“The Shaughraun” continued to follow the template for Boucicault’s Irish melodramas, but it really made every moment count: the play’s exotic setting on the wild Irish coast accentuated several sensation scenes—a dramatic boat escape, an assault on Rathgarron Head, a bizarre wake, and a jailbreak. And in the end, Boucicault as Conn addresses the audience in Puckish fashion, adding a personal and endearing touch to the play.

Not only is “The Shaughraun” Boucicault’s most celebrated play, but it has a very special place in USF Libraries: digitized here is the prompt book for the very first performance of the play at Wallack’s Theatre in New York, with Boucicault’s handwritten plea for its preservation.