Suilamor

“Suilamor” (often written “Suil-a-mor”) was a rewrite of a rewrite for Boucicault, who continued to struggle to find a new theatrical hit. In 1873, Boucicault premiered a new play “Daddy O’Dowd” in New York City, but it proved a failure. He later rewrote the play as “The O’Dowd,” and premiered it at the Adelphi in London in October 1880. While Boucicault received praise for his performance of the old titular character, his attacks on the landlord system and overt sympathies with the Land League in Ireland caused an uproar in England, and the public demanded he alter the play. Boucicault, however, wrote to the press saying, “the features objected to are essential to the design and intent of the work. It is, therefore, in no captious spirit the author declines to alter it; but rather than lose the favour of any of his audience, he will amend his error by withdrawing the play altogether.” The old dramatist had learned a valuable lesson about staging plays with current political situations—the British did not enjoy Irish propaganda pieces.

Two years later, Boucicault rewrote the play again, this time as “Suilamor,” for an engagement at the Boston Museum in February 1882. The Boston Globe noted that in watching “The O’Dowd” the “cockneys could not tolerate Mr. Boucicault’s plain-spoken allusion to Erin as the Cinderella of the British family,” yet now the play arrived in America as the “first worthy attempt to give upon the stage an idea of the situation in Ireland.” Ironically, Boucicault removed much of the material related to the Land League and boycotting, thinking his American audience would not understand all the allusions. Either way, the play was a rousing success in Boston, and had a solid run throughout Massachusetts before arriving in New York City in March 1882, where it was damned with faint praise and was withdrawn after a week.

The prompt book digitized here offers a fascinating glimpse into Boucicault’s creative process, as portions of “The O’Dowd” script are pasted in the book to show where the text did not change.