The Temperance Drama
Dublin Core
Title
The Temperance Drama
Description
George Melville Baker’s collection features eight original temperance dramas that were also published separately “for the convenience of performers.” Most plays focus on Yankee farmers, though some include Irish and African American characters. Many characters speak in Yankee, Irish, or Black dialect and wear stereotypical wigs (grey for elderly characters, red for Irish, black and “woolly” for African Americans). Through printed temperance drama, an element of the “disreputable” popular theater – blackface – entered the middle-class home.
Baker’s dramas range from one-act “sketches” to three-act plays, with a healthy dose of farce. In most of the plots, one drink inevitably leads to destruction for the drinker, his friends, and his family. The use of foil characters contrast men who drink with men who don’t. The corrupting influence of the city appears as a recurring theme, as the temptations of urban life lead unassuming rural Yankees astray. Though farmers are portrayed as humble and unrefined, they prove more virtuous than deceitful and glamorous city dwellers.
Before each play, Baker included a guide to the characters with detailed descriptions of the costumes: “Rusty dark pants, very short, swallow-tailed blue coat… shocking bad hat, unblacked boots” for a farmer, “Black silk dress, very old-fashioned, high waist… very large bonnet… and spectacles” for a grandmother, and “Seedy clothes, red noses, and slouched hats” for “anti-teetotalers.” In-text stage directions explain props and actions, and each act and play end in a tableau. Special effects, such as the “elephant trick” at the climax of Seeing the Elephant, require effort and skill. In this one-act comedy, a family convinces the father that he purchased an elephant during one of his drunken “sprees” in town, and they regale him with tales of the damage his new pet has inflicted on the neighborhood. The family hires two men to tromp through the house in an elephant costume, leaving destruction in their wake.
Baker’s dramas range from one-act “sketches” to three-act plays, with a healthy dose of farce. In most of the plots, one drink inevitably leads to destruction for the drinker, his friends, and his family. The use of foil characters contrast men who drink with men who don’t. The corrupting influence of the city appears as a recurring theme, as the temptations of urban life lead unassuming rural Yankees astray. Though farmers are portrayed as humble and unrefined, they prove more virtuous than deceitful and glamorous city dwellers.
Before each play, Baker included a guide to the characters with detailed descriptions of the costumes: “Rusty dark pants, very short, swallow-tailed blue coat… shocking bad hat, unblacked boots” for a farmer, “Black silk dress, very old-fashioned, high waist… very large bonnet… and spectacles” for a grandmother, and “Seedy clothes, red noses, and slouched hats” for “anti-teetotalers.” In-text stage directions explain props and actions, and each act and play end in a tableau. Special effects, such as the “elephant trick” at the climax of Seeing the Elephant, require effort and skill. In this one-act comedy, a family convinces the father that he purchased an elephant during one of his drunken “sprees” in town, and they regale him with tales of the damage his new pet has inflicted on the neighborhood. The family hires two men to tromp through the house in an elephant costume, leaving destruction in their wake.
Creator
George Melville Baker
Source
George M. Baker, The Temperance Drama: A Series of Dramas, Comedies, and Farces, for Temperance Exhibitions, and Home and School Entertainment (Boston: Lee and Shepard; New York: Lee, Shepard and Dillingham, 1874).
Files
Collection
Reference
George Melville Baker, The Temperance Drama
Cite As
George Melville Baker, “The Temperance Drama,” Performing Temperance, accessed May 2, 2024, https://franceswillardhouseperformingtemperance.omeka.net/items/show/6.