Treasure Island (play)
{{italic title}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
File:Edward Emery in Treasure Island.png
File:Tim Murphy as Bill Bones in Jules Eckert Goodman's play Treasure Island (1915).png
Treasure Island is a play in four acts and ten scenes by Jules Eckert Goodman that is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel of the same name.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1915/12/02/archives/-treasure-island-is-no-end-of-fun-goodmans-dramatization-is-rich.html?searchResultPosition=3|title=' TREASURE ISLAND' IS NO END OF FUN; Goodman's Dramatization Is Rich with the Color and Spirit of the Story. AT THE PUNCH AND JUDY With Edward Emery and Frank Sylvester Excelling in a Needlessly Fragmentary Stage Version.|work=The New York Times|date=December 2, 1915|page= 11}} It was first published in 1915 by Samuel French, Inc.,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cQXs6m-dVqEC&dq=%22Jules+Eckert+Goodman%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=PP3|title=Treasure Island: A Play in Four Acts and Ten Scenes|publisher=Samuel French, Inc.|year=1915|author=Jules Eckert Goodman}} and was later included in the children's play anthology Another Treasury of Plays for Children (1926, Little, Brown and Company) which was edited by Montrose Jonas Moses.{{sfn|Shell|2009|p=260}} While not the first stage adaptation of Stevenson's novel, it was the first adaptation to achieve critical and commercial success;{{cite journal|title=Stevenson on the Stage|first=Clayton|last=Hamilton|page=530|journal=The Bookman|date=January 1916}} bringing both "fame and fortune" to its author.{{cite news|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JiU5AAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Jules+Eckert+Goodman%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=PA130|title=Writing and Placing the Children's Play|author=Constance D'Arcy MacKay|page=130|work=The Writer|date=April 1927|volume=39|number=4}}
Production history
Treasure Island premiered in Albany, New York at Hermanus Bleecker Hall on November 8, 1915.{{sfn|Carson|1915|p=170}} The production moved to Broadway where it debuted at the Punch and Judy Theatre on December 1, 1915. A hit, the play continued to run at that theater until May 27, 1916.{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zkNQAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Jules+Eckert+Goodman%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=PA323|page=323|title=The Stage: Review of the 1915-16 Season|author=Matthew White, Jr.|journal=Munsey's Magazine|date=July 1916|volume=LVIII|number=11}} The play was produced by the owner of the Punch and Judy Theatre,{{sfn|Bordman|1995|p=35}} Charles Hopkins,{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=17RTghGQrHcC&dq=%22Jules+Eckert+Goodman%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=PA102|title=Transferring the Atmosphere of "Treasure Island" to the Theater|date=February 1916|volume=LX|number=2|editor-first=Edward J.|editor-last=Wheeler|journal=Current Opinion|page=102}}
and co-directed by Hopkins and Edward Emery.{{sfn|Fisher|Londré| 2009|p=488}} Maurice Rumsey, the show's musical director, contributed some original music, but mainly adapted, arranged, and conducted pre-existing music by other other composers for the show such as Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre.{{cite journal|title=Sugar and Spice; "Treasure Island"|author=Channing Pollock|pages=313–315|journal=The Green Book Magazine|date=February 1916|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U2YhAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Maurice+Rumsey%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=PA314}} The costumes were designed by Ruth Vivian, and the wigs were designed by Coyle and Deutschmann.{{sfn|Davis|1958|p=100}}
The original cast of Treasure Island was led by Mrs. Charles Hopkins (1886-1960), the wife of the director and producer, who played the role of Jim Hawkins.{{sfn|Bordman|1995|p=35}} Charles also appeared in the play in the role of Ben Gunn. The show's other director, Edward Emery, played the lead villain, the pirate Long John Silver. Other original cast members included Leonard Willey as Captain Alexander Smollett, David Glassford as Dr. Livesey, Edmund Gurney as Squire Trelawney, and Tim Murphy as Billy Bones among others.
After the Broadway production closed, the play was performed regionally in the United States in stock theatre.{{cite journal|title=Treasuure Island|date=June 2, 1917|journal=The Dramatic Mirror}} It later became a work used by junior high and high school drama programs in the United States after its publication in Another Treasury of Plays for Children in 1926.{{cite journal|title=Treasure Island!|author=Ethel Robinson|journal=Theatre and School|publisher= Drama Teachers' Association of California|editor=Rachel Markley|date=November 1928|volume=7|number=2}} It was also very popular with amateur community theatre.{{sfn|Bordman|1995|p=35}} It was revived at the New York Hippodrome in 1938 in a production directed by William Rathburn.{{sfn|Bedard| Tolch| 1989|p=112}} The play was mounted at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London in December 1950 through January 1951 with Michael Logan as Long John Silver and Anna Wing as Mrs. Hawkins.{{sfn|Wearing|2014|p=69}}
References
=Citations=
{{reflist}}
=Bibliography=
- {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YOjEEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Jules+Eckert+Goodman%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=PA112|title=Spotlight on the Child: Studies in the History of American Children's Theatre|first1=Roger L. |last1=Bedard|first2=C. John|last2=Tolch|year=1989|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9780313368325}}
- {{cite book|title=American theatre : a Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1914-1930|first= Gerald|last= Bordman|year=1995|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195090789|chapter=Treasure Island}}
- {{cite book|editor-first=Lionel|editor-last=Carson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2CU_AQAAMAAJ|title="The Stage" Year Book: 1915|year=1915|publisher=The Stage|location=London}}
- {{cite thesis|type=Ph.D|title=The Art of Scenic Design and Staging for Children's Theatre|first= Jed Horace|last= Davis|year= 1958|publisher=University of Minnesota}}
- {{cite book|title=The A to Z of American Theater: Modernism|chapter=Treasure Island|first1=James |last1=Fisher|first2=Felicia Hardison|last2= Londré|year=2009|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=9780810870475}}
- {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9Q0OAAAAYAAJ|title=Problems of the Playwright|first=Clayton Meeker|last= Hamilton|year= 1917|publisher=Henry Holt and Company}}
- {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8u8ErP1XzWIC&dq=%22Jules+Eckert+Goodman%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=PA260|title=Stutter|first=Marc|last= Shell|year= 2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674043534}}
- {{cite book|title=The London Stage 1950-1959: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel|first= J. P.|last= Wearing|year= 2014|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=9780810893085}}
External links
- {{IBDB show|id=8856}}
- {{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O8wsAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Jules+Eckert+Goodman%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=RA9-PA23|title=The Season's Plays|author=Heywood Broun|journal=Collier's|date=May 13, 1916|page=23}}
- {{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=64I4AQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Jules+Eckert+Goodman%22+%22Treasure+Island%22&pg=PA18|title=Stevenson's Pirates Lit Up By Footlights|date=January 1, 1916|journal=The Literary Digest|volume=LII|number=1}}