University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

This Drama is in no sense a translation, and ought not, I think, in fairness to be called even an adaptation of Victor Hugo's fine play ‘Le Roi s'Amuse.’

It originated in a request made to me by one of our most popular actors, to turn the libretto of Rigoletto into a play, as he wished to act the part of the jester. On looking at Victor Hugo's drama, with this object, I found so much in it that seemed to me inadmissible on our stage—so much, besides, that was wanting in dramatic motive and cohesion, and,—I say it in all humility—so much that was defective in that central secret of stage effect, climax, that I determined to take the situation of the jester and his daughter, and to recast in my own way the incidents in which their story was invested.

The death of Galeotto Manfredi at the hands of his wife Francesca Bentivoglio is historical. It seemed to me that the atmosphere of a petty Italian Court of the Fifteenth Century was well suited, as a medium for presenting the jester's wrongs, his rooted purpose of revenge, and the miscarriage of that purpose.

I should not have thought it necessary to say thus much, had not some of the newspaper critics talked of my work as a simple translation of Victor Hugo's drama, while others

described it, more contemptuously, as a mere rifaciamento of Verdi's libretto.

Those who will take the trouble to compare my work with either of its alleged originals, will see that my play is neither translation nor rifaciamento.

The motives of Bertuccio, the machinery by which his revenge is diverted from its intended channel, and the action in the court subsequent to the carrying off of his daughter, are my own, and I conceive that these features give me the fullest right to call the “Fool's Revenge” a new play, even if the use of Victor Hugo's Triboulet and Blanche disentitle it to the epithet “original”—which is matter of opinion.

For the admirable manner in which the drama is mounted and represented at Sadler's Wells, and for the peculiarly powerful impersonation of Bertuccio, I owe all gratitude to Mr. Phelps. I must extend that feeling also to Miss Heath, Miss Atkinson, and the rest of the Sadler's Wells Company engaged in the representation of the “Fool's Revenge.”