Transcriber's Note:
This e-book contains the text of The Contrast, extracted fromRepresentative Plays by American Dramatists: Vol 1, 1765-1819. Comments andbackground to all the plays, and links to the other plays are availablehere.
For your convenience, the transcribers have provided the following links:
ROYALL TYLER
ADVERTISEMENT
PROLOGUE
CHARACTERS
ACT I.
ACT II.
ACT III.
ACT IV.
ACT V.
Spelling as in the original has been preserved.
THE CONTRAST
By
Royall Tyler
Royall TylerROYALL TYLER
(1757-1826)
William Dunlap is considered the father of the AmericanTheatre, and anyone who reads his history of the AmericanTheatre will see how firmly founded are his claims to this title.But the first American play to be written by a native, and togain the distinction of anything like a "run" is "The Contrast,"[1]by Royall Tyler. Unfortunately for us, the three hundred pagemanuscript of Tyler's "Life," which is in possession of one ofhis descendants, has never been published. Were that documentavailable, it would throw much valuable light on the socialhistory of New England. For Tyler was deep-dyed in NewEngland traditions, and, strange to say, his playwriting began asa reaction against a Puritanical attitude toward the theatre.
When Tyler came to New York on a very momentous occasion,as an official in the suppression of Shays's Rebellion, he had littlethought of ever putting his pen to paper as a playwright, althoughhe was noted from earliest days as a man of literary ambition, histongue being sharp in its wit, and his disposition being brilliantin the parlour. It was while in what was even then consideredto be the very gay and wicked city of New York, that RoyallTyler went to the theatre for the first time, and, on that auspiciousoccasion, witnessed Sheridan's "The School for Scandal."We can imagine what the brilliancy of that moment must havebeen to the parched New England soul of our first Americandramatist.
Two days afterwards, inspiration began to burn, and he dashedoff, in a period of a few weeks, the comedy called "The Contrast,"not so great a "contrast," however, that the literary studentwould fail to recognize "The School for Scandal" as its chiefinspiration.
Our young dramatist, whose original name, William ClarkTyler, was changed, by act of Court, to Royall, was born inBoston on July 18, 1757, near the historic ground of FaneuilHall. His