Samuel Phelps’s Antony and Cleopatra in Australia: An Unrecorded Promptbook for Performance in Melbourne, 1856.

Abstract

The University of Melbourne’s Baillieu Library holds an unrecorded and virtually unknown document related to Samuel Phelps’ landmark production of Antony and Cleopatra (Sadler’s Wells, 1849): a promptbook apparently marked up for a slated performance in Australia, bearing a half-title inscription that reads: “R. W. Younge / Theatre Royal / Melbourne. Feby 1856″. Although there is no record of a performance having actually taken place, the promptbook offers a fascinating glimpse of how Phelps’ extraordinarily successful English production–which is, remarkably, the earliest documented performance of Shakespeare’s play rather than Dryden’s adaptation–was considered for an overseas performance. ..