“Who Will Change New Lamps for Old Ones?”: Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp in British and American Children’S Entertainment
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chapter 5 “Who Will Change New Lamps for Old Ones?”: Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp in British and American Children’s Entertainment Jennie MacDonald On Tuesday, the 20th of April, 1813, the dramatic Thanks to the familiarity of the play’s origin sto- reviewer for The Morning Chronicle reported on ry, theatrical spectacle presenting a “truly oriental” the previous night’s opening of Theatre Royal Cov- wonderland of scenery and special effects, and an ent Garden’s new “Melo-Dramatic Romance” by affecting cast, the reviewer concluded, “[t]he Man- actor/playwright Charles Farley, Aladdin; or, The agers having thus got possession of the Wonderful Wonderful Lamp:1 Lamp, it will probably be productive to them of considerable profit.” Over the next six weeks, the “Whoever has read the Arabian Nights Entertain- play was presented thirty nights and consistently ment2 (and who has not) cannot fail to recollect revived through to the end of 1815. During subse- with pleasure the story of Aladdin, and the Won- quent revivals that saw it performed well into the derful Lamp…. The machinery of the piece, on mid-nineteenth century, it found additional life in which all the effect of a tale of enchantment de- the booming juvenile drama and its companion in- pends, was admirably worked, and seemed tangi- dustry, the toy theater, and contributed to later bly to perform the fabled operations of magic. This nineteenth-century reconceptions of the tale that was aided by a splendour and magnificence truly can still be found in residual form in modern Brit- oriental, and which threw over the spectacle a ish pantomime. This chapter, therefore, will exam- most imposing grandeur. The tout ensemble was ine ways in which the Aladdin tale was interpreted certainly captivating, and it would be difficult for for visual consumption in England during the Ro- the sternest critic to remain unmoved by the mantic era, and how an “Arabian” idealized look scenes of enchantment passing before his eyes…”3 could be seen in stage costumes, props, and scen- ery, finding expression in children’s public and do- mestic entertainment in England and America 1 The review refers to the play using a slightly different title, well into the twentieth century. Aladdin, and the Wonderful Lamp. The play mentioned The 1813 production of Aladdin; or, The Wonder- here is Charles Farley’s Aladdin; or, The Wonderful Lamp, first performed on April 19, 1813 at Covent Garden Theatre ful Lamp reaches back to the early eighteenth- but not printed until 1836. John Larpent Plays, LA1766, The century translation and publication of the Arabian Huntington Library. Nights’ Entertainments in England, comments on 2 Robert Irwin notes that Jonathan Scott’s translation, “the its own cultural moment, and anticipates later Arabian Nights Entertainments, which appeared in 1811, was renditions of the tale. It functions as a compass the first literary translation into English of [Antoine] Gal- rose event, a term I have borrowed from Paula land’s” early eighteenth-century French compilation of the Findlen: “the global lives of things emerge within tales. For “[w]hoever has read the Arabian Nights Enter- and at the interstices between local, regional, and tainments (and who has not),” Scott’s recent version may have been familiar. See Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A long-distance trading networks. Much like the Companion, 2nd ed. (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 22. compass roses on a medieval portolan, networks 3 “Covent-Garden Theatre,” The Morning Chronicle, April 20, only exist when a connection is made—no line 1813, 3. touches another without a node that creates the © Jennie MacDonald, ���1 | doi 10.1163/97890044359�6_007 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Jennie MacDonald - 9789004435926 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 02:20:15PM via free access “Who Will Change new Lamps for old Ones?” 89 point of contact which is also the moment of Through its adaptation into dramatic form for chil- exchange.”4 In the staged play, the lamp is repre- dren in England and America over subsequent de- sented by a physical prop supposed to resemble an cades, Aladdin; or, The Wonderful Lamp underwent ancient oil lamp; as a material object, the lamp many changes, including simplification of inci- functions as a node which creates points of con- dents and scenes, as well as conflation, combina- tact when transferred from one character to an- tion, elimination, and addition of characters. In his other as a possession. One character’s possession article, “A Thousand and One Nights at the Movies,” of the lamp also indicates its absence from other Robert Irwin notes that “skilled scriptwriters do not characters’ possession, particularly of those who merely excise and abridge, they also find ways of desire it. When the lamp moves from one charac- saying things visually.”6 Over time, locations, char- ter to another, it takes with it wish-fulfilling power, acter names, and design elements of Aladdin’s story expressed in material objects and wealth. The have changed in response to shifting aesthetic, cul- Morning Chronicle’s view of Covent Garden’s new tural, and political interests. The roles of Aladdin, play as a “Wonderful Lamp” serves not only as a the lamp, its genie, the magician, and the princess clever metaphor but also as a way of transforming have remained firmly attached to the story, howev- the production itself into a node, or a magical ves- er, as have crucial plotlines concerning how the sel which, just like Aladdin’s lamp, can be trans- lamp was obtained, how it was stolen, its recovery, ferred through time and space in revivals and ad- and the riches it bestows as a wish-fulfilling device. aptations, participating in a network of literature, In Representing China on the Historical London performance, commodification, and cultural sig- Stage: From Orientalism to Intercultural Perfor- nificance. The “Wonderful Lamp” ascription ab- mance, Dongshin Chang extends Edward Said’s stracts from literature the idea of Aladdin’s lamp concept of Orientalism,7 which focused on Euro- being both a socially-resonant symbol and a mate- pean, British, and American socio-political con- rial object capable of metamorphosing from a structions of Arabic and Islamic cultures, and ex- lamp as a stage prop to a theatrical production amines the incorporation of Chinese elements in itself. British Orientalist theatrical productions.8 The Long before the Covent Garden production, epilogue traces the developments of Aladdin’s sto- however, Aladdin’s story knew many iterations and ry as a vehicle for expressing “the evolving, inter- participated in other compass rose events. As Find- culturated depictions of China as a feminized and len points out, “[e]ach exchange” of material goods material attraction,” from early British theatrical “becomes an opportunity to observe how things renderings of plays set in Chinese locations to metamorphose from one society to another.”5 modern British pantomime, or “panto” versions. A multiplicity of exchanges builds a network be- Given the nominal and visual flourishes presented tween cultures through geographical space, like the in the 1813 Covent Garden production of Aladdin; rhumb lines on a portolan chart, making possible or, The Wonderful Lamp and the toy theater ver- connections through time. As with many other lit- sions it engendered, assigning a Chinese cultural erary tales, subsequent retellings via translation identity to the play is tempting. As Chang points and adaptation to other media resulted in altering and streamlining elements of this early version. 6 Robert Irwin, “A Thousand and One Nights at the Mov- ies,” Middle Eastern Literatures 7, no. 2 (2004): 224. 4 Paula Findlen, “Afterword: How (Early Modern) Things 7 See Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Random Travel,” in The Global Lives of Things: The Material Culture House, 1994). of Connections in the Early Modern World, ed. Anne Gerrit- 8 Dongshin Chang, Representing China on the Historical sen and Giorgio Riello (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 244. London Stage: From Orientalism to Intercultural Perfor- 5 Ibid. mance (New York: Routledge, 2015), 1. Jennie MacDonald - 9789004435926 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 02:20:15PM via free access 90 MacDonald out, however, “the lack of translated Chinese dra- In the cultural transmission of Aladdin’s story matic texts, and the associated lack of understand- from its introduction as a lesser tale in a compen- ing of Chinese theatre” in early nineteenth-centu- dium of Arabian folklore to the Western cultures ry Britain, “resulted in a situation in which British of Great Britain and America, its central object, theatre practitioners could not have drawn on Chi- Aladdin’s wonderful lamp, with its power of wish- nese dramatic literature and aesthetic principles fulfillment, has played a key role in making the for textual and conceptual inspiration even if story an attractive property for children’s dramatic they had wanted to.”9 Concerning today’s now- entertainment from the early Romantic era to the traditional “Chinesely British” pantos adumbrated twentieth century.14 In this process, the tale was by Farley’s early play, Chang finds “[most] notable” represented in ways that gestured at authenticity the “interculturalization of [the tale’s] Chinese lo- but promoted an exotic and magical image of an cale with characters in Muslim names, which cre- interculturalized “Arabia” which drew upon dispa- ates an impossible Oriental setting that clearly rate aesthetic and cultural practices and had little demonstrates the tale’s fictitiousness.”10 In the to do with a specific, geographically identifiable present discussion, Chang’s terms, “intercultural- place. ize” (“the act of creating a relationship between elements that belong to disparate cultures”11) and “interculturation” (“the ongoing process in which 1 Aladdin’s Lamp in the West: Eighteenth- disparate cultural elements are interculturalized Century Translations and Early Dramatic over a substantial period of time”12) are used in or- Adaptations der to encompass myriad geographical locations and references.