TALFOURD (Francis).
Assembly Rooms, Rangoon ... The performance will commence with the overture to "Fra Diavolo" ... To be followed by Macbeth Travesti ...
SHAKESPEARE IN BURMA
A rare Myanmar imprint, this far more light-hearted than the more traditional goverment and army reports.
The 68th Light Infantry were posted to Myanmar in 1858, apparently they were intended to help quell the Indian Mutiny but arrived too late. Determined to enjoy themselves, the officers not only commandeered the Assembly Rooms but also the regiment’s press. This playbill goes into great detail, breaking down Francis Talfourd’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, giving a short precis of each scene (12 total) in this two act play. In the Tudor tradition, Lady Macbeth was played by Captain White, the witches by Messrs Wilkinson, Stuart, and Pownall.
While at Oxford, Francis Talfourd (1827-1862) and fellow undergraduate, W.C. Bedford, founded the Oxford Dramatic Amateurs. Talfourd’s first piece, Macbeth Travestie, was originally presented at Henley-on-Thames during the regatta in 1847. It opened afterwards at the Strand Theatre in 1848, and at the Olympic in 1853. Rangoon (now Yangon) is the largest city in Myanmar. Printing in Myanmar began in the 1770s with Catholic and Protestant missionaries producing religious literature in local languages usuaing special typefaces.
