Patrick B. O'Neill
The uninitiated might not recognize the time and energy that have gone into the production of Desperate Stages. Those who have spent hours reading microfilm copies of nineteenth-century newspapers can appreciate Professor Mullaly's exhaustive search of local papers to document the New Brunswick careers of Henry W. Preston, theatrical manager, Charles Freer, an English actor and touring star performer who visited the Maritimes under Preston's management, and Thomas Hill, editor of The Loyalist and author of the play The Provincial Association, which satirized a group of New Brunswick businessmen. Little negative criticism can be levelled against this work as it details the New Brunswick theatrical scene in the 1840s.
When the focus of the book shifts beyond New Brunswick, however, the reader must hesitate before accepting many statements made. Although the book contains no bibliography, it appears that Mullaly relied heavily on old American sources such as Ireland, Odell, Brown, Phelps, Wemyss, and Clapp, whose accuracy and completeness have long been questioned, and occasionally on a smattering of original sources, such as newspapers outside New Brunswick. From this methodology comes the book's weakness.
Mullaly seems content to use his occasional original sources and ignores contemporary studies. For example, he quotes the Montreal Gazette while discussing Preston's visit there in 1831, but apparently never consulted A. Owen Klein's Ph.D. thesis entitled 'Theatre Royal, Montreal 1825-1844.' In relating Preston's southern career, Mullaly writes, '[the] Charleston Mercury for March 5 and 6, 1834, lists Mrs. Preston in the casts of Douglas and The Soldier's Daughter, and praises her highly ... The paper contains no mention of Preston himself.' A search of W. Stanley Hoole's The Ante-Bellum Charleston Theatre (complete with Day Book) would possibly have been more rewarding. Hoole claims that Mr. and Mrs. T. Preston (not Henry W.) performed during 1832-33 with DeCamp, and with Hart and Hardy during 1834 at the Queen Street Theatre, and T. Preston, not Henry W. Preston, managed the Charleston theatre in 1836. An examination of the footnotes shows that Mullaly traced a Preston into the south by using Rulf s article on theatre in Raleigh, N.C., and Dormon's book detailing theatre in all the antebellum states, but that he apparently ignored Hoole's work on Charleston itself. This raises many questions: Was it T. or Henry W. Preston in Charleston? Since T. Preston worked for Henry Preston in the Maritimes, were they both in the South together? If so, was there a family relationship?
The author can perhaps be forgiven his unfamiliarity with the theatrical history of the southern states, but his handling of Preston's trip to Newfoundland could have been documented better by consulting Paul O'Neill's The Oldest City The Story of St. John's Newfoundland. Mullaly questions Preston's abandonment of his successful touring circuit to visit Newfoundland, and cannot offer a suitable explanation. The answer was Jean M. Davenport. Preston followed the Davenports to Halifax (also Albany) and then St. John's. The Davenports' financially successful three-month stay in Newfoundland undoubtedly was reported to Preston; their departure for Europe left a void that Preston immediately moved to fill. Mullaly seems unaware of Preston's trips to Harbour Grace and Carbonear (places previously visited by the Davenports), and of Preston's production on 28 April 1843 of Gentleman Gray or The British Soldier by Thomas Watson, probably the first original play in the St. John's theatre and perhaps the financial inspiration for Preston's production of Hill's play in 1845.
Details of Freer's career are also unreliable outside New Brunswick. More than likely he joined Preston's company during his first visit to America on the urging of Mrs. Gibbs, who had previously performed in the Maritimes, rather than on the advice of William Rufus Blake. Further Mullaly writes, 'Freer began his second New York offensive much better prepared... His sojourn in England had obviously provided him with the opportunity not only to act but also to write.' The implication that Freer began writing after his first American tour overlooks his appearance during his first Maritime visit in his own The Beacon of Death, or The Wild Woman of the Sea, which had already received over 300 performances at the Queen's Theatre, London; and The Pirate's Oath, or The Trying Moment, both of which had been produced in Halifax by Henry W. Preston in 1839.
Desperate Stages is an enjoyable read, and valuable for the animated picture it presents of Fredericton in the mid-1840s, but the theatre student must exercise caution when assessing information relating to the world beyond that city.