Dream of Life

Walter Watts’ 1849 melodrama, “A Dream of Life” was his most ambitious project. With a runtime of an hour and thirty minutes, the drama was the lengthiest of Watts’ creations to be staged at the Marylebone. The show was by far the most complex of his works, with an elaborate dream sequence involving technically challenging gaslight cross-fades between settings and a shocking execution scene. Despite its substance, “Dream of Life” was still a work that — like “An Irish Engagement” and “Which is the King?” — was designed to be in the service of Watts’ theatre and troupe of performers.

A reviewer from The Theatre Journal gave the following introduction to the play summarizing the plot in 1849;

The "Dream of Life is destined to have a long run. Founded on the evils of intemperance, and exhibiting at each stage points that are calculated to touch even the most stony-hearted, and bring a tear to the eye of the most callous, it is represented by Miss Fanny Vining, Mr. Davenport, and the other members of the company, in a manner so powerful as to deserve the most unqualified praise. Placed upon the stage with the greatest care, and many of the scenic effects being extremely striking, and in one instance the action proceeding in four scenes at a time, it had every opportunity for success had the plot only been poor and the acting but passable. But the idea is good and remarkably well carried out, -- intemperance leads to neglect of home, to domestic unhappiness, to vice, to gaming, to tavern brawls, and then to crime; pursued and the doors of the gaol about to open for him, he is sheltered by her whom he first neglected, her whose counsels he has scorned -- whose kindness he has returned by blows. After a lapse of two years unable to appear again in society, an outcast and a wanderer, he works his way to his native village, and there meeting with an old public house companion they determine to enter the manor house at a late period of the night and make off with the plate. The good old man he is now going to injure has found a home for his afflicted wife, kept her and her children, made her his housekeeper, and has long been anxious to glean tidings of the wretched man who has made her life so miserable. Scarcely have they entered the house and gained the prize when the alarm is given, and the old man hastening downstairs seizes the robber. Bertram, alarmed for his safety, now grows desperate, endeavours to make his escape, but is held tight by the old man who calls for help, and his wife gets to the bottome of the staircase at the moment that he becomes the old man's murderer. He is tried and convicted, his wife the witness, then the final parting, and then -- the scaffold. Happily at the conclusion it all turns out to be a dream. How many who have run through a similar course would be glad to find their whole life -- vision.¹

The Scenery by Messes. Dayes and Gordon.

The Appointments by Mr. E. Bradwell.

The Dresses by Mr. Brown and Assistants.

“A Dream of Life” was the most technically ambitious of Walter Watts' original scripts. It ran for several weeks and garnered a good deal of favorable press;

We cannot say too much in commendation of the acting throughout of Miss Fanny Vining, in one unpretending sentence -- it was nature; there was no straining to obtain effect, no method for clap-trap, all was touching and truthful. Mr.Davenport had a very difficult part, and well deserved all the applause he received. Herbert was very comic, and Miss Hamilton in her usual spirit.

“Marylebone,” The Theatre Journal, Vol. X, No. 481. Thursday, March 1, 1849. Page 63.

Out of somewhat discordant elements, the author of the new drama of A Dream of Life has produced a piece of much interest, as well as one having a healthy moral, in that it induces to the temperance principle; the incidents of Cruickshank’s Bottle, and the French La Nuit Porte Counseil (the Victorine of the Adelphi), have been blended and enlarged upon, and with some good scenery and acting, tell with considerable effect. Davenport and Miss Fanny Vining sustained the chief characters with ability, and if the objectionable scene that feeds only the morbid taste for horrors –viz., the execution – be omitted, the drama has every prospect of a long and successful run.

The legitimate drama continues attraction at this well-conducted, elegant theatre. The manager’s very clever piece, “The Dream of Life,” still continues its successful career, combining morality with amusement.

Mr. Watts, the lessee of this theatre, has come forward as an author, and by blending the notions of Victorine and The Bottle, has produced a drama in three acts, with a strong “temperance” moral. The subject is the reformation of a drunkard by a dream, which exhibits a series of crimes terminating in the gallows. The principal characters, consisting of the drunkard and his devoted wife, are played with great melodramatic effect by Mr. Davenport and Miss Fanny Vining. The scenes, one of which combines four in one, or the Jonathan Bradford principle, are highly credible, some of the effects displaying great ingenuity. On future representations we would recommend an abstinence from too close an imitation of the details of execution, seeing that such exhibitions are repulsive as well as impressive. The piece concluded with a “moral” in verse, spoken by Miss Vining amid thunders of applause.

Mr. Watts’ interesting drama of A Dream of Life concluded the entertainments of the evening. He has caught the moral of Hogarth in his production, and paints the vice of intemperance without the usual cant against temperate enjoyment. This is as it should be: we detest inebriety, but despise the nonsense of teetotalism. It is like the Puritanism which brands the harmless recreations of life with the same stigma that we apply to crime.

“Marylebone Theatre.” The Morning Post, Tuesday, March 6, 1849. Page 5, col. 3.

Lost Plays of Walter Watts: Dream of Life, Part I - Discussion of the origins of the play as a special effects extravaganza

Lost Plays of Walter Watts: Dream of Life, Part II -Harry Bertram versus Billy Swizzle, the road not taken

1. “Marylebone,” The Theatre Journal, Vol. X, No. 481. Thursday, March 1, 1849. p. 62- 63.