Poe's Evolving Views on "Fashion"

Here in full are reproduced the two reviews for the debut run of "Fashion" that Poe published in The Broadway Journal. They have merit, not merely because Poe was the only of Mowatt's critics to go on to become a world-famous poet and author, but because the reviews themselves are remarkable. In them, Poe goes beyond the duty of the typical commercial drama critic. He does not stop at only answering the question of "Is this production sufficiently amusing to justify the price of admission?" -In these two rather lengthy reviews, Poe puts himself in the position of a literary and cultural critic, asking, "Does this play demonstrate literary merit?" and "Does it in any way enunciate some unique quality about being an inhabitant of the U.S. at this time in history in a way that is distinct from European culture?" It appears that it was primarily new ideas about how "Fashion" might answer this last question that called Poe back to the play for a second visit.

Poe attended the play's premiere at the Park Theater on Broadway. His first review was published in The Broadway Journal on March 29, 1849. Living in a time that was completely innocent of the concept of "spoilers," he began his review with a complete rundown of every single significant incident in the entire plot along with colorful commentary on his opinions of the characters:

THE plot of “Fashion” runs thus: Adam Trueman, a blunt, warm-hearted, shrewd, irascible, wealthy, and generous old farmer of Cattaraugus County, N. Y., had a daughter, (Ruth) who eloped with an adventurer. The father forgave the daughter, but resolving to disappoint the hopes of the fortune hunter, gave the couple a bare subsistence. In consequence of this, the husband maltreated, and finally abandoned the wife, who returned, broken-hearted, to her father’s house and there died, after giving birth to a daughter, Gertrude That she might escape the ills of fortune-hunting by which her mother was destroyed, Trueman sent the child, of an early age, to be brought up by relatives in Geneva; giving his own neighbours to understand that she was dead. The Geneva friends were instructed to educate her in habits of self-dependence, and to withhold from her the secret of her parentage, and heir-ship; — the grandfather’s design being to secure for her a husband who will love her solely for herself. The friends by advice of the grandfather, procured for her when grown up to womanhood, a situation as music teacher in the house of Mr. Tiffany, a quondam foot-peddler, and now by dint of industry a dry-goods merchant doing a flashy if not flourishing business; much of his success having arisen from the assistance of Trueman, who knew him and admired his hones: industry as a travelling peddler.

The efforts of the drygoods merchant, however, are insufficient to keep pace with the extravagance of his wife, who has become infected with a desire to shine as a lady of fashion, in which desire she is seconded by her daughter, Seraphina, the musical pupil of Gertrude. The follies of the mother and daughter so far involve Tiffany as to lead him into a forgery of a friend’s endorsement. This crime is suspected by his confidential clerk, Snobson, an intemperate blackguard, who at length extorts from his employer a confession, under a promise of secrecy provided that Seraphina shall become Mrs. Snobson. Mrs. Tiffany, however, is by no means privy to this arrangement: she is anxious to secure a title for Seraphina, and advocates the pretensions of Count Jolimaitre, a quondam English cook, barber and valet, whose real name was Gustave Treadmill, and who, having spent much time at Paris, suddenly took leave of that city, for that city’s good, and his own; abandoning to despair a little laundress (Millinette) to whom he was betrothed, but who had rashly entrusted him with the whole of her hard earnings during life.

Gertrude is beloved (for her own sake) by Colonel Howard “of the regular army,” and returns his affection. The Colonel, however, makes no proposal, because he considers that his salary of “fifteen hundred a year” is no property of his own, but belongs to his creditors. He has endorsed for a friend to the amount of seven thousand dollars, and is left to settle the debt as he can. He talks, therefore, of resigning, going west, making a fortune, returning, and then offering his hand with his fortune, to Gertrude.

At this juncture, Trueman pays a visit to his old friend Tiffany, and is put at fault in respect to the true state of Gertrude’s heart (and indeed of everything else) by the tattle of Prudence, Mrs. Tiffany’s old-maiden sister. She gives the old man to understand that Gertrude is in love with T. Tennyson Twinkle, a poet who is in the sad habit of reading aloud his own verses, but who has really very respectable pretensions, as times go. T. T. T. nevertheless, has no thought of Gertrude, but is making desperate love to the imaginary money-bags of Seraphina. He is rivalled, however, not only by the Count, but by Augustus Fogg, a gentleman of excessive haut ton, who wears black and has a general indifference to everything but hot suppers.

Edgar Allan Poe

After doing away with any suspense a potential viewer might have experienced when witnessing the end of "Fashion" themselves or discovering any twists of its complex plot unaided, Poe now has sufficiently equipped his readers to journey along with him as he dives into a discussion that most truly interests him -- the relative originality of this work.

Cover of the Broadway Journal, 1845

We presume that not even the author of a plot such as this, would be disposed to claim for it anything on the score of originality or invention. Had it, indeed, been designed as a burlesque upon the arrant conventionality of stage incidents in general, we should have regarded it as a palpable hit. And, indeed, while on the point of absolute unoriginality, we may as well include in one category both the events and the characters. The testy yet generous old grandfather, who talks in a domineering tone, contradicts everybody, slaps all mankind on the back, thumps his cane on the floor, listens to nothing, chastises all the fops, comes to the assistance of all the insulted women, and relieves all the dramatis personæ from all imaginable dilemmas: — the hen-pecked husband of low origin, led into difficulties by his vulgar and extravagant wife: — the die-away daughter aspiring to be a Countess: — the villain of a clerk who aims at the daughter’s hand through the fears of his master, some of whose business secrets he possesses: — the French grisette metamorphosed into the dispenser of the highest Parisian modes and graces: — the intermeddling old maid making bare-faced love to every unmarried man she meets: — the stiff and stupid man of high fashion who utters only a single set phrase: — the mad poet reciting his own verses: — the negro footman in livery impressed with a profound sense of his own consequence, and obeying with military promptness all orders from everybody: — the patient, accomplished and beautiful governess, who proves in the end to be the heiress of the testy old gentleman: — the high-spirited officer, in love with the governess, and refusing to marry her in the first place because he is too poor, and in the second place because she is too rich: — and, lastly, the foreign impostor with a title, a drawl, an eye-glass, and a moustache, who makes love to the supposititious heiress of the play in strutting about the stage with his coat-tails thrown open after the fashion of Robert Macaire, and who, in the end; is exposed and disgraced through the instrumentality of some wife or mistress whom he has robbed and abandoned: — these things we say, together with such incidents as one person supplying another’s place at an assignation, and such équivoques as arise from a surprisal in such cases — the concealment and discovery of one of the parties in a closet, — and the obstinate refusal of all the world to listen to an explanation, are the common and well-understood property of the playwright, and have been so, unluckily time out of mind.

But for this very reason they should be abandoned at once. Their hackneyism is no longer to be endured. The day has at length arrived when men demand rationalities in place of conventionalities. It will no longer do to copy, even with absolute accuracy, the whole tone of even so ingenious and really spirited a thing as the “School for Scandal.” It was comparatively good in its day, but it would be positively bad at the present day, and imitations of it are inadmissible at any day.

Bearing in mind the spirit of these observations, we may say that “Fashion” is theatrical but not dramatic. It is a pretty well-arranged selection from the usual routine of stage characters, and stage manœuvres — but there is not one particle of any nature beyond greenroom nature, about it. No such events ever happened in fact, or ever could happen; as happen in “Fashion.” Nor are we quarrelling, now, with the mere exaggeration of character or incident; — were this all, the play, although bad as comedy might be good as farce, of which the exaggeration of possible incongruities is the chief element. Our fault-finding is on the score of deficiency in verisimilitude — in natural art — that is to say, in art based in the natural laws of man’s heart and understanding.²

At this point in his critique, Poe switches from commenting specifically on "Fashion" to using the play as an exemplar of all the faults of the mannered , presentation style of dramas of his day:

When for example, Mr. Augustus Fog; (whose name by the bye has little application to his character) says, in reply to Mrs. Tiffany’s invitation to the conservatory, that he is “indifferent to flowers,” and replies in similar terms to every observation addressed to him, neither are we affected by any sentiment of the farcical, nor can we feel any sympathy in the answer on the ground of its being such as any human being would naturally make at all times to all queries — making no other answer to any. Were the thing absurd in itself we should laugh, and a legitimate effect would be produced; but unhappily the only absurdity we perceive is the absurdity of the author in keeping so pointless a phrase in any character’s mouth. The shameless importunities of Prudence to Trueman are in the same category — that of a total deficiency in verisimilitude, without any compensating incongruousness — that is to say, farcicalness, or humor. Also in the same category we must include the rectangular crossings and recrossings of the dramatis personæ on the stage; the coming forward to the foot-lights when anything of interest is to be told; the reading of private letters in a loud rhetorical tone; the preposterous soliloquising; and the even more preposterous “asides.” Will our play-wrights never learn, through the dictates of common sense, that an audience under no circumstances can or will be brought to conceive that what is sonorous in their own ears at a distance of fifty feet from the speaker cannot be heard by an actor at the distance of one or two?

It must be understood that we are not condemning Mrs. Mowatt’s comedy in particular, but the modern drama in general. Comparatively, there is much merit in “Fashion,” and in many respects (and those of a telling character) it is superior to any American play. It has, in especial, the very high merit of simplicity in plot. What the Spanish play-wrights mean by dramas of intrigue are the worst acting dramas in the world: — the intellect of an audience call never safely be fatigued by complexity. The necessity for verbose explanation on the part of Trueman at the close of “Fashion” is, however, a serious defect. The dénouement should in all cases be full of action and nothing else. Whatever cannot be explained by such action should be communicated at the opening of the play.³

As a modern viewer, accustomed to having our choice of a variety of dramatic styles -- including a more naturalistic style of dramatic presentation when we wish it, it is hard to not have sympathy for a theatre critic forced to live on a diet of constant melodrama. It is easy to have a little empathy for the somewhat bitter tone of Poe disparaging for what he felt was the poor taste of the general theatre-going masses as he surmises:

The colloquy in Mrs. Mowatt’s comedy is spirited, generally terse, and well-seasoned at points with sarcasm of much power. The management throughout shows the fair authoress to be thoroughly conversant with our ordinary stage effects, and we might say a good deal in commendation of some of the “sentiments” interspersed: — we are really ashamed, nevertheless, to record our deliberate opinion that if “Fashion” succeed at all (and we think upon the whole that it will) it will owe the greater portion of its success to the very carpets, the very ottomans, the very chandeliers, and the very conservatories that gained so decided a popularity for that most inane and utterly despicable of all modern comedies — the “London Assurance” of Boucicault.⁴

However this is not the end of the review. Elements of the play that seemed to have been added in rehearsal went a long way to change Poe's over all opinion of the production and persuaded him to end on a much more hopeful note:

The above remarks were written before the comedy’s representation at the Park, and were based on the author’s original MS., in which some modifications have been made — and not at all times, we really think, for the better. A good point, for example, has been omitted, at the dénouement. In the original, Trueman (as will be seen in our digest) pardons the Count, and even establishes him in a restaurant, on condition of his carrying around to all his fashionable acquaintances his own advertisement as restaurateur. There is a piquant, and dashing deviation, here, from the ordinary routine of stage “poetic justice,” which could not have failed to tell, and which was, perhaps, the one original point of the play. We can conceive no good reason for its omission. A scene, also, has been introduced, to very little purpose. We watched its effect narrowly and found it null. It narrated nothing; it illustrated nothing; and was absolutely nothing in itself. Nevertheless it might have been introduced for the purpose of giving time for some other scenic arrangements going on out of sight.⁵

Poe then jaunts through the last two paragraphs of this review, covering material that another drama critic might have used to make up their entire entry on the play. He rushes through these thoughts at such a blunt and break-neck pace that they seem to be mere transcriptions of impressions he jotted down during the performance. Poe even unapologetically includes specific line readings for actors and suggestions for improvements on bits of blocking:

A well-written prologue was well-delivered by Mr. Crisp, whose action is far better than his reading – although the latter, with one exception, is good. It is pure irrationality to recite verse, as if it were prose, without distinguishing the lines: -- we shall touch this subject again. As the Count, Mr. Crisp did everything that could be done: -- his grace of gesture is preeminent. Miss Horne looked charmingly as Seraphina. Trueman and Tiffany were represented with all possible effect by Chippendale and Barry: -- and Mrs. Barry as Mrs. Tiffany was the life of the play. Zeke was caricatured. Dyott makes a bad colonel – his figure is too diminutive. Prudence was well exaggerated by Mrs. Knight – and the character in her hands, elicited more applause than anyone other of the dramatis personae.

Some of the author’s intended points were lost through the inevitable inadvertences of a first representation – but upon the whole, everything went off exceedingly well. To Mrs. Barry we would suggest that the author’s intention was, perhaps, to have elite pronounced ee-light, and bouquet, bokett: -- the effect would be more certain. To Zeke, we would say, bring up the table bodily by all means (as originally designed) when the fow tool is called for. The scenery was very good indeed – and the carpet, ottomans, chandelier, etc. were also excellent of their kind. The entire “getting up” was admirable. “Fashion,” upon the whole, was well received by a large, fashionable, and critical audience; and will succeed to the extent we have suggested above. Compared with the generality of modern dramas, it is a good play – compared with most American dramas it is a very good one – estimated by the natural principles of dramatic art, it is altogether unworthy of notice.⁶

Poe returned to "Fashion" for the next week's issue of The Broadway Journal. Despite the many flaws he found in the writing and execution of Mowatt's drama, something in the production had captured his attention. He immediately confesses to have attended a performance of the play every night of the intervening week. "Fashion" had gone from being a cheap "School for Scandal" knockoff to being a bit of an obsession for him. His tone is no longer brusque and dismissive, but is immediately apologetic:

SO deeply have we felt interested in the question of Fashion’s success or failure, that we have been to see it every night since its first production; making careful note of its merits and defects as they were more and more distinctly developed in the gradually perfected representation of the play.

We are enabled, however, to say but little either in contradiction or in amplification of our last week’s remarks — which were based it will be remembered, upon the original MS. of the fair authoress, and upon the slightly modified performance of the first night. In what we then said we made all reasonable allowances for inadvertences at the outset — lapses of memory in the actors — embarrassments in scene-shifting — in a word for general hesitation and want of finish. The comedy now, however, must be understood as having all its capabilities fairly brought out, and the result of the perfect work is before us.⁷

In one respect, perhaps, we have done Mrs. Mowatt unintentional injustice. We are not quite sure, upon reflection, that her entire thesis is not an original one. We can call to mind no drama, just now, in which the design can be properly stated as the satirizing of fashion as fashion. Fashionable follies, indeed, as a class of folly in general, have been frequently made the subject of dramatic ridicule — but the distinction is obvious — although certainly too nice a one to be of any practical avail save to the authoress of the new comedy. Abstractly we may admit some pretension to originality of plan — but, in the presentation, this shadow of originality vanishes.

We cannot, if we would, separate the dramatis personæ from the moral they illustrate; and the characters overpower the moral. We see before us only personages with whom we have been familiar time out of mind: — when we look at Mrs. Tiffany, for example, and hear her speak, we think of Mrs. Malaprop in spite of ourselves, and in vain endeavour to think of anything else. The whole conduct and language of the comedy, too, have about them the unmistakeable flavor of the green-room. We doubt if a single point either in the one or the other, is not a household thing with every play-goer. Not a joke is any less old than the hills — but this conventionality is more markedly noticeable in the sentiments, so-called. When, for instance, Gertrude in quitting the stage, is made to say “if she fail in a certain scheme she will be the first woman who was ever at a loss for a stratagem,” we are affected with a really painful sense of the antique. Such things are only to be ranked with the stage “properties,” and are inexpressibly wearisome and distasteful to everyone who hears them. And that they are sure to elicit what appears to be applause, demonstrates exactly nothing at all. People at these points put their hands together, and strike their canes against the floor for the reason that they feel these actions to be required of them as a matter of course, and that it would be ill-breeding not to comply with the requisition. All the talk put into the mouth of Mr. Trueman, too, about “when honesty shall be found among lawyers, patriotism among statesmen,” etc. etc. must be included in the same category. The error of the dramatist lies in not estimating at its true value the absolutely certain “approbation” of the audience in such cases — an approbation which is as pure a conventionality as are the “sentiments” themselves. In general it may be boldly asserted that the clapping of hands and the rattling of canes are no tokens of the success of any play — such success as the dramatist should desire: — let him watch the countenances of his audience, and remodel his points by these. Better still — let him “look into his own heart and write” — again better still (if he have the capacity) let him work out his purposes à priori from the infallible principles of a Natural Art.

We are delighted to find, in the reception of Mrs. Mowatt’s comedy, the clearest indications of a revival of the American drama — that is to say of an earnest disposition to see it revived. That the drama, in general, can go down, is the most untenable of all untenable ideas. Dramatic art is, or should be, a concentralization of all that which is entitled to the appellation of Art. When sculpture shall fail, and painting shall fail, and poetry, and music; — when men shall no longer take pleasure in eloquence, and in grace of motion, and in the beauty of woman, and in truthful representations of character, and in the consciousness of sympathy in their enjoyment of each and all, then and not till then, may we look for that to sink into insignificance, which, and which alone, affords opportunity for the conglomeration of these infinite and imperishable sources of delight.⁸

Although flawed, Poe found "Fashion" to have merit. However he does have some problem in getting to the specifics of exactly where those merits lie. Perhaps Fashion Cast

Poe found himself enthralled by that rarest and hardest to explain of theatrical phenomena - the Broadway hit. As with "Fashion," the text or individual theatrical elements of one of these singular productions may on the surface be formulaic, derivative, or even in retrospect appear trite. However, because of certain confluences of culture and art, such memorable, once-in-a-generation shows manage to capture an essence of what it means to exist in a certain time and place that fascinates audiences and uniquely excites their imaginations. "Fashion" might have been the "Camelot," "My Fair Lady," "Rent," "Les Mis," or "Hamilton" of its day.

Buoyed by the enthusiasm witnessing such a phenomenon can engender, Poe continued his review with his fondest hopes for the future for the theatre in the U.S.:

There is not the least danger, then, that the drama shall fail. By the spirit of imitation evolved from its own nature, and to a certain extent an inevitable consequence of it, it has been kept absolutely stationary for a hundred years, while its sister arts have rapidly flitted by and left it out of sight. Each progressive step of every other art seems to drive back the drama to the exact extent of that step — just as, physically, the objects by the way-side seem to be receding from the traveller in a coach. And the practical effect, in both cases is equivalent: — but yet, in fact, the drama has not receded: on the contrary it has very slightly advanced in one or two of the plays of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer. The apparent recession or degradation, however, will, in the end, work out its own glorious recompense. The extent — the excess of the seeming declension will put the right intellects upon the serious analysis of its causes. The first noticeable result of this analysis will be a sudden indisposition on the part of all thinking men to commit themselves any farther in the attempt to keep up the present mad — mad because false — enthusiasm about “Shakspeare and the musical glasses.” Quite willing, of course, to give this indisputably great man the fullest credit for what he has done — we shall begin to ask our own understandings why it is that there is so very — very much which he has utterly failed to accomplish.

When we arrive at this epoch, we are safe. The next step may be the electrification of all mankind by the representation of a play that may be neither tragedy, comedy, farce, opera, pantomime, melodrama, or spectacle, as we now comprehend these terms, but which may retain some portion of the idiosyncratic excellences of each, while it introduces a new class of excellence as yet unnamed because as yet undreamed-of in the world. As an absolutely necessary condition of its existence this play may usher in a thorough remodification of the theatrical physique.

This step being fairly taken, the drama will be at once side by side with the more definitive and less comprehensive arts which have outstripped it by a century: — and now not merely will it outstrip them in turn, but devour them altogether. The drama will be all in all.⁹

We cannot conclude these random observations without again recurring to the effective manner in which “Fashion” has been brought forward at the Park. Whatever the management and an excellent company could do for the comedy has been done. Many obvious improvements have been adopted since the first representation, and a very becoming deference has been manifested, on the part of the fair authoress and of Mr. Simpson, to everything wearing the aspect of public opinion — in especial to every reasonable hint from the press. We are proud, indeed, to find that many even of our own ill-considered suggestions, have received an attention which was scarcely their due.

In “Fashion” nearly all the Park company have won new laurels. Mr. Chippendale did wonders. Mr. Crisp was, perhaps, a little too gentlemanly in the Count — he has subdued the part, we think, a trifle too much: — there is a true grace of manner of which he finds it difficult to divest himself, and which occasionally interferes with his conceptions. Miss Ellis did for Gertrude all that any mortal had a right to expect. Millinette could scarcely have been better represented. Mrs. Knight as Prudence is exceedingly comic. Mr. and Mrs. Barry do invariably well — and of Mr. Fisher we forgot say in our last paper that he was one of the strongest points of the play. As for Miss Horne — it is but rank heresy to imagine that there could be any difference of opinion respecting her. She sets at naught all criticism in winning all hearts. There is about her lovely countenance a radiant earnestness of expression which is sure to play a Circean trick with the judgment of every person who beholds it.¹⁰