Charles Burke

“ Knickerbocker. 'Twill be difficult, no doubt, but we'll have a wrangle for the bone, as the dog's have it; there will be no curs found in our party, I'll be sworn. [Aside.] Hang me, but I'm really a little chop fallen and there is a strange sense of dizziness in my head which almost overcomes me.
Lorrenna. My dear uncle, what is to be done in this emergency?
Knickerbocker. Done! your fortune is done for: but if you ever want a cent whilst I have one, may I be sent to the devil, that's all.
Gustaffe. [Entering.] Bravo! Nunkey Knickerbocker! you are no blind pilot. ”

“ In his short career Burke won an enviable position as an actor. “He had an eye and a face,” wrote Joe Jefferson, “that told their meaning before he spoke, a voice that seemed to come from the heart itself, penetrating—but melodious.” He was slender, emaciated, sensitive,—and full of lively response to things. Like all of the Jeffersons, he was a born comedian, and critics concede that W. E. Burton feared his rivalry. Between Burke and his half-brother, there was a profound attraction ”

“ Neighbour Clausen, on your way hither, saw you anything of our friend, Rip Van Winkle? Where there's a cup of good liquor to be shared, he's sure to be on hand—a thirsty soul.
Knickerbocker. Truly, the man that turns up his nose at good liquor is a fool, as we Dutchmen have it; but cut no jokes on Rip; remember, I'm soon to be a member of his family: and any insult offered to him, I shall resent in the singular number, and satisfaction must follow, as the Frenchmen have it.
Vedder. So, Knickerbocker, you are really determined to marry Rip's sister, the pretty Alice?
[pg 041]
Knickerbocker. ”

“ Lorrenna. [Comes down stage.] All my hopes vanish—bleak and dreary is the perspective.
Herman. [Advances.] At last I triumph! Now, lady, your hand or your inheritance.
Lorrenna. My hand! never! Welcome were every privation to an union with one so base.
[pg 076]
Judge. It appears, then, that this signature is not denied by the defendant, and in that case the contract must stand in full force against her.
Lorrenna. Oh, Alice, take me home: poverty, death, anything rather than wed the man I cannot love. ”

“ In course you have! a short memory is convenient for you, Herman.
Herman. [Aside] Should this indeed be he! [Aloud.] I demand judgement.
Judge. Stay! If you be Rip Van Winkle you should have a counterpart of this agreement. Have you such a paper?
Rip. Paper! I don't know; de burgomaster gave me a paper last night. I put it in my breast, but I must have loosed him. No, no—here he is! here is de paper! ”

“ It is common knowledge that “Rip Van Winkle,” as a play, was a general mixture of several versions when it finally reached the hands of Joseph Jefferson. From Kerr to Burke, from Burke to Boucicault, from Boucicault to Jefferson was the progress. The changes made by Burke in the Kerr version are so interesting, and the similarities are so close, that the Editor has thought it might be useful to make an annotated comparison of the two. ”

“ Music.—Vedder, Rory and Clausen, at table.—Enter Dame, with a stick.
Dame. Where is this wicked husband of mine! odds bodikins and pins! I heard his voice; you've hid him somewhere! you ought to be ashamed of yourselves to inveigle a husband from a tender, loving spouse; but I'm put upon by all, because they know the mildness of my temper.— [They laugh.] —Odds bodikins and curling irons, but some of you shall laugh the other sides of your mouths—I'll pull your pates for you.29
Music.—Chases them round table; they exit.—Dame upsets table and discovers Rip.
Dame. Oh, you Rip of all rips! ”

“ Rip. Oh! everybody knows me now!
Herman. Rip Van Winkle alive! then I am dead to fortune and to fame; the fiends have marred my brightest prospects, and nought is left but poverty and despair. [Exit.
Gustaffe. [Without.] Room there! who will keep a child from a long lost father's arms?
Enter Gustaffe, with Lorrenna, Alice and Knickerbocker.
Lorrenna. My father! [Embraces Rip.
Rip. Are you mine daughter? let's look at you. Oh, my child—but how you have grown since you was a little gal. But who is dis?
[pg 078]
Alice. ”

“ Odds bodikins and pins! who have we here! an imposter! but you shall pay for it; this is a pedlar woman, indeed, with such lanky shanks. [She rushes up to door and, locks it—then, with a broom pursues him round; he flings bonnet in her face.
Knickerbocker. Needs must, when the devil drives—so here goes.
He jumps through the window [which is dashed to pieces] 108—and disappears.—Dame rushes up, with broom, towards window.—Alice laughs.
Dame. What! laugh at his misconduct, hussey. One's just as bad as the other. All born to plague me. Get you to bed—to bed, I say. ”

“ A devil, indeed, has been in the cupboard, and that's you. The china, presented to me by my grand relations, which I set such store on, smashed into a thousand pieces; 'tis too much for my weak nerves. I shall swoon! I shall faint! [She sinks in the arm-chair, but immediately starts up, and, squalling, falls into Rip's arms.—Knickerbocker regains the closet, unobserved by all, save Alice.
Dame. Heaven have mercy on us! there was somebody in the chair! somebody in the chair!
Rip. Phoo! there's nothing in de chair, save your old cloak, [Tossing it aside.] dat's all.
Dame. ”

“ Son of the individual whom I succeeded as burgomaster? Talk of the devil—now, I don't know how it is, but I'm always squalmish when in company of these lawyers that's of his cast. Qui Tam.
Sophia. He wishes to be introduced. What is your pleasure?
Knickerbocker. Let him be so, by all means. An honest man needn't fear the devil. ”

“ Three or four weeks afterward he called on me, and his first words were: ‘You were right about making Rip a young man. Now I could not conceive and play him in any other shape’.” When finished, the manuscript was read to Ben Webster, the manager of the Haymarket Theatre, London, and to Charles Reade, the collaborator, with Boucicault, in so many plays. Then the company heard it, after which Jefferson proceeded to study it, literally living and breathing the part. ”

“ He had played in his half-brother's, and had probably seen Hackett in Kerr's. All that was needed, therefore, was to evolve something which would be more ideal, more ample in opportunity for the exercise of his particular type of genius. So he turned to the haven at all times of theatrical need, Dion Boucicault, and talked over with him the ideas that were fulminating in his brain. Clark Davis has pointed out that in the Jefferson “Rip” the credits should thus be measured:
Act I.—Burke + Jefferson + Boucicault ending. ”

“ Rip. Lowena! Ah! dat is my daughter—and I have a son too, a lublicka boy; but my daughter is a girl, and I always lub my leetle girl so much, ven she vas only so big—and I must not hug her now to my poor heart, because she—she has got another fader—and I am dead—yes, dey all tell me dat is a fact! I am dead to meinself and—and I am dead to my leetle girl. ”

“ Oh, that Rip! that Rip! I'll certainly be the death of him; or he will of me, which is most likely. Alice, who have you in the chair?
Alice. The pedlar woman, aunt, who has come for the things she left.
Dame. The pedlar woman—hark'ee gossip: bring no more of your rubbish here. Take yourself off, and let me have a clear house.
Knickerbocker. [Aside.] 'Gad, I wish I was safely cleared out of it. [Knickerbocker rises, hobbles forward; but, forgetting the shortness of the petticoats, in curtseying, is discovered by the Dame, from the exposure of his legs.
[pg 057]
Dame. ”

“ Rip. [Aside.] Dat is mine own girl, I vill swear to dat.
Gustave. I am poor, Lowena, but my love will give me courage to toil manfully, and heaven will smile upon my efforts and enable me to replace that fortune which, for my sake, you so readily sacrifice.
Herman. Well, be it as you will. This document gives me a claim which may not be evaded. [Reads.] “We, Deidrich Van Slous, Burgomaster, and Rip Van Winkle, desirous of providing for the prosperity of our offspring, do hereby mutually agree that Herman Van Slous, and Lowena Van Winkle, shall be united on the demand of either. ”

“ Prize Comedy.—The Subscriber, desirous of affording some pecuniary inducement for more frequent attempts at dramatizing the manners and peculiarities of our own country, and the numerous subjects and incidents connected with its history, hereby offers to the writer of the best Comedy in 3 acts, in which a principal character shall be an original of this country, the sum of Two Hundred and Fifty Dollars—the decision to be made by a committee of competent literary gentlemen, whose names shall duly be made public. ”

“ Dame. I—I only—
Vedder. [Shouting.] Silence!
Rip. [Aside.] Dat is goot! [Laughing.] Mine frau have caught a Tartar. De second one make her pay for de virst. Ha, ha, ha! I'm stewed fun dat is a fact!
Herman. Nicholas Von Vedder, say— [Producing paper.] —is this contract to be fulfilled?
Vedder. Certainly. Lowena, the time for trifling is past; you have delayed until the very last hour, and must now at once consent to become Herman's wife.
Lowena. Never! Welcome poverty, if I may be wealthy only with that man for my husband. Whatever privations I may be made to endure, I shall not repine ”

“ The piece was given by Hackett, at the Park Theatre, New York, on August 22, 1830, and Sol Smith, in his “Theatrical [pg 027] Management in the West and South,” declares, “I should despair of finding a man or woman in an audience of five hundred, who could hear [his] utterance of five words in the second act, ‘But she was mine vrow’ without experiencing some moisture in the eyes.” While the Galaxy, in a later year, for February, 1868, states: “His Rip Van Winkle is far nearer the ordinary conception of the good-for-nothing Dutchman than Mr. ”

“ Such was the comedian who next undertook the rï¿1⁄2le of Rip. How often his own phrase, “Are we so soon forgot,” has been applied to the actor and his art! The only preservative we have of this art is either in individual expressions of opinion or else in contemporary criticism. Fortunately, John Sleeper Clarke, another estimable comedian of the Jefferson family, has left an impression of how Burke read that one famous line of his. He has said:
No other actor has ever disturbed the impression that the profound pathos of Burke's voice, face, and gesture created ”

“ She busted a blood-vessel swearing at a Yankee pedlar, and has gone to kingdom come long ago.
Rip. De old woman dead too? den her clapper is stopped at last. [Pause.] So de old woman is dead; well, she led me a hard [pg 070] life—she was de wife of my bosom, she was mine frow for all dat. [Whimpering.] I'm dead too, unt dat is a fact. Tell me my frient—
Seth. I can't stop any longer—the polls are almost closing, and I must spread the game for the boys. Hurrah, for rum drinking and cheap licence for the retailers! that's my ticket. [Re-enter Villagers, shouting.] ”

“ True, there will be some disparity in their ages, but as the years are on the side of the husband, so 'twill be all the better for the wife, in having a matured preceptor.
Rip. Beg [pardon] ,80 sir; but it strikes me you are only carrying on your rigs mit me.
Derric. No, on my honour; and, to convince you that I'm in earnest, I have brought with me a contract, by which our offspring, when of age, are bound to intermarry, or forfeit their several fortunes. I shall settle all mine on Herman, and I shall expect you to do the same for your daughter.
Rip. Yah! yah! [ech woll] 81 ”

“ Rip. Second husband!—I pities the poor creetur. But there vas—vill you tell me, my friend—
Seth. I can't stop any longer, because— 151.In K., the stage directions are, “Villagers hurry on, shouting.”152.In K., read, “Duck him—duck him.”153.In K., read, “Music. All are rushing on Rip.—Gustave enters.”154.
In K., read, are you not ashamed—a score of you to attack a single man?
Rip. [Aside.] Yes. I am a single man—now my vife is marry agin; dat is a fact!
From this point, the two plays differ so that what remains in Kerr is here reproduced. ”

“ But my father soon became identified with the part of Falstaff, and he used to say, ‘Jefferson is a younger man than I, so I'll let him have Rip. I don't care to play against him’.”
A stage version of the Irving story was made by one John H. Hewitt, of Baltimore, and during the season of 1833–34 was played in that city by William Isherwood. It was after this that Charles Burke (1822–1854) turned his attention to the play, and, as is shown in the text here reproduced, drew heavily upon Kerr. Winter says that he depended also upon the dramatic pieces used by Flynn and Parsons. ”

“ All nature is smiling, then wake, sleeper, wake. Tableau.—They disappear as the clouds gradually pass away and a full burst of bright sunshine illumines the scene.]
134.“Frau” in K.135.In K., stage direction reads,“Rises with difficulty.” All through this speech in K., the dialect is pronounced.136.“nein” in K.137.Not in K.138.In K., “donner unt blitzen.”139.Not in K.140.“goot” in K.141.In K., “of him.”142.In K., speech ends, [Moves painfully.] “My legs do seem as if they vould not come after me.”
SCENE II.143 A well-furnished apartment in the house of Knickerbocker. ”