John Durang: Man of the American Stage By Lynn Matluck Brooks

role of the cowardly braggart in Miss in Her Teens. A newcomer to the company, John Henry, played alongside Hallam in The Roman Father. John Durang would eventually join the American Company under the management of the same Hallam and Henry who were at this time promising young leads in Douglass’s company. Because the performers in this troupe were, with the brief exception of Greville, English-born and trained, their acting styles came with them from the mother country.⁹ The Douglass Company, like other elements of provincial culture, would likely be conservative in its acting, employing the declamatory, formal style long after Garrick and others had introduced more expressive, naturalistic acting. Alexander Graydon, who viewed and commented on the Douglass Company regularly during this period, noted that “the old company acquitted themselves with most animation and glee—they were a passable set of comedians.”¹⁰

Even though the Southwark was the best theater available at that time in the colonies, it was far from commodious. The stage, fronted by iron spikes to keep off eager audience members, was lit by oil foot lamps that illuminated little beyond the apron, and by candle-laden hoops that descended or rose to light the rest of the stage.¹¹ The reach of the footlights and proximity to the audience made the apron the best playing area. The house remained lit, by candles, throughout the evening.At the start of each work the green curtain parted to reveal a series of fairly generic painted scenes (soon familiar to audience regulars) supplemented by necessary furniture. Manager Douglass improved American stages by purchasing scenes painted in England by Covent Garden’s designer, Nicholas Dall.¹² Scenes moved on and off the stage on grooves, exposing greater stage depths as the front scenes parted to reveal those behind. Sound effects were achieved through thunder and rain machines, the former involving rolling cannon balls, the latter gunshot passed through a tube.

Players reached the stage from uncomfortable dressing rooms where they put on costumes from the company’s stock, supplemented by whatever embellishments each actor could afford.¹³ Most played in contemporary dress adorned with standard indicators of status, place, or period: a crown for a king, draperies and breastplates for Romans, who would