Scan barcode
squidbag's review
4.0
Exhaustive and enjoyable; you forget what melodrama truly is until you read plays (and their reviews and subsequent news coverage) from the latter part of the 19th century. The background of this is expertly researched and cited, while the Mansfield play itself is a brisk and entertaining read. The many appendices fill in the reader on the impact of this Jekyll & Hyde upon the theatre scenes evolving in both London and New York and upon the investigation and public thinking regarding the Jack the Ripper killings. The second and third versions of the play presented aren't as good, but they make fascinating comparisons (which is, of course, the point). The Irving version is overblown, while the Bandmann is laughable in its expository language ("...the execution of my Will, whatever may happen. For you know that you are my executor.") Also, not every history one reads can boast a letter from George Bernard Shaw, Punch cartoons, a poem, and a handwritten letter from a random citizen with his own Ripper murder theory implicating Richard Mansfield. Thanks much to Dave O. for loaning me his copy of this - inspired as we were by a discussion of a photograph.
More...