Invading Good Samaritan

TOM TAYLOR — OUR AMERICAN COUSIN — 1865 — LINCOLN’S ASSASSINATION

This play would probably not have survived the 19th century if it had not been made famous by the Assassination of President Lincoln in its third act.

Somewhere it tries to be in the witty style of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and maybe in the social-cultural style of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (to become My Fair Lady on the silver screen). The main characteristic is the play on words, and when I say words, I mean words. Let me give one example, the play-game-competition on the word “draught.”

MRS. MOUTCHESSINGTON: Oh, a very refreshing [night], thanks to the draught you were kind enough to prescribe for [Georgina, Ms. Mountchessington’s daughter], Lord Dundreary.

FLORENCE: What! Has Lord Dundreary been prescribing for Georgina?

DUNDREARY: Yeh. You see I gave her a draught that cured the effect of the draught, and that draught was a draft that didn’t pay the doctor’s bill. Didn’t that draught –

FLORENCE: Good gracious! What a number of draughts. You have almost a game of draughts. (Act 1 Scene 1)

And Georgina will bring the play on this word back into the picture later on in the play (the audience will of course remember):