The Bride of Abydos (Dimond)

The Bride of Abydos is a drama in 3 acts written by William Dimond and based on Lord Byron's same-titled poem. It was staged on 5 February 1818 at Drury Lane and published the same year by Richard White in London. It was one of three Dimond's plays whose action takes place in Turkey, the other two being Abon Hassan (based on 1001 nights) and Aethiop, or the Child of the Desart.[1] In the first edition the drama is called "a tragic play", while in the second (printed in London by Thomas Hailes Lacy) it is labelled as "a romantic drama". Dimond's play had an influence on Percy Bysshe Shelley's Hellas.[1]

Byron's poem was too short to make a full-length play of it, and Dimond made many additions to it. Furthermore, he found the final too gloomy and catastrophic and substituted it by an incident from Byron's another poem, The Corsair.[1] All these changes were explained by the author in the Preface.

For the first performance the scenery was made by Greenwood and the music was composed by Michael Kelly (it included an opening chorus, 8 songs, a duet, a bass solo, and a glee). There were also dances.[1]

Roles
Role 1818
Drury Lane		 1836
Belfast		 1840
Sheffield
Giaffier
Pacha of Abydos		 H. Johnston T.H. Lacy Johnson
Selim
his supposed son		 Kean G.V. Brooke T.H. Lacy
Mirza
Pirate of the Isles		 Pope Whyte Norton
Osman Bey
The timariot chief		 T. Cooke Eburne H. Bedford
Hamet
Osman's page		 Bellchambers Earnshaw
Hassan
Governor of the haram		 Holland Cunningham Cunningham
Murteza Barnard Connor Symondson
Zoran Coveney Hind
Bensalla Kent Davis
Muley
Pirate		 Smith Marquis McMahon
Chebib
Pirate		 J. Smith Thompson
Azein
'Pirate		 Woolf Hall
Zuleika
The Bride of Abydos		 Mardyn W. Burroughs C. Pope
Zobeide
Zuleika's attendant		 Bland Cunningham Cunningham
Oneiza
Zuleika's attendant		 Cubitt Earnshaw
Canzade
Zuleika's attendant		 Hughes A. Mercer
Safie
Zuleika's attendant		 Halford J. Cooke
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  • William Dimond (1818). The bride of Abydos, a tragick play. R. White.
  • William Dimond (1866). The Bride of Abydos, a tragick play, in three acts, etc. Thomas Hailes Lacy.

References
  1. Jacqueline Mulhallen (2010). The Theatre of Shelley. Open Book Publishers. pp. 193–197. ISBN 978-1-906924-30-0.


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