Cups and Saucers
Encyclopedia
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
. It was first produced in 1876 on tour as a vehicle for Grossmith and Florence Marryat
Florence Marryat
Florence Marryat was a British author and actress. The daughter of author Capt. Frederick Marryat and his wife Catherine, she was particularly known for her sensational novels and her involvement with several celebrated spiritual mediums of the late nineteenth century...
, as part of Entre Nous, their series of piano sketches. The piece pokes fun at the china collecting craze of the later Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
, which was part of the Aesthetic movement later satirised in Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...
and The Colonel
The Colonel (play)
The Colonel is a farce in three acts by F. C. Burnand based on Jean François Bayard's Le mari à la campagne, first produced in 1844 and produced in London in 1849 by Morris Barnett as The Serious Family....
.
Cups and Saucers was performed by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
from August 1878 to February 1880 at the Opera Comique
Opera Comique
The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, between Wych Street and Holywell Street with entrances on the East Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway...
as a curtain raiser
Curtain raiser (drama)
A curtain raiser is a performance, stage act, show, actor or performer that opens a show for the main attraction. The term is derived from the act of raising the stage curtain...
to H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
. It was also toured in 1883 (with Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
) and in 1884 and was revived in 1890 at the Globe Theatre (from 6 to 12 December for 6 performances, as the curtain raiser to Temple's production of Gounod's The Mock Doctor). The piece runs about 25 minutes. The fashion in the late Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
was to present long evenings in the theatre, and so producer Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era...
preceded his Savoy opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
s with curtain raisers such as Cups and Saucers. W. J. MacQueen-Pope
W. J. MacQueen-Pope
Walter James MacQueen-Pope was an English theatre historian and publicist. From a theatrical family which could be traced back to contemporaries of Shakespeare, he was in management for the first part of his career, but switched to publicity, in which field he became well-known...
commented, concerning such curtain raisers:
- This was a one-act play, seen only by the early comers. It would play to empty boxes, half-empty upper circle, to a gradually filling stalls and dress circle, but to an attentive, grateful and appreciative pit and gallery. Often these plays were little gems. They deserved much better treatment than they got, but those who saw them delighted in them. ... [They] served to give young actors and actresses a chance to win their spurs ... the stalls and the boxes lost much by missing the curtain-raiser, but to them dinner was more important.
Synopsis
The recently widowed Mrs. Emily Nankeen Worcester and General Edwin Deelah intend to marry each other, feigning love, but each is secretly interested in the other's purportedly valuable collection of "rare" china, which they plan to sell upon marriage.Mrs. Nankeen Worcester is in her Morning Room anticipating a visit from General Deelah. She recounts how she came to own the single but highly valuable item in her china collection ("A Friend Most Dear"), the sole remaining saucer from Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
's favorite tea service, appraised at ten thousand pounds.
General Deelah arrives, and, after some shy conversation and gentle flirting, the conversation turns to their china collections. Mrs. Worcester notes that she has but one small saucer and inquires of the General's china collection. Deelah boasts that he has a very large collection of china, but states in an aside, "--in China." He quickly changes the subject by asking, "Would it surprise you to learn that I am related to the Chinese?" He then sings of an extravagantly wealthy Chinese merchant named Foo Choo Chan who wished nothing more than to be English ("Foo Choo Chan Was a Merchant of Japan"). The relationship turned out to be Foo Choo Chan's marriage to the "sister of
Deelah professes his love for Mrs. Worcester, whereupon she pretends to have fainted until she spots him snooping around for her famed Julius Caesar saucer. She then "recovers" and announces that since she is Deelah's true love, she can now reveal her most prized possession to him. To Deelah's horror, he finds that it is a counterfeit--of his own make, which he admits to Mrs. Worcester. To her horror, he also admits that his own collection of china is his own make as well. She orders Deelah to leave, and Deelah sings farewell, attempting to make her regret her decision ("The Farewell Song").
Deelah then admits that he never had any real interest in china, but that society had forced him "with the alternative of being thought vulgar, to pretend an affection for its inartistic, ugly beauties at which
- A set of vagabonds who infest England have bought up every bit of Oriental ware, are doctoring it up, making it look dirty, cracking it, and then palming it off on would be fashionable folks as real oriental ware. One little town in Japan had been completely cleaned out of every cup and saucer, and the poor Japanese were compelled to drink their tea out of ink bottles and blacking pots. I could not bear to see this. So I started a firm for the manufacture of English china to supply to wants of the natives, and I flatter myself I am doing very well.
General Deelah once again proposes to Mrs. Worcester, who agrees, and they decide to "give up old china and live in Japan, and make cups and saucers as fast as we can" ("We'll Give Up Old China and Live in Japan").
Song List
- No. 1. My Little Saucer
- No. 2. Foo Choo Chan
- No. 3. The "Farewell Song"
- No. 4. We'll Give Up Old China
Opera Comique cast
- Mrs. Nankeen Worcester – Emily Cross
- General Deelah – Richard Temple
- Jane, the maid – Rose Hervey (a non-singing role, and in some versions, does not speak)
Later, in 1879, the cast was:
- Mrs. Nankeen Worcester – Emily Cross
- General Deelah – Frank ThorntonFrank Thornton (Savoyard)Frank Thornton was an English actor, singer, comedian and producer. Despite a successful stage career in comedies in London, on tour and abroad, Thornton is probably best remembered as the understudy to George Grossmith in a series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1877 to 1884.Thornton began...
- Jane – Rose Hervey
A programme in the Theatre Museum dated 20 January 1880 has Madge Stavart in place of Emily Cross.