Brutus; or, the Fall of Tarquin

Brutus; or, the Fall of Tarquin (1819), a tragedy by John Howard Payne.[Park Theatre, in repertory.] Lucius Junius ( James Pritchard), whose noble family has been deposed and murdered by the usurping Tarquins, escapes death by feigning idiocy and becoming the Tarquin court jester. The Tarquin queen, Tullia ( Mrs. Barnes), sneeringly gives him another name, Brutus. But when Sextus, a Tarquin prince, rapes Lucretia ( Miss Leesugg), a senator's wife, Brutus drops his disguise to lead the Romans against the usurpers. His son Titus ( Edmund Simpson) sides with the enemy because of his love of Princess Tarquinia, so it falls to his father to sentence him to death, proclaiming, “Justice is satisfied and Rome is free!” Payne compiled the play from seven older works on the subject, including Voltaire's Brutus, a Tragedy and English pieces by Nathaniel Lee, William Duncombe, Hugh Downman, and Richard Cumberland. The play was first presented in England with Edmund Kean in the lead. Producer Edmund Simpson was apparently unprepared for its American success and had booked other plays to follow quickly. But its success caused it to be brought back regularly in the repertory. Kean performed it on his American tour, and the play featured importantly in the repertories of Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Booth, and James Wallack. William Winter called the play “a series of episodes in Roman history, rather than a single dramatic narrative,” but considered it “valuable for its tumultuous action, its splendid pictorial effects and its moments of pathos.”