Our American Cousin

Our American Cousin (1858). A comedy by Englishman Tom Taylor, it originally centered on a rather bumptious Yankee, Asa Trenchard, who arrives in England, where he rescues his virtually impoverished English relatives from the treacherous financial machinations of a supposed family counselor and also marries the young girl whom he himself had inadvertently deprived of an inheritance. The play was initially offered to J. W. Wallack, who rejected it and suggested it be submitted to Laura Keene. She, too, at first was cool to the comedy. However, when she produced it at her theatre in 1858 with Joseph Jefferson as Asa and E. A. Sothern as the silly, lisping Lord Dundreary, the play became one of the biggest comedy hits of its era and helped both actors on the way to stardom. With time Sothern expanded his role until it was the most important part in the play. A comparison of an 1869 printed version and an 1870 manuscript used by Sothern shows markedly different dialogue. The play did not reach its author's native England until 1861. It held the stage in both countries for several decades and was revived with some regularity until the turn of the century. Most Americans know the play as the one being performed at the time of President Lincoln's assassination.