1871 | Theater, Film
Theater, Film
Theater: The Forest (Les) by Aleksandr Ostrovsky 11/1 at St. Petersburg's Alexandrinsky Theater, with Prov Sadovsky; The Bells by English playwright Leopold Lewis (who has adapted the French melodrama Le Juif Polonaise) 11/25 at London's Lyceum Theatre, with Glastonbury-born English actor Henry Irving (originally John Henry Brodribb), 33, who gains star status for the first time with his performance as the complex villain Mathias. He has been acting since age 18 at Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Edinburgh as well as at London and will be Britain's most outstanding thespian for decades.
Barnum's Circus opens at Brooklyn, New York, and "The Greatest Show on Earth" grosses $400,000 in its first season. Showman P. T. Barnum has made a fortune promoting Jenny Lind (see music, 1850), will enlarge his show to two rings next year and make it the first circus to travel the country by rail (using 65 railcars), and by 1874 will be playing to 20,000 people per day, charging 50¢ and taking in twice his huge $5,100-per-day operating cost (see Barnum & Bailey, 1881).
Playwright-producer-director Thomas W. Robertson dies at London February 3 at age 42, having created new staging methods; magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin dies at St. Gervais, near his native Blois, June 13 at age 65 (see Houdini, 1900).