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Engraving of Tom Robertson

Thomas William Robertson (January 9, 1829 – February 3, 1871) was an Anglo-Irish dramatist and innovative stage director best known for a series of realistic or naturalistic plays produced in London in the late 1860s that broke new ground that inspired playwrights such as W.S. Gilbert and George Bernard Shaw.

Born in Newark-upon-Trent, Nottinghamshire, The son of a provincial actor and manager, Tom Robertson belonged to a family famous for producing actors. The actress Margaret (Madge) Robertson was his youngest sister. Never a successful actor himself, he wrote a number of plays, mostly comedies, which achieved popularity. Robertson died at the age of 42 and was buried with his wife Elizabeth, at Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

Robertson produced a farcical comedy, A Night's Adventure at London's Olympic Theatre in 1851, but this did not catch on, and he remained for several more years in the provinces, acting and continuing with play writing and writing for newspapers. In 1860, he moved to London and worked as an editor, also writing a novel, later dramatised under the title Shadow Tree Shaft. He also wrote a farce entitled A Cantab, which was played at the Royal Strand Theatre in 1861. This brought him a reputation among a Bohemian clique of writers, the Fun magazine gang (including W. S. Gilbert, Tom Hood, Clement Scott, and F. C. Burnand), but so little profit that he thought of abandoning the profession to become a tobacconist. Finally, in 1864, he had his first notable playwriting success, David Garrick, produced at the Haymarket Theatre with Edward Sothern in the title role. Robertson also wrote the libretto to the 1865 comic opera Constance, with music by Frederic Clay.

Robertson found fame in 1865 with the production under the management of Squire Bancroft and his wife Marie (nee Wilton) at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in the West End of his comedy Society, which included a scene that fictionalized the Fun gang, who frequented the Arundel Club, the Savage Club, and especially Evans's café, where they had a table in competition with the Punch 'Round table'.[1]. This play became regarded as a milestone in Victorian drama because of its realism in sets, costume, acting and dialogue.

All of Robertson's popular plays, except for David Garrick, were produced by the Bancrofts at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. Other Robertson successes included the domestic dramas Ours (1866), Caste (1867), Play (1868), School (1869), and M.P. (1870). His last play, War, was produced at the St. James's Theatre in 1871, the year in which he died at the age of 42. Robertson's plays are still occasionally seen. For example, "Ours" is being given a professional production in July and August 2007.[2]

Robertson's plays became known as 'problem plays', because they dealt seriously and sensitively with issues of the day. In the 1850s and 1860s, Robertson's plays, both in style and substance, were considered revolutionary. Caste was about marriage across the class barrier and explored prejudices towards social climbing.[3] These plays were notable for their "cup and saucer" realism, treating contemporary British subjects in settings that were realistic, unlike the Victorian melodramas that were popular at the time. For example, whereas previously a designer would put as many chairs into a dining room scene as there were actors who needed to sit down, Robertson would place on stage as many chairs as would realistically be found in that dining room, even if some were never actually used. In Ours, a pudding was made on stage and this caused a major furor – people were not used to seeing such realistic tasks in a stage setting. Also, the characters spoke in normal language and dealt with ordinary situations rather than declaiming their lines.[4]

In addition, the importance of everyday incidents, the revealing of character through apparent "small talk", and the idea that what is not said in the dialogue is as important as what is said are all Robertson trademarks. Some critics wrote that there was nothing in Robertson's plays but commonplace life represented without a trace of wit and sparkle, but many admired the new style of play and new style of acting. George Bernard Shaw called Robertson's play Caste "epoch making" and referred to Robertson's innovations as a "theatrical revolution". It is now disputed whether Robertson really originated some of his innovations, but Society and its successors were viewed at the time as something new and, in a quiet way, revolutionary.

The Bancrofts gave Robertson unusual artistic freedom to control his scripts and direct (or as it was then called, "stage manage") his plays. Before Robertson and James Planche, star actors generally had control of scripts in the theatre. Robertson insisted on retaining control over his scripts and required that his actors follow his directions - a novel concept at that time. Robertson directed his own plays and aimed to get rid of the unreal stylisation and bombast of the old melodramas. W. S. Gilbert attended Robertson's rehearsals to learn from the older playwright's use of "stagecraft" and personally directed his own plays and operas based on what he had learned. These pioneers opened the way for later proponents of realism in drama, such as Shaw, and for modern methods of play production. Robertson was also a leader in requiring a fee from his managers for every performance of his plays, thus pioneering the modern royalty system.

• Tydeman, William Ed. Plays by Tom Robertson 1982 ISBN 0-521-23386-0
• Principal Dramatic Works of Robertson; with Memoir by his son. London, 1889
• Pemberton, T. Edgar. The Life and Writings of T. W. Robertson. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1893.
• Savin, Maynard. Thomas William Robertson: His Plays and Stagecraft. Providence: Brown UP, 1950.
• Durbach, Errol. "Remembering Tom Robertson (1829-1871)", Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Oct., 1972), pp. 284-288.
• Bancroft, Squire and Marie. The Bancrofts: Recollections of Sixty Years (Dutton and Co.: London, 1909)
• Article on Robertson and the Bancrofts from the People Play website
• Post-mortem profile in The Illustrated London News, dated February 25, 1871.

• Biography of Gilbert that includes info on Robertson
• 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry
• Broadway credits
• Photo of Robertson
• Article on realism, naming Robertson as a proponent
• Schoch, Richard, Performing Bohemia (2004)

This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.