- Mazeppa
- or, The Wild horse of TartaryLord Byrons poem, based upon the legend of the 17th-century Ukrainian folk hero Isaac Mazeppa, was dramatized in 1831 by H. M. Milner. At the climax of the three-act melodrama, the title character—a youth whose real name is not yet known to the other characters—is stripped and tied onto the back of a "fiery untamed steed" that is sent galloping over mountainous terrain, through torrential storms with thunder and lightning, followed by ravenous wolves, while a vulture circles above. The effect might be handled cheaply with a cardboard cut-out horse and victim manipulated upstage, but more elaborate productions used a treadmill with a moving panorama to depict the ride through a hostile landscape. When a live horse was used for that scene, Mazeppa was often represented by a dummy strapped to its back, unless the actor was also an accomplished horseman.The turgid play got a second lease on life beginning in 1861 when the manager of the Green Street Theatre in Albany hit upon the idea of casting a woman in the role of Mazeppa and creating the illusion of seminudity by costuming her in a flesh-colored body stocking under a flimsy bit of tunic. Adah Isaacs Menken caused a sensation in the role, which launched her to national and international celebrity. For the wilderness ride, she was strapped to a trained horse that negotiated a narrow winding ramp on scaffolding camouflaged by painted scenery. That production moved to Broadway, and Menken subsequently toured nationwide in the role. Other actresses closely associated with the role of Mazeppa are Kate Raymond at Donnelly's Olympic Theatre, Brooklyn, in 1869; Vernona Jarbeau on national tours in the 1880s; and Leo Hudson, who died as a result of her horse's fall from the scaffolding.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.
