Shaping a New Marino Faliero for Drury Lane

Abstract

The less-than-successful stage premiere of Lord Byron’s tragedy Marino Faliero has been blamed on an allegedly mutilated text presented to the audience. A close examination of the cut text, however, shows the theatre had attempted to re-shape the play into a new and stage-worthy work. The theatre’s cuts attempted to streamline the play, advancing more quickly to the main action. Edits also reduced the speeches assigned to minor characters who would not have been played by well-known actors. Most importantly, the cuts reflected the political reality of the time, censoring significant passages that would almost certainly have led the government to deny a license for performance. Ultimately, censorship appears to have been the chief cause of the most devastating cuts to the text.