Caste (play)

Caste is a comedy drama by Thomas William Robertson, first seen in 1867. The play was the third of several successes by Robertson produced in London's West End by Squire Bancroft and his wife Marie Wilton. As its name suggests, Caste concerns distinctions of class and rank. The son of a French nobleman marries a ballet dancer and then goes to war. When word arrives that he has been killed in action, his mother tries to wrest the child from his penniless widow.

Caste is based on the short story "The Poor Rate Unfolds a Tale", written by Thomas William Robertson in 1866 for Rates and Taxes, a Christmas publication edited by Tom Hood.

The play was first seen on 6 April 1867 at the Prince of Wales' Theatre, produced by Squire Bancroft and his wife, the actress Marie Wilton, to whom it was dedicated. They had produced Robertson's plays Society in 1865 and Ours in 1866. These plays are written, and were directed, in a naturalistic style that was novel for the time, in which the characters behave like real people, with settings and stage properties that add realism to the drama. The actors were in sympathy with this style, and the plays were successful. Caste, in the same vein, was particularly enduring; during the next few years it was revived three times at the same theatre, totalling 650 performances under the Bancroft management.

W. S. Gilbert's one-act farce Allow Me to Explain (1867) ran as a companion piece to Caste. The popularity of Caste led to further Robertson and Bancroft successes: Play (1868), School (1869), and M.P. (1870). A reviewer of the opening night of the play wrote:

Society and Ours prepared the way for a complete reformation of the modern drama, and until the curtain fell on Saturday night it remained a question whether Mr. Robertson would be able to hold the great reputation which those pieces conferred upon him. The production of Caste has thrown aside all doubt. The reformation is complete, and Mr. Robertson stands preeminent as the dramatist of this generation. The scene-painter, the carpenter, and the costumier no longer usurp the place of the author and actor. With the aid of only two simple scenes, a boudoir in Mayfair and a humble lodging in Lambeth, Mr. Robertson has succeeded in concentrating an accumulation of incident and satire more interesting and more poignant than might be found in all the sensational dramas of the last half century. The whole secret of his success is truth!

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