Society (play)

Society was an 1865 comedy drama by Thomas William Robertson regarded as a milestone in Victorian drama because of its realism in sets, costume, acting and dialogue. Unusually for that time, Robertson both wrote and directed the play, and his innovative writing and stage direction inspired George Bernard Shaw and W. S. Gilbert.

The play originally ran at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, Liverpool, under the management of Mr A. Henderson, opening on 8 May 1865. It was recommended to Effie Wilton, the manager of the Prince of Wales's Theatre in London's West End, by H. J. Byron, where it ran from 11 November 1865 to 4 May 1866 Robertson found fame with his new comedy, 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'. The play marked the London debut of Squire Bancroft, who went on to marry Effie Wilton in 1867 and become her co-manager.

Society had been rejected by many theatrical managers before finally being produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. Together, Robertson and the Bancrofts are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', so-named because real cups and saucers were used as props. The Bancrofts gave Robertson an unprecedented amount of directorial control over his plays, which was a key step to institutionalising the power that directors wield in the theatre today.

The comedy was such a success that another row of stalls had to be added, and the Prince of Wales came to see the play. In Society, Robertson made a distinct attempt to introduce naturalism into contemporary drama. In his play, Robertson looked at the world around him and tried to reproduce it realistically through drama. The characters act like people of their day. Society was so popular that it encouraged Robertson to go further along the same realistic path in a series of plays: Ours (1866), Caste (1867), Play (1868), School (1869), and M.P. (1870). These plays, together with Society, inspired playwrights such as W. S. Gilbert and George Bernard Shaw. Robertson directed his own plays, which was a radical change from the usual system in Victorian theatre of the manager of the theatre company staging the work around its star player. Gilbert said of this innovation: "I frequently attended his rehearsals and learnt a great deal from his method of stage-management, which in those days was quite a novelty, although most pieces are now stage-managed on the principles he introduced. I look upon stage-management, as now understood, as having been absolutely invented by him."

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