The Shulamite

The Shulamite
Scene from the West End staging with Lena Ashwell and Norman McKinnel
Written by	Edward Knoblock from the novel by Alice & Claude Askew
Original language	English
Genre	Melodrama
Setting	South Africa

The Shulamite is an Edwardian drama, or melodrama, based on a novel of the same name. It played in London and New York in 1906 with Lena Ashwell in the lead role. It tells of a South African farmer's wife trapped in an unhappy marriage who falls in love with a visiting Englishman. In a dramatic scene the husband is killed. The death is made to seem an accident, but the lovers must part. Later the play was changed to give it a happy ending. The Shulamite was well received in London, but had limited success in the USA. It was made into a silent film The Shulamite in 1915, later renamed as The Folly of Desire, and in 1921 was made into the silent film Under the Lash with Gloria Swanson.

The play is a dramatisation by Edward Knoblock of the novel The Shulamite by the prolific romance writers Alice and Claude Askew. The Shulamite, probably meaning "the woman from Shulem", is a Biblical character mentioned in the Song of Solomon. She was the bride of a shepherd, but her great beauty attracted Solomon, who tried to win her for his harem.

The story is set in the Transvaal, South Africa. Deborah is the wife of the brutal farmer Simeon Krillet, who beats her. She falls in love with Waring, an Englishman who is staying with them to learn farming. Waring tries to escape the situation, but his horse is struck by lightning and he has to return. He finds that Krillet has read his diary and knows about the love between him and Deborah. Waring defends Deborah, and is forced to kill Krillet in self-defense. The couple takes the body to Waring's horse, making it seem that Krillet had died in the lightning strike. When Waring plans to return to England where his alcoholic wife is dying, Deborah becomes jealous and tells the true story of Krillet's death to his sister. She agrees not to reveal the secret on the condition that the lovers never meet again.

The play had only six characters, so could be staged at low cost, which made it attractive to Lena Ashwell's syndicate. It opened at the Savoy Theatre in London on 12 May 1906, with Ashwell in the lead role and Norman McKinnel as Krillet. The play ran for 45 performances at the Savoy between 12 May and 26 June 1906. The cast was: