East Lynne - Adaptations

Adaptations

East Lynne has been adapted for the stage many times; the play was so popular that stock companies put on a performance whenever they needed guaranteed revenue. The play was staged so often that critic Sally Mitchell estimates some version was seen by audiences in either England or North America every week for over forty years.

The novel was first staged on 26 January 1863 in Brooklyn; by March of that year, "three competing versions were drawing crowds to New York theaters." The most successful version was written by Clifton W. Tayleur for actress Lucille Western, who was paid $350 a night for her performance as Isabel Vane. Western starred in East Lynne for the next 10 years. At least nine adaptations were made in all, not including plays such as The Marriage Bells that "used a different title for the sake of some copyright protection."

There have been many silent film versions of the book including a a 1913 film. Another, starring Theda Bara, was made in 1916, and there was an Australian film six years later. In 1925, another version reached the screen which starred Alma Rubens, Edmund Lowe, Lou Tellegen and Leslie Fenton. The story has been refilmed as recently as 1982, in a BBC made-for-television production starring Lisa Eichhorn. In the 1970s a further TV dramatisation was broadcast from The City Varieties Theatre in Leeds, with the audience all in Victorian costume and Queen Victoria in The Royal Box. The famous TV host of The Good Old Days, Leonard Sachs, was present to introduce the proceedings.

In 1931 a comedy film East Lynne on the Western Front was made in which British soldiers fighting in the First World War stage a burlesqued version of the story.