A History of Equestrian Drama in the United States

Hippodrama’s Pure Air and Fire

Kimberly Poppiti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351382373
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

A History of Equestrian Drama in the United States documents the history of equestrian drama in the United States and clarifies the multi-faceted significance of the form and of the related stage machinery developed to produce hippodramas. The development of equestrian drama is traced from its origins and influences in the sixteenth century, through the height of the form's popularity at the turn of the twentieth century. Analysis of the historical significance of the genre within the larger context of U.S. theatre, the elucidation of the importance of the horse to theatre, and an evaluation of the lasting impact on theatre technology are also included.

1 Early Equestrian Entertainments in England

The roots of equestrian drama in the United States are firmly planted in England, where equestrian drama developed gradually from earlier forms of entertainment involving horses. The earliest documented instance of a horse performing for the entertainment of an audience (in something other than an athletic contest) comes from the late sixteenth century in England, with the public displays of equine sagacity by a “learned horse.” Learned horses perform acts of seeming intelligence and intuition. Another early type of performing horse is found in the “equestrian ballet,” which is a type of choreographed equestrian entertainment featuring cavalry maneuvers performed for entertainment rather than defense or training. Early forms of equestrian ballet began to emerge in the sixteenth century. Another early step forward in the development of equestrian entertainments is documented in the illustrated manual on vaulting, a type of acrobatic equestrianism, written in the mid-seventeenth century by the vaulting master William Stokes. Stokes’ text set down in writing for the first time the identifying characteristics of this acrobatic style of equestrian entertainment. “Horsemanship,” or expert acrobatic riding, which often accompanied displays of learned horses and/or exhibitions of vaulting, became popular in England during the middle to late years of the eighteenth century. It was presented mainly at outdoor locations at or adjacent to resorts, spas, and pleasure gardens. These early displays of horsemanship and other equestrian acts developed into the “equestrian circus,” which combined multiple equestrian acts and/or performers, often at a dedicated location and on an established schedule, and led to the later development of equestrian drama.

In this chapter, early precursors to equestrian drama are discussed so that readers may best understand their relevance to the development of equestrian drama. The chapter is concluded with an explanation of the emergence and progression of relevant theatrical legislation in England, during the late seventeenth through the late eighteenth centuries, as it relates to the development of modern theatre in general and to equestrian drama in particular.

Learned Horses

The first detailed records of a live equestrian entertainment performed by a specifically identified individual performing horse are of the learned horse Morocco, who was known by various spellings, including Maracco and Maraccus, and as “Banks’ horse” and “Bankes’ horse.” Records indicate that he first performed in England during the late sixteenth century. Among the skills Morocco demonstrated were: coin counting, finding and returning hidden items, identifying and counting cards, and seeking out and identifying individual members of the audience on command. He was also able to demonstrate a variety of more physical acts, including dancing, prancing, falling down, lying down, and playing dead for extended periods of time.¹

In 1595, a pamphlet featuring dialogue between Morocco and Bankes was published. This pamphlet, Maroccus Extaticus, or Bankes’ Bay Horse in a Trance (Figure 1.1), is the only known surviving primary document solely dedicated to the act.² Morocco captivated the attention and imagination of the public to a great degree and references to him are found in numerous other contemporary and later writings by various authors, including William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Dekker, and Ben Jonson. The public’s captivation with Morocco’s ability to perform seemingly unnatural acts of intuition and understanding reached such a fever pitch in some instances that legend has it he was at least twice accused of and tried for witchcraft. Thankfully, Morocco is documented in various accounts to have exonerated himself before his inquisitors by identifying a crucifix-bearing member of the assembly, kneeling before him, and then rising to kiss the crucifix before the astounded crowd.

Figure 1.1 Maroccus Extaticus

While learned horses, including Morocco, are promoted as possessing unusual intuition and intelligence that allows them to answer the questions based on an innate understanding of them, it is more likely that these horses work off cues from their human partners, in Morocco’s case, Bankes. These cues must be subtle enough to elude notice by audience members and critics, and the fact that such nuanced communication is possible between people and horses is nearly as amazing as the illusion the act presents.

Philip Butterworth explains, in his book, Magic on the Early English Stage, the most popular theory on the learned horse act, which is that the horse pays strict attention to the human and thus is capable of reading subtle clues. This theory, which attempts to explain the illusion of equine sagacity, relies primarily upon the maintenance of active eye contact or focus, which is reinforced with the pointing rod or stick. Butterworth references numerous accounts that make note of the close eye contact between Bankes and Morocco, including Gervase Markham’s 1607 text, Calvarice; Or, the English Horseman, in which Markham says,

Looke to what place you point your rode, to that place you must also most constantly place your eye, not removing it to any object, till your will be perform’d, for it is your eye and countenance, as well as your words, by which the Horse is guided, and whosoever did not Bankes’ Curtall, might see that his eye did never part from the eye of his Master.

Numerous other learned horses followed Morocco. Many of these horses performed with circuses and others in equestrian dramas; in both settings, they enacted various feats of intuition and understanding, as they had done in earlier independent performances. This form endures to the present day, with learned horses still performing in circuses and at fairs. Two significant later learned horses, both of whom lived and worked at the turn of the twentieth century, are the American horse Beautiful Jim Key and the German horse Clever Hans.³ These horses illustrate the longevity of the learned horses’ popularity, which stems from the audiences’ delight in demonstrations of apparent equine intelligence and is the main focus of such acts, even though the human/s involved are also essential to the act. Other types of equestrian entertainments focus more on the work of the equestrians/riders than that of the horse (although in most cases, both are essential to success).

Equestrian Ballet

Around the time of Morocco, another equestrian form began to emerge: the equestrian ballet. Little is known of the early development of this type of choreographed equestrian entertainment, which was based on earlier mounted military training and cavalry combat maneuvers and became popular in Europe during the seventeenth century. Equestrian ballet was mainly a court entertainment, often presented on special occasions. Forms related to the equestrian ballet include mounted quadrilles (which are related to military formations designed for four people on horseback) and equestrian carousels (also related to cavalry exercises).⁴ Another form of equestrianism with military roots is vaulting, which became a popular entertainment in the seventeenth century.

Vaulting

A noteworthy early equestrian performer is the vaulting equestrian William Stokes. Stokes, who performed during the seventeenth century, is the first known vaulting equestrian entertainer. The art of vaulting (sometimes known as voltige) involves variations on two basic acrobatic skills: leaping on and over a moving horse, and performing acrobatic acts on or over the back of the moving horse. Vaulting relies on the steady and dependable forward progress of a reliable horse and the acrobatic and athletic abilities of the vaulter.

In 1652 Stokes published The Vaulting-Master, or, The Art of Vaulting Reduced to a Method, Comprized Under Certaine Rules, Illustrated by Examples, and Now Primarily Set Forth by Will. Stokes. This book features various illustrations depicting Stokes in action, executing daring vaulting maneuvers such as “The Hercules Leap,” “The Pegasus,” “Over the Head of the Horse,” and “Over Three Horses.”⁵ In The Vaulting Master, Stokes elucidates the execution of these and other exercises and proclaims them to comprise “the chiefe, if not all that can be done from the ground, either on the horse or otherwise, which I have handled plainly and methodically.”⁶

From its known beginnings, with early individual performers such as Morocco and Stokes, through the performance of advanced equestrian exercises for the aristocracy in ballets, carrousels, and quadrilles, equestrian entertainments expanded and diversified. Beginning in the 1750s, equestrian entertainments began to gain widespread popularity with audiences in England, with various cultural factors facilitating their popular success. As theatre and related legislation developed throughout the eighteenth century in England, equestrian entertainments became popular at English pleasure gardens and in other outdoor settings.

Early Displays of Horsemanship

Public displays of horsemanship were presented by riding masters, many of whom were expert horsemen who had enjoyed personal wealth and professional success in England during the early eighteenth century when attendance and study at riding academies were popular and typical activities for members of the English aristocracy. As a new market economy and a consequently rising middle-class emerged in England, the culture evolved, and members of the upper classes were forced to make some concessions to the shifting economic structure. As a result, many riding masters lost their jobs and subsequently found it necessary to find other means of generating income. One method that some of these riding masters devised to earn money was the public presentation of their riding skills.

As the earlier examples of performing horses and equestrians illustrate, this was not the first time that expert equestrians had performed entertainments for audiences, but it was only now that the forms gained widespread popularity. Such entertainments were appreciated by audience members who, while perhaps lacking in the aristocratic background of the riding masters’ former clientele, were in possession of sufficient surpluses of both money and time to allow attendance at entertaining performances originally given in open fields and other public spaces, usually located near gathering places such as pubs, health spas, or, most often, pleasure gardens.

Pleasure gardens were public meeting places that originated as additions or adjuncts to medicinal springs or wells and spas. Certainly, public gardens existed prior to the eighteenth century, and Warwick Wroth explains in his historical study, The Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century, “Several London pleasure gardens were in existence before the Restoration.”⁷ But it is not until the mid-eighteenth century that equestrian entertainments became popular at pleasure gardens, perhaps because the quality of entertainment became more important when, as Wroth reports, in “about 1730–1740” the managers of pleasure gardens joined in the emerging market economy and began to charge admission fees to their establishments.⁸ This may have encouraged the development of the form into one which audiences would pay to see.

English pleasure gardens were not the only locations at which equestrians performed, but they were the main such locations and, although not all English pleasure gardens included equestrian entertainments in their performance schedules, by the 1760s, the form was well established there (and growing in popularity). Pleasure gardens became locations at which performers could build a following and debut increasingly spectacular acts (which led to spectacular rivalries). Equestrian presentations delighted pleasure garden audiences that were typically comprised of a cross section of society, who came to pleasure gardens for the wide variety of entertainments available there.

The equestrian performers did not disappoint these audiences. They offered demonstrations of expert riding that included astounding feats of horsemanship combined with expert tricks of general athleticism and acrobatics. These acts built and expanded upon the athletic vaulting of earlier performing equestrians, such as Stokes. In the eighteenth century, popular equestrian entertainers performed various feats of horsemanship that mainly fall under the headings of vaulting (or what might today be referred to as trick riding). These included “riding” in a variety of unexpected positions and attitudes. It was not unusual to see performing equestrians standing, leaping, and tumbling astride their swiftly moving horse (or horses); riding backward; or balancing in other precarious positions on the backs or sides of their mounts. Also popular was the display of other skills, including shooting and juggling while aboard the moving horse. As demand grew, competition also incre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Early Equestrian Entertainments in England
• 2 Early Equestrian Entertainments in Colonial America (1771–1812)
• 3 Early Productions of Equestrian Drama in England and the United States
• 4 The Plays: Melodramatic Equestrian Drama
• 5 The Plays: Military Equestrian Drama
• 6 The Plays: Frontier Equestrian Drama
• 7 The Plays: Stage Machinery in Racing and Related Equestrian Drama
• 8 Epilogue and Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index