Broken Hearts - Background and Analysis

Background and Analysis

Broken Hearts was the last of several blank verse "fairy comedies" created by Gilbert in the early 1870s starring William Hunter Kendal and his wife Madge Robertson Kendal (sister of the playwright Tom Robertson). These plays, influenced by the fairy work of James Planché, are founded upon the idea of self-revelation by characters under the influence of some magic or some supernatural interference. The first was the fantasy The Palace of Truth in 1870. Pygmalion and Galatea, a satire of sentimental, romantic attitudes toward myth, was produced in 1871. Together, these plays, and successors such as The Wicked World (1873), Sweethearts (1874), Charity and Broken Hearts, did for Gilbert on the dramatic stage what the German Reed Entertainments had done for him on the musical stage, establishing that his capabilities extended far beyond burlesque. They won him artistic credentials as a writer of wide range, who was as comfortable with human drama as with farcical humour.

Broken Hearts is one of several Gilbert plays, including The Wicked World, Princess Ida, Fallen Fairies and Iolanthe, where the introduction of males into a tranquil world of women brings "mortal love" that wreaks havoc with the peaceful status quo. Stedman calls this a "Gilbertian invasion plot". The play examines both human frailties: vanity, misplaced trust, judging by appearance; and human virtues: pity, love, and sacrifice. Some of the play's themes and plot devices resurface in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard and Princess Ida. Here, as in many of Gilbert's plays, we feel Gilbert's distrust of "heroes" in Florian's casual arrogance and cruelty, but we also see the character's real chivalry.

Gilbert wrote Broken Hearts for his friend, John Hare of the Court Theatre. He worked on the play for much of 1875 and said that he had "invested a great part of himself" in the work. Hare generally directed the plays that he starred in, and Gilbert preferred to direct the plays that he wrote. Therefore, the two men, both quick-tempered, clashed at rehearsals of Broken Hearts. Gilbert sent an advance copy of the script to his old friend, the critic Clement Scott, who was then the editor of The Theatre. Scott indicated that he was pleased with the play. Gilbert wrote to Scott, "I am delighted to think that you like the piece so much. I have been so often told that I am devoid of a mysterious quality called 'sympathy' that I determined in this piece to do my best to show that I could pump it up if necessary." Later, however, Scott quoted a joke by F. C. Burnand about going to see "Broken Parts". Gilbert was hurt and called Scott's remark "Most offensive, and likely to cause a great deal of injury to my play."

The play opened on 9 December 1875, running for three months until 10 March 1875, receiving around 79 performances. It was generally well reviewed, although it did not catch on with audiences and was not a financial success, but it remained one of Gilbert's two favourites among all the plays he had written (the other was Gretchen, an adaptation of the Faust legend). Later, Gilbert had a line from the play engraved on the sun-dial at his home, Grim's Dyke: "even Time is hastening to its end."

At the time Broken Hearts was written, Gilbert and Sullivan had already produced their hit one-act comic opera Trial by Jury as well as their burlesque-style opera, Thespis, and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte was seeking funding to bring them together again. But funding was slow in coming, and both Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were still producing a considerable amount of work separately: Gilbert produced two other plays that year, for instance. However, four years after Broken Hearts, H.M.S. Pinafore would become such a runaway hit that Gilbert would only produce five theatrical works away from Sullivan in the eleven years following.