The Currency Lass

The Currency Lass
The Currency Lass
Written by	Edward Geoghegan
Date premiered	27 May 1844
Place premiered	Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney
Original language	English

The Currency Lass; Or, My Native Girl is an 1844 Australian play by Edward Geoghegan.^[1] It was called "a musical piece in two acts".^[2]

The play was revived in 1966 at the Jane Street Theatre.^[3]

It was adapted in 1968 into an Australian radio play by Anthony Scott Veitch.^[4]

Critical reception

Reviewing the original performance, The Australian reported, "The incidents are common- place enough, but when it is understood that the author originally intended the principal character for a real, bona fide Currency Lass, the versatality of whose dramatic talents would have done ample justice to the part... the general interest of the piece loses none of its contemplated attractions. The dialogue is truly Colonial — rather too much so for our taste — although the "Cabbage-tree hats" that crowded the pit and galleries on its first night of representation testified their approbation of its merits, in their estimation, by clamorous applause."^[1]

Premise

"An old stage-struck gentlemen (Feton,) bitten with a mania for dramatic composition, in which, however, according to his own account, he has not been eminently successful in the great Metropolis, emigrates to Sydney with his son (James) who falls in love with a Currency Lass, (Madame Louise), who personates a variety of characters to obtain the consent of the old gentlemen to the marriage of herself and his son, as the old gentleman has an idea that all the natives are black, he naturally en- tertains an insuperable objection to become the Grandpapa of a parcel of "little black pickaninies." Another young lady, Miss Dormer, (Mrs. Torning) is sent out from England, consigned to the old gentleman, who has engaged to get her a husband — but, failing in the speculation, she assumes the character of a vulgar girl, (for what purpose we could not perceive) and insists on the old gentleman, performing his contract with his friends, by taking her himself, as she alleges she is indifferent to the kind of man she gets "so as he as lots of tin — and can keep her in slap-up style, like a lady." The old gentleman is horrified at the idea, and promises his son to consent to his narriage with the Hottentot Venus herself, if he will only rid him of the persecution of this vulgar girl, by providing her with a husband. The compact is agreed to on the part of the son, who produces the Currency Lass' brother, for whom Miss Dormer confesses she has long entertained an ardent and mutual affection. Simmons then comes in as the Irish servant, with the maid servant, and the old gentle- man is rejoiced to discover that his daughter-in-law, the Currency Lass, is not quite a Hottentot, as he erroneously supposed, and joins all their hands together in the "holy bonds of matrimony"."^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "APPLICATIONS FOR CERTIFICATES". The Australian. Vol. I, no. 77. New South Wales, Australia. 30 May 1844. p. 3. Retrieved 5 February 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
^ "Advertising". The Australian. Vol. I, no. 75. New South Wales, Australia. 27 May 1844. p. 3. Retrieved 5 May 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
^ "leisure—the arts". The Canberra Times. Vol. 41, no. 11, 499. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 4 October 1966. p. 12. Retrieved 5 February 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
^ Rees, Leslie (1987). Australian drama, 1970-1985: a historical and critical survey. Angus & Robertson. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-207-15354-9.