August von Kotzebue (1761–1819)

This is the first play I think I’ve ever read all the way through, but I loved it! It’s mostly a lighthearted romance, and yes, it’s picture-perfect and awkward, and it goes against all modern sensibilities, but if you look at it from the perspective of the people who first wrote and translated it, I think that’s forgivable.

The butler was one of my top favorite characters of all time! He was hilarious! I’m no good at writing poetry, but his stance on poetry vs. prose kept me show more laughing and made the play for me.

A quick, engaging, entertaining read. If I ever get the chance to see this play performed, I’d definitely be keen to go! show less

Lovers' Vows has been preserved from the obscurity it deserves by Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. This is the scandalous play that the Bertram and Crawford siblings rehearse but never perform. What a blessing for their audience. Most of the characters are repeatedly overcome by strong emotions, leading to frequent fainting and embracing, with occasional pauses for fortification from wine. There are a couple of mildly funny exchanges that the actors must have milked for all they were worth. The show more butler who insisted on speaking in rhyme reminded me of Prince Herbert in the Swamp Castle who just wanted to sing.

The epilogue (in rhyme) seems like a Georgian equivalent of the newsreel:

...So, of course, then, if prose is so tedious a crime,
It of consequence follows, there's virtue in rhime.
The best piece of prose that I've heard a long while,
Is what gallant Nelson has sent from THE NILE.
And had he but told us the story in rhime,
What a thing 'twou'd be; but, perhaps, he'd no time.
So, I'll do it myself—Oh! 'tis glorious news!
Nine sail of the line! Just a ship for each Muse.
As I live, there's an end of the French and their navy--
Sir John Warren has sent the Brest fleet to Old Davy.
'Tis in the Gazette, and that, every one knows,
Is sure to be truth, tho' 'tis written in prose.

Recommended mainly for readers who want to explore Jane Austen's use of this drama in Mansfield Park. show less

Like almost everyone else in the world, I only read this play because it figures strongly in the plot of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. The play is a bit silly and moralistic for readers more than two centuries removed from its origination. I think, however, it might work today if produced as a kind of farce. In my mind, I'm trying to cast my favorite local thespians in the various parts. Alas, one of the best of them, Hugh Metzler, has passed on.

Still, it does treat, as does Mansfield Park, show more the very real problems that exist when one's wealth and position lead them to bend moral laws to their own venal pursuits. Once again, we see a facet of the absolute evil inherited wealth regularly sponsors. show less

This play is really known today only through being reenacted by the main characters in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in a very humorous section midway through that novel. It's a very readable play with drama and humour, with themes of redemption and forgiveness (I wonder if it is ever performed today?). Not quite what I expected from the description in Mansfield Park but a god read.