After a lapse of some years calypso drama reappeared in 1964 on the nightly calypso concert programmes tra ditionally offered to the Trinidad public in the weeks preceding the annual carnival celebration. These musical playlets have always enjoyed considerable popular appeal and, in a period of emerging nationalism, it has been argued that they contain the rudiments of a national drama and theatre. In this article I propose to trace the history of calypso drama and analyse the genre as a valid theatrical form.

The office of Master of the Revels first appears in late fifteenth-century England. The appointment during the Elizabethan era was one which entailed the supervision of court entertainment of a theatrical nature. By the Jacobean period the Master was a censor of plays who exacted fees for pieces licensed for public performance. During the tenure of the most famous English Master of Revels, Sir Henry Herbert, the office declined in importance with the granting of patents to Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant in 1660. By 1737 with the Licensing Act, the function of the Master of the Revels had become the province of the Lord Chamberlain.

John Philip Kemble, particularly during his palmy days at the rebuilt Covent Garden from 1809 to 1817, introduced a new style of production and management into English theatre. In producing Shakespeare's plays (twenty-seven in twenty-nine years) Kemble was determined “to bend every nerve to make them perfect, beyond all previous example.” His calculated “authenticity,” picturesque groupings, illusionistic scenery, and splendid processions revolutionized theatrical style. “Unquestionably all the truth, all the uniformity, all the splendour and the retinue of the stage came in, but did not die, with Mr. Kemble,” writes his biographer, James Boaden, with customary enthusiasm. “He transported us absolutely into the days of Henry VIII. or Coriolanus,” recalls one admirer.

A fully documented history of the Old American Company under the direction of Lewis Hallam, John Hodgkinson, and later William Dunlap, is yet to be written. When such a history appears, it will be an important contribution not only to our knowledge of the American theatre but also to our better understanding of the early social history of our country. From New England the young nation inherited its vigorous pioneering spirit as well as its puritan piety. In New England were formed enduring attitudes for the venue of the arts in general and the theatre in particular. The pioneer had little time for the theatre and the pious had little sympathy.