Garrick Remedy –– by Joseph Bouchardy

Though virtually forgotten today, Joseph Bouchardy (1810-1870) was a co-founder of the Bouzingo group, the first self-declared “avant-garde” collective, blending political radicalism, gothic-horror subculture, experimental literature and art, and the transformation of everyday life.

Trained as an engraver, he soon turned to playwriting, and produced many popular melodramas full of deception, disguise, double-crossing, violence, and convoluted, labyrinthine plots often taking place in labyrinthine settings.

This drole tale, written in 1835 on the cusp of Bouchardy’s switch from engraving to drama, is his first work ever translated into English. In  it, Lady Anna has fallen in love at a performance of Romeo and Juliet—but does she love the famous Romantic actor Garrick, or the character of Romeo, or the play itself? In any case, her father has offered £20,000 to anyone who can cure her infatuation.

Bouchardy swings the reader deviously back and forth between wistful sentiment and disillusioned irony. He also sheds some light on Romanticist attitudes toward theatre, history, truth, fiction, and the blending of life and art.

Translated and with a critical introduction by Talia Felix.

36 pgs on folded 8.5”x11”.
Sept., 2015/A.Da. 99/A.H. 185
$2.00 + s/h