The Octoroon

Octoroon, The (1859), a play by Dion Boucicault.[ Winter Garden Theatre, 48 perf.] George Peyton (A. H. Davenport) will inherit the Southern plantation Terrebonne on the death of his aunt, Mrs. Peyton (Mrs. W. R. Blake), if his late uncle's mismanagement does not cause his aunt to lose her property. He would like to settle on the estate, where he has met and fallen in love with the regal octoroon Zoe (Agnes Robertson). But the villainous Yankee overseer, Jacob McClosky (T. B. Johnston), murders the slave who is sent to pick up a letter bringing Mrs. Peyton assurances of the money she needs to save her land. McClosky also learns that on a technicality Zoe was never legally freed, and he demands she be put up for sale. Dora Sunnyside (Mrs. J. H. Allen), who loves George but understands his feelings for Zoe, offers to buy Zoe's freedom, as does a kindly overseer, Salem Scudder (Joseph Jefferson). McClosky outbids them. Zoe takes poison rather than become McClosky's property. At the same time McClosky's murder of the slave is unmasked and he is forced to flee. George and Dora rush to Zoe's side. She tells George as she dies, “O! George, you may, without a blush, confess your love for the Octoroon.” Boucicault derived the main story from Mayne Reid's novel, The Quadroon, and the incidents relating to the murder of the slave from Albany Fonblanque's novel, The Filibuster. For theatrical effect he added a spectacular scene in which a riverboat burns. Although Boucicault emphasized the absurdity of Southern racial laws by making Zoe an octoroon instead of a quadroon (that is, one‐eighth instead of one‐quarter black), he basically attempted to balance the rights and wrongs of sectional division. As Joseph Jefferson noted of the play, “The truth of the matter is, it was non‐committal. The dialogue and the characters of the play made one feel for the South, but the action proclaimed against slavery and called loudly for its abolition.” The melodrama has enjoyed successful revivals, including a fine 1961 mounting by the Phoenix Theatre.

Octoroon, The; or Life in Louisiana (1859), a melodrama by Dion Boucicault, based on Mayne Reid's novel The Quadroon (1856). George Peyton, who tries to run the Terreborne Plantation, loves Zoe, a slave. She commits suicide after the connivings of the villain M'Closkey ruin her life.