Dion Boucicault was an Irish-American playwright and actor, was a theatrical rather than a dramatic talent, more an adapter than a creator of plays.
Background
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot was born in 1820 in Dublin, Ireland. The Darleys were an important Dublin family influential in many fields. His mother had divorced her husband in 1819, and her son was apparently a natural child by a roomer, Dionysius Lardner, who provided funds for the boy's education.
Education
Dion Boucicault was enrolled at University College School at the age of 13 and also studied for a year at the University of London.
Career
Dion Boucicault joined William Charles Macready and made his first appearance upon the stage with Benjamin Webster at Bristol, England. Soon afterwards he began to write plays, occasionally in conjunction.
His first play, A Legend of the Devil's Dyke, opened in Brighton in 1838. His first success was London Assurance (1841), which imitated the earlier English comedy of manners.
He rapidly followed this with a number of other plays, among the most successful of the early ones being The Bastile, an "after-piece" (1842), Old Heads and Young Hearts (1844), The School for Scheming (1847), Confidence (1848) and The Knight Arva (1848), all at Her Majesty's Theatre, as well as his very successful The Corsican Brothers (1852, for Charles Kean) and Louis XI (1855). The last two plays were adaptations of French plays.
In his play The Vampire (1852), Boucicault made his début as a leading actor as the vampire 'Sir Alan Raby'.
In the summer of 1859, Boucicault took over as manager of Burton's New Theatre (originally Tripler's Theatre) on Broadway.
On his return to England, he produced at the Adelphi Theatre a dramatic adaptation of Gerald Griffin's novel, The Collegians, entitled The Colleen Bawn. This play, one of the most successful of the times, was performed in almost every city of the United Kingdom and the United States.
Boucicault's next marked success was at the Princess's Theatre, London in 1864 with Arrah-na-Pogue. He played the part of a County Wicklow, Ireland carman.
He made his last appearance in London in his play, The Jilt, in 1885. The Streets of London and After Dark were two of his late successes as a dramatist.
Boucicault was married three times. He was married to Anne Guiot. In 1853, he eloped with Agnes Kelly Robertson (1833–1916) to marry in New York. She would bear Dion six children: Dion William Boucicault (1855–1876); Eva Boucicault (1857–1909); Dion Jr. (1859–1929); Patrice Boucicault (1862–1890); Nina Boucicault (1867–1950); Aubrey (1868–1913).