The Role of a Lifetime

There's a story in this photo.
A guitar playing groom,
a handsome if not winsome bride,
and a bewigged English judge.
Flowers, top hat, guitar.
Is this a civil marriage?

On their right, another fair-ish bridesmaid,
a couple of barristers,
and a half dozen stalwart gentlemen,

On the left, yet another wigged lawyer
and wholesome maiden,
with more stouthearted men.

It is a very strange wedding party.
Where are the bride's parents?
The groom's brother?
Uncles and aunts? 

Why is this group so nuptial and judicial at the same time?
Why are the three women so...manly?
It looks more like a theatrical occasion than a matrimonial ceremony.

This photo postcard has no identification, no date or names,
only a suggestion that it was taken
sometime during the Great War of 1914-18.

The rough vertical siding of the crude building behind them
resembles a barn, or possibly a soldiers' barrack.

It is not unlike the barracks of a prisoner of war camp.

Compare this photo's background with the billets
behind the French, Belgian, and Russian soldiers
of Baraque I in the Göttingen POW camp,
taken around 1915.

 

In both cases the wall construction was chosen
for practicality and not decorative style.

But where ever the photograph of this high court wedding was taken,
its outdoor location seems very odd.

Perhaps there are clues in the characters.
A bride, a groom, a judge, barristers, and a guitar.
Could this be the cast of a musical?

How about an operetta?

Gilbert & Sullivan Trial by Jury
1937 production
Source: Wikimedia

This photo from Wikimedia shows the cast of Trial by Jury, taking its bows in a 1937 production of Gilbert & Sullivan's first serious effort at opera. There are a few more women, but they and the several legal wigs match the group in my postcard. The operetta's nonsensical plot was developed by W. S. Gilbert as a comic satire concerning a "breach of promise". In Victorian times, whenever a man reneged on his engagement to be married to a woman, it was considered a serious civil offense that could result in damages paid to his intended. In February 1875 Gilbert read his libretto to Arthur Sullivan who immediately agreed to set it to music. After a successful opening at the Royalty Theater in March 1875, Trial by Jury became the first of 13 collaborative works known as the Savoy Operas that Gilbert & Sullivan would collaborate on over the next 25 years.

A scene from Trial by Jury Sporting and Dramatic News 1 May 1875
Source:  Wikipedia

The story begins as a courtroom melodrama over a breach of promise lawsuit brought by the plaintiff, a young woman who appears in court in a wedding dress, against the defendant, a frivolous young man about town. Singing with his guitar to the jury, the defendant admits to becoming bored with the girl and finding another love. He offers to marry both. When the jilted plaintiff fails to win him back, she attracts the attention of the judge. His honor falls wig over tails for her and resolves the case by getting the young woman to marry him instead. There is a jury, several bridesmaids, counsels, and attorneys as well. To call it silly hardly does it justice, but it was a terrific success and remains a favorite of G&S Societies today. It's quite a short opera with only one act and typically finishes its 14 musical numbers within 30 minutes.   



I think the evidence, though circumstantial, makes a convincing case that the men(?) in my photo postcard are guilty of performing Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial by Jury.

But are they in a prisoner of war camp?

That's harder to prove.
The jury will need to hear more testimony.

In 1917, a small book was published in London entitled The Ruhleben Prison Camp, A Record of Nineteen Months' Internment. The author was Israel Cohen, an Englishman who was working in Berlin as a newspaper correspondent when the war broke out in August 1914. Though he was a civilian, as a British citizen the German government considered him a potential enemy agent. By September 1914, Cohen, along with hundreds of other men caught on the wrong side, was sent to an internment camp for civilian foreign nationals. It was hastily built at a harness horse racing track near Berlin called Ruhleben. The prisoners, all men, came from Britain, France, Belgium, South Africa, Japan, Russia, etc. – the Allied countries opposed to Germany. They represented every kind of profession and trade imaginable. Not surprisingly, there was a very large number of musical and theatrical artists, who had been performing in Germany that summer of 1914.

Within months, the Ruhleben Internment Camp had a newspaper, a literary & debate club, a musical society with chorus and orchestra, and a theater group presenting both plays and musicals. Cohen writes that the prisoner's first attempt at comic opera was a production of Trial by Jury.

The Ruhleben Prison Camp
A Record of Nineteen Months' Internment
by Israel Cohen
Source: archive.org

Ruhleben also held many skilled illustrators, artists, and photographers and Cohen includes several photos showing life in the prison camp. This photo is labeled "The Orchestra" and shows about 56 musicians, including six cellos, and two double basses. It is notable too that there is an African face behind one of those double basses.

The Ruhleben Prison Camp
A Record of Nineteen Months' Internment
by Israel Cohen
Source: archive.org

Concerts were given on a stage constructed within the refreshment center of the race course's Grand Stand. Reserved seat tickets were sold, priced between 20 to 75 pfennige. The prison commandant and his wife were in regular attendance. By 1915 there were regular music series programed with well known piano concertos, symphonies, oratorios, and arrangements of popular music too. The theater was equipped with electric lights and printed programs were sold.

Ruhleben Prison Camp
Musical Society Orchestra
Dec 1916
Source: archive.org

The Ruhleben camp population varied between 4,000 and 5,500 detainees, most of whom were British citizens. After the start of the war, more civilians were added from the passengers and crews taken from British and French merchant ships captured by the German navy. The men interned in the camp endured the expected wartime privations on food and drink, and certainly suffered at the many onerous rules set by the military governor, but compared to military POWs they enjoyed a more free community. After it was recognized that the war would continue for an indefinite time, there were some prisoner exchanges arranged, especially of elderly or infirm men. Israel Cohen was fortunate to be released in June 1916. 


Some of the Ruhleben prison camp magazines have been digitized and are available on at the wonderful library of Archive.org. The December 1915 edition of In Ruhleben Camp included a map of the camp with labels for the "town" features.

{click images to enlarge}

Ruhleben Prison Camp Magazine
map of Ruhleben Camp
Dec 1915
Source: archive.org

Ruhleben Prison Camp Magazine
Schedule of Entertainments
Dec 1915
Source: archive.org

The December camp magazine offered a list of theater works planned for the first quarter of 1916. There was a play every week beginning with Playboy of the Western World by the Irish playwright John Millington Synge. Shakespeare's Othello was featured for February. The camp critic congratulated the Ruhleben players for their Christmas Pantomime of Cinderella.

* *

That same edition included a review of the camp production of Trial by Jury. It would seem that the stage heroines left something to be desired from the all-male cast.  

Ruhleben Prison Camp Magazine
Review of "Trial by Jury"
Dec 1915
Source: archive.org

At this point the prosecutor must provide all the evidence,
even that which may disprove his case.

Only a couple of pages after the review
was a grainy photo of the full cast of
the Ruhleben Prison Camp production
of Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial by Jury.

Ruhleben Prison Camp Magazine
Cast of "Trial by Jury"
Dec 1915
Source: archive.org

There are at least 42 people on the stage. Quite a few dressed as women too. It would seem that the Ruhleben Prison Camp had the benefit of many more musical thespians than are pictured on my postcard. Nonetheless if one prison camp could put on a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, then it's still not impossible that another POW camp might put together a similar production.

Where did the detainees get the scripts, the music, the costumes, the props?
Clearly the men of Ruhleben camp made the best of what they had the most of.     Time.

Ruhleben Prison Camp Magazine
Cover of  Xmas Number
Dec 1915
Source: archive.org

UPDATE:

Courtesy of a comment link from David Cookson (see below),
here's a painting by Nico Jungmann, an artist interned in the Ruhleben prison camp,
of the camp audience watching a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado.

Gala performance of The Mikado
at the Ruhleben internment camp
by Nico Jungmann
Source: Wikipedia

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where this weekend her Majesty takes a turn on the stage.