ABSTRACT
Count Basil, the first of Joanna Baillie's plays to appear in her 1798 first volume of the Series of Plays [on the] Passions, opens to a Mantuan street “crowded with people, who seem to be waiting in expectation of some show.” Members of the crowd anticipate the arrival of a “grand procession” of the princess Victoria's train of ladies on their way to the shrine of Saint Francis. A citizen in the crowd discovers the old soldier Geoffry among the crowd. Asked why he has come to see “this courtly show,” Geoffry tells of his memory of returning from battle and receiving favor from his prince and a gracious smile from the prince's consort, Princess Victoria's mother. Having heard of the anticipated procession in town, the old soldier has come to see “some semblance of her mother” in Victoria. A public scene, anticipated procession, and an old soldier with an amputated arm who is on the scene because he desires to compare one generation of female beauty to another all accentuate the embodied theatricality of this bustling opening exposition. Theatricality is further heightened when, unexpected by the citizens on stage, there is the sound of “martial music heard at a distance.” Another arriving citizen reveals that Count Basil's troops are marching through town by way of this very street. The old soldier, who has a good opinion of Basil based on the Count's reputation for strict discipline, is so moved by the music and the anticipation of the military's entry that he begins to “walk up and down with a military triumphant step,” his body propelled into action by a theatrical mise en scène that revivifies the old and wounded by evoking memories and stirring old passions. 1
