The Broker of Bogota

Broker of Bogota, The (1834), a tragedy by Robert Montgomery Bird. [Bowery Theatre, in repertory.] Because he keeps bad company, Ramon (David Ingersoll) has been disinherited by his father, the honest, respected moneylender Batista Febro (Edwin Forrest). As a result the Viceroy of New Granada will not allow Ramon to marry his daughter Juana (Mrs. McClure). Ramon is goaded by the profligate Antonio De Cabarero (Henry Wallack) to rob his father and then claim that Batista himself staged the robbery. Batista is convicted, and, to compound his woes, his daughter Leonor (Mrs. Flynn) elopes with Fernando (H. Jones), the Viceroy's son. “The blows that bruise the body are not much,” he wails, “when the heart is crushed.” Juana, learning of Ramon's treachery, berates him. Filled with remorse, he commits suicide, and Batista is exonerated but dies of a broken heart. Although the tragedy's blank verse and general construction were Elizabethan, the play was well received and remained in producer‐actor Forrest's repertory for most of his career. No doubt Forrest's acting played a large part in its popularity, for the play was rarely revived after his death. Nevertheless, Quinn wrote, “Certainly in the character of ‘Febro,’ with his middle‐class mind, lifted into tragedy by his passionate love for his children and his betrayal by his oldest and best loved son, Bird drew one of the most living portraits in our dramatic history.”