All for Gold

All for Gold or, Fifty Millions of Money. Play in three acts by F.R.C. Hopkins from Le Juif errant, novel by Eugène Sue. premiere 10 March 1877, Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney. Cast: Mr Alexander, Mr Bartlett, Alfred Dampier, Lily Dampier, Rose Dampier, B.N. Jones, Mr Seagrave. Director: Alfred Dampier.

The actor-manager Alfred Dampier launched his reputation as the major supporter of Australian dramatists when he took All for Gold into his repertoire. It was the first of five plays by F.R.C. Hopkins that he staged. Dampier had just set up his own company and was looking for starring roles for himself and his little daughters Lily and Rose. Hopkins obligingly dramatised parts of Eugène Sue’s popular 32-year-old novel about the Wandering Jew – although the Jew himself was rendered irrelevant to the plot.

Dampier played Dagobert, an old soldier entrusted with taking a general’s two young daughters to Paris, where they are due to inherit a fortune if they appear at the reading of a will. Dagobert’s ‘honesty of purpose and indomitable character’ overcome the obstacles of a Mafia-like secret society, a double-dealing lion tamer and a character known only as ‘the Thug’. The play was staged with great care and remarkably fine ensemble acting, said the Sydney Mail on 17 March 1877. The acting of nine-year-old Lily Dampier was central to the initial success of the play. Dampier presented it in Australia, New Zealand and the USA in 1877 and in England in 1878. He was still dusting it off – with new child actors – as late as 1892.