"While in Australia Mr. G. V. Brooke added to his long list of impersonations two of importance—Louis XI, and Sir Bernard Harleigh in J. Palgrave Simpson's one-act drama "Dreams of Delusion," a piece adapted from the French drama, "Eile Est Folle.”
The piece was originally produced by amateurs at Thurloe Place, West Brampton, in 1853, Palgrave Simpson sustaining the leading part—a mad baronet. Later on it was played at Laura Keene's Theatre, New York (1856) when Laura played the leading female part —Lady Viola Harleigh. The play was again produced at the Howard Atheneum in 1858.
Brooke produced it in 1860 or 1861 at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, and made a huge success of the character—one it may be said, entirely new to him, it being that of a man who is under the delusion that he has murdered a friend. In Louis XL the study was also original (1853). He produced it while Charles Kean was running the play at the Princess, London. I saw Charles Kean in it on the occasion of his appearance at the Haymarket Theatre, Melbourne — in 1863.
Nothing could be more distinct than the two impersonations.
Charles was active, cunning, alert in everything; Brooke made the monarch old, decrepit, superstitious, at times in terror. In the scene with Nemours, when they are alone, Brooke grovelled, Kean trembled. Each might have been on the stage at the end at the same and the spectator would not have known that each was playing Louis XI.
Charles Dillon, on April 6, 1863, made his first appearance in Sydney as Louis XI., its first performance in the city; but I was not there to see. We will talk about Charles Dillon later on. I saw him In my native Dublin. as a boy, and have pleasing memories of him as an actor." — by "Hayseed" Nov 1909.
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