33 F. 347 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York | 1888
The plaintiffs have elaborated Mr. Vincent Crummies’ dramatic conception of a real pump and wash-tubs. In the fourth act of their play entitled “Donna Bianca, or Brought to Light,” they set in the stage a real tank, three feet square and seven feet deep, filled with natural water. This water flows through a trough from behind a battlement wall at tiie rear of the stage, falling into the tank and running off underneath the stage. The water in this tank and trough* represents a river. It is crossed by a bridge, upon which, after an angry dialogue between the hero and the villain of the play, there ensues a struggle in which the villain falls through the bridge into the water below. Plaintiff's allege that their play is copyrighted, and, by virtue of that circumstance, pray for an injunction against the defendants. These latter are now managing and producing, at the Academy of Music in this city, a play entitled “A Dark Secret.” Here, too, there is placed upon or set into the stage a tank considerably larger than the plaintiffs’ tank and trough, also filled with natural water, and intended to represent the river Thames. Into this tank the heroine of the play is thrown, after appropriate dialogue. It is alleged that these immersion scenes in the two plays are prominent features and add greatly to their attractiveness.
There is nothing original in the incident thus represented on the stage. Heroes and heroines, as well as villians, of both sexes, have for a time whereof the memory of the theater-goer runneth not to the contrary, been precipitated into conventional ponds, lakes, rivers, and seas. So fre
Motion for injunction is denied.