May Fortescue company. She toured with her company for many years, frequently performing the plays of W. S. Gilbert. A tour of the United States from 1886 to 1887 included the New York premiere of Gilbert's play "Gretchen", with Fortescue in the title role (although "The New York Times" found her performance wanting). During these touring years, she revived at least eight other works by Gilbert, playing such roles as Jenny Northcott in "Sweethearts", Galatea in "Pygmalion and Galatea", Selene in "The Wicked World" and Clarice in "Comedy and Tragedy". Fortescue's troupe premiered Gilbert's 1897 drama, "The Fortune Hunter", in which she
Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack story it has to tell, and giving fair opportunities for the display of varied comic acting. Mr. Gilbert's burlesque ... possesses all these merits, and is remarkable for the wit and brilliance of its dialogue." "Dulcamara"'s success showed that Gilbert could write entertainingly in the burlesque form and quickly led to commissions to write four additional opera burlesques (the most successful of which was "Robert the Devil" in 1868) and a half dozen pantomimes and farces. These early burlesques, full of "ingenious but excruciating" puns (traditional in burlesques of the period), show signs of the satire that would later be