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Mauritius ends its run on Broadway:

Post Office stamps subject of successful New York play

New York - Call it special delivery. The island Mauritius has been enjoying some unexpected and free publicity on New York City's famed Broadway, thanks to the One Penny and Two Penny Post Office Mauritius stamps.

Considered the "crown jewels" of stamp collecting, the Mauritius stamps are at the center of the plot of a popular play that ends its two-month run on Broadway on Sunday, Nov. 25.

Called simply, "Mauritius," the play has introduced thousands of American theatre-goers to the island's history and location, and to its contributions to the world of philately.

A short walk from Times Square, on 47th Street, the Biltmore theatre's marquee screams out, MAURITIUS, below the bright lights and a sign made to look like the ragged edges of a stamp.

It's the first time that there's ever been a Broadway play called Mauritius, and the first time there's ever been a Broadway play about the hard-driving world of stamp collecting.

The play is more a story about stamps - their value, their ownership, and what people would do to get them - than it is a story about the country of Mauritius. But Mauritius is discussed several times in the dialogue, with references to the island's location on the world map, its natural beauty ("they have beautiful beaches," says one of the characters) and to historical luminaries like Labourdonnais. There's a nod to the island's colonial past, with this line: "The British took it over back when they were taking things over…" And there's a remark about the island's importance in the world of stamps: "It was only the fifth country in the world to issue postage stamps.."

There is also a brief discussion about how U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to buy one of the stamps, and how the printer made an error in 1847 and engraved Post Office instead of Post Paid next to the profile of Queen Victoria. "That was a spectacular error, and is what makes (the stamps) so valuable."

"What was going on in that man's head when he put the wrong words on it out there in the middle of the Indian Ocean?" asks Jackie, one of the principal characters.

Written by American playwright Theresa Rebeck, in her Broadway debut, the story revolves around two half-sisters, Jackie and Mary, who each claim ownership of a family stamp collection after their mother dies.

The collection is given to Jackie as a reward for caring for her mother during a long struggle with cancer. Short on cash and ignorant about stamp collecting, Jackie wants to determine how much the stamps are worth, with the idea of selling them. Mary, however, has other ideas. Claiming that the stamps were promised to her by her late grandfather who had collected them, she wants to keep them as a remembrance, or sell them to a museum.

In the opening scene, Jackie, clutching the stamp album, tentatively enters the stamp shop of a disinterested dealer, Philip, to ask for an appraisal. He demands money to even look at them.

Their conversation is overheard by Dennis, an amateur collector, who offers to look at the stamps. He notices right away that the collection contains the "crown jewels of philately:" two Mauritius Post Office stamps. He estimates the value at $6 million. Dennis works for Sterling, wealthy, foul-mouthed and slimy stamp collector, named who has had a life-long ambition to own the Post Office stamps. He works with Dennis to con Jackie out of her share. In the meantime, Jackie does her homework and realizes that she has acquired some of the most valuable stamps in the world. As the plot twists and turns, a gun is brandished, tempers flare, Jackie threatens to burn the Mauritius stamps, and a few punches are thrown. In the end, we're never sure if the stamps are authentic.

Herein lies the rub: are the stamps real or fake? What is their true value? But Rebeck plays with broader themes: How can you trust what people say? How do you put a value on material goods? Does wealth buy happiness? At what length will you go to get what you want?

Reviews of the play by New York theater critics were generally positive, although some thought the storyline was thin and the characters were not well developed. One critic called it "the most talked-about show of the current theatrical season." Just about every review explained the historical significance of the Post Office stamps and spoke of the location of Mauritius.

In an interview, Rebeck, the playwright, said that she found inspiration for the play after coming across pictures of the Post Office stamps on the Internet.

"I don't know how I landed on that website but they were auctioning off the stamp collection of a Spanish lord." When she clicked on the stamps from Mauritius, up popped their value, and she thought, "Can that be true? The catalogue price listed them as being worth something like $1.5 million a piece. I didn't have much information, but I was electrified by the idea that a stamp could be worth that much."

She expanded her research, reading about the history of precious stamps and talking to stamp collectors.

"The lore that surrounds them was very moving to me. They became almost mythic. I found myself failing under their spell - they're physically beautiful, and they're so frail, and they have a mysterious and haunting history. I was particularly moved by the fact that it's the errors or flaws in the stamps that make them valuable. So the play started with my fascination with those stamps."

Since the play debuted in New York on Oct. 4, Rebeck said she has given numerous interviews for U.S. newspapers and television in which questions are asked about the island of Mauritius. "It's clear that it is little-known island in America and that people are interested to know what I know about it," she said.

Rebeck said she recently received a letter from an Indian businessman working in Mauritius who wanted to bring the play to the island. "I would love to get myself there," she said, hoping that a trip to Mauritius could someday be arranged as well a production of the play with a local cast.

For now, though, Rebeck says she has her sights set on taking the play to London. There is also interest in the United States in making it into a film.

As the production closes in New York, however, Air Mauritius and the Government of Mauritius have lost an excellent opportunity to capitalize on the play's success and promote Mauritius as an island vacation destination to Americans unfamiliar with the country. During the play's seven-week run, a public relations campaign could have been mounted to promote Mauritius, perhaps using a catchy phrase like, "Now that you've seen the play Mauritius, come see the island," but nothing was done.

Such an opportunity could have given Mauritius tourism a "stamp of approval" in America that would have been very difficult to achieve under other circumstances.

Mauritius playwright Theresa Rebeck welcomes emails. She can be contacted at: theresa.rebeck@gmail.com

The Manhattan - Mauritius connection:

Finding information on Mauritius stamps is easy in the Big Apple

While in New York City to see Mauritius on Broadway, I undertook an interesting adventure to find out more about what is known in America about stamps from Mauritius.

And surprisingly, there are many resources and experts here who know a lot about stamp collecting and more specifically about stamps from Mauritius.

Nestled inside a handsome former private home on East 35th Street, the Collector's Club is a treasure trove of information for stamp lovers. The Club has a monthly meetings about various topics in philately, such as a recent talk on "U.S.-French Mail between the Conventions, 1870-74," and it's library contains a wealth of information about stamps from around the world. The Club also publishes the bi-monthly Collector's Club Philatelist, regarded as one of the two best magazines in the world on stamp collecting.

"Almost all of the Club members know of Mauritius, some intimately," said Robert Odenweller, Governor of the Club. "A number of members have stamps from Mauritius, although not many have the early ones."

The library has two important books concerning Mauritius stamps: "Classic Mauritius: The Locally Printed Postage Stamps 1847-59" written by Hiroyuki Kanai, a wealthy Japanese businessman. And the 1993 catalogue at which Kania's pristine collection was sold in Geneva by the David Feldman auction house.

Kanai had the unique distinction of being the only private collector to own six "Post Office" stamps, including an unused One Penny red and Two Pence blue. He won the highest award in world competition with his exhibit of Mauritius.

The Post Office or first issue stamps of Mauritius have always been considered philately's most valuable items.

Kanai's book is a rare and expensive volume that offers vast information that he collected on Mauritius stamps during his 40 years of collecting and researching. Other collectors call it an "exceptional piece of work."

The book offers a detailed history of Mauritius and its postal history under both French and British rule. He writes about the background of Joseph Barnard, the Englishman who stowed away on a ship that landed in Port Louis in 1816 and later started an engraving business. Barnard produced the famous Post Office Stamps in 1847 and used by Lady Gomm to send invitations for the governor's fancy dress ball.

Kania does not believe in the "myth" that Barnard made an error and printed Post Office and later corrected it to Post Paid. He cites several sources proving that the Post Office inscription was not an error.

"The Brunel book (Georges Brunel, "Les Timbres-Poste de l'ile Maurice," Paris, 1928) was the source of a fiction that the Post Office stamps were the products of engraving error and this story has been amusingly modified," Kanai wrote. "In books of academic interest on Mauritius postage stamps, such a make-believe story should not really be repeated in the future."

Kanai's Mauritius collection was sold at the David Feldman auction in 1993 for a total of $10 million.

Like Kanai, Feldman also discounted the story of the printing error. "It would appear that in spite of all the legends, that the wording simply followed that on the handstamps which had been used by the Mauritius Post Office for nearly 10 years. Of course the unique inspection and the story surrounding it were not the only contributions to the rarity and fame of these stamps. The first example was not discovered until 1864, and each following discovery was accompanies by great public enthusiasm."

According to the David Feldman auction house, the 1993 auction set the record for the highest price paid for any item in philately, when an unidentified lady paid $4 million for the so-called "Bordeaux cover." A group of Mauritians bought a One Penny unused for $1.1 million and a two Pence unused for $1.2 million. Those stamps are now in the Blue Penny Museum in Port Louis.

Also in New York is the Philatelic Foundation, which specializes in expertizing stamps. Located on West 40th Street in a high-rise office building across from Bryant Park, experts examine stamps submitted by clients who want learn more about the history and value of stamps they acquire.

Expert David Petruzelli talked in an interview about his knowledge of Mauritius stamps. He called the period of 1847-1850 as the "great period" for Mauritius stamp making, as these have become the rarest of stamps produced. These items are especially prized by collectors because they are produced not in England but in an island colony.

Both Petruzelli and Odenweller of the Collector's Club served as consultants to the cast of the Broadway Play, Mauritius, informing the actors about stamp collecting and the proper way to speak about and handle stamps. They made sure that the script used correct stamp collecting language, such as having a set of stamps, not a panel, or that when referring to the color of a stamp it is called ink, not dye.

When the cast visited the Collector's Club, Odenweller showed them a copy of Kanai's book on Mauritius and the Feldman catalogue. He said they also contacted David Beech, curator of the philatelic section of the British Library in London which houses the "Tapling collection" that was assembled in the 1890s and has some of the Post Office stamps.

"They did a lot of homework," Odenweller said.

a m e r i c a n   s c e n e

WEEK-END --- dimanche 25 novembre 2007