Report of the Special Committee

In 1832, the British parliament issued a report by a select committee formed to investigate the state of dramatic literature.

Edward Bulwer, who would later go on to write the popular plays The Lady of Lyons and Richelieu, chaired the committee. It also included other members of parliament with literary ambitions, including Richard Lalor Sheil.

According to the report, "a considerable decline, both in the Literature of the Stage, and the taste of the Public for Theatrical Performances, is generally conceded." That this was a matter of urgent business for the government seems almost unthinkable today in the U.S.

Of course, the British stage in the early 19th century was also subject to significant regulation. The Licensing Act of 1737 had solidified a virtual monopoly on spoken-word drama held by the Theatres Royal at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. However, according to the select committee, "such privileges have neither preserved the dignity of the Drama, nor, by the present Administration of the Laws, been of much advantage to the Proprietors of the Theatres themselves."

It was not until the passage of the Theatres Act in 1843 that the monopoly was abolished, allowing the so-called "minor theatres" to perform spoken-word drama. Before that, they were limited to a handful of musical genres such as burletta. What exactly is burletta? Well, the committee tried to find out, and discovered no one really knew. According to James Winston, former stage-manager of the Haymarket and Drury Lane, even the Lord Chamberlain himself--who was charged with regulating drama--had difficulty defining burletta.

While two theatres in London had been sufficient during the Restoration era, the city had grown tremendously since then. The sizes of the two patent theatres were enlarged, but there were still only two. J. Payne Collier (who had his own controversies to come) testified before the committee, "the great evil has always been that instead of multiplying theatres in proportion to the increase of population, the proprietors have enlarged theatres."

Collier opined that London playwriting was at low ebb, and the committee seems to have agreed. It would not be until the end of the century that the British theatre would see the playwriting talent of Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

Elizabeth Farren

Elizabeth Farren began her career as an actress, and ended up Countess of Derby. Along the way, her life was a pretty wild ride.

She was born in 1759 to an Irish father from Cork and an English mother from Liverpool. Her father was an apothecary, but he gave up medicine for the stage. As a girl, Farren was said to have beat a drum for his troupe of traveling players as they went from town to town.

After her father died, the family tried to support themselves with Elizabeth and her sister Peggy taking small roles on the stage. By the time she was 15, Elizabeth Farren was playing the role of Rosetta in Love in a Village, a ballad opera by Isaac Bickerstaffe and Thomas Arne.

In 1777, Farren appeared at the Haymarket Theatre in London as Kate Hardcastle in Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. She lodged near the theatre with her mother. George Colman the Elder, who managed the Haymarket, allegedly gave her mother the nickname "Tin Pocket" after she gave her daughter a pocket lined with tin to hold hot boiled beef.

According to C.J. Hamilton, the turning point in Farren's career came when she was invited to perform at some private theatricals held by the Duke of Richmond. She acted together with the Earl of Derby, who was married at the time. Though the Earl was struck with Farren, she made a point of never being in his company unless in the presence of a third person for respectability's sake.

When Frances Abington retired in 1782, Farren took her place as the most prominent actress in London for depicting ladies of fashion. She played Mrs. Euston in Elizabeth Inchbald's comedy I'll Tell You What, and took on numerous Shakespearean roles, including Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Hermione in The Winter's Tale. All the while, Lord Derby followed her, now unhappily separated from his wife.

Lady Derby died in 1797, and the Earl proposed to Farren. She gave her farewell performance as Lady Teazle in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's A School for Scandal. She and Lord Derby had three children together, though only one daughter survived to adulthood.

Perhaps Farren's most famous legacy, though, was a portrait painted of her by Thomas Lawrence, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Getting Married

On May 12, 1908, Bernard Shaw premiered a new play called Getting Married at the Haymarket Theatre in London.

Shaw subtitled the piece "A Disquisitory Play" which means it relates to a disquisition. Okay, so what the heck is a disquisition? A legal term borrowed from Norman French, a disquisition is an inquiry. Appropriately enough, the play inquires into the state of marriage and how it can be reformed.

Recently, Justine Zapin had an article in the journal Shaw comparing Getting Married to Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts. On the surface, at least, the two plays could not be more different. Ghosts is a painful tragedy, while Shaw's comedy sparkles and bubbles without ever feeling terribly serious. However, both pieces look back to classical drama. Ghosts reworks the Oresteia of Aeschylus, while Shaw stated in a note with the published text that "the Greek form" of unified action "is inevitable" in a play like Getting Married where "drama reaches a certain point in poetic and intellectual evolution."

Shaw's play is closer to the work of Aristophanes than that of Aeschylus, as it focuses on the happy idea that two young people might find out right before their wedding how unjust England's marriage laws are and refuse to go through with the ceremony. Just as Aristophanes often provides plucky female characters, Getting Married presents the audience with a number of women willing to challenge conventional ideas. Zapin's article focuses on three: Lesbia Grantham, Mrs. George Collins, and Edith Bridgenorth.

Lesbia, as her name might suggest, rejects men entirely and embraces spinsterhood rather than marriage. Mrs. George (as she is refereed to in the play) is a different matter. A powerful mayoress who also has humble roots in the tradesman class, she maneuvers to solve everyone's marital difficulties. When her practical-mindedness fails to untie the Gordian knot of modern marriage, however, she enters a trance-like state and begins to prophesize like a pythoness from ancient Greece:

When I opened the gates of paradise, were you blind? was it nothing to you? when all the stars sang in your ears and all the winds swept you into the heart of heaven, were you deaf? were you dull? was I no more to you than a bone to a dog? Was it not enough? We spent eternity together; and you ask me for a little lifetime more. We possessed all the universe together; and you ask me to give you my scanty wages as well. I have given you the greatest of all things; and you ask me to give you little things. I gave you your own soul: you ask me for my body as a plaything. Was it not enough? Was it not enough?

There is seemingly no answer to Mrs. George's question, yet to adopt the attitude of Lesbia will lead only to barrenness. It is up to Edith Bridgenorth to work out a compromise between the imperfect state of marriage in our society and the unattainable ideals marriage claims for us. Zapin interprets Edith's surname as indicating that she is literally a bridge to the future.

The play was not a success when it was originally staged, but it later made its Broadway debut at the Booth Theatre in 1916, running for 112 performances.

Theatres in London

I am currently in London for two things, a research appointment with the National Portrait Gallery which I had on Monday, and a Dickens conference that starts tomorrow with an event at the Charles Dickens Museum.

Since I am here, though, I knew I had to also take in some theatre. As I wrote in my last blog post, I spent Sunday night at Shakespeare's Globe, where I saw Kathryn Hunter perform the title role in King Lear. The Globe is a unique place to see a play, since it is probably closer to Shakespeare's original Globe than any other theatre.

That wasn't why I was there, of course. I've always enjoyed seeing Hunter on stage, back to when I first saw her in Kafka's Monkey. Still, there is something to be said for getting to experience a play in a particular building. One thing I've learned is that doing what many of Shakespeare's original audience members did, renting a cushion for the duration of a performance, is a good idea.

I had never paid extra for a cushion before, but if I ever go back, I think I will again. I will probably also try to get a seat against the back wall as I did this time, so I can have something to lean against during the play. Notice that until you are in a physical theatre space, a lot of issues just seem academic. Who cares if audience members paid to rent cushions? Well, after you've felt the difference of watching a show on a wooden bench with or without a cushion, this little tidbit about the past seems much more tangible.

Monday I went to the Theatre Royal Haymarket to see Only Fools and Horses. In this case, I did choose the play for the theatre building. I've watched a bit of the television series the musical is based upon, but I'm not a die-hard fan. (Many other audience members clearly were.) What I really wanted was to experience seeing a show at the Haymarket. I did something similar back in 2016 when I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory primarily so I could get inside the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane.

As with getting tickets to Drury Lane, I made sure to get tickets in the gallery, so I could experience the show the way working class people might have going all the way back to the Regency period. When I went to Drury Lane, I tried to enter through the lobby, but I was redirected around the corner to a separate side entrance. That's right, poorer folks had to use a different entrance so wealthy patrons in the nice seats didn't have to mix with the riffraff like me! At the Haymarket today, audience members in the gallery don't have to walk around the corner, but they still have a separate entrance!

The other thing I noticed was how small the theatre was. Yes, I knew that the Haymarket was the "little" theatre generally just open in the summer, and its house wasn't as large as the two main patent theatres at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Still, knowing that is one thing, while feeling it in the actual space is quite another. I'm glad I went, both because I got to experience the space, and because the show itself was delightful. The songs were catchy and fun, and there was a sweetness to the musical that I didn't always get from the original television series.

Tuesday night I went to see Agatha Christie's play Witness for the Prosecution, which was staged in London's old County Hall on the south bank of the Thames, right near the London Eye. The play is performed in the old Council Chamber, where the city's government used to meet. This seemed fitting, since much of the play takes place in a courtroom, and the Council Chamber was already arranged with a central chair, seats on the main level, and galleries for the public. The main chair is now occupied by the judge in the play, and to his side is a jury box where some audience members sit.

Before the play began, and again at intermission, the woman who played the court stenographer gave instructions to the audience members in the jury box. I wasn't seated in the jury box, though. Again, I was in the gallery, but this time the gallery was also a performance space! At one point, a woman appeared in the gallery near where I was seated. (She hadn't been there before, by the way.) A spotlight shined on her, and she yelled at the prosecutor. The judge ordered her removed from the gallery, and so she was. This was all a part of the play, of course. It was nice to see how the production made full use of the improvised space.

Tonight, I didn't go to a play, as there was a poetry reading linked to the upcoming anniversary of the death of Percy Shelley. Kelvin Everest read some of Shelley's later poems, and mentioned that "When the Lamp is Shattered" was originally intended to be part of a play Shelley was working on but never finished. There were also Shelley poems read by biographer Richard Holmes and poet George Szirtes, who read "Ozymandias" both in English and in Hungarian!

Anyway, the conference begins next, so I'm back to work.

The Visual Life of Romantic Theatre

Yesterday, I tuned in for a very informative online panel on "The Visual Life of Romantic Theatre" which previewed some of the work that will be published in a forthcoming book offered by University of Michigan Press.

Diane Piccitto and Terry F. Robinson hosted the event, which began with with a fascinating talk by Susan Brown on the diary of Mary Rein, who oversaw the design and construction of costumes at Drury Lane beginning in the late 18th century. While we don't have any of her own sketches of costumes, we do have images of costumes she designed and constructed with the help of the theatre's wardrobe staff.

One thing I found fascinating was that even though performers were generally expected to supply their own costumes, many of the dresses Rein recorded making were for the leading ladies of the stage. In one case, she provided a dress for the star actress Dorothy Jordan for her "personal use" though the outfit might also have been worn on stage as well. Though scenery costs far eclipsed theatre expenditures on costumes, Brown argued that clothing was an important part of Romantic spectacle.

Next, Uri Erman spoke on the Italian singer Angelica Catalani, who was rumored to be mistress to the controversial politician Lord Castlereagh. Erman showed a cartoon by James Gilray entitled "Delicious Dreams!" The image, which dates from 1808, shows a cat (-alani) whispering into Castlereagh's ear. Foreign opera singers like Catalani became a target for xenophobic forces. They also were used by those who opposed the encroachment of opera into London's patent theatres, replacing the castrati, which had previously been used as images of operatic monstrosity, but by the 19th century had fallen out of favor.

I was particularly excited to hear Danny O'Quinn discuss the Romantic toy theatre. Though toy theatre production increased during the Victorian period, he said it was essentially a Regency art form. O'Quinn discussed William Webb's toy theatre version of Aladdin, which showed several Aladdins in different positions, so they could be switched in and out during the performance. This, he said, made changes in character indistinguishable from the changes in physical objects frequently used in pantomime. O'Quinn also mentioned that screens were sometimes used by toy theatre performers to hide the operators and make the performance all the more dramatic.

Deven Parker spoke about a play that was frequently adapted to the toy theatre, Isaac Pocock's The Miller and His Men. She noted that play texts could serve to mediate live performances, helping the reader to visualize what would otherwise be seen on stage. Even the use of punctuation--such as dashes--can help convey to the reader what the visual experience of watching a play is like.

Last to speak was Dana Van Kooy, who discussed Obi; or, Three-Fingered Jack, a play by John Fawcett about the Jamaican folk-hero Jack Mansong. The piece premiered at the Haymarket Theatre in 1800 with Charles Kemble as Mansong, and Maria De Camp as Rosa, the plantation owner's daughter.

It was a great panel, so I'm glad I tuned in for it!

Three-Fingered Jack

W.H. Murray's drama of the Jamaican folk-hero Jack Mansong, Obi; or, Three-Fingered Jack, gained wide circulation when it was published in Dicks' Standard Plays.

According to the published text (which misspells Murray's name), the play's plot and incidents were "taken from the highly popular pantomime of the celebrated Mr. Fawcett." This was John Fawcett, whose earlier play about Jack Mansong premiered at the Haymarket Theatre in London on July 2, 1800.

It was Murray's version of the story that became widely known, and was re-enacted on countless toy theatre stages, so it's the one I want to examine right now. The first act begins with "A View of an extensive Plantation in Jamaica." We find out that it's the birthday of the plantation owner's daughter, Rosa. What is more, her sweetheart, Captain Orford, is coming to claim her hand in marriage.

While the day is happy, the plantation owner, Ormond, recalls a previous birthday of Rosa's when the young woman's mother fell beneath the hand of the infamous Three-Fingered Jack. The rebel escaped, and is now feared by whites and blacks alike, as he rampages the island in search of revenge. He is aided by his mother, a magician known as Obi Woman. She speaks in verse, giving her incantations an elevated air.

It is Jack's language that most eloquently calls out for revenge, though. In the third scene, he complains to his mother:

The gods of my fathers frown on my delay. Years have elapsed since I sacrificed the wife of the white man, a victim to the memory of my beloved Olinda, whom they tore lifeless from these arms as they dragged me from my native land; can I forget? can I forgive? Never.

Though Jack wanted to murder Ormond, his mother counseled a slower but sweeter revenge. With Ormond's daughter set to be wed, Jack attacks her beloved, Captain Orford, and drags his body back to his cave. Ormond promises freedom to the workers he has enslaved, and entreats them to wreck vengeance on Three-Fingered Jack.

In the second act, we learn that Rosa, refusing to believe that her beloved is dead, has fled in disguise and hopes to uncover the rebel's lair. She does in fact find the cave, but Jack captures her. Since she is dressed as a boy, he does not recognize her. Jack cannot allow a white person who has seen his hideout to return and disclose its location, so instead he enslaves his captive, echoing the actions of his enemy.

Just as Ormond has been calling out for vengeance, Jack is also seeking revenge, and he asserts, "it is not merely thirst of blood that fires me,--a nobler passion nerves my arm--vengeance!" Not trusting his captive, though, he blindfolds Rosa and leads her deeper into the cave, where she is brought together with another captive, her beloved Orford, who is in fact still alive, but is trapped behind a grated door.

When Rosa tries to free Orford, Jack binds her to a rock. The lovers make a second escape attempt, but again fail. However, the newly freed plantation laborers are able to track Rosa's footprints to the cave. They free Orford, but Jack runs off with Rosa. Two black men, Quashee and Sam, pursue him. By this point, Jack understands that the "boy" is the daughter of his sworn enemy. When she calls out for pity, Jack lambasts the hypocrisy of the plantation owners:

I had a daughter once; did they spare her harmless infancy? Where is my wife? was she spared to me? No! with blood and rapine the white man swept like a hurricane o'er our native village, and blasted every hope! Can aught efface the terrible remembrance from my soul, how at their lordly feet we begged for mercy and found it not.

In the end, the newly emancipated Quashee and Sam free Rosa and dispatch Five-Fingered Jack, but while the rebel is clearly the villain of the piece, he is also portrayed sympathetically and voices a clear anti-slavery viewpoint.

Harriet Smithson

In 1833, composer Hector Berlioz married Harriet Smithson, but she had enjoyed a distinctive career on her own as an actress long before she became Madame Berlioz.

According to her entry in Oxberry's Dramatic Biography, Smithson was born on March 18th, 1800 in County Clare, Ireland, of English parentage. Her father, William Smithson, traced his ancestry back to Gloucestershire, but worked managing theatres in the Waterford and Kilkenny circuit.

At first, young Harriet's parents had great ambitions for her, and they actively kept her away from the stage, but after hard times fell upon the family, the young girl seemed their only hope. She made her stage debut in Dublin as Albina Mandeville in Frederick Reynolds's play The Will, and subsequently began to perform across Ireland.

In 1817, Smithson was introduced to Robert William Elliston, who was then manager of the Birmingham Theatre Royal. It was while performing in Birmingham that she caught the attention of the management of the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane in London. She made her debut at that theatre on January 20, 1818 as Letitia Hardy in Hannah Cowley's comedy The Belle's Stratagem.

Since her brother was manager of an English theatre in Boulogne, Smithson performed both there and in Calais. She made her Paris debut in 1827, performing the role of Lydia Languish in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals. Charles Kemble's company, touring in France, then took her on to play Ophelia in Hamlet, and she made quite a stir with her mad scene. Kemble was apparently impressed, as he subsequently cast her opposite himself as they played the leading roles in Romeo and Juliet.

Berlioz saw Smithson perform as Ophelia in 1827 and promptly became obsessed with her. She was reportedly the inspiration for his Symphonie Fantastique, as well as other works of his. He also wrote her numerous love letters, which she failed to answer. Berlioz was three years younger than her, and not yet particularly well known. He also could just barely speak English. The young composer entreated her to meet with him. She declined.

Smithson returned to London, this time performing at the rival Theatre Royal at Covent Garden rather than Drury Lane. Unfortunately, the reviews were harsh. She toured a bit, joined the company of the smaller Haymarket Theatre, then eventually went back to Paris to set up her own troupe in 1830. She performed in English at the Théâtre-Italien, but the next year she broke her leg and had to put her whole career on hold.

Then, in 1832, there was a performance of Lélio, Berlioz's sequel to Symphonie Fantastique. She had missed Symphonie Fantastique's premiere in 1830, but this time she thought she'd give that mad Frenchman's music a try. That's when she figured out that this crazy twenty-something kid who'd been stalking her was a musical genius. She agreed to meet with him, and the next year they were married.

Sadly, their marriage was not the happiest. They never really got along with each other's families and friends. Plus, her career had already peaked, and his was just beginning. She became jealous of his success, not to mention of the mistress he picked up at the Paris Opera. Still, her performances were both inspired and inspiring, and for that, she should be remembered.

London's 1782-83 Season

I was recently asked to give a presentation on the London theatre season for 1782-1783. This was the season that Sarah Siddons returned to the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane and revolutionized British acting.

Even before Siddons made her return, the public was primed for great things. All three London patent houses--Drury Lane, Covent Garden and the summer theatre at the Haymarket--had been redecorated, welcoming audiences to grander, more opulent interiors.

Covent Garden's renovation had been the most extensive. A contemporary account in Universal Magazine claimed that "Nothing remains of the old structure but the outside walls." Seating was increased, and boxes replaced the side doors to the stage, finally moving side entrances fully behind the proscenium.

The Theatre Royal at Covent Garden benefited from something else, as well. Frances Abington, the previous leading lady at Drury Lane, left in 1782 for Covent Garden, where she continued to perform until her retirement. When Drury Lane opened its season with a production of The Clandestine Marriage, a comedy David Garrick co-wrote with George Colman the Elder, the female lead was played by Priscilla Brereton, who was never considered a particularly strong actress. The receipts that night only totaled 200 pounds and four shillings.

By contrast, Covent Garden opened its season with Susanna Centlivre's comedy The Busy Body. That evening brought in a whopping 314 pounds and 18 shillings. While you might expect a theatre's opening night of the season to be a hit, Covent Garden continued to perform well for the rest of the month, too. They followed up their initial success with a production of Isaac Bickerstaff's musical drama The Maid of the Mill. That play brought in more than 270 pounds, easily beating out anything Drury Lane put on that month, including on its opening night of the season.

Drury Lane tried to draw audiences in with a production of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, which they had not done for three years, and featuring a new actress making her Drury Lane debut in the role of Viola. In spite of a strong cast that included Elizabeth Farren as Olivia, and the novelty of a new actress making her debut, receipts only totaled 144 pounds and 11 shillings. The next week Drury Lane brought out a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Receipts were better, but still couldn't break above 200 pounds. Only on its opening night had Drury Lane managed that feat.

The next month, though, Drury Lane scored a palpable hit with Siddons. The actress was returning to London after a long absence, having performed principally at Bath following her inauspicious debut at Drury Lane in 1775. In Bath, Siddons had honed her craft and developed a devoted following for her dramatic style. When she reappeared on the stage of Drury Lane in October 1782, this time in the title role of Isabella in Garrick's adaptation of Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage, she was an immediate sensation.

On the nights Siddons appeared on stage at Drury Lane, receipts were frequently over 200 pounds more than they were on evenings when she did not appear. Given that during the month of September, Drury Lane only just made it to collecting 200 pounds on opening night, and then never made that amount again for the rest of the month, we can see that the presence of Siddons more than doubled the amount the theatre took in on a given night.

Covent Garden collected nearly 36,000 pounds for the season as a whole, though, while Drury Lane took in something closer to 34,000 pounds. While Covent Garden's box office returns were larger, both houses had introduced substantial alterations to their physical buildings. Those investments were not included with ordinary expenses, and were made with an eye toward the long-term success of the ventures.

We might look at the introduction of Siddons in a similar way that we view the capital improvements to the theatre buildings themselves. Though in the short run, Siddons was unable to make Drury Lane more profitable than Covent Garden, she was laying the groundwork for Drury Lane to become a more prestigious, and hopefully more profitable theatre in future seasons.

The Beaux-Stratagem

Generally, you expect a comedy to end with a happy marriage, but what if instead it ended with a happy divorce?

Well, George Farquhar decided to give the audience both in his play The Beaux-Stratagem, which originally opened at London's Haymarket Theatre in 1707. Writing in the shadow of the Restoration, Farquhar needed to please a public that was used to naughty shenanigans but was newly awakened to calls by Jeremy Collier for moral reform of the stage.

Technically, "beaux" is the plural of "beau" meaning a male admirer. The two beaux in the play are Thomas Aimwell and Francis Archer, who are both intent on marrying wealthy women to get out of financial difficulty. Because they are in such reduced circumstances, Archer agrees to pretend to be his friend's servant at a country inn. If Aimwell can't catch an heiress, then he'll pretend to be Archer's servant at the next stop.

Aimwell ends up falling for the charming Dorinda, sister to an unhappily married blockhead named Squire Sullen. (Seriously. The cast list describes him as "a country blockhead, brutal to his wife.") Dorinda is dutiful to her brother, but more sympathetic to her sister-in-law. Mrs. Sullen longs for the pleasures of London, but her husband is just interested in getting drunk on country ale. Though Farquhar depicts Mrs. Sullen as occasionally silly, he portrays the squire as completely incapable of sympathizing with her or anyone.

A group of criminals led by a highwayman appropriately named Gibbet add some interest to the play and get the plot stirring. Aimwell and Archer end up saving the Sullen household from being robbed, and their valor helps to convince Dorinda to agree to marry her suitor. The problem is that Aimwell has been lying to her, pretending to have a fortune that actually belongs to his older brother. How could Farquhar make this cad no longer a cad anymore? By having the older brother suddenly die, granting Aimwell the fortune after all. Problem solved!

Unfortunately, this did not solve the problem of the Sullens' unhappy marriage. To me, the most remarkable part of the play is when Farquhar has them agree to an amicable separation. Some important papers saved from the robbers content the squire, while Mrs. Sullen and her brother are allowed the return of her dowery. Squire Sullen even invites people to "celebrate my sister's wedding and my divorce" at the same time.

Chance magically converts Aimwell into an honest man, but perhaps Farquhar thought it was a bridge too far to ask the audience to believe in Sullen having a reformation and tending to the needs of his wife. In any case, the play's conclusion surprises, even more than 300 years after it was written.

Used Up

The Irish dramatist Dion Boucicault had his first big hit in 1841 with London Assurance, which opened at Covent Garden, managed at that time by Lucia Elizabeth Vestris and her husband Charles Mathews.

Though the play was a success, Vestris spent lavishly on the production, as well as on subsequent plays, including Boucicault's own The Irish Heiress. In 1842, only a year after the triumph of London Assurance, Vestris and Mathews lost their lease on the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden.

In 1844, Vestris and Mathews opened a new Boucicault comedy, Used Up, at the Haymarket Theatre. The piece was based on a French farce by Félix Auguste Duvert and Augustin-Théodore de Lauzanne. Mathews, who played the leading role of Sir Charles Coldstream, contributed much of the dialogue, and his acting was largely responsible for the play's success.

Sir Charles is a wonderful role, and the novelist Charles Dickens later performed it in an amateur production. Dickens's friend, the artist Augustus Egg, even painted a portrait of the writer in the part, which you can see here, courtesy of ArtUK and the Charles Dickens Museum. Boucicault himself played the role in the U.S., first in New York in 1854, and later in New Orleans.

In the play, the spoiled Sir Charles is so bored with life that he resolves to propose marriage to the next woman he meets. That woman ends up being his neighbor, Lady Clutterbuck, who in a rather unlikely turn of events, was previously married to a blacksmith hired to install a balcony outside a window in Sir Charles's house. Even the prospect of marriage doesn't relieve the young aristocrat's boredom, but he begins to feel alive again as he fights the blacksmith, and the two topple out of the window and into a river.

In the second act, both Sir Charles and the blacksmith are presumed dead. Both, however, are alive but in hiding, fearing they'll be charged with one another's murder. While disguised as a simple plough-boy, Sir Charles falls in love with Mary Wurzel, the niece of one of his tenant farmers. Eventually, he learns his lesson, which he sums up for the audience in true Boucicault fashion:

...a man's happiness, after all, lies within himself--with employment for the mind, exercise for the body, a domestic hearth, and a mind at ease...

Even if that sentiment feels a little trite today, the play is a great deal of fun, and it helped Boucicault learn his craft so he could go on to pen better plays, including The Poor of New York.

Edmund Kean's Shylock

On this day in 1814, Edmund Kean appeared as Shylock on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

It would launch Kean's career, but it was not the first time he had appeared on a London stage. Writing 72 years later in the October issue of The Theatre, Percy Fitzgerald recalled Kean's "most extraordinary career." According to Fitzgerald, Kean "had been literally reared on the stage" and had "performed the young Arthur to Mrs. Siddon's Constance" in William Shakespeare's King John.

Childhood appearances with Sarah Siddons were not the actor's only experience in London prior to his Drury Lane triumph. Fitzgerald recounts an appearance at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket on 30 July 1806, when Kean appeared as "Clown" in the farce Fortune's Frolic. Playing the role of Dolly in that production was "Mrs. Gibbs" whom I take to be Maria Gibbs, née Logan, who made her London debut at the Haymarket in 1783.

After his appearance as "Clown" Kean returned to touring the provinces, and it was in Dorchester that he was rediscovered. Robert William Elliston invited him back to London to act in one of the "minor theatres." Fitzgerald writes that a certain "Dr. Drury" recommended Drury Lane hire Kean instead, and one "Mr. Arnold" came out to see the actor for himself. On 14 November 1813, Kean acted in The Mountaineers with "few people in the pit and gallery and three persons in the boxes." In spite of the small house, Kean determined to play his best, and his efforts were rewarded. He was given the opportunity to appear at Drury Lane, a pleasure mixed with sorrow, as his son Howard was very ill at the time.

Soon after Kean received news he would have a London engagement, Howard died. "His grief was such that he did not care for the brilliant opening," Fitzgerald writes. Kean had to stay longer in Dorchester than he anticipated in order to attend to the business of his son's death. When he arrived in London, he appeared "defiant, suspicious, jealously independent, very poor, almost to squalor" and the committee at Drury Lane saw him as a "listless, shabby postulant." They apparently rebuked Arnold and tried to use Kean's bargain with Elliston as an excuse to void their own agreement with him. Kean engaged in "desperate exertion" to free himself from his engagement to perform at a minor theatre, and according to Fitzgerald, "it was said Elliston was rather glad to be free."

After a "single rehearsal, it was pronounced that it would be a certain failure," Fitzgerald writes. The day of his performance was "wet and miserable" and Kean that night "arrived soaked through" at his shared dressing room. His fellow performers noticed something curious about the way Kean dressed himself for Shylock: "he was putting on a black wig instead of the traditional red one." In the eighteenth century, Shylock had generally been played as a clown. (After all, Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is in fact a comedy.) The actor Charles Macklin had pushed back against that tradition, but the red wig had remained. What was wrong with this guy? Didn't he even know which costume he was supposed to wear? The stage manager at the performance gave Kean up as "hopeless," Fitzgerald says.

The cast of The Merchant of Venice that night boasted some of the actors who had premiered S.T. Coleridge's drama Remorse the previous year. Alexander Rae, who had played Ordonio in Coleridge's tragedy, appeared as Bassanio, and Sarah Smith, who originated the role of Teresa in Remorse, came on in the choice role of Portia. Smith was once considered the most promising actress in Britain, but by 1814 she had turned out to be a disappointment. Thus, Kean had few fellow actors in the cast who could compete with his performance. After the first act, people began to realize that Kean's Shylock was "a great success." He went home afterward and reportedly said of his son Charles Kean, "Charley, my boy, you shall go to Eton!"

The younger Kean did in fact go to school at Eton, but later fell so far in life he had to resort to acting, just like his father. That, however, is another story.

The Theatric Tourist

One of the books I picked up on my recent trip to England was a facsimile of James Winston's The Theatric Tourist.

Winston, an actor, theatre manager, and artist, published the book in 1805, including brief histories and illustrations of the major regional theatres in England during his day.

Though the title page boasts the book contains "all the principal provincial theatres in the United Kingdom," theatres in Scotland and Ireland are noticeably missing. However, Winston does give accounts of the major theatres in England that were outside the metropolis.

The most important of those, of course, was the Theatre-Royal, Bath. "Next to London, Bath should be thought the favorite of the muses," Winston writes. "No theatre has shone so conspicuously as a nursery for London, as this Bath." He mentions it was that theatre which brought Sarah Siddons "so nearly to perfection."

Andover in Hampshire was not nearly so blessed. Winston claims that "as Bath enjoys perhaps the most considerable share of public estimation, so Andover challenges the most deficient." The town did not have a Theatre Royal, but the local theatre building had written on it From the Theatre-Royal, Windsor with "Theatre-Royal" written "in striking characters," Winston tells us, while everything else was "written so faintly, as to be scarcely legible."

Margate in Kent, on the other hand, did have a Theatre Royal, and it's still there! Well, parts of it, anyway. It was originally a rectangular brick building, as pictured here in The Theatric Tourist:

Later in the 19th century, it was completely remodeled, with one side wall removed and the stage and auditorium gutted. A new front of house was also added and a stucco frontage. Here's what it looks like today:

It's interesting to me which towns were deemed worthy of a patent theatre in 1805 and which were not. Neither Tunbridge-Wells, nor Reading, nor Brighton had a Theatre Royal in 1805 (though Brighton has one now). Yet Richmond had that honor, and Winston provides seven pages of text on the Theatre-Royal, Richmond. His illustration contains a tree which he claims was "planted by the hand of the Maiden Queen" Elizabeth I.

Unlike the Theatre-Royal, Margate, the theatre in Richmond remains largely intact from the Georgian era. It closed down in 1848, sparing it the renovations that the later Victorians made to so many theatres. Refurbishments in 2003 used painstaking research to try to recreate a more authentic color scheme, and they even tried to calibrate the electric lighting to approximate candlelight. Here's what the auditorium looks like today:

Winston goes on to discusses other theatres in Newbury, Portsmouth, and Grantham. One thing I find interesting is that he always lists the prices they charged and how much the management could take in with a full house. For the theatre in Lewes, that was seventy pounds, while the theatre in Exeter could hold enough people to make nearly 100 pounds at the same prices (three shillings for a box seat, two to sit in the pit, and a single shilling for the gallery). The Theatre-Royal, Newcastle seemed to have varying prices depending on the time of year. (Prices were raised during the race weeks.) At optimal prices, it could hold enough people to take in 140 pounds, and its stage was larger than that of the Haymarket in London. Here's Winston's illustration of its grand exterior:

Winston goes on to discuss smaller theatres in Edmonton and Maidstone, as well as in Liverpool, which was not quite the thriving city it would later become. Still, Liverpool was no place to sniff at, even in the Georgian era. It was there that the Irish actress Elizabeth Farren came to recognition, acting onstage in Liverpool at the tender age of fifteen. The Theatre-Royal, Liverpool has since been demolished, but here's what it looked like in Winston's day:

The theatre in Windsor was a Theatre Royal, though Winston said it could "scarcely be said to enjoy a regular season." Its proximity to Windsor Castle made it a favorite place for the royal family to go see plays. The theatre at Chichester was not so favored, and Winston spends less than a page of text on it. He gives a much fuller account of the theatre in Birmingham, which did not obtain a royal patent until two years after Winston published his book. He does provide it with a rather lovely illustration, though:

Winston chronicles other theatres in Manchester, Southampton, and Plymouth. I'll skip over those, but give a great anecdote he tells about the theatre in Winchester:

In the play of Alexander the Great, for Keasbury's benefit, some olive leaves that were used for decoration, twisted and interwoven with little bits of wax, caught fire from the lights. The flames continuing to blaze, occasioned an intolerable stench, and an universal cry of fire, which was succeeded by a general panic; but none received so terrible a shock as the departed Clytus, who, at that time, lay dead before the audience. As by Galvanic impulse, he instantly revived, and, in his haste, o'erthrew the son of the immortal Ammon, who measured his extended length on that dread spot where he had slain his General. However, as soon as the cause was ascertained, all was restored to order, and the redoubted Clytus quietly returned, and (hard and uncommon lot) for the second time gave up the ghost.

The last theatre in the book is the Theatre-Royal, Norwich. Winston claims a strolling company of players performed in Norwich occasionally "from the year 1712." Parliament officially licensed the theatre there in 1768, and in 1801 William Wilkins remodeled it. Here's the illustration included in The Theatric Tourist:

When Eliza O'Neill appeared there in 1818, her appearance caused a furor. Unfortunately, the building where she performed no longer exists. A second Theatre Royal was built in 1826, and that one was destroyed by a fire in 1934. Sadly, very little remains of the wonderful theatres Winston featured in his remarkable book.