The Licensing Act

During the beginning of the eighteenth century, many playwrights in Britain tried to imitate the great comedies of the Restoration period, but they eliminated much of the bawdry that made those comedies funny. The laugh-free plays they produced earned the label "sentimental comedies" since they continued to appeal to an audience's sentiments even as they erased what had been a source of great humor. The Irish dramatist Richard Steele scored a hit in 1722 with his sentimental comedy The Conscious Lovers. Based very loosely on Terence's Roman play The Girl from Andros, the play featured heroes who controlled and overcame their passions rather than giving in to them. The play emphasized patience over emotions and peaceful resolutions over violent action.

The small success Steele had was dwarfed, however, by the runaway hit by John Gay called The Beggar's Opera. Premiering at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London in 1728, the play ran for 62 consecutive performances, the longest run of any play in British history up to that time. It was periodically revived throughout the century, becoming one of the most performed plays ever (though in the twentieth century it was largely eclipsed by its German-language adaptation The Threepenny Opera). Gay used the melodies of popular songs but rewrote their lyrics to make pointed comments about public figures, including the powerful Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister in British history. This new form, called ballad opera, was imitated throughout the century, including by Gay himself in a sequel to the play, Polly, which Walpole had banned.

Traditional tragedies of kings and queens seemed out of place in a world that was increasingly being run by the middle classes. The playwright Henry Fielding exploited this disconnect by mocking high drama in his play The Tragedy of Tragedies, which opened in 1731. Also known as The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great, Fielding's play featured a protagonist diminutive in stature in love with a princess named Huncamunca. To add to the comedy, Fielding had a giantess fall in love with Tom Thumb. Nearly everyone in the play dies in grand fashion, and audiences laughed hysterically at the deaths of kings, queens, and nobles.

Just as Gay had run afoul of Walpole, Fielding, too, provoked the wrath of the powerful prime minister. In The Historical Register for the Year 1736 (which actually debuted in 1737), Fielding made fun of all of the events of the previous year, particularly excoriating Walpole. This time, however, Walpole was ready. He took advantage of a particularly outrageous satire of the king called The Golden Rump and introduced to parliament the Licensing Act of 1737. The act provided for extreme censorship of the British stage, ensuring that playhouses be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain, and stating that anyone who offered a play without a license be fined the exorbitant amount of fifty pounds for each offense.

The two patent theatres in London now had a virtual monopoly throughout the entire country. What was more, all new plays had to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain at least 14 days before they were performed, and if he deemed them unfit for performance, there was no appeal. A theatre manager who performed a banned play could lose his license immediately, and strolling players who performed without a license were treated as vagabonds. The artist William Hogarth created a famous engraving called "Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn" which depicted a copy of the Licensing Act lying on a bed in the corner. As viewers well knew, the act was the death-knell for small companies like the one depicted in the engraving.

Fielding gave up the theatre to write novels, and most serious authors in England followed his lead. Almost two decades passed before Britain produced another play that would capture the public's imagination and work its way into the standard repertoire. That drama was John Home's tragedy Douglas, which perhaps not coincidentally opened in Scotland, debuting in Edinburgh and only later transferring to London. The Licensing Act worked all too well, banishing serious topics from the stage and intimidating authors for years to come. While the eighteenth century became an era of tremendous growth for the English novel, English-language drama languished until the 1770s.

As it happens, I recently purchased a 19th-century copy of the Hogarth engraving. The details aren't as fine as Hogarth's original, but I'm offering the image for free to anyone who wants to publish it in a journal, book, website, whatever. If you need a higher quality image, feel free to contact me. You can credit it to the personal collection of James Armstrong.

Top Comedies After 1737

I previously wrote about the effects of the Licensing Act of 1737, which brought broad censorship to the British stage in the 18th century, and continued to hold back playwrights well into the 20th century.

Comedies like John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and the rollicking satires of Henry Fielding had drawn the ire of Robert Walpole, Britain's first prime minister. He was determined to make sure he would not be made fun of onstage. The Licensing Act silenced the laughter, and comic writing migrated from the stage to the novel.

In the wake of this massive new censorship law, what comedies were produced? Now that political theatre was effectively banned, what could the playhouses of the Georgian era actually stage? What were the comic plays they put on, over and over again, which proved to be the most popular? The answer is: virtually nothing new.

From 1737 to the end of the eighteenth century, all of the top ten most performed comedies in London were (with one important exception) revivals from earlier eras. I recently came across a list of these comedies, and I found some of the names on it quite unexpected. Here they are in reverse order:

10. The Alchemist by Ben Jonson. Jonson's reputation once exceeded that of Shakespeare, though his works are seldom performed today. Personally, The Alchemist is my favorite of his, and in the 18th century it out-ranked all of his other comedies, as well as all but two comedies by Shakespeare.

9. As You Like It by William Shakespeare. One of the Bard's two comedies to top Jonson was this perennial favorite. Now that women could perform on stage, Rosalind was a wonderful opportunity for actresses to show off their legs in perhaps the greatest cross-dressing role of all time.

8. School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. That's right - Sheridan's classic play was the only new comedy to break into the top ten, and it didn't premiere until 1777. For 40 years, the comic well ran pretty dry for the British stage, and even Sheridan barely made it onto the list.

7. The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar. This 1706 comedy tones down some of the bawdiness of the Restoration, but still has plenty of laughs. I saw New York Classical Theatre do the show a few years back, and I can attest that it still works.

6. The Busy Body by Susanna Centlivre. For those who think there were no female playwrights before Wendy Wasserstein, this 1709 play should be a wake-up call. Though Centlivre is not performed much today, she once outranked Sheridan!

5. The Tempest by William Shakespeare. This late Shakespearean comedy has always been a favorite. Some recent productions in New York have occasionally missed the mark, though I rather enjoyed this summer's production by The Classical Theatre of Harlem.

4. The Provoked Husband by Colley Cibber and John Vanbrugh. You haven't heard of this 1728 play? I can't say that I'm surprised. I've never read it myself, but it once outranked all of Shakespeare's comedies!

3. The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar. This 1707 play is probably Farquhar's best known, so it should come as no surprise it ranked so high. It received 419 performances in London from 1737 to 1800. As You Like It by comparison received only 264 over that same time period.

2. The Conscious Lovers by Richard Steele. This sentimental comedy edged out The Beaux' Stratagem with 434 performances in London from 1737 to 1800. It was no match for the era's top play, however.

1. The Beggar's Opera by John Gay. In spite of the Licensing Act, a ballad opera savagely attacking Robert Walpole and his policies remained (by far) the top comedy in the wake of the new censorship law. The Beggar's Opera had 875 London performances from 1737 to 1800, far more than any other comedy. Though the play was one of the chief causes of the Licensing Act, Walpole couldn't stop performances. It was already an audience favorite.

The Licensing Act of 1737

On June 21, 1737, the British government passed one of the most sweeping censorship laws in its nation's history. Those of us who love freedom would be wise to heed the warning of such ill-advised legislation.

Robert Walpole, widely regarded as the first Prime Minister in British history, skillfully manipulated parliament into passing The Licensing Act within a matter of days. Ostensibly, the bill was designed to protect the monarchy from slanders. In reality, it was to protect Walpole himself.

A number of political dramas had flourished on the Georgian stage prior to the passage of the act. Most notably, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, which savagely lampooned Walpole (among other figures), was a hit when it premiered in 1728, and the London theatres periodically revived it afterward to great success. Later, Henry Fielding wrote a number of satirical plays, including The Temple Beau, The Author's Farce, and Tom Thumb.

Particularly offensive to Walpole was Fielding's satiric drama The Historical Registry of 1736. Actually performed in 1737, the play poked fun at a number of powerful individuals, and Walpole was by no means immune from criticism.

The last straw, however, was an outrageous satire (sometimes attributed to Fielding) called The Vision of the Golden Rump. Though the piece was apparently not intended for performance, Walpole himself seems to have commissioned a dramatic version of the satire and then read the most offensive portions out loud to King George II.

Walpole's purpose was to create so much outrage he could pass a law sweeping enough to allow him to ban essentially any play he wanted. After reading scandalous passages aloud in the House of Commons, he got his bill through the house unopposed. No member of parliament in the lower house wanted to look unpatriotic by voting against the bill.

In the House of Lords, Walpole encountered scarcely any more opposition than he had in Commons. Five members voted against the bill, led by Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield. Though Lord Chesterfield was a friend of Walpole and a member of his Whig party, he had tried to create a space within the Whigs for legitimate differences of opinion.

Speaking before the House of Lords, Chesterfield appealed to his fellow parliamentarians to allow the stage to remain a check on the powers of tyranny:

The barriers and fences of the people's liberty must be plucked up one by one, and some plausible pretences must be found for removing or hood-winking, one after another, those sentries who are posted by the constitution of a free country, for warning the people of their danger.

Later, he continued:

I must look upon the Bill as a most dangerous encroachment upon liberty in general. Nay farther, my Lords, it is not only an encroachment upon liberty, but it is likewise an encroachment on property. Wit, my Lords, is a sort of Property: it is the property of those that have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on.  

The act effectively silenced Wit upon the stage. Fielding, of course, turned to writing novels instead, and political drama virtually disappeared for decades to come.

Henry Brooke's tragedy Gustavus Vasa was the first casualty, banned by the government in 1739, in spite of the fact it was already in rehearsal at Drury Lane. Later that year, the government banned another historical drama, James Thomson's Edward and Eleonora. In December, William Patterson's tragedy Arminius was also banned.

If we wish to remain a free country, Chesterfield's plea must be heeded. Otherwise, the barriers and fences defending our liberty will indeed be plucked up, until nothing remains.

The Jealous Wife

I recently read The Jealous Wife by George Colman the Elder. Coleman was an eighteenth-century playwright whose son of the same name also wrote plays, hence his title as "the elder." Here's a portrait of him done in the style of Joshua Reynolds, though apparently not by that great artist.

It is perhaps fitting that his portrait should just be "in the style of" a great artist. I think few people would argue that Coleman himself was a great artist, even though he did sometimes capture the style of superior writers.

The Jealous Wife appears to be Coleman's second play, produced in 1761, the year after his first dramatic work, Polly Honeycomb.  Though genuinely funny, The Jealous Wife is reminiscent of Henry Fielding's work, particularly Tom Jones. It also might have benefited from suggestions and cuts made by Coleman's friend, David Garrick. In any case, after the play premiered at Drury Lane, it made Coleman famous.

The first act sets up Mrs. Oakly as the titular jealous wife. She intercepts a letter intended for her husband, at first suspecting that it is a love note from a woman, in spite of the fact that the address is written in a man's handwriting. Mr. Oakly reads the letter and finds out it is a complaint by Henry Russet, whose daughter has eloped. Mrs. Oakly madly claims that he husband has run off with the girl, while the more likely culprit is Charles, an orphaned nephew of Mr. Oakly's. As it turns out, Charles was in love with Miss Russet, but he is innocent of this particular offense. She did not elope with anyone, but rather ran away from her father to avoid a forced marriage to Sir Beagle. (Got all that?) Young Harriet Russet makes the unwise decision to take refuge with her aunt, Lady Freelove. The woman's name alone should have been a hint she was not of good character!

Act II begins with Mrs. Oakly again complaining that her husband must be intriguing to have an affair. She pretends to make up with him, but she becomes enraged whenever she hears anything about Harriet. Mrs. Oakley sends her servant, the unfortunately named Toilet, to let the porter know she will not see anyone for the day. Mr. Oakly comments that she will sit all day feeding on her own suspicions. Exercising her prerogative to change her mind, however, Mrs. Oakly then orders a chariot so she can go out.

The second scene of Act II takes place at the home of Lady Freelove, who has been trying to arrange a match between Harriet and Lord Trinket. When Lady Freelove leaves her niece together with the lord, he tries to force himself upon her, and she is only saved by the timely arrival of Charles, who draws on Lord Trinket. Harriet escapes, but Charles looks bad, having arrived unannounced at Lady Freelove's house and promptly getting into a brawl. The situation is made worse when Mrs. Oakly arrives. Lady Freelove sees that her visitor is a jealous type, and takes advantage of the situation, planting hints that Mr. Oakly is having an affair with the girl, though this is clearly so she can get Charles out of the way.

In the third scene of Act II, we return to Oakly's home, where Harriet has fled, hoping to find some protection from Lord Trinket. Mrs. Oakly returns to find her husband speaking with this beautiful young woman and decides to hide and listen in on their conversation. Unfortunately, she only half-hears what they say. Mr. Oakly tries to arrange for a place for Harriet to stay without being under the same roof as Charles, but to Mrs. Oakly it sounds like he is setting her up to be a kept woman. Mr. Russet arrives, and Harriet collapses into Mr. Oakly's arms. Russet drags his daughter out of the house as the curtain falls.

The first scene of Act II shows Mrs. Oakly in her dressing room giving contradictory orders to the unfortunately named Toilet. Her suspicions of her husband are stronger than ever, and she resolves not to see him for three days. Given how many different things she has claimed she will do, however, the audience knows that this is not going to last.

In the final scene, Russet learns that Sir Beagle has decided he does not want a loveless marriage and has agreed to swap Harriet to Lord Trinket in exchange for a brown horse named Nabob. Mr. Oakly's brother manages to explain the whole mess to Russet, who agrees to allow his daughter to marry Charles. All that remains is for Mr. Oakly to stand up to his wife and cure her of jealousy. Taking his brother's advice, Oakly rails at his wife and cowers her into submission. His patriarchal supremacy reestablished, everything ends happily, and Mrs. Oakly proclaims that she has not merited her husband's kindness.

This play is not exactly a model of feminist enlightenment, but it does have some funny moments, and Mrs. Oakly is a great part for a comic actress, provided she's willing to partake in what is clearly a chauvinistic play. Hannah Pritchard originally played the role acting opposite Garrick, who played Mr. Oakly. In 1855, Charles Kean famously revived the piece with himself as Oakly and the actress Ellen Tree, by that point Mrs. Kean, in the title role.