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Eighteenth-Century Theatre -,,,,-«- o~~ J:-\\u~\--ca...~~ \.\'b~v,\ o~ ~~¥~. £,c).. ~V\ ~~t'\' ~yo~"'. \~o....5.. f'.J€'-'.J '\0'<'<- '. a~~v-cJ l.)~\--.)Q.~' \-", ?-C-,,~) z..oO\. ~8~ EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY THEATRE ~~ PETER HOLLAN'D AND MICHAEL PATTERSON AT first sight the eighteenth century appears to be the least interesting and signi- ficant period of theatre history" since the Middle Ages, Some histories of theatre virtually omit it, while others treat it as some sort of connecting corridor from the splendours of the Renaissance to the innovations of the nineteenth century, essen- tial but not worth lingering in. Indeed the eighteenth century produced few great dramatists; several comic talents perhaps: Sheridan and Goldsmith, Marivaux and Beaumarchais, Goldoni and Gozzi, Holberg and Lessing. But an anthology of world drama could legiti- mately be published without including the works of any of these. Only in the emergent theatre of late eighteenth-century Germany can one point to the major dramas of Goethe and Schiller. Nor could the eighteenth century boast of import- ant innovations in theatre technology, except towards the end of the century with the replacement of candle-light by oil-lamps. What was significant about the theatre of the eighteenth century, however, is that it developed in Continental Europe a function in society unparalleled since its role in ancient Greece. From being an entertainment at court or in the market- place it became a political forum for the bourgeoisie, a focus for national identity and even revolution. It moved from being formal and stylized, or from being vulgar and coarse, to a new level of realism; the stage began to search for authen- ticity and newly to mirror the everyday lives of the spectators. The theatre began to analyse its own aesthetic and to develop from a craft into an art. Actors and actresses rose from the social level of prostitutes and jugglers to become favoured 255 PETER HOLLAND AND MICHAEL PA TTERSON members of society, and playwrights began to be paid properly for their work. In the short, the theatre reflected the philosophical glory of the century, the questioning, succ the tolerance, and the democratic thinking of the period of Enlightenment. Con drar But in the relative security and unquestioned national identity of eighteenth- whi: century England, the theatre was less concerned with philosophy than with ~ profits, and its profits depended on appeasing new social forces of bourgeois lar ( morality and new impositions of governmental control. In April 1698 Jeremy Line Collier, a dissenting clergyman, published A Short View of the Immorality and The Profaneness of the English Stage together with the Sense of Antiquity upon this Argu- one ment. For a short view the book was not particularly short; running to over 280 com pages, Collier mounted an extraordinary, vitriolic attack on contemporary drama. that His microscopic examination of the language of Congreve,Vanbrugh, and others =s was designed to prove his case that, though drama ought to be moral ('The busi- hug( ness of plays is to recommend virtue and discountenance vice'): Our poets write-with a different view ... Their liberties in the following particulars are intolerable, viz., their smuttiness of expression, their swearing, profaneness and lewd appli- cation of scripture, their abuse of the clergy:,their making their top characters libertines and giving them success in their debauchery. In the aftermath of A Short View dozens of pamphlets appeared, attacking and defending the stage; Vanbrugh replied in a pamphlet in June, Congreve responded with another in July. It was not only a pamphlet war: Congreve in The Way of the World (1700) provided the best answer to Collier, proof that Restora- tion comic drama could deal seriously with evil, and Farquhar, in The Recruiting Officer (1706) and The Beaux' Stratagem (1707), showed that comedy could move beyond London to explore issues as serious as recruiting or divorce without offending Collier. But more worryingly for the theatres, the controversy moved to the courts: actors found themselves prosecuted, with admittedly limited success, for speaking particular lines noted down by informers placed in the audience by the Society for the Reformation of Manners. Adding 'Egod' to a line was now a dangerous business; even speaking lines previously authorized could result in a prosecution. Something about Collier's invective was clearly timely. Changes in social power, the increasing significance of bourgeois values in opposition to the aristo- cratic world of the Restoration, found in Collier a suitable champion for a moral- ity that this newly important segment of society wished to see enshrined at the centre of public behaviour. The theatre was the most public forum for such a debate. Apart from anything else, the Collier controversy pushed theatre into the centre of debate and established writing about the theatre as an energetic field of literary and moral argument. Sir Richard Steele, the most vigorous exponent of EIGHTEENTH·CENTURY THEATRE k. In the attempt to reconcile the new dominant morality with drama, may have Hng, succeeded in creating a moral and sentimental drama, particularly in The Conscious Lovers (1722), but his efforts were mostly concentrated on essays about drama and theatre in the widely-read periodicals, like the Spectator and the Tatler, .nth- which he published. with While Steele may have transformed the nature of high comedy, the most popu- seols lar changes in comedy were to happen elsewhere. On 29 January 1728 at the :emy Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre a packed house watched the first night ofJohn Gay's and The Beggar's Opera. Gay's ballad-opera had been turned down by Colley Cibber, lrgu- one of the managers at the rival patent theatre, Drury Lane, the only other 280 company licensed to act in London. The style of Gay's opera was too novel for ama. that staid company, whose major dramatic success was to be George Lillo's :hers tragedy of an apprentice led astray, The London Merchant (1731), a play whose )USI- huge impact on the development of European drama was out of all proportion to 's are ppli- tines and ;reve The .ora- iting rove lout :d to cess, e by rw A III a icial isto- iral- the ch a the D of t of 257 PETER HOLLAND ANDMICHAEL PATTERSON its minimal success in influencing English tragedy. Gay's friends persuaded John Rich, the manager at Lincoln's Inn Fields, to take on his startlingly new combi- J' nation of popular song, underworld comedy, and political and social satire. Rich was ready to give up after the first rehearsal but was encouraged to persevere. On that first night the audience numbered over 1,200: 250 in the boxes, 300 in the pit, over 600 in the galleries, and a few people sitting on the stage. Initially the audi- ence was bemused. As Alexander Pope, Gay's friend, reported later, We were all at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyll, who sat in the box next to us, say 'It will do,-it must do!-I see it in the eyes of them'. This was a good while before the first act was over. By the end the applause was tumultuous and the hew form was an unprecedented success. Before the season was over, the play had been performed sixty-two times. The popular tag claimed the work 'had made Rich gay and Gay rich' -indeed Gay told his friends he earned over £600 from the play. Rich's audience was used to innovation. From 1716 he had experimented with pantomime, his own adaptation of commedia dell'arte, starring himself as Harle- quin under his stage name John Lun, and the experiment of a new annual pantomime continued till his death. He also tried adding other entertainments to the main bill; his development of the 'whole show' firmly established the practice of adding short farces, musical entertainments, processions, rope-dancers, contor- tionists, indeed almost anything to create a varied evening's entertainment for the audience. Some would complain about the unseemliness of this rag-bag; no one could dispute its success. The extraordinary triumph of The Beggar's Opera not only spawned dozens of by, imitations but also confirmed Rich in the plan of moving to a larger theatre. In field 1730 he began to design a theatre in Covent Garden, completed in 1732. Others rest! too perceived the implications of the work's success: in 1729, in the teeth of city rest! opposition, Thomas Odell opened a new theatre in Goodman's Fields in the East ensr End of the city, at the opposite end of London from normal theatrical activity. the: Odell had recognized that a sizeable part of the audiences filling the theatre to see Wal Gay's work came from the easrward spread of the expanding c~ty. The new audi- able ence deserved its own local theatre. Odell's plan was helped by rfie creation in 1720 c,om of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, mostly used by visiting companies at first satir but a wedge driven into the near-monopoly of the patent houses, Drury Lane and Hay Lincoln's Inn Fields. gave In spite of the reformers' use of the law-courts, the moral and clerical concerns play of Collierism did not result in new legislation. Government only uses moral anxi- neec ety for its own ends. The Licensing Act of 1737, by far the most important govern:- ' obsc mental control of theatrical activity in the century, was rushed through parliament the 1 EIGHTEENTH·CENTURY THEATRE ohn rbi- Gch On pit, jdi- uch will : act red res.
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