"HER FIRST APPEARANCE."
From the south-western corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields a winding and
confined court leads to Vere Street, Clare Market. Midway or so in the
passage there formerly existed Gibbon's Tennis Court--an establishment
which after the Restoration, and for some three years, served as a
playhouse; altogether distinct, be it remembered, from the far more
famous Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, situate close by in Portugal
Street, at the back of the College of Surgeons. Nevertheless, the Vere
Street Theatre, as it was called, can boast something of a history; at
any rate, one event of singular dramatic importance renders it
memorable. For on Saturday, the 8th of December, 1660, as historians
of the drama relate, it was the scene of the first appearance upon the
English stage of the first English actress. The lady played Desdemona;
and a certain Mr. Thomas Jordan, an actor and the author of various
poetical pieces, provided for delivery upon the occasion a "Prologue
to introduce the first woman that came to act on the stage in the
tragedy called 'The Moor of Venice.'"
So far the story is clear enough. But was this Desdemona really the
first English actress? Had there not been earlier change in the old
custom prescribing that the heroines of the British drama should be
personated by boys? It is certain that French actresses had appeared
here so far back as 1629. Prynne, in his "Histriomastix," published in
1633, writes: "They have now their female players in Italy and other
foreign parts, and Michaelmas, 1629, they had French women-actors in
a play personated at Blackfriars, to which there was great resort."
These ladies, however, it may be noted, met with a very unfavourable
reception. Prynne's denunciation of them was a matter of course. He
had undertaken to show that stage-plays of whatever kind were most
"pernicious corruptions," and that the profession of "play-poets" and
stage-players, together with the penning, acting, and frequenting of
stage-plays, was unlawful, infamous, and misbecoming Christians. He
speaks of the "women-actors" as "monsters," and applies most severe
epithets to their histrionic efforts: "impudent," "shameful,"
"unwomanish," and such like. Another critic, one Thomas Brande, in a
private letter discovered by Mr. Payne Collier in the library of
Lambeth Palace, and probably addressed to Laud while Bishop of London,
writes of the just offence to all virtuous and well-disposed persons
in this town "given by the vagrant French players who had been
expelled from their own country," and adds: "Glad am I to say they
were hissed, hooted, and pippin-pelted" (pippin-pelted is a good
phrase) "from the stage, so as I do not think they will soon be ready
to try the same again." Mr. Brande was further of opinion that the
Master of the Revels should have been called to account for permitting
such performances. Failing at Blackfriars, the French company
subsequently appeared at the Fortune and Red Bull Theatres, but with a
similar result, insomuch that the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry
Herbert, who had duly sanctioned their performance, records in his
accounts that, "in respect of their ill luck," he had returned some
portion of the fees they had paid him for permission to play.
Whether these French "women-actors" failed because of their sex or
because of their nationality, cannot now be shown. They were the first
actresses that had ever been seen in this country. But then they were
not of English origin, and they appeared, of course, in a foreign
drama. Still, of English actresses antecedent to the Desdemona of the
Vere Street Theatre, certain traces have been discovered. In Brome's
comedy of "The Court Beggar," acted at the Cockpit Theatre, in 1632,
one of the characters observed: "If you have a short speech or two,
the boy's a pretty actor, and his mother can play her part;
women-actors now grow in request." Was this an allusion merely to the
French actresses that had been seen in London some few years before,
or were English actresses referred to? Had these really appeared, if
not at the public theatres, why, then, at more private dramatic
entertainments? Upon such points doubt must still prevail. It seems
certain, however, that a Mrs. Coleman had presented herself upon the
stage in 1656, playing a part in Sir William Davenant's tragedy of
"The Siege of Rhodes"--a work produced somehow in evasion of the
Puritanical ordinance of 1647, which closed the theatres and forbade
dramatic exhibitions of every kind; for "The Siege of Rhodes,"
although it consisted in a great measure of songs with recitative,
explained or illustrated by painted scenery, did not differ much from
an ordinary play. Ianthe, the heroine, was personated by Mrs. Coleman,
whose share in the performance was confined to the delivery of
recitative. Ten years later the lady was entertained at his house by
Mr. Pepys, who speaks in high terms both of her musical abilities and
of herself, pronouncing her voice "decayed as to strength, but mighty
sweet, though soft, and a pleasant jolly woman, and in mighty good
humour."
If this Mrs. Coleman may be classed rather as a singer than an
actress, and if we may view Davenant's "Siege of Rhodes" more as a
musical entertainment than as a regular play, then no doubt the claim
of the Desdemona of Clare Market to be, as Mr. Thomas Jordan described
her, "the first woman that came to act on the stage," is much
improved. And here we may say something more relative to the Vere
Street Theatre. It was first opened in the month of November, 1660;
Thomas Killigrew, its manager, and one of the grooms of the king's
bedchamber, having received his patent in the previous August, when a
similar favour was accorded to Sir William Davenant, who, during
Charles I.'s reign, had been possessed of letters patent. King Charles
II., taking it into his "princely consideration" that it was not
necessary to suppress the use of theatres, but that if the evil and
scandal in the plays then acted were taken away, they might serve "as
innocent and harmless divertisement" for many of his subjects, and
having experience of the art and skill of his trusty and well-beloved
Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant, granted them full power to
elect two companies of players, and to purchase, build and erect, or
hire, two houses or theatres, with all convenient rooms and other
necessaries thereunto appertaining, for the representation of
tragedies, comedies, plays, operas, and all other entertainments of
that nature. The managers were also authorised to fix such rates of
admission as were customary or reasonable "in regard of the great
expenses of scenes, music, and such new decorations as have not been
formerly used:" with full power "to make such allowances out of that
which they shall so receive to the actors and other persons employed
in the same representations, in both houses respectively, as they
shall think fit." For these patents other grants were afterwards
substituted, Davenant receiving his new letters on January 15th, and
Killigrew _his_ on April 25th, 1662. The new grants did not differ
much from the old ones, except that the powers vested in the patentees
were more fully declared. No other companies but those of the two
patentees were to be permitted to perform within the cities of London
and Westminster; all others were to be silenced and suppressed.
Killigrew's actors were styled the "Company of his Majesty and his
Royal Consort;" Davenant's the "Servants of his Majesty's
dearly-beloved brother, James, Duke of York." The better to preserve
"amity and correspondence" between the two theatres, no actor was to
be allowed to quit one company for the other without the consent of
his manager being first obtained. And forasmuch as many plays formerly
acted contained objectionable matter, and the women's parts therein
being acted by men in the habits of women, gave offence to some, the
managers were further enjoined to act no plays "containing any
passages offensive to piety and good manners, until they had first
corrected and purged the same;" and permission was given that all the
women's parts to be acted by either of the companies for the time to
come might be performed by women, so that recreations which, by reason
of the abuses aforesaid, were scandalous and offensive, might by such
reformation be esteemed not only harmless delights, but useful and
instructive representations of human life to such of "our good
subjects" as should resort to see the same.
These patents proved a cause of numberless dissensions in future
years. Practically they reduced the London theatres to two. Before the
Civil War there had been six: the Blackfriars and the Globe, belonging
to the same company, called the King's Servants; the Cockpit or
Phoenix, in Drury Lane, the actors of which were called the Queen's
Servants; a theatre in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, occupied by the
Prince's Servants; and the Fortune, in Golden Lane, and the Red Bull
in St. John Street, Clerkenwell--establishments for the lower class,
"mostly frequented by citizens and the meaner sort of people." Earlier
Elizabethan theatres, the Swan, the Rose, and the Hope, seem to have
closed their career some time in the reign of James I.
The introduction of actresses upon the English stage has usually been
credited to Sir William Davenant, whose theatre, however, did not open
until more than six months after the performance of "Othello," with an
actress in the part of Desdemona, at Killigrew's establishment in Vere
Street. "Went to Sir William Davenant's opera," records Pepys, on July
2nd, 1661, "this being the fourth day it had begun, and the first that
I have seen it." Although regular tragedies and comedies were acted
there, Pepys constantly speaks of Davenant's theatre as the _opera_,
the manager having produced various musical pieces before the
Restoration. Of the memorable performance of "Othello" in Vere Street,
on December 10th, 1660, Pepys makes no mention. He duly chronicles,
however, a visit to Killigrew's theatre on the following 3rd January,
when he saw the comedy of "The Beggar's Bush" performed; "it being
very well done, and was the first time that ever I saw women come upon
the stage." He had seen the same play in the previous November, when
it was represented by male performers only. But even after the
introduction of actresses the heroines of the stage were still
occasionally impersonated by men. Thus in January, 1661, Pepys saw
Kynaston appear in "The Silent Woman," and pronounced the young actor
"the prettiest woman in the whole house." As Cibber states, the stage
"could not be so suddenly supplied with women but that there was still
a necessity to put the handsomest young men into petticoats."
Strange to say, the name of the actress who played Desdemona under
Killigrew's management in 1660 has not been discovered. Who, then, was
the first English actress, assuming that she was the Desdemona of the
Vere Street Theatre? She must be looked for in Killigrew's company.
His "leading lady" was Mrs. Ann Marshall, of whom Pepys makes
frequent mention, who is known to have obtained distinction alike in
tragedy and in comedy, and to have personated such characters as the
heroine of Beaumont and Fletcher's "Scornful Lady," Roxana in
"Alexander the Great," Calphurnia in "Julius Cæsar," Evadne in "The
Maid's Tragedy," and so on; there is no record, however, of her having
appeared in the part of Desdemona. Indeed, this part is not invariably
assumed by "leading ladies;" it has occasionally devolved upon the
_seconda donna_ of the company. And in a representation of "Othello"
on February 6th, 1669, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane (to which
establishment Killigrew and his troop had removed from Vere Street in
April, 1663), it is certain, on the evidence of Downes's "Roscius
Anglicanus," that a Mrs. Hughes played the part of Desdemona to the
Othello of Burt, the Iago of Mohun, and the Cassio of Hart. Now, was
this Mrs. Hughes, who had been a member of Killigrew's company from
the first, the Desdemona on whose behalf, nine years before, Mr.
Thomas Jordan wrote his apologetic prologue? It seems not unlikely. At
the same time it must be stated that there are other claimants to the
distinction. Tradition long pointed to Mrs. Betterton, the wife of the
famous tragedian, as the first woman who ever appeared on the English
stage. She was originally known as Mrs. Saunderson--the title of
Mistress being applied alike to maidens and matrons at the time of the
Restoration--and married her illustrious husband about the year 1663.
She was one of four principal actresses whom Sir William Davenant
lodged at his own house, and she appeared with great success as Ianthe
upon the opening of his theatre with "The Siege of Rhodes." Pepys,
indeed, repeatedly refers to her by her dramatic name of Ianthe. Has
the belief that she was the first actress arisen from confusing her
assumption of Ianthe with the performance of the same part by Mrs.
Coleman in 1656, a fact of which mention has already been made?
Otherwise it is hardly creditable that she, one of Davenant's
actresses, had been previously attached to Killigrew's company, and
had in such wise chanced to play Desdemona in Vere Street. There is no
evidence of this whatever, nor can it be discovered that she appeared
as Desdemona at any period of her career. The Vere Street Desdemona,
we repeat, must be looked for in Killigrew's company, which commenced
operations more than half a year before the rival theatre. It is true
that some time before the opening of this theatre Davenant had been
the responsible manager in regard to certain performances at the
Blackfriars Theatre and elsewhere; but there is no reason to suppose
that actresses took part in these entertainments; it is known, indeed,
that the feminine characters in the plays exhibited were sustained by
the young actors of the company--Kynaston, James Nokes, Angel, and
William Betterton. Altogether, Mrs. Betterton's title to honour as the
first English actress seems defective; and as much may be said of the
pretensions of another actress, Mrs. Norris, although she has met with
support from Tom Davies in his "Dramatic Miscellanies," and from Curl
in his "History of the Stage," a very unworthy production. Mrs. Norris
was an actress of small note attached to Davenant's company; she was
the mother of Henry Norris, a popular comedian, surnamed "Jubilee
Dicky," from his performance of the part of Dicky in Farquhar's
"Constant Couple." Chetwood correctly describes her as "ONE of the
first women that came on the stage as an actress." To her, as to Mrs.
Betterton, the objection applies that she was a member of Davenant's
company--not of Killigrew's--and therefore could not have appeared in
Vere Street. Moreover, she never attained such a position in her
profession as would have entitled her to assume a part of the
importance of Desdemona.
On the whole, the case of Mrs. Hughes seems to have the support of
more probabilities than any other. But even if it is to be accepted as
a fact that she was in truth the first actress, there the matter
remains. Very little is known of the lady. She lived in a world which
kept scarcely any count of its proceedings--which left no record
behind to be used as evidence, either for or against it. She was in
her time the subject of talk enough, very likely; was admired for her
beauty, possibly for her talents too; but hardly a written scrap
concerning her has come down to us. The ordinary historian of the
time, impressed with a sense of the dignity of his task, did not
concern himself with the players, and rated as insignificant and
unworthy of his notice such matters as the pursuits, pastimes, tastes,
manners, and customs of the people. We know more of the manner of life
in Charles II.'s time from the diarist Pepys than from all the writers
of history put together. Unfortunately, concerning Mrs. Hughes, even
Pepys is silent. It is known that in addition to the character of
Desdemona, which she certainly sustained in February, 1669, at any
rate, she also appeared as Panura, in Fletcher's "Island Princess,"
and as Theodosia, in Dryden's comedy of "An Evening's Love, or, The
Mock Astrologer," to the Jacyntha of Nell Gwynne; there is scarcely a
record of her assumption of any other part, unless she be the same
Mrs. Hughes who impersonated Mrs. Monylove, in a comedy called "Tom
Essence," produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1676. But it is
believed that she quitted or was taken from her profession--was "erept
the stage," to employ old Downes's phrase--at an earlier date. The
famous Prince Rupert of the Rhine was her lover. He bought for her, at
a cost of £20,000, the once magnificent seat of Sir Nicholas Crispe,
near Hammersmith, which afterwards became the residence of the
Margrave of Brandenburg; and at a later date the retreat of Queen
Caroline, the wife of George IV. Ruperta, the daughter of Mrs. Hughes,
was married to Lieutenant-General Howe, and, surviving her husband
many years, died at Somerset House about 1740. In the "Memoirs" of
Count Grammont mention is found of Prince Rupert's passion for the
actress. She is stated to have "brought down and greatly subdued his
natural fierceness." She is described as an impertinent gipsy, and
accused of pride, in that she conducted herself, all things
considered, unselfishly, and even with some dignity. The King is said
to have been "greatly pleased with this event"--he was probably amused
at it; Charles II. was very willing at all times to be amused--"for
which great rejoicings" (why rejoicings?) "were made at Tunbridge; but
nobody was bold enough to make it the subject of satire, though the
same constraint was not observed with other ridiculous personages."
Upon the Prince the effect of his love seems to have been marked
enough. "From this time adieu alembics, crucibles, furnaces, and all
the black furniture of the forges; a complete farewell to all
mathematical instruments and chemical speculations; sweet powder and
essences were now the only ingredients that occupied any share of his
attention." Further of Mrs. Hughes there is nothing to relate, with
the exception of the use made of her name by the unseemly and
unsavoury Tom Brown in his "Letters from the Dead to the Living." Mrs.
Hughes and Nell Gwynne are supposed to address letters to each other,
exchanging reproaches in regard to the impropriety of their manner of
life. Nell Gwynne accuses her correspondent of squandering her money
and of gaming. "I am ashamed to think that a woman who had wit enough
to tickle a Prince out of so fine an estate should at last prove such
a fool as to be bubbled of it by a little spotted ivory and painted
paper." "Peg Hughes," as she is called, replies, congratulating
herself upon her generosity, treating the loss of her estate as "the
only piece of carelessness I ever committed worth my boast," and
charging "Madam Gwynne" with vulgar avarice and the love of "lucre of
base coin." We can glean nothing more of the story of Mrs. Hughes.
It is uncertain indeed in what degree the advent of the first actress
affected her audience; whether the novelty of the proceeding gratified
or shocked them the more. It was really a startling innovation--a
wonderful improvement as it seems to us; yet assuredly there were
numerous conservative playgoers who held fast to the old ways of the
theatre, and approved "boy-actresses"--not needing such aids to
illusion as the personation of women by women, but rather objecting
thereto, for the same reason that they deprecated the introduction of
scenery, because of appeal and stimulus to the imagination of the
audience becoming in such wise greatly and perilously reduced. Then of
course there were staid and sober folk who judged the profession of
the stage to be most ill-suited for women. And certainly this view of
the matter was much confirmed by the conduct of our earlier actresses,
which was indeed open to the gravest reproach. From Mr. Jordan's
prologue may be gathered some notion of the situation of the
spectators on the night, or rather the afternoon, of December 8th,
1660. The theatre was probably but a poor-looking structure, hastily
put together in the Tennis-court to serve the purpose of the manager
for a time merely. Seven years later, Tom Killigrew, talking to Mr.
Pepys, boasted that the stage had become "by his pains a thousand
times better and more glorious than ever before." There had been
improvement in the candles; the audience was more civilised; the
orchestra had been increased; the rushes had been swept from the
stage; everything that had been mean was now "all otherwise." The
manager possibly had in his mind during this retrospect the condition
of the Vere Street Theatre while under his management. The audience
possessed an unruly element. 'Prentices and servants filled the
gallery; there were citizens and tradesmen in the pit, with yet a
contingent of spruce gallants and scented fops, who combed their wigs
during the pauses in the performance, took snuff, ogled the ladies in
the boxes, and bantered the orange-girls. The prologue begins:
I come, unknown to any of the rest,
To tell the news: I saw the lady drest--
The woman plays to-day; mistake me not,
No man in gown or page in petticoat.
* * * * *
'Tis possible a virtuous woman may
Abhor all sorts of looseness and yet play;
Play on the stage--where all eyes are upon her:
Shall we count that a crime France counts an honour?
In other kingdoms husbands safely trust 'em.
The difference lies only in the custom.
The gentlemen sitting in that "Star Chamber of the house, the pit,"
were then besought to think respectfully and modestly of the actress,
and not to run "to give her visits when the play is done." We have,
then, a picture of the male performers of female characters:
But to the point: in this reforming age
We have intent to civilise the stage.
Our women are defective, and so sized
You'd think they were some of the guard disguised;
For, to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With bone so large and nerve so incompliant.
When you call Desdemona, _enter giant_.
The prologue concludes with a promise, which certainly was not kept,
that the drama should be purged of all offensive matter:
And when we've put all things in this fair way,
Barebones himself may come to see a play.
In the epilogue the spectators were asked: "How do you like
her?"--especial appeal being made to those among the audience of the
gentler sex:
But, ladies, what think _you_? For if you tax
Her freedom with dishonour to your sex,
She means to act no more, and this shall be
No other play but her own tragedy.
She will submit to none but your commands,
And take commission only from your hands.
The ladies, no doubt, applauded sufficiently, and "women-actors" from
that time forward became more and more secure of their position in the
theatre. At the same time it would seem that there lingered in the
minds of many a certain prejudice against them, and that some
apprehension concerning the reception they might obtain from the
audience often occupied the managers. A prologue to the second part of
Davenant's "Siege of Rhodes," acted in April, 1662, demonstrates that
the matter had still to be dealt with cautiously. Indulgence is
besought for the bashful fears of the actresses, and their shrinking
from the judgment and observation of the wits and critics is much
dwelt upon.
It is worthy of note that the leading actors who took part in the
representation of "Othello" at the Vere Street Theatre had all in
early life been apprentices to older players, and accustomed to
personate the heroines of the stage. Thus Burt, the Othello of the
cast, had served as a boy under the actors Shanke and Beeston at the
Blackfriars and Cockpit Theatres respectively. Mohun, the Iago, had
been his playfellow at this time; so that when Burt appeared as
Clariana in Shirley's tragedy of "Love's Cruelty," Mohun represented
Bellamonte in the same work. During the Civil War Mohun had drawn his
sword for the king, acquiring the rank of major, and acquitting
himself as a soldier with much distinction. He was celebrated by Lord
Rochester as the Æsopus of the stage; Nat Lee delighted in his acting,
exclaiming: "O Mohun, Mohun, thou little man of mettle, if I should
write a hundred plays, I'd write one for thy mouth!" And King Charles
ventured to pun upon his name as badly as even a king might when he
said of some representation: "Mohun (pronounce _Moon_) shone like a
sun; Hart like the moon!" Charles Hart, the Cassio of the Vere Street
Theatre, could boast descent from Shakespeare's sister Joan, and
described himself as the poet's great-nephew. He, too, fought for the
king in the great Civil War, serving as a lieutenant of horse under
Sir Thomas Dallison in Prince Rupert's regiment. He had been
apprenticed to Robinson the actor, and had played women's parts at the
Blackfriars Theatre, winning special renown by his performance of the
Duchess in Shirley's tragedy of "The Cardinal." As an actor Hart won
extraordinary admiration; he soon took the lead of Burt, and from his
physical gifts and graces was enabled even to surpass Mohun in
popularity. He introduced Nell Gwynne to the stage, and became one of
the sharers in the management and profits of the theatrical company to
which he was attached.
There was soon an ample supply of actresses, and a decline altogether
in the demand for boy-performers of female characters. There was an
absolute end, indeed, of that industry; the established actors had no
more apprentices, now to serve as their footboys and pages, and now as
heroines of tragedy and comedy. A modern playgoer may well have a
difficulty in believing that these had ever any real existence,
sharing Lamb's amazement at a boy-Juliet, a boy-Desdemona, a
boy-Ophelia. There must have been much skill among the players; much
simple good faith, contentment, and willingness to connive at
theatrical illusion on the part of the audience. It must have been
hard to tolerate a heroine with too obvious a beard, or of very
perceptible masculine breadth of shoulders, length of limb, and
freedom of gait. Let us note in conclusion that there is clearly a
"boy-actress" among the players welcomed by Hamlet to Elsinore,
although the modern stage has rarely taken note of the fact. The
player-queen, when not robed for performance in the tragedy of "The
Mousetrap," should wear a boy's dress. "What, my young lady and
mistress!" says Hamlet jestingly to the youthful apprentice; and he
adds allusion to the boy's increase of stature: "By'r lady, your
ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude
of a _chopine!_"--in other words: "How the boy has grown!"--a chopine
being a shoe with a heel of inordinate height. And then comes
reference to that change of voice from alto to bass which attends
advance from boyhood to adolescence.