Very early information respecting the drama in North America is found
in a letter by Chief Justice Samuel Sewall of Massachusetts, dated
March 2, 1714, in which he protests against the acting of a play in the
Council Chamber at Boston, affirming that even the Romans, fond as they
were of plays, were not “so far set upon them as to turn their Senate
House into a Play-House.” “Let not Christian Boston,” he continues,
“goe beyond Heathen Rome in the practice of Shamefull Vanities.”
Some account of this early opponent of the American drama may not be
out of place here, as he was an interesting character. He was born
in England and came to New England with his parents, who settled in
Newbury, Massachusetts. After graduating at Harvard College he entered
the ministry, which vocation he left after a short time and took charge
of the printing-press in Boston, which was under his management for
three years. He had also other public trusts. He was a member of the
Council, a judge of the Court of Probates, and afterward became Chief
Justice of Massachusetts. As a judge he took part in what is known as
the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and is said to have been the only one of
the judges who publicly confessed his error. In 1697, five years after
these trials, he prepared a written confession, which was read to
the congregation of the old South Church in Boston by the minister,
the judge, during the reading, standing up in his place, and during
the remaining thirty-one years of his life he spent one day annually
in fasting, meditation, and prayer, to keep in mind a sense of the
enormity of his offense. This public exhibition of remorse was what
might be expected on the part of a truly conscientious man, for the
drama to which he was so much opposed has not often been used for
the fictitious representation of scenes more harrowing than those he
witnessed and took part in in Salem; scenes that find their counterpart
to-day only among the superstitious savages of Western Africa.
The minister of the church in the village of Salem, who had had
a bitter strife with a portion of his congregation, got up this
accusation of witchcraft, as a means of vengeance in which he was
both accuser and witness, prompting the answers of other witnesses
and acting as recorder to the magistrates, in which he was supported
throughout by Cotton Mather. Within less than two months twenty persons
were tried, condemned, and hanged, among them five women of blameless
lives, all declaring their innocence. A minister was hanged as a witch
for declaring that there could be no such thing as witchcraft, “an
opinion,” says Bancroft, that “wounded the self-love of the judges,
for it made them the accusers and judicial murderers of the innocent.”
Fifty-five persons were tortured or terrified into confession. “With
accusations,” continues the historian, “confessions increased, and
with confessions new accusations.” The jails were full. No one that
confessed after condemnation was hanged, but those who retracted after
confession were. A minister of the gospel is recorded as saying: “There
hang eight firebrands of hell!” pointing to the bodies swinging on the
gallows,[5] and the writer of a production which exposed the whole
proceeding to ridicule, and was chiefly instrumental in putting an
end to it, was denounced as “a coal from hell” by Cotton Mather, who,
through religious vanity, credulity, self-righteousness, ambition, or
all combined, while he ceased subsequently to repeat the statements or
accusations, unlike Sewall, made no acknowledgment thereafter of his
error.
This striking example of judicial conscientiousness on the part of
Sewall was not a single characteristic of this Puritan chief justice,
for in addition to being an able man, he was also a benevolent one,
whose warmest sympathies were with the down-trodden and oppressed. In
1700 he published a tract entitled “The Selling of Joseph,” in which
he advocated the rights of the slaves in the Colonies, and to that
extent may be regarded as one of the pioneers in this country in the
long struggle for negro emancipation. He was the author of several
publications upon religious subjects, and of one upon the Kennebec
Indians, but at the present day is chiefly known for a diary published
by the Massachusetts Historical Society that he kept during the larger
part of his life, which, in addition to being entertaining, sheds much
light upon the manners, habits, and social state of New England at that
period.
It may fairly be assumed that what he protested against did not take
place, for if the play had been acted in the Council Chamber some
account of it or reference to it would, in all probability, have come
down to us.
While preparing my former paper I met with certain statements that
satisfied me that English actors had been in the West Indies by whom
plays had been performed there, but at how early a period, or whether
they or any of them had come to the North American colonies and had
been members of the companies referred to in the paper, I had not
been able to ascertain, but I afterwards found that it appears by a
Barbadoes newspaper of March 18, 1731, that in 1728 some gentlemen in
Barbadoes acted plays, the names of Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Rice being
given; the former of whom delivered a prologue and the latter an
epilogue; I was also disposed to think that in 1732 they had a theater
there, for it appeared by a newspaper of that year that on August 16,
1732, “The Royal Consort” was acted, that the prologue was spoken by a
Mr. John Snow, and the epilogue would appear by a Miss Whiten, who are
referred to as new comers to the island.[6]
Mr. Thomas J. McKee, of the city of New York, however, possesses a
small quarto volume, now extremely rare, published in the eighteenth
century by Anthony Aston, or, as he was generally known, Tony Aston,
who had been an actor in the West Indies and afterward came to
Virginia and New York, who, according to his own statement, acted in
the city of New York in 1702. He may have been one of those who were to
act the play referred to by Chief Justice Sewall in the Boston Council
Chamber in 1714, but it will not be necessary to dwell further here
upon this information or indulge in any conjectures respecting it, as
Mr. McKee has written a paper upon Aston and his career, which is to be
published by the Dunlap Society.
The first representation, in North America, of a play, as far as
known, occurred in 1718 in Williamsburg, then the capital of Virginia.
It is mentioned in a letter by Governor Spottiswood dated June
24, 1718. Spottiswood was governor of Virginia from 1710 to 1722,
and though popular with the people is described as “imperious and
contemptuous,” characteristics which, no doubt, led to what he details
in the letter in which he refers to this theatrical performance,
characteristics which may have been justified if, as he said in one of
his letters, “the people had elected to the House of Burgesses a set of
representatives whom Heaven has not generally endowed with the ordinary
qualifications requisite in legislators, and who placed at the head
of standing committees men who could neither spell English, nor write
common sense.”
In this letter of June 24, 1718, he refers to eight members of the
House of Assembly, who slighted an invitation to his house at an
entertainment that he gave. He could not prevail upon any one of them
to pay him “the common compliment of a visit, when,” he writes, “in
order to the solemnizing His Majesty’s birthday, I gave a public
entertainment at my house, and all gentlemen that would come were
admitted, these eight committeemen would neither come to my house nor
go _to the play which was acted on the occasion_,” but on the contrary,
he says, “these eight committeemen got together all the turbulent and
disappointed burghers to an entertainment of their own in the House
of Burgesses, and invited the mob, and plentifully supplied it with
liquor, to drink the same health as was drunk in the governor’s house,
taking no more notice of the governor than if there had been none in
the place.”[7]
What this play was or when it was performed does not appear, but where
it was acted may be conjectured, as will subsequently appear.
Graham in his “History of the United States of North America,”
published in London in 1736,[8] in describing Williamsburg, the capital
of Virginia, in the early part of the eighteenth century, says that “it
contained a theater for dramatic performances, _the first institution
of the kind in the British_ colonies.” He does not state from what
source he obtained this information, but as he quotes a passage from a
work entitled “The Present State of Virginia,” by Hugh Jones, published
in London in 1724, “the substance of which,” he states, “is embraced
in the second volume of Oldmixon’s British Colonies,” he probably knew
nothing respecting this theater except what he found in Oldmixon.
Rich, the bibliographer, says that Jones’s work is one of the rarest
books relating to Virginia that was published in the eighteenth
century. In 1865, the late bookseller Sabin, of New York, reprinted
a few copies of it in facsimile, and this reprint has supplied the
information that warrants Graham’s statement that this was the first
theater erected in North America.
Jones was a fellow of William and Mary College in Williamsburg,
Virginia, afterward a professor of mathematics in this college, and,
as appears from the title-page of his book, was also chaplain of the
House of Burgesses of Virginia and minister of the Episcopal church at
Jamestown, which was in close proximity to Williamsburg, the capital.
The work contains a chapter wholly devoted to that capital, in which,
after describing the situation and plan of the town, William and Mary
College, the State House, the church, which he says “is adorned as
the best church in London,” he continues as follows: “Next there is a
large octagon Tower which is the Magazine or Repository of Arms and
Ammunition, standing far from any house except Jamestown Court House,
for the town is half in Jamestown County and half in York County. Not
far from hence is a large area for a Market Place, near which is a
_Play House_ and good Bowling Green.”
The play-house, from the manner in which he refers to it, was evidently
regarded by him as one of the prominent things of the town, and as
such worthy of being enumerated with the other public structures,
such as the College, the State House, and the Governor’s House, which
Graham says was then “accounted the most magnificent structure in North
America.” But there is nothing further respecting the play-house,
except the fact that it was in existence in 1722, for Jones had been
but two years away from Virginia when he published his book in London
in 1724. That nothing more should be found respecting it is not
remarkable, for in that early colonial period local occurrences were
seldom mentioned in the small-sized journals that existed, for the
simple reason that they were generally known to all the inhabitants
of the town or place, and were not, therefore, news like intelligence
from London or Boston. There was, moreover, no newspaper in Virginia
until 1732, when the Virginia “Gazette,” which is described as a small
dingy sheet with few items of news was published.[9] In fact, there
was not at this time a printing-press in the colony, nor, until many
years thereafter, even a bookseller’s shop, although there were then in
Boston five printing-presses and many booksellers.[10]
Mr. Edward Eggleston, in an interesting paper, entitled “Social Life
in the Colonies,” contributed to “The Century Magazine” of July,
1883, says that mention is made of a play on the King’s birthday at
Williamsburg, in 1718, which I suppose refers to the one mentioned in
Governor Spottiswood’s letter.
Theodore L. Chase, in an article in one of the public journals, after
calling attention to Jones’s work of 1724, “The Present State of
Virginia,” says that he finds in the Virginia “Gazette” of September
10, 1736, a statement that the young gentlemen of William and Mary
College were to enact that evening the tragedy of “Cato,” and that
therefore, at the hour stated, the comedies of “The Busybody,” “The
Recruiting Officer,” and “The Beaux’ Stratagem” were to be enacted by
the _company_, from which he infers that the play-house mentioned by
Jones was still in existence, and that the “company” who were to enact
the comedies mentioned were not, as I understand him, the students
of the college, but an organized theatrical company, who were then
performing in Williamsburg, where a theater had been built.
It would be out of the ordinary course of things that a play-house
like this, close to the market-place, should have been erected for
occasional performances by amateurs. A hall in the college would have
sufficed for such a purpose, as the halls in old mansions and other
structures in England were used for such incidental occasions. It
is more probable that it was an ordinary theater, where plays were
performed by professional actors.
There are many circumstances that lead to that conclusion. The
Virginians were a very different people from the Puritans of New
England, and had none of the repugnance to stage plays that prevailed
among the latter. They had not, like the Puritans, fled to the wilds
of America that they might enjoy unmolested their religious beliefs,
and carry out their own ideas of religion and civil government, but
persons who had gone to Virginia simply to better their condition.
As Bancroft has described them, they were “a continuation of English
society, who were attached to the monarchy, with a deep reverence for
the English church, and a love for England and English institutions.”
Upon the overthrow of Charles I., the loyalists in considerable numbers
emigrated to Virginia, many of whom, as the same writer says, brought
to the colony the culture and education that belonged to the English
gentry of that day.
The descendants of these cavalier emigrants were, at the time to
which this inquiry relates,--the early portion of the eighteenth
century,--the dominant class, politically and socially, in the colony.
They lived upon large plantations, isolated from each other, sparsely
spread over a wide territory, so that each plantation might have
the advantage of close proximity to water for the transportation of
tobacco, which was the chief product raised by them for export. In this
respect the province was particularly well adapted for settlement in
this way, as it was traversed not only by long rivers, but had flowing
into their main arteries innumerable creeks and short streams, which
were navigable for vessels of moderate draught, so that they had not to
leave their plantations to ship or dispose of their produce, but could
load it at the doors of their own warehouses.[11]
The facilities which the physical features of the country afforded
for easy transportation by water, rendered it unnecessary, as in New
England, to settle largely in towns or villages, for the plantations,
being large and well peopled, especially after slaves had been
introduced from Africa to cultivate them, a plantation had the ordinary
facilities of a village or town; and as the proprietor and his family
were not required to labor, there was much intercourse among the
planters, with the enjoyment of sports and amusements, for which they
had alike the leisure and the disposition. It was a state of things
that in time brought about a landed aristocracy, that divided society
into two classes, the landowners or gentry, and their dependants or
servants.
It was customary then, especially in London, for men as well as women
who had lost reputation to emigrate to Virginia, where, by a life of
industry, they might retrieve their character and improve their worldly
condition, as a life of industry there brought with it no reproach,
which was not the case in London, where, at that time, to labor for
subsistence involved the loss of caste. Others were transported thither
as a punishment for crime, a class described by Jones as “the poorest,
idlest, worst of mankind,” but insignificant in number when compared
with the shoal of slaves from Africa, by whom the hardest amount of the
labor was performed.
Jones, describing the white population of the Colony at this period
says: “They were, for the most part, comely, handsome persons, of good
features and fine complexions, wearing the best of clothes according
to their stations and sometimes beyond their circumstances.” He
further describes them as “bright and of excellent sense, speaking
good English, without any idiom, sharp in trade, conversing with
ease upon common subjects, and though of excellent natural capacity
diverted by business or inclination from profound study or prying
into the depth of things; more inclined to read men by business and
conversation than to dive into books; desirous only of learning what
was absolutely necessary and in the shortest way; who, through their
quick apprehension, had, though it was superficial, a sufficiency of
knowledge and fluency of tongue.”
He describes the planters generally as “indolent and hospitable,
leading easy lives, and not much admiring labor or any manly exercise
except horse racing, nor any diversion except cock fighting.” Finally,
he says: “The habits of life, customs, etc., of the inhabitants were
much the same as about London, which they esteem their home, with a
contempt for every other part of Great Britain.”
After long struggles and many serious trials Virginia was then in
a very flourishing condition. “This country,” says Jones in the
introduction to his book, “has altered wonderfully, and far more
advanced and improved in all respects in late years than in the
whole century before,” and this prosperity was especially felt in
Williamsburg, which, though small in respect to resident population,
was the only town, for Richmond and Petersburgh were not laid out until
1733, and was the capital of a widely extended province; it was where
the Governor resided, where the twelve Councillors or upper house and
the House of Burgesses assembled for legislative purposes, where
the Law Courts were held, and where what might be called the gentry
went, as Jones states, for pleasure. He says that “they had balls and
assemblies at the Governor’s House, with as fine an entertainment as
he had seen anywhere;” that the public buildings, the chief of which
was the College, were excelled by few of their kind in England; that
the stores in the town were stocked with all sorts of rich goods; that
they had a number of artificers and convenient ordinaries or inns for
the accommodation of strangers; that the dwelling-houses, some of
which were of brick, but chiefly of wood, were large and commodious,
lasting and dry, so that they were warm in winter and cool in summer;
that the town was laid out in square lots, each one large enough for
a house and garden, so that they had not to build their houses close
together as in other towns, thus affording a free circulation of air
and diminishing in case of fire the danger of destruction. Several of
what he calls good families resided permanently in the capital, and
others during what he calls the “public time.” They live, he says, “in
the same neat manner, dress after the same modes, and behave themselves
exactly as the gentry of London; most families of any note having
their coach, chariot, Berlin or chaise, and dwelling,” as he finally
says, “comfortably, genteelly, pleasantly, and plentifully in this
delightful, healthful, and (I hope) thriving city of Williamsburg.”
Cooke, in his “History of the People of Virginia,” describes
Williamsburg at about the middle of the last century in the winter
as the scene of much that was brilliant and attractive in Virginia
society. “It was,” he says, “the habit of the planters to go there with
their families at this season, to enjoy the pleasures of the Capital,
and one of the highways, Gloucester, was an animated spectacle of
coaches and four, containing the nabobs and their dames; of maidens
in silk and lace, with high heeled-shoes and clocked stockings. All
these people were engaged in attending the assemblies at the palace,
in dancing at the Apollo, in snatching the pleasures of the moment and
enjoying life under a régime that seemed mad for enjoyment.”... The
violins seemed to be ever playing for the diversion of the youths and
maidens; cocks were fighting, horsemen riding, students mingled in the
throng in their academic dress, and his Serene Excellency went to open
the House of Burgesses in his coach, drawn by six milk-white horses. It
was a scene full of gaiety and abandon, and Williamsburg was never more
brilliant than at this period.[12]
I have been thus particular in describing the place and its inhabitants
to show that it was just the kind of capital that had alike the taste
and the means to erect and support a theater, if not regularly,
at least for a certain period of the year, or what, in theatrical
parlance, is called a “season.” Although, according to another writer,
it had only about eighty houses and consequently but a small resident
population, there must have been a considerable influx of visitors for
business or pleasure, and this is the class upon which a theater is
chiefly dependent for support. Mr. Gaisford, in his historical sketch
of “The Drama in New Orleans,” after remarking that perhaps in no city
of the world of such a limited population were there so many edifices
for dramatic purposes as in New Orleans,--not temporary structures,
but for the most part solid, substantial buildings,--accounts for this
circumstance by the fact that in the winter months the Crescent City
was a great rendezvous for strangers, young men attracted there by the
prospect of commercial employment; skilful mechanics who were largely
remunerated; and an immense number of transient persons with ample
means and good incomes who, being without acquaintances or at least
without friends, could not enjoy themselves in so rational a manner
as in a well conducted theater, who, he says, “could always be relied
upon and were the main support of such establishments.”[13] Something
of this kind would then, necessarily, exist in Williamsburg, as the
social, political, and business center of Virginia. The people had, as
Jones remarks, the habits and tastes of the British metropolis, and in
London, at that time, no taste was more general or widely diffused than
a taste for the drama. Some of the most renowned of English players
were then upon the stage, such as Colley Cibber, Wilks, Barton Booth,
Johnson, Bullock, Quin, Macklin, Mrs. Porter, and Mrs. Oldfield,
and Betterton; Doggett, Mrs. Barry, and Mrs. Bracegirdle had but
recently left it. The licentiousness that had prevailed alike in the
composition and representation of plays was rapidly passing away and a
better class of persons went to the theater. Addison, writing at this
period, says: “I cannot be of the opinion of the reformers of manners
in their severity toward plays; but must allow that a good play, acted
before a well-bred audience, must raise very proper incitement to good
behaviour, and be the most quick and the most prevailing method of
giving young people a turn of sense and breeding.
“When,” he continues, “the character drawn by a judicious poet is
presented by the person, the manner, the look, and the motion of an
accomplished player, what may not be brought to pass by seeing generous
things performed before our eyes? The stage is the best mirror of
human life; let me therefore recommend the oft use of a theatre as the
most agreeable and easy method of making a polite and moral gentry,
which would end in rendering the rest of the people regular in their
behaviour and ambitious of laudable undertakings.”[14]
The stage was then approximating to what Addison would have it. In
the reign of Queen Anne an act was passed forbidding anything to be
represented upon it that was derogatory to religion under the penalty
of being deprived of the right to act, and at no period, before or
since, did the stage exercise so much influence over all classes
of society in London. It was the standard or model for dress and
manners, for dress and manners were matters of much more importance
socially then than they are now; and these social habits and tastes
were transported across the Atlantic, at least to Virginia, as appears
from the account which Jones gives of the people of Williamsburg, and
we know from other sources that among the better classes, not only in
Virginia but in many of the other colonies, great attention was paid to
dress, to the cultivation of manners, and to the art of conversation.
A comparatively small expenditure was all that was necessary for
erecting a suitable theater, or converting a warehouse or other
building into one. Theaters in English towns were then, as they are at
the present day in the small towns in Germany, humble and inexpensive
structures. The compensation of actors, save in exceptionable
instances, was then very small. It supplied little more than a
subsistence, and even that was precarious. It was small even in London.
Betterton, who has been called the greatest actor, except Garrick, the
English stage has ever known,--who, Colley Cibber says, “was, as an
actor, what Shakespeare was as an author, without a competitor,”--never
received more than four pounds a week, and though a man of economical
habits and exemplary life, died, after a career upon the stage of
half a century, in limited circumstances. Yet, notwithstanding the
smallness of their pecuniary reward, players were never wanting; the
stage has such a fascination for those who have an aptitude for it and
occasionally for those who have but little, that a life of laborious
diligence and pecuniary struggle is willingly undergone for the nightly
pleasure of appearing before the footlights and sharing in the mimic
scene.
It may not unreasonably be supposed, then, that at an early period
members of this ill-requited profession made their way to Virginia,
like others with whom the world had gone hard, and found among a people
of London habits and London tastes sufficient inducement to get a
company together, and open a theater in a capital that then contained
the most aristocratic and cultivated society in the colonies.
I stated in the paper here reprinted that it appeared by an
advertisement in Bradford’s “Gazette,” in 1733, that a play-house
existed in New York in that year, and that this reference was all that
I had found respecting it. Some years afterward Mr. T. F. De Voe, to
whom I have before referred, and who is more generally known as the
author of the “Market Book,” informed me by letter that he had found in
the “New England and Boston Gazette” of January 1, 1733, under the head
of New York News of December 11, 1732, the following account of the
opening of this theater in 1732.
“On the 6th instant, the _New Theatre_ in the building of the Hon. Rip
Van Dam, Esq., was opened with the comedy of the _Recruiting Officer_,
the part of Worthy acted by the ingenious Mr. Thos. Heady, Barber and
Peruque maker to his Honor.”
That it is referred to in this paragraph as the New Theater would
seem to imply that there had been a previous one, or some building or
place where dramatic performances were given. Governor Burnet, who
had been the governor of the Colony from 1720 to 1728, was a highly
cultivated man. He is described by Smith, the first historian of New
York, as “a man of sense and of polite breeding, a well-read scholar,
sprightly, and of a social disposition. Being devoted to his books, he
abstained from all those excesses into which his pleasurable relish
would have otherwise plunged him. He studied the art of recommending
himself to the people, had nothing of the moroseness of a scholar,
was gay and condescending, affected no pomp, visited every family
of reputation, and often diverted himself in open converse with the
ladies, by whom he was very much admired;” to which he adds that he was
very fond of New York, his marriage there having connected him with
a numerous family besides an unusual acquaintance, and that he left
it with reluctance.[15] By such a man the drama might be looked upon
as favorably as it was at that period by Addison, and it may be that
during the eight years of his administration dramatic performances were
given in the city, which was the capital of the province. Rip Van Dam,
who was the owner of the building in which the New Theater was opened,
was the acting governor from the time of Burnet’s departure until the
arrival of Governor Cosby in 1732, a few months before the New Theater
was opened, and was obviously the personage denominated “his honor,” to
whom “the ingenious Mr. Thomas Heady,” who acted the part of Worthy,
stood in the important relation, in his own eyes, of barber and peruque
maker.
The New Theater, as stated in the advertisement, was in the building
belonging to Rip Van Dam, and as Kean & Murray’s Company, who came
to New York eighteen months afterward,--that is, in February,
1750,--hired, as stated in my former paper, “a large room in the
building on Nassau street, belonging to the estate of Rip Van Dam,
the two theaters, that of 1732 and 1750, were probably in the same
building, now generally referred to as the Nassau Street Theater.
The comedy with which the New Theater was opened in 1732, “The
Recruiting Officer,” is the earliest play known to have been acted in
North America, for though, as has been stated, there was a play-house
in Williamsburg ten years before, it is not known what plays were
acted there until 1736, when four are referred to, and “The Recruiting
Officer” was one of them, which had the attraction for Virginia that
the Colony was referred to in it. It was a popular play in the early
part of the last century, and continued to be acted frequently for
nearly a century and a half. Much of its wit and sprightliness is in
language that would not be tolerated now on any stage, as also some of
the minor incidents of the plot; but its raciness in this respect was
no doubt, at that time, a part of its attraction, and then its leading
parts have been enacted by great players. It was written by George
Farquhar, one of four dramatists--Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and
himself--who are generally referred to as the leading comic dramatists
of the Restoration; and of the four, this production of Farquhar
was the one that continued the longest upon the stage. Leigh Hunt,
a very competent critic, considered “The Recruiting Officer” one of
the very best of Farquhar’s plays. Every character, he says, of any
importance, is a genuine transcript from nature; that there is a charm
of gaiety and good humor throughout it, and the fresh, clear air of
a ruddy-making remote English town neighborhooded by ample elegance.
It was performed in New York in 1843, and was revived February 8,
1885, in the same city, by Mr. Augustin Daly, who has done so much to
enable the present generation to see what these witty and sprightly
old comedies are when represented on the stage, so far as it can be
done, by detaching from them what would be objectionable in the present
age, and which, in the revival of “The Recruiting Officer,” he did by
reducing its five acts to three. It will not, I think, be out of place
to show what was the result by inserting two clever criticisms that
appeared in two of the New York journals on the morning after this
revival, by writers who were not only excellent dramatic critics, but
also evidently thoroughly well acquainted with the dramatic literature
of the period when “The Recruiting Officer” was written, and the
correctness of whose account of the performance on that evening I am
able to corroborate, having been myself one of the audience on that
occasion. There is a freshness and vividness moreover in an account of
the performance of a play written immediately after seeing it, which
can rarely be imparted afterwards.
This is one of the articles:
“THE RECRUITING OFFICER.
_Captain Plume_ Mr. DREW
_Captain Brazen_ Mr. PARKES
_Justice Balance_ Mr. FISHER
_Sergeant Kite_ Mr. LEWIS
_Mr. Worthy_ Mr. SKINNER
_Bullock_ Mr. GILBERT
_Appletree_ Mr. BOND
_Pearman_ Mr. WILKS
_Balance’s Steward_ Mr. BEEKMAN
_Mistress Melinda_ Miss VIRGINIA DREHER
_Rose_ Miss MAY FIELDING
_Lucy_ Miss MAY IRWIN
_Sylvia_ Miss ADA REHAN
“I am called Captain, sir, by all the drawers and groom-porters in
London,” said Miss Ada Rehan at Daly’s Theater last night. And bravely
she wore her red coat and sword, the martial twist in her cravat, the
fierce knot in her periwig, the cane upon her button, and the dice in
her pocket. The audience were in ecstasies.
It was a revival of “The Recruiting Officer,” by George Farquhar.
The manners of Queen Anne’s day were reproduced on Mr. Daly’s stage.
_Captain Plume_ and _Sergeant Kite_ were enlisting the country lads and
paying court to the country lasses. _Justice Balance_ was keeping watch
over the morals of his daughter _Sylvia_. Sprightly _Mistress Melinda_
was intriguing for the hand of young _Worthy_. _Brazen_ was bragging of
his service in Flanders against the French and in Hungary against the
Turks. The atmosphere was charged with love, and the stage resounded
with the tap of the drum.
The audience was in a curious and observant mood. The doings on the
stage were of a wholly unfamiliar kind. The language sounded strangely
fantastic to modern ears. Ladies held their breath at the bygone
sentiment of the play. Men met in groups between the acts and wondered
what was the secret of its original success. Its secret was tolerably
simple. It was written at the time of Marlborough’s earlier victories.
Blenheim had just been won. A military fever possessed the country.
Rustics went marching round the fields with ribbons in their caps. The
recruiting officer was seen in every town. The popular song of the hour
was:
Over the hills and over the main
To Flanders, Portugal and Spain:
The Queen commands and we’ll obey;
Over the hills and far away.
Moreover, there was a steady flow of indecency in the comedy. The town
had been growing dull. Congreve had retired into the intimacy of the
Duchess of Marlborough. Wycherley was writing feeble poems under the
tutorship of that rising young man, Alexander Pope. Vanbrugh was giving
his attention to architecture. Jeremy Collier and his moral tractate
had exorcised the merry devils off the stage, and the pit mourned their
departure. So “The Recruiting Officer,” with its broad jests, was
particularly welcome. _Captain Plume_, with his amorous devices, became
the ideal of the army, and pretty _Rose_, with her chickens, furnished
laughter for the mess-room and coffee-houses.
Human nature has not much changed. Mr. Daly’s audience last night was
as fashionable an audience as could be gathered in the city. Yet the
few suggestive lines which he has left in the piece excited the loudest
laugh. Americans are not squeamish with these old plays. They know that
the comedies of the Restoration were not models of propriety. They know
that George Farquhar, the rollicking Irish captain, was not a preacher
of morality. And if the piece hung fire at times, if it seemed a trifle
heavy and monotonous, it was because the spectators had been credited
with a prudery which they did not seem to possess.
The company was a little out of its element. Mr. Drew, in particular,
should have been livelier and airier, conducting his love affairs with
as light a touch as Charles Mathews might have conducted them in other
days, or Mr. Wallack to-day. Mr. Fisher, too, pressed with too heavy a
hand on such niceties of character as have been discovered in _Justice
Balance_; and Mr. James Lewis, though discreet and refined in his
humor, extracted none of the exuberant fun from _Sergeant Kite_ with
which critics of the past have supposed that unscrupulous personage
to overflow. Mr. Skinner was a dignified young lover, and Mr. Parkes
amused as _Brazen_. But the honors of the evening rested with Miss
Virginia Dreher, who looked radiantly beautiful in a web of lace and
gold, and with Miss Ada Rehan, who had the bold step, the rakish toss
and the impudent air of your true military gallant. She was not Peg
Woffington, perhaps, but she was a charming woman in disguise, and the
town will be curious to see her.
* * * * *
This is the other:
“THE RECRUITING OFFICER.”
Another “first night” in Mr. Daly’s comfortable theater, and the same
assemblage of well-dressed people, with faces one knows by sight on
every side, and pleasurable expectancy the predominating sensation.
“Love on Crutches” has ambled gracefully out of sight, and instead of
the fresh daintiness of the modern play there were to come rollicking
humor, the buoyant spirits, the intrigue and broad wit of old English
comedy. No longer the New York fine lady, Miss Rehan was to depict
the healthy English maiden of nearly two centuries ago, and to
masquerade as well in the character of _Jack Wilful_; Mr. Drew, who
had so cleverly portrayed the young New Yorker of the last quarter
of the nineteenth century, was to assume the becoming uniform, the
rakish air, and the frolicsome manners of a British officer in the
first quarter of the eighteenth; instead of a meek and virtuous family
physician, Mr. Lewis was to be seen as a rattling and reprehensible
recruiting sergeant. In other words, George Farquhar’s bright and witty
comedy, “The Recruiting Officer,” was to be revealed to a generation of
playgoers who scarcely remembered even its title, so long had it been
left upon the shelf. Pleasurable expectations of the production were
in many respects realized. The comedy was tastefully mounted, though
without extravagance, the costumes were handsome and appropriate to the
time represented, and consequently the stage pictures revealed were
both handsome and quaint. That the old-time flavor was fully preserved
in the action it would be folly to say. An intelligent performance of
Farquhar’s comedy was given, however, with much of the original text,
and everybody present interested in the history and literature of the
English stage found abundant entertainment. Mr. Daly has compressed the
five acts of Farquhar into three, slightly altering the sequence of
some of the scenes, expunging lines of dubious meaning, and many not
at all dubious, and quickening the dénouement. While “The Recruiting
Officer,” is not so ingeniously constructed as “The Beaux’ Stratagem,”
its dialogue bristles with repartee, every character is clearly
defined, and the plot is clever though slight. The scene is laid at
Shrewsbury, and the personages are simple townsfolk and military men.
There is a quartet of lovers, a wise father, a noisy braggart, the
_Sergeant_, who fills the position of intriguing valet to the hero, a
designing lady’s maid, a knowing market girl, and a trio of bumpkins.
The heroine, being sent away by her father to avoid her lover, returns
in male attire to test the hero’s affections, and after some strange
experiences weds him. The play, of course, has famous associations. Peg
Woffington played _Sylvia_ when the veteran Quin was _Justice Balance_;
Elliston played _Captain Plume_, and in later years this was one of
Charles Kemble’s favorite parts; Munden and Knight were the original
representatives of the two recruits, _Pearmain_ and _Appletree_,[16]
and Irish Johnstone was _Sergeant Kite_. In that cast Ann Oldfield
was _Sylvia_, Cibber _Brazen_ and Wilks, Farquhar’s nearest friend,
_Captain Plume_. It was a fancy of Farquhar’s friends that _Plume_
was a portrait of himself. He had been a dashing officer during his
brief and eventful career, as well as actor and dramatist. Farquhar’s
life was a sad one, in spite of the legacy of merriment he left to the
world in his works. He left college to go upon the stage, which, after
accidentally wounding a brother actor in a fencing combat, he abandoned
for the army. He died at the age of thirty, leaving no fortune for
his family, although within a decade he had written seven successful
comedies, “Love and a Bottle,” “The Constant Couple,” “The Inconstant;
or, Wine Works Wonders,” “The Stage Coach,” “The Recruiting Officer,”
and “The Beaux’ Stratagem,” during the run of which he expired, in the
Spring of 1707. Farquhar was a man of genius, a keen observer, and,
like most of his kind, a stanch foe to all pretense. His low-comedy
characters were true to nature in their conceits and frailties, as
well as in their manner of speech; his high-bred dames were not
always circumspect in their behavior, while his young gentlemen were
devil-may-care fellows, glib of tongue, affable, generous, but not
exactly proper. He belonged to his age, and, compared with the work
of some of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors, his writings
were purity itself. With the exception of “The Inconstant” we do not
remember that any of his comedies had been performed here in recent
years, until “The Recruiting Officer” was seen last evening. They
demand of actors dashing manners, freedom and breadth of style, which
few performers of the present day possess. The charm of last evening’s
representation lay in the portrayal of _Sylvia_ by Miss Rehan. Indeed
this was the only individual piece of work that could be said to have
any charm, and although _Sylvia_ is the heroine the part is scarcely
more important than at least two of the others. Miss Rehan was not
only successful in catching the spirit of the piece, and transmitting
it to the audience, so far as her own part was concerned, but she
invested the character with womanly tenderness and delicacy, and put
more meaning into a few important lines of the text than appears on
the surface. As _Sylvia_ herself, she was the affectionate and dutiful
daughter, who felt more sorrow for her brother’s death, doubtless, than
the author intended; as _Master Jack Wilful_, and his _alter ego_,
_Captain Pinch_, who took snuff with a pinch, and in short, could do
anything at a pinch, her imitation of the foppish manners and languid
nonchalance of the London buck was deliciously droll and seemed not a
bit incongruous, though it is not likely that it was so pronounced as
Mistress Ann Oldfield’s treatment of the same passages. Miss Rehan,
in short, was thoroughly at home in the old comedy. If her work was
not strictly in keeping with traditions, it was still delightful and
artistic. She interpreted Farquhar in her own way, but without missing
his meaning, except where his meaning would not be tasteful to a modern
audience. Her treatment of the scenes with _Rose_, for instance, was
admirable; and the tact and refinement of the actress were needed in
these in spite of careful “editing” and expunging. It is needless to
say that Miss Rehan presented a handsome picture in the fine raiment of
_Master Wilful_, and the well-setting uniform of the gay _Captain_. Mr.
Charles Fisher handled the character of old _Balance_ in his accustomed
manner; the mode of old comedy is familiar to this veteran, for he was
educated to it, and was a rising actor when Farquhar’s comedy was last
given at the old “Park,” forty-two years ago. Miss Dreher spoke the
lines of languid _Miss Melinda_ in the right spirit, and was a fine
lady to the life, but the part is of little interest. Mr. Drew bore
himself well in his uniform, and his acting was extremely good at some
points, notably, in the combat with _Brazen_. But he lacks the joyous,
rattling style essential to the proper rendering of such a character.
No one, for instance, would ever take _Captain Plume_, as played by
Mr. Drew, for a portrait of George Farquhar. Mr. Lewis, as _Kite_,
was Mr. Lewis; Mr. Skinner, as _Worthy_, was Guy Roverly dressed for
a masquerade; _Brazen_, in the hands of Mr. Parkes, should be renamed
Wooden; _Bullock_ was made by Mr. Gilbert, an ill-fed fellow, dry
instead of unctuous, and the two recruits were colorless sketches. Miss
Fielding was pretty and interesting as the chicken girl, and Miss Irwin
amusing as _Melinda’s_ maid. At times the performance dragged when Miss
Rehan was off the stage, but Mr. Daly is to be thanked for the revival
all the same, which, as we have intimated, is well worth seeing.
Which ends this second writer’s notice of the revival.
* * * * *
The first representation of the play was at Drury Lane in 1706. The
original Sylvia was Mrs. Oldfield, a tall, beautiful, finely formed
woman, with an exquisite, clear, and powerful voice, that made her as
impressive in tragedy as she was fascinating in comedy. Fielding, the
novelist, says that her “ravishing perfection made her the admiration
of every eye and every ear”; and Colley Cibber and other contemporaries
unite in giving her the most unstinted praise. Such an actress, in
such a part as Sylvia, the most interesting character in the play,
must have been very attractive, especially in that portion of it where
Sylvia appears in male attire, dressed as a young officer. It was to
her that Pope referred, according to Warton, in the well-known lines,
descriptive of a feminine wish at the closing moment of life:
“Odious! in woollen! ’twould a saint provoke”
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke).
“No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face.
One would not, sure, be frightful when one’s dead
And--Betty--give this cheek a little Red.”
The original Captain Plume, the recruiting officer, was Wilks, the
most distinguished actor at that time on the English stage, and this
part continued for a long time thereafter to be a favorite one with
actors who had the advantages of a handsome face, a fine person, and
the temperament to impart to it that vivacity and airiness that the
character requires. The original Kite, the recruiting sergeant, a
part that affords great scope for the powers of a low comedian, was
Estcourt, a famous mimic, of whom Colley Cibber says: “This man was
so amazing and extraordinary a mimic that no man or woman from the
coquette to the privy councillor ever moved or spoke before him but he
could carry their voice, look, mien, and motion instantly into another
company,” and he adds, “even to the manner of thinking of an eminent
pleader of the bar with every, the least article and singularity
of his utterance so perfectly imitated that he was the very _alter
ipse_, scarcely to be distinguished from his original.”[17] Farquhar,
the author of the comedy, schooled him for this particular part, his
performance of which has been highly praised. “Witness” says Dowse,
“his Sergeant Kite; he is not only excellent in it, but a superlative
mimic.” “Mr. Estcourt,” says Chetwood, “the original Sergeant Kite,
every night of performance entertained the audience with a variety of
little catches and flights of humor that pleased all but his critics.”
This allusion to his critics refers to Cibber and some others who,
whilst admitting his great powers as a mimic, declared that he was
but an indifferent actor, an opinion in which others who were equally
competent to judge did not concur, and which on Cibber’s part was
attributed to his desire to play leading parts, to which he could not
succeed during Estcourt’s life. Estcourt may by his imitations of their
acting or peculiarities have offended actors and others, who, however
much they might enjoy such a representation of others, may have looked
very differently upon a like representation of themselves, a good
illustration of which is found in an anecdote of Estcourt and Sir
Godfrey Kneller, the celebrated portrait painter of that period.
Secretary Craggs, when a young man, in company with some of his
friends, went with Estcourt to Sir Godfrey Kneller’s, and whispered to
him that a gentleman present was able to give such a representation of
many among his most principal patrons as would occasion the greatest
surprise. Estcourt accordingly, at the artist’s earnest desire,
mimicked Lords Somers, Halifax, Godolphin, and others so exactly that
Kneller was delighted and laughed heartily at the imitation. Craggs
gave a signal as previously concerted, and Estcourt immediately
imitated Kneller himself, who cried out in a transport of ungovernable
conviction, “Nay, there you are out, man. By G----, that’s not me!”
In the colonial society, or “people of figure,” as they were then
called in New York, where so much depended upon manners, well-arranged
apparel and a flowing wig, a peruke maker was, at least in his own
estimation, a person of consequence, as appears from the manner in
which Mr. Heady is referred to in the paragraph that has been quoted,
and also from an announcement that appeared in the “New York Weekly
Post Boy” of March 5, 1750, about three weeks after the opening of the
Nassau Street Theater by Kean & Murray’s company, as mentioned in my
former paper, which announcement is as follows:
“This is to acquaint the public that there is lately arrived from
London the _Wonder_ of the _World, an honest Barber and Peruke
Maker_, who might have worked for the King if his Majesty would have
employed him; it was not for the want of money that he came here,
for he had enough of that at Home; nor for the want of Business that
he advertises himself; but to acquaint the gentlemen and ladies that
such a _Person is now in Town_ living near _Rosemary Lane_, where
Gentlemen and Ladies may be supplied with Goods as follows, viz.:
Tyes, Full Bottoms, Myers, Spencers, Fox-Tails, Ramilies, Tucks, Cut
kinds of head coverings and adornments, and bob Perukes; also Ladies’
Talemalongues and Towers, after the Manner that is now wore at Court.
By their humble and obedient Servant,
“JOHN STILL.”
The hibernicism that he did not put in the advertisement for the want
of business, nor to make money, of which he had plenty, but merely
to apprise the ladies and gentlemen that _such a person_ was then in
town, was, if genuine, an exhibition of enormous self-importance, or it
was what is more probable, a comic effort to attract attention to his
calling by one who was something of an adept in that way, who may have
been a member of the theatrical company that were then performing, and
who followed the three pursuits of a barber, a peruke maker, and an
actor.
It would appear that there was a second opening of a theater in New
York seven years afterwards. All that I know respecting it is that
there is a manuscript volume in the possession of Mr. William Nelson,
of Paterson, New Jersey, handsomely engrossed with ornamental
lettering, entitled: