INTENDED FOR THE SECOND OPENING OF THE
THEATRE AT NEW YORK, ANNO 1739,
which is as follows:
Encourag’d by th’ Indulgence you have shown,
Again we strive to entertain the Town,
This gen’rous Town which nurs’d our infant Stage
And cast a Shelter o’er its tender Age,
It’s young Attempts beyond their Merits prais’d
Fond of the little Bantling she had rais’d
Go on to cherish to a Stronger Size
This Spur to Virtue, this keen Scourge to Vice!
Ye Faultless Fair, lend all your influence here!
O Patronize the Child, you cannot Fear.
Oft when the Serious Admonition Fails
O’er the lov’d Fault the Comick Mask prevails;
Safe From the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne,
Vice blushing yields to ridicule alone.
This ancient Greece this the Great Romans knew,
They held th’ instructive Mirrour Fair to view;
That each his own Deformities might trace
And smooth his features by the Faithful Glass.
When Arts and Sciences began to Smile,
And shed their Lustre on our Parent Isle,
Attendant on their Steps the Drama came,
Like theirs th’ Improvement of Mankind her Aim;
Intent on this with them she journeys West,
To our New World, a wish’d, a welcome Guest;
Here pleas’d she sees her Stage erect its head,
Her Children honour’d, & her Servants Fed;
Prophetick views in you her second Rome
And swells her Breast with Empire yet to come.[18]
The researches of the writer of an article in “The New-York Times”
of December the 15th, 1895, has brought to light some information
hitherto unknown of these early American theaters. He has examined the
newspaper files of the Library Society in Charleston, South Carolina,
from 1732, and finds, on the 24th of January, 1735, that a play was
acted in Charles Town, as the name was then written, and he gives this
advertisement of it in the “South Carolina Gazette,” dated, as was then
customary, from Jan. 18, 1734-35:
On Friday, the 24th inst., in the Court Room, will be attempted a
tragedy called “The Orphan, or The Unhappy Marriage.”
Tickets will be delivered out on Tuesday next, at Mr. Shepheard’s, at
40s. each.
Forty shillings would seem to be a high price at that time to pay for
a ticket to a dramatic entertainment. But what the value of a shilling
was then in South Carolina compared to the value of a pound sterling,
I do not know. The price of a box ticket at Kean & Murray’s theater
in Nassau street fifteen years afterwards was five shillings New York
currency, which was about the value of two dollars at the present
day, and if the value of the South Carolina currency at that day was
anything near that of New York, this high price for admission would
imply either that the Court House where the performance of Otway’s
Orphan took place did not afford room for many spectators or that the
number of persons who were expected to patronize the entertainment was
small, so that a high price of admission was necessary to meet the
expenses and afford some remuneration to the players, who, I infer,
were a regular theatrical company, as a charge was made for admission,
and the performances were continued once a week, from the 24th of
January to March 23, 1735-36, during which tragedies, comedies,
farces, and other entertainments were given.
The writer in the “Times” says that the play announced in the
advertisement, Otway’s “Orphan,” was performed, though the next
“Gazette” took no notice of it, the “local” being of the briefest
character; but the number of the “Gazette” of February, 1736, published
the Prologue spoken on the opening night, which has at least the merit
of easy versification and of being appropriate to such an occasion: He
gives it as follows: