Chapter 5 part 4: David Garrick's legacy
The men weren’t necessarily easier to deal with than the women. Up there on the billing with Garrick, or just beneath him, was his old chum Charles Macklin (until their falling-out), a much-loved low comedian called Ned Shuter and a handsome leading man from Ireland called Spranger Barry. Over at Covent Garden John Rich was having to contend with the likes of Theophilus Cibber, James Quin and Samuel Foote – actors of the old school, you could say.
Garrick’s ‘reforms’ were not exactly consistent. Having promised to return Shakespeare to his original he continued to fiddle with the texts. He cut out all reference to Romeo’s previous love Rosaline from Romeo and Juliet – which incidentally had not been performed for eighty years – and he added a scene at the end where Juliet awoke in the tomb before Romeo killed himself, which gave Mrs Cibber and Spranger Barry the opportunity for a heart-breaking lovers’ farewell “in which [the actors] excelled themselves.”[1]
He also rewrote Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew to exclude all the scenes that did not feature Catherine and Petruchio and renamed the play, appropriately enough, Catherine and Petruchio. He produced a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a light opera with 28 songs and no rude mechanicals and called it The Fairies. A Winter’s Tale became Florizel and Perdita and began at Act IV of Shakespeare’s version. His Hamlet excluded Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (not so unusual) and the gravediggers, had Hamlet kill his stepfather/uncle Claudio in a duel, Gertrude going insane and Hamlet, as he lies dying, asking Horatio to forgive Laertes. The Tempest, which was far better known to audiences in ‘doctored’ versions, was restored to its original.
Audiences would not have known the difference. Brought up on varying adaptations of Shakespeare these were just more of the more-or-less same.
At one point, deliberately or otherwise, both theatres produced Romeo and Juliet at the same time. Mrs Cibber and Spranger Barry had defected to Covent Garden, and Garrick and George Anne Bellamy took their places at Drury Lane. The spat continued for twelve nights, so some audience members took to watching half the play in one theatre and the other half in the other.
In 1749 Garrick finally got married, to a dancer named Eva-Marie Violette, known as ‘La Violette’. It was a happy marriage, though it produced no children, and Mrs G was evidently quite content to give up her career to devote herself to her husband and his.
Garrick meanwhile was having to contend with Difficult Company Members. Susannah Cibber had health problems. Spranger Barry’s relationship with James Quin was so strained they refused to rehearse together, and often one or sometimes both would not turn up. Miss Bellamy had become altogether too big for her boots and Garrick was keen to get rid of her. When Mrs Cibber returned to Drury Lane and was offered parts Miss Bellamy considered hers she left anyway.
Then there were the audiences. There were riots in the house on more than one occasion, once when French dancers appeared on stage and once when a mischief-maker named Thadeus Fitzpatrick stood up in his box during a performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona and harangued David Garrick on stage about the practice of no refunds. His supporters proceeded to tear up the seats, break the mirrors and chandeliers and attempt to storm the stage to set fire to the scenery. Limbs were broken, frightened patrons tried to hide under their seats. At one point Garrick went home to find every one of his windows broken. Threats were made on the lives of him and his fellow performers.
Nor had Garrick manage to banish the audience from the stage. It’s said Mrs Cibber’s Juliet awoke in her tomb to find herself surrounded by strangers peering at her from close quarters. Yorick’s grave was so crowded there was no room for Hamlet. The Battle of Bosworth was confined to a tiny corner of a packed stage, and one actress broke an arm when she fell down trying to exit into the overcrowded wings at a run. All of which sounds almost unbelievable to the twenty-first century onlooker.
Notwithstanding all that, David Garrick’s achievements were legion. He restored Shakespeare to the theatre canon, albeit not always in the original form; he raised the status and the pay of actors, introduced sick pay and initiated and paid for the setting up of a Drury Lane Theatrical Fund in aid of down-on-their-luck actors and their families.
Most importantly, he managed one of London’s two legitimate theatres through a very difficult period for almost thirty years. He diplomatically manoeuvred his way through audience riots, tricky actors and a rival theatre, all while appearing regularly on stage himself and writing plays. He may have been over-sensitive on occasion and perhaps a tad vain, but he was also generous (despite his earlier reputation), good-hearted, warm, loving, hard-working and the most gifted actor of his generation.
Garrick received the equivalent of a state funeral. The roads from his home in Adelphi Terrace to his final resting place in Westminster Abbey were packed and the procession itself comprised more than fifty coaches. Attendees included his widow, knights of the realm and aristocracy, Gentlemen of the Literary Club, actors and staff working at Drury Lane and an openly sobbing Samuel Johnson.
He died a rich man, leaving a fortune by his own estimation of nearly one hundred thousand pounds (£21m today, though this estimation was disputed). Mrs Garrick, who outlived him by 43 years, inherited the houses at Adelphi Terrace and Hampton and a generous annual legacy; the rest went to Garrick’s siblings, nieces and nephews. The houses Garrick had bought near Drury Lane for “the fund for decayed actors” went back to the fund.
As I have always maintained, actors very rarely make fortunes from their stage work alone. Garrick’s fortune, whatever it was actually worth, came from his work as a theatre manager as well as the best-paid actor of his time. And I’m sure I’m not alone in saying he deserved every penny.
Next: 18th century playhouses
[1] David Garrick, Carola Oman