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A Thousand Years of British Theatre History (Part 4b)The Eighteenth CenturyTheatres Pantomimes were a great success, so much so that Lun/Rich was able to build another theatre in Covent Garden, just round the corner from Drury Lane. Confusingly, these theatres, which were within a stone's throw of each other, were both called the Theatre Royal, and the rivalry between them was to last a long time. In starting a new theatre, Lun was following in the footsteps of another former manager of Lincoln's Inn Fields, Thomas Betterton, who opened the Queen's in the Haymarket (designed by Vanbrugh) in 1705. The new theatre, of course, became a legitimate theatre, but after a few years it became obvious that it ws not suitable for drama, and Betterton returned to Lincoln's Inn, whilst his new theatre became London's opera house. A number of new theatres of the illegitimate variety sprang up thereafter. Henry Fielding's attackes on Walpole were performed at a small theatre in the Haymarket, which closed when Fielding was forced out of playwriting by the advent of the Theatre Licensing Act. Samuel Foote re-opened it ten years later and tried to avoid censorship by charging his audiences for tea and providing "free entertainment"! Another new theatre, in Goodman's Fields, also closed briefly as a result of the Act but its manager, Henry Giffard, re-opened it a short while later, and it was there that Garrick made his debut in 1741. Not only did new theatres open, but existing ones grew in size. Both Drury Lane and Covent Garden were revamped in the nineties to seat in excess of 3000 people. The Actors Although there were celebrated actors and actresses right from the beginning of the century, it was 1741 that was the start of the real flowering of the actor's art. As we have seen, it was in the October of that year that Garrick made his first appearance in Richard III in Goodman's Fields. This, we should be aware, was Colley Cibber's version, not Shakespeare's! Garrick, of course, was not only an actor but a manager, running Drury Lane from 1747 to 1776, who approached the modern director in his control over what his actors did on-stage and who banned the practice of audience members sitting on the actual stage. Earlier, in February at Drury Lane, Macklin had astounded the theatre-going public with his interpretation of Shylock. Instead of the melodramatic villain, here was a Shylock who was dignified, a performance of which Pope said, "This was the Jew that Shakespeare drew." In the latter half of the century, two other still famous names came to the fore: the actor-manager John Philip Kemble and his sister Sarah Siddons, both of whose careers, of course, extended into the nineteenth century. The Provincial Theatre The great plays of fifteenth century and earlier, of course, were the Mysteries, which were associated with particular towns and cities, the best known today being in the midlands and the north. As we have seen, these had died (or been killed) by the end of the sixteenth century, and then and in the next, provincial towns had to be satisfied with touring companies. All of this changed in the seventeenth with the growth of provincial theatre. There grew up what were essentially rep companies based in theatres in many major towns and cities, the most famous being Lincoln, Nottingham, Norwich, Bath and York, and they would tour the surrounding area. York, for instance, served Doncaster, Hull, Leeds, Pontefract and Wakefield, whilst the Nottingham-based company toured to Derby, Retford, Stamford, Wolverhampton and Worcester. Such was the importance of these theatres that the London "stars" would often appear there in their best known roles, supported by the theatre's resident company. In fact, many of the top London names actually began their careers in the provinces, Kemble and Siddons being just two such. Links
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