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Acting Questions: A Beginning to
Georgian Theatre
Alex Spieth
What were the Major Theatres?
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Drury Lane Theatre
Little Theatre in Haymarket
King’s Theatre
Covent Garden
Lord Barrymore’s theatre at Wargrove
Theatres in Georgian Theatre
• No new theatres build for half a century after
the Licensing Act in Britain
• Basic Layout was Forestage flanked by stage
box and proscenium gave onto scenic stage
– Dressing Rooms, Green Rooms small but were
considered essential
– Basic Lighting began as Candles became wing
lighting and footlights
Drury Lane Theatre
• Drury Lane Theatre, opened in 1674, after
being destroyed by a fire in 1672
• David Garrick, well known actor, and RB
Sheridan were managers of the Drury Lane
Drury Lane Theatre
• First Garrick Significant Achievement: Under
Garrick, the theatre ENDED the practice of the
audience being able to occupy special sections of
the stage (1762) and enlarged seating capacity
– In Dublin, the law was supported due to an incident
concerning Thomas Sheridan where one of the
drunken patrons tried to rape an actress
– According to Tate Wilkenson, the audience on stage
was a real problem: “Mr Quin, age sixty-five, with the
heavy dress of Falstaff…was several minutes before he
could pass through the numbers that wedged and
hemmed him in”
Drury Lane Theatre
• 2nd Garrick Achievement: extensive
Reconstruction in 1775
• In 1791, Sheridan tore down the Drury Lane
for a bigger theatre which was opened in
1794, but it too burnt to the ground in 1809;
Drury Lane
Theatre
in 1808
What were Theatres like?
• In Sheridan’s day, there was no moment of
change from “crowd” to “audience” because
the lights all stayed LIGHT—brighter than any
other place at light
• LOTS of people went: 12,000 people went
weekly to the theatre in London—2,300
people fought to get in each night
What were Theatres Like?
• Line between performers and audience was
thin and could be broken
– SO MANY RIOTS, riots in 1743, 1750, 1755, 1770,
1776 in the Drury Lane alone
• Night’s entertainment made up of a main play
(5 acts) and an afterpiece (about 2 acts)
• 2/3rds of the way through the unsold seats were
knocked to half price, so another influx came in IN THE
MIDDLE OF THE PLAY
What were Theatres Like?
• POLITICAL: The Drury Lane and the near-by
Covent garden took two sides of the political
arena
– Drury Lane: Opposition’s theatre, Whig Factions,
King rarely visited
– Covent: Government’s theatre, King visited often
What was (Sheridan’s) Theatre like?
• Sheridan saw the theatre as a vehicle to the
center of network connections, theatre
worked as a weather vane of public mood and
ideas, it connected him to the past and future
Changes in Theatre: Scenic/ Lighting
• Due to the new freedom from audience onstage,
the players had to move into the scenic stage
rather than playing on just the front of the stage
– Philip de Loutherberg (Drury Lane) experimented
with asymmetrical flats and free standing peices
– John Inigo Richards (Covent)
• This required better lighting, apart from candles
– Garrick visited Paris in 1763 and brought back new
lighting activities
Lighting
Scene
from
School for
Scandal,
shows
directional
lighting, oil
painting by
James
Roberts
Lighting
School for
Scandal,
Engraving by
James
Roberts.
Note
directional
Lighting
“Growing Theatre”: Costumes
• Costumes: Players in comedies mostly wore
modern dress, usually found or provided out
of stock.
– Little real knowledge of what people wore
historically
– There was some movement to set various famous
plays in their respective homes (Macbeth wearing
Scottish garb in Macklin’s production)
Responses to Costumes
• There was some backlash to costumes being predominantly
the dress of the day
• John Hill pleads for greater naturalism in costumes, “The
first time Mr. Garrick played Macbeth, he took occasion in
one of his scenes of greatest confusion to enter with his
coat and waistcoat both unbuttoned…he did this, however,
only the first night, and lost, by omitting it afterwards all
merit of having done it at all…”
• He also when speaking on Mrs. Pritchard’s performance as
Jane Shore, “And in conclusion, nothing could be so
unnatural as to see that plump and rosy figure endeavoring
to present us with a view of the utmost want and starving”
Costumes
Sarah Siddons and Garrick as Mr. and
Mrs. Macbeth
Garrick as Macbeth
Costumes
Charles Macklin,
looking a bit
cartoonish, as
Macbeth
Acting Style
• Older Tradition (one way to play a character,
that way handed down from master to
apprentice) was going out of style
• Opposition to studied gestures and voices of
old
• Booth and Wilkes (older school) vs. Macklin
and Garrick (younger school)
• New Naturalism (under Garrick and Macklin)
was emerging
Acting Style
• Grace (Rao) was considered a very important
attribute on stage; many actors were
encouraged to study painting (especially
historical painting) to gain a grasp on the
world
• John Hill wrote on how a). Emotional
involvement was needed for playing b). The
importance of varying pace and tone (and also
not going hoarse)
Acting Style
• From Dramatic Essays by Leigh Hunt, “Mrs.
Siddons never has the air of being an
actress…This always marks one of the great
actor. The player who amuses himself by
looking in the audience for admiration may be
assured never gets any…”
Major Players
• Charles Macklin: natural style of acting,
creating a school for vocal training
• David Garrick: see later
• Sarah Siddons
• Mrs. Margaret Woffington: so good humored,
gay, and good that no man matched her/
society women and “breeches parts”
• Dorothy Jordan: famous for “breeches parts”
Who were the Major Players?
• David Garrick: manager of the Drury Lane
from 1747 to 1766,advanced a lot of the
Shakespearian theatre (put on 23 of
Shakespeare’s plays while at the Drury Lane)
• Promoted “realism” acting over the previous
bombastic style/ sought to reform audience
behavior
• REVOLUTIONAIZED ACTING in the 18th century
Who were the Major Players?
• The Pope saw Garrick three times in
performance and said, “That young man has
never had his equal as an actor, and he shall
never have a rival”
Garrick
By Joshua Reynolds
By Angelica Kaufman
Dorothy Jordan
Jordan as Viola, by John
Hopper
Jordan as Hippolyta,
by John Jones
Audiences
• Not just upper or
middle class, but
all people went
to the theatre
A Rowlandson print,
contrasting London
Audiences and the
Country Audiences