Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Dedication
- Preface
- Chapter One A Sorcerer's Apprentice? John Weaver's Comic Music
- Chapter Two Theatre Wars: Harlequin Doctor Faustus at Drury Lane
- Chapter Three Lun Strikes Back: The Necromancer at Lincoln's Inn Fields
- Chapter Four Hocus-Pocus: Operas, Popular Culture, and Hogarth
- Chapter Five John Weaver's Last Dance with a Harlot
- Bibliography of Cited Works
- Index
Chapter Two - Theatre Wars: Harlequin Doctor Faustus at Drury Lane
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Dedication
- Preface
- Chapter One A Sorcerer's Apprentice? John Weaver's Comic Music
- Chapter Two Theatre Wars: Harlequin Doctor Faustus at Drury Lane
- Chapter Three Lun Strikes Back: The Necromancer at Lincoln's Inn Fields
- Chapter Four Hocus-Pocus: Operas, Popular Culture, and Hogarth
- Chapter Five John Weaver's Last Dance with a Harlot
- Bibliography of Cited Works
- Index
Summary
Pray tell me, whether, in a vicious Age,
The Stage corrupts the Town, or Town the Stage?
For both concur, when Folly makes its way;
But where the Fault begins, ‘tis hard to say.
So goes the quatrain included on the title page of a satiric rebuke of the two Harlequin Doctor Faustus afterpieces that had premiered near the end of 1723. The satire, by Edward (Ned) Ward (1667-1731), was offered in seventy pages of rhymed verse under the title, The Dancing Devils, or the Roaring Dragon. A Dumb Farce, issued in 1724, when the two productions were still at the height of their popularity. Ward's attack was one of many that appeared in the next few years, during which Drury Lane and John Rich's Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre continued to turn tidy profits from revivals of the Harlequin Doctor Faustus pieces. To answer Ward's uncertainty as to where the ‘fault’ might have begun, the clear majority of critical reaction assigns blame to the theatre managers. Even before Rich's response to Drury Lane's sudden hit had received its first performance, one journalist complained:
I have my Eye upon Harlequin Doctor Faustus, where there is some Transformation in Scenery, but we cannot tell to what End, for we see no Intrigue carrying on, nor no Plot design'd; but these Things are shewn only for the sake of shewing them; therefore I advise the Managers, whenever they give one of these unmeaning Entertainments again, that one of them should stand up on the Stage, and before they begin, tell the Audience, Gentlemen and Ladies, the next Trick we shall present you with, &c. as is practic'd by Mr. Fawkes, and other ingenious Persons, who show Tricks and nothing else.
Isaac Fawkes (d 1732) amassed a fortune as a popular magician who performed in booths at Southwark and Bartholomew fairs during the summer months, and various venues in London in winter, including John (Johann Jacob) Heidegger's (1666-1749) Haymarket Theatre (the opera house), on evenings when the popular masquerades were offered.
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- Studies in the English Pantomime1712–1733, pp. 21 - 60Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2017