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New Light on Vanbrugh's Haymarket Theatre Project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Judith Milhous
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Extract

The general outlines of Vanbrugh's Haymarket theatre project are well known. Since 1695 two companies had been playing in London: Christopher Rich's, with rights to Drury Lane and Dorset Garden; and Thomas Betterton's rebels, making shift in the cramped old Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre. The Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket was the first new theatre in London since “Wren's” “plain built” Drury Lane (1674), and the first lavish one since Dorset Garden (1671)—which had fallen into disrepair, and by the turn of the century was barely usable. The standard account of Vanbrugh's project is Colley Cibber's.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , November 1976 , pp. 143 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1976

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References

1 Cibber, , Apology, ed. Lowe, Robert W., 2 vols. (1889; rpt. New York, 1966), I, 319–320Google Scholar.

2 Allen, Robert J., “The Kit-Cat Club and the Theatre,” RES, 7 (1931), 56–61Google Scholar; Mullin, Donald C., “The Queen's Theatre, Haymarket: Vanbrugh's Opera House,” Theatre Survey, 8 (1967), 84–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nalbach, Daniel, The King's Theatre 1704–1867 (London, 1972)Google Scholar.

3 Allen also cites a 1705 pamphlet, “A Kit-Kat C—b Describ'd,” which identifies the club with the theatre project, and suggests that Jacob Tonson, the “secretary” of the club, collected the subscription payments (The Clubs of Augustan London [Cambridge, Mass., 1933], p. 236)Google Scholar. Tonson was publisher for both Vanbrugh and Congreve.

4 Survey of London, vol. 29 (London, 1960), p. 223Google Scholar. The evidence on Hervey is from his Diary, published in 1894.

5 For permission to publish this document, Portland MS. PW2.571, I am greatly indebted to his Grace the Duke of Portland and to Mrs. M. A. Welch, Keeper of the Manuscripts, Nottingham University Library.

6 William Congreve: Letters and Documents, ed. Hodges, John C. (New York, 1964), #22Google Scholar.

7 A Review of the Affairs of France, II, #26 (3 May 1705)Google Scholar, from Defoe's Review, ed. Secord, Arthur Wellesley (New York, 1938)Google Scholar. The Diary of John Hervey, First Earl of Bristol (Wells, 1894), p. 157Google Scholar.

8 Hodges, John C. calls attention to this document in William Congreve, the Man (New York, 1941), p. 75Google Scholar. Cf. HMC, 13th Report, Appendix, Part II (1893), p. 185Google Scholar. The original document is now on deposit in the British Library (Cavendish Papers 29/237, MS 50860). The Duke of Portland has very kindly allowed me to make use of it.

9 The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh, ed. Dobrée, Bonamy and Webb, Geoffrey, 4 vols. (Bloomsbury, 1927–1928), IV, 8Google Scholar.

10 For a discussion of the series of Kit-Cat portraits painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller between ca. 1703 and 1721, see Piper, David, Catalogue of Seventeenth-Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625–1714 (Cambridge, England, 1963), pp. 398–403Google Scholar. The twelve Kit-Cats known from portrait evidence are: Somerset, Richmond, Carlisle, Halifax, Essex, Manchester, Kingston, Grafton, Cornwallis, Dunch, Hartington (later Devonshire), and Wharton.

11 See the discussion in Hotson, Leslie, The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage (1928; rpt. New York, 1962), pp. 299 ff., esp. 306CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 For the reversal of the dates of these productions given in The London Stage, see Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., “Dating Play Premières from Publication Data, 1660–1700,” HLB, 22 (1974), 374–405Google Scholar.

13 See Hotson, pp. 300–302. The principal document is P.R.O. C8 599/74.

14 In the days of the worst warfare between the two companies, Matthew Prior made the connection explicit, writing to a friend: “To-morrow night Betterton acts Falstaff, and to encourage that poor house the Kit Katters have taken one side-box.” Cited in The London Stage 1660–1800, Part 1: 1660–1700, ed. Van Lennep, William, Avery, Emmett L., and Scouten, Arthur H. (Carbondale, Ill., 1965), p. 522Google Scholar.

15 See Kenny, Shirley Strum, “Theatrical Warfare 1695–1710,” TN, 27 (1973), 130–145, esp. p. 140Google Scholar.

16 See “The Date and Import of the Financial Plan for a United Theatre Company in P.R.O. LC 7/3,” Maske und Kothurn, 21 (1975), 81–88Google Scholar. A printed version of the document is readily available in Nicoll, Allardyce, A History of English Drama 1660–1900, 6 vols., rev. edn. (Cambridge, Eng., 1952–1959), II, 276–278Google Scholar.

17 “About the end of 1704. Mr. Betterton Assign'd his License, and his whole Company over to Captain Vantbrugg to Act under HIS, at the Theatre in the Hay Market.” (Downes, John, Roscius Anglicanus [London, 1708], pp. 47–48Google Scholar.) Charles Gildon also mentions the transfer and implies that the venture was not connected with Betterton to begin with (The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton [London, 1710], p. 10)Google Scholar. For the license issued to Vanbrugh and Congreve, see P.R.O. LC 5/154, p. 35.

18 The Post-Boy Robb'd of his Mail, 2nd edn. (London, 1706), Letter XLIIGoogle Scholar.

19 On Vanbrugh's involvement with Italian opera, see Olleson, Philip, “Vanbrugh and Opera at the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket,” TN, 26 (1972), 94–101Google Scholar.

20 For example, the 1674 Tempest, Psyche, Albion and Albanius, The Prophetess, and King Arthur. A later example of the genre, produced at the Haymarket, is Granville's The British Enchanters (1706). On that show set Lincoln, Stoddard, “The Anglicization of Amadis de Gaul” On Stage and Off, ed. Ehrstine, John W. et al. (Pullman, Wash., 1968), pp. 46–52Google Scholar.

21 Nicoll prints this petition (I, 384–385) with the date “1697/8 or later.” But since the heading is “To Her Majesty's Lord Chamberlain …” it cannot predate February 1702.

22 Preface to Arsinoe, quoted by Burney, Charles, A General History of Music, ed. Mercer, Frank, 2 vols. (1935; rpt. New York, 1957), II, 655Google Scholar.

23 One hint that Rich was suddenly looking for ways to compete against a fancy theatre is the series of ads in the Daily Courant in December 1704 announcing the imminent re-opening of Dorset Garden. It did not, in fact, re-open at that time.

24 Of Rinaldo at Lincoln's Inn Fields, an anonymous author comments: “this surpriz'd not only Drury-lane, but indeed all the Town, no body ever dreaming of an Opera there … [though] 'tis true they had heard of Homer's Illiads in a Nut-shel, and Jack in a Box, and what not.” A Comparison Between the Two Stages (1702), ed. Wells, Staring B. (Princeton, N.J., 1942), p. 22Google Scholar.

25 The only work with this title in the period was played at the Haymarket in November 1712.

26 Gli Amori d'Ergasto. It was the first work staged at the Haymarket. See Alfred Loewenberg's discussion in his Annals of Opera, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (Genève, 1955), I, 113 ffGoogle Scholar.

27 Fiske, Roger, English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1973), pp. 33–35Google Scholar.

28 Downes, , Roscius Anglicanus, p. 48Google Scholar. Mullin correctly points out that a run of five days was not “some sort of calamity” in this period (“The Queen's Theatre,” p. 87). But Cibber describes what he remembered as a failure, and Downes' disgusted tone suggests considerable disappointment. Arsinoe was continuing to be a great success at Drury Lane, and having gone to the trouble and expense of importing a foreign production, Vanbrugh surely hoped for better than a five-night run to sparse houses.

29 She does not appear in the Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo, and Professor Philip H. Highfill has very kindly informed me that he and Professors Kalman A. Burnim and Edward A. Langhans have found no other information on her for their Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, 12 vols. (Carbondale, III., 1973—)Google Scholar, in progress.

30 Hodges, , Congreve: Letters and Documents, #20Google Scholar.

31 Gildon, Post-Boy Robb'd (see n. 18 above).

32 The London Stage, Part 2: 1700–1729, ed. Avery, Emmett L., 2 vols. (Carbondale, Ill., 1960), I, xxv-xxixGoogle Scholar.

33 Second Epilogue to Mrs. Centlivre's The Platonick Lady.

34 Nalbach, p. 8.