Dublin Theatrics
Chapter VIII Dublin Theatrics The...
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Chapter VIII Dublin Theatrics The...
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Chapter VIII
Dublin Theatrics
Albert chapel on the site of Astley's Circus. (8278 bytes)The history of the Dublin stage is a long and interesting one, and presents the usual gradations from Mystery and Miracle Plays and City Pageants to the tragic and comic Drama, Opera, and Spectacle. In the 14th century at Eastertide a Miracle Play, on the subject of the Resurrection, was performed in the church of St. John the Evangelist in Fishamble Street. (*Historical View of the Irish Stage. *Robert Hitchcock, Dublin, 1788. 244) Plays were exhibited *al fresco *on Hoggen Green before the Earl of Ossory in 1538, and the City Gilds presented elaborate pageants both in the streets and in churches.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth plays were acted in the ballroom of Dublin Castle by members of the nobility and gentry. Joseph Ashbury, afterwards patentee of Smock Alley theatre, saw a bill, dated 7th September 1601 (Queen Elizabeth’s birthday), ‘for wax tapers for the play of *Gorbuduc, *done at the Castle, one and twenty shillings’ and two groats.’ (Historical View of the Irish Stage.) In the 17th century a well-established school of playing had been already developed in Dublin, and the stock company of Smock Alley Theatre, trained in elocution by Joseph Ashbury and Thomas Elrington, gave many famous actors to the London stage. The former of these, considered the best actor and teacher in the three kingdoms, instructed the Princess Anne, afterwards Queen, for a performance in the Banqueting-house, Whitehall; and the latter, who had married the daughter of Ashbury and obtained his appointment as Deputy-Master of the Revels, replaced Booth at Drury Lane where he played ‘Othello’ ‘Cato,’ ‘Antony,’ and ‘Orestes’ and was considered unsurpassed in ‘Oroonoko.’
These traditions were well maintained up to the last quarter of the 19th century, when Dublin, in common with the English provincial centres (The Dublin stock company was the last in the United Kingdom to disband) ceased to maintain stock companies, to the great detriment of the histrionic art; and the Dublin audience has now largely forfeited its claims to that critical discernment for which it was once justly famous.
The first Dublin theatre was in Werburgh Street, between Hoey’s Court and Ship Street, and was erected in 1635 by a Scotsman named John Ogilby, Deputy-Master of the Revels, under the Earl of Strafford. The year after its opening it passed under the management of James Shirley, who produced there many of his own plays, including St. *Patrick for Ireland. *In 1661 John Ogilby, who had become a London publisher, returned to Dublin, and started in Orange Street the celebrated Smock Alley Theatre at the rear of the Blind Quay between Essex Street and Fishamble Street, on a site 63 feet wide and 139 feet deep, obtained from Sir Francis Brewster, where formerly had stood Preston’s Inns. This theatre, opened in 1662 and rebuilt in 1735, was finally closed in 1788. As originally constructed Smock Alley Theatre had two galleries, a pit, upper boxes, and a music loft. The stage was lighted by tallow candles stuck in tin circles: on special occasions wax candles were used.
Here, in the early part of the 18th century, were trained under Elrington’s management such actors as Wilkes, Norris, Doggett , Booth, and Quin, who were afterwards ornaments of the London stage. The first of these was born at Rathfarnham, near Dublin, in 1670, and made his first appearance as ‘Othello’ in an amateur performance given gratis in Smock Alley Theatre in December 1691, in which Joseph Ashbury was the only professional actor.
During a performance of *Bartholomew Fair, *26th December 1671, the upper gallery fell into the pit, by which accident-three persons were killed and numbers severely injured. On the death of Ogilby in 1672 his patent was conferred on Ashbury. He was the first to introduce George Farquhar, the dramatist, to public notice. The latter, born in Derry in 1678, entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1694, and the following year acted Othello in Smock Alley; but being unsuccessful as an actor he turned playwright, in which capacity he attained much higher reputation.
In 1729 a rival to Smock Alley Theatre appeared in the booth started in Fownes’s Street, between Dame Street and Temple Bar, by Madame Violante. With three or four other foreigners she gave entertainments of rope-dancing, tumbling, and short musical pieces. She soon added to these performances the legitimate drama, training for the purpose a number of children whom she termed her ‘Lilliputian Company.’ Amongst these were the celebrated ‘Peg’ Woffington, who appeared as ‘Polly’ in The Beggars’* Opera, *and Isaac Sparkes, who played ‘Peachum,’ and who afterwards became the greatest favourite that ever trod the Irish boards. His daughter-in-law, formerly Miss Ashmore, was also a recognised Dublin favourite, the original ‘Widow Brady,’ the original ‘Clarissa,’ and a most successful ‘Priscilla Tomboy’ in *The Romp. *Encouraged by her success, Madame Violante moved to No. 53 South Great George’s Street, then George’s Lane. As in our own time, the established theatre opposed the unauthorised intrusion and appealed to the authorities. The George’s Lane theatre was closed by order of the Corporation, but the public resented the prohibition, and a regular theatre was opened in Rainsford Street in the Liberty of Donore, that district being outside municipal jurisdiction.
Amateur efforts were not unknown on the Dublin stage of the 18th century, as we find *The Distrest Mother *of Ambrose Phillips acted in the Council Chamber of Dublin Castle in January 1732, Viscounts Montjoy and Kingsland sustaining the principal parts.
The dilapidated condition of the Smock Alley house induced its patrons to erect a new edifice in Aungier Street, on the corner of Longford Street, under the superintendence of Sir Edward Lovet Pearce, Surveyor-General. This theatre was opened on Saturday, 19th March 1733, with Farquhar’s *Recruiting Officer, *with the three Elringtons and Mrs. Bellamy in the cast. In June 1741 Quin visited the Aungier Street house with Mrs. Clive. He performed successively *Cato, Othello, *with Ryan as ‘Iago,’ and *King Lear, *with Mrs. Clive as ‘Cordelia.’ In December of the same year he again appeared with Mrs. Cibber in The Conscious Lovers.
The Rainsford Street company took advantage of the derelict condition of Smock Alley to obtain from the Right Hon. Edward Hopkins, Master of the Revels, a patent for its restoration, and the theatre was reopened in 1735 with Part 1. of Shakespeare’s Henry IV.
In 1737 the Smock Alley players were designated the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor’s Company of Comedians, and an intimate connection was thereafter maintained between the municipality and the Smock Alley house.
To this theatre David Garrick paid his first Dublin visit in 1742, and it is interesting to note that he played the part of ‘Hamlet’ in Dublin before attempting it in London. ‘Peg’ Woffington, who had joined Madame Violante as a child in 1730, made her first appearance on the regular stage in the part of ‘Ophelia’ at the Aungier Street ho use; but deserted it in 1742 for Smock Alley, where she appeared oh 15th June as ‘Sir Harry Wildair,’ her favourite part, varying her performance however by playing ‘Ophelia’ to Garrick’s ‘Hamlet.’
So crowded were the houses during this engagement, occurring as it did during the extreme heat of summer, that a pestilential epidemic ensued, playfully known in Dublin as the ‘Garrick Fever.’ (Mrs. Woffington’s charity is evidenced by her having built and endowed a number of almshouses at Teddington, Middlesex. A tablet in the disused church of St. Mary, Teddington, marks her last resting-place.)
The most successful Dublin dramatic period may, however, be said to date from the union in 1744 of the two theatres, Aungier Street and Smock Alley, under the management of Thomas Sheridan, who made his first appearance as ‘Richard III.’ on 9th January of that year. He was the son of Dean Swift’s friend, Rev. Thomas Sheridan, D.D., who had forfeited all chance of Church promotion by preaching inadvertently in Cork on 1st August, the anniversary of the accession of George I., from the text ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ (In the *Dictionary of National Biography, *article, ‘Thomas Sheridan,’ this is erroneously stated to have been the birthday of Queen Anne, but subsequently corrected in a list of errata.)
He started a private school at the old Mint-house in Capel Street, where young Thomas Sheridan was born, and he afterwards purchased a school in Cavan which he sold for £400. Thomas Sheridan, junior, had been educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Dublin, and resided, after his marriage to the accomplished authoress Frances Chamberlaine, at 12 Dorset Street, where his famous son Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was born on 30th October 1751.
Thomas Sheridan had for his first comedian Tom King, who was the original ‘Sir Peter Teazle’ in *The School for Scandal; *and during his management of the joint theatres Garrick again visited Dublin, as did Woodward, Macklin, Theo. Cibber; Barry, and Mossop. Amongst the actresses who graced the boards were Mrs. Woffington and George Ann Bellamy, the latter of whom remained in Dublin from 1742 to 1745, besides occasional later visits.
Sheridan has been described as ‘an ineffectual genius, whose great talents were spoiled by diffuseness and pedantry.’ As an actor he was a recognised Dublin favourite, by many considered a rival of Garrick in such parts as ‘Brutus,’ ‘Cato,’ and ‘King John.’
A tragic occurrence marked one of his performances of *Othello. The part of ‘Iago’ was *taken by an actor named Layfield. When he came to the lines:-
‘Oh, my Lord! beware of jealousy;
It is a green-eyed monster,.’
he gave the latter as
‘It is a green-eyed lobster.’
‘He was at that moment struck with incurable madness, and died somewhat in the manner of Nat Lee the tragic poet.’ (O’Keefe’s Recollections)As a manager, Sheridan can scarcely be considered a success. In 1747, having very properly ejected from the green-room a gentleman named Kelly who had, in a state of intoxication, climbed from the pit to the stage and insulted one of the ladies of the company, he incurred the odium of the ‘young bloods’ of the city, who on the following Thursday, to the number of 50, stormed the stage and green-rooms, and proceeded to thrust their. swords into clothes-presses and other places by way of ‘feeling’ for the obnoxious manager, who, being warned, had prudently stayed at home under protection. Charles Lucas, who was amongst the audience, appealed to them on behalf of the actors. A prosecution was instituted against Kelly who, to his amazement and that of his companions, was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment and a fine of £500.
But fresh troubles were jn store. Seven fears later, during the production of the Reverend James Millar’s *Mahomet, *Sheridan refused, in the interests of the performance, to sanction the ‘encore’ of a speech by ‘Alcanor’ containing the lines:
‘If, ye powers divine!
Ye mark the movements of this nether world,
And bring them to account! Crush, crush those vipers,
Who singled out by the community
To guard their rights, shall, for a grasp of ore,
Or paltry office, sell them to the foe.’
This refusal so enraged the Whig frequenters of the theatre that they wrecked and almost demolished the building, compelling the manager to leave Dublin and sublet the theatre for two years. On Sheridan’s return he was obliged to apologise, and owing to the opening of the Crow Street Theatre he finally retired in 1758 to Bath, where he exercised a sensible influence on English acting by his teaching of elocution, lecturing not only in Bath but in London, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh.
The new theatre; on the site of a previously existing music-hall, was built by Barry and Woodward, with the aid of public subscriptions, at a cost of £22,000, the front having great gates facing the. end of Crow Street. It was opened on 23rd October 1758 with Cibber’s comedy, *She Would and She Would Not, *and so great was the crush on the opening night that a man was pressed to death on the staircase. It continued in public favour for 65 years.
Sheridan’s place in Smock Alley Theatre was taken by Henry Brown, a Bath comedian, who introduced the celebrated Mrs. Frances Abington, originally a flower-girl known as ‘Nosegay Fan,’ who had quarrelled with the Drury Lane management through jealousy of their preference of Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard. She made her first appearance in Dublin as ‘Beatrice’ in *Much Ado about Nothing *on 13th February 1760, and at once took the audience by storm. Her dress was carefully scanned and noted, and the ‘Abington cap,’ in particular, was the only wear for women of fashion.
The coalition of the theatres under Thomas Sheridan had led to the establishment, by the discarded members of the stock companies, of a theatre in Mary’s Abbey, which opened on 17th January 1745 with *The Merchant of Venice. *It only survived, however, for three years.
In 1759 the Crow Street Theatre wrested from Smock Alley the official title of Theatre Royal; and on the expiry of the patent in 1820 Mr: Harris of Covent Garden purchased its renewal and built the Theatre Royal in Hawkins Street, destroyed by fire in 1880.
It is curious to note that the latter theatre was built within 100 yards of the house of the Countess of Brandon, which had perished by fire towards the end of the eighteenth century. The Countess was a great patroness of the drama, especially of Mossop’s acting in Shakespeare’s plays.
The founders of the Crow Street Theatre were Henry Woodward, and Spranger Barry, born in 1719 in Skinners’ Row, son of a Dublin goldsmith, and himself a member of the gild. Between these some rivalry existed: Barry preferred the drama; Woodward, who was an accomplished harlequin, delighted in pantomime.
The former had first appeared in Smock Alley on 15th February 1745 as ‘Othello,’ and had spent three seasons in Dublin and two in London before the opening of Crow Street Theatre. He was considered one of the finest actors on the London hoards, with a figure and voice pronounced by contemporaries to have been perfect. His second wife, Ann Barry, trained by him in Crow Street was, as an actress, probably the greatest public favourite ever seen on the Dublin stage. She was the daughter of an apothecary in Bath, arid was three times married: first to an actor named Dancer, then to Barry, and lastly to a very poor player named Crawford, and had the unique experience of playing at Crow Street with all three husbands.
At her first appearance in Dublin, 8th November 1758, she played ‘Cordelia’ to Barry’s ’ King Lear.’ Barry, after nine years management of Crow Street, returned to London in 1767, where he appeared with Mrs. Barry in the Haymarket, then under the management of Foote. He revisited Dublin in 1771, 1773, and 1774, and died on 10th January 1777. He was buried in the cloisters, Westminster, where his wife was laid to rest beside him in 1801.
The rivalry between the theatres was so keen as to be mutually injurious, and was fanned by their respective patrons. For instance, Lord Mornington induced Kane O’Hara to write Midas, ‘made up of Dublin jokes and by-sayings,’ (O’Keeffe’s Recollections.) in opposition to the Italian burletta at Smock Alley. In the former Spranger Barry was to have performed ‘Sileno,’ but not proving equal to the musical part, relinquished it to Robert Corry. Woodward, having lost the greater part of his savings, had returned to Covent Garden in 1762.
Sheridan was succeeded in the management of Smock Alley by the popular comedian Tate Wilkinson, but the most formidable rival of Barry’s theatre was Henry Mossop, son of a prebendary of Tuam, and educated at Dublin University, where he obtained a scholarship in 1747. He had been in receipt of 37 guineas a week at Crow Street from Barry and Woodward, but left them in 1760 to undertake the management of Smock Alley, where he secured the patronage of the Countess of Brandon, Miss Caulfield, sister to Lord Charlemont, and Lady Rachel Macdonald, sister to Lord Antrim.
But his victory was mainly due to the sudden vogue of English opera, of which he took early advantage, engaging at great expense such artistes as Ann Catley, who lodged with her mother in Drumcondra Lane, and who bad been introduced to him in 1764 by Macklin, who lodged in the same by-way when in Dublin.
Nor did he disdain to court humbler means of pleasing the Dublin public, as one of his play-bills displayed in large characters the engagement of a favourite performing monkey. On the other hand, he always lit the house with wax for the production of Shakespeare’s plays. The craze for opera is probably hinted at by Goldsmith in *She Stoops to Conquer, *when the bear-leader says his bear ‘will only dance to the very genteelest of tunes, the minuet in *Ariadne, *or “Water Parted.”’ The latter was the great *aria *of an Italian named Tenducci in Dr. Arne’s opera of *Artaxerxes, *and was ridiculed by the Dublin *gamins *in the street song-
“Tenducci was a Piper’s son,
And he was in love when he was young,
And all the tunes that he could play
Was “Water parted from the say!”’
The departure of Barry, who surrendered the manager-ship of Crow Street to Mossop in 1770, did not leave the latter without a rival, as, on 26th February of that year, William Dawson, in conjunction with Robert Mabon, hired the premises in Capel Street previously occupied by a puppet-show known as ‘Stretch’s Show’ Here they opened a theatre, hiring the back-parlour of a grocer’s shop as a green-room. The stage was deep and the auditorium had pit, boxes, lattices, and two galleries. For four years this house, known as the City Theatre, had considerable success, producing such plays as *Richard III., The West Indian, She Stoops to Conquer, *and *Lionel and Clarissa, *with actors such as William Thomas Lewis, stepson of the manager, Isaac Sparks, John O’Keeffe, and Charles Macklin, with Thomas Holcroft, afterwards well known as a dramatic author, as prompter and actor. The first-named of the above was a great favourite with the Dublin public, who particularly relished his delivery of an epilogue, originally written by Mozeen for King in the character of ‘Ranger,’ beginning-
‘Bucks, have at ye all.’
This was demanded nightly by the College students, whether Lewis was in the cast or not; and on his finally refusing to comply, another riot ensued in which the students shouted for the epilogue, while his friends vainly vociferated ‘No Bucks!’
During the engagement of Macklin all the boxes were taken for the 12 nights of his performance, so true was it then as now that really first-class acting is almost sure to obtain patronage in Dublin. Dawson’s co-manager, Robert Mabon, is the hero of a theatrical story. On the occasion of Garrick’s Stratford Jubilee he was to sing a song commencing
‘Behold, this fair goblet was carved from the tree
Which, oh! my sweet Shakespeare, was planted for thee.’
He was handed a *wooden *cup as he went on, which he indignantly declined, and insisted on a cut rummer glass being supplied, which he flourished, to the great amusement of the audience.
From an interesting diary of a Dublin lady, unearthed in the Record Office by Mr. Henry F. Berry, Deputy-Keeper, considerable information may be gathered concerning the Dublin theatres between 1744 and 1774. The prices, for instance, were-for a box ticket 5s. 5d., lattices 4s. 4d., pit 3s. 3d., and gallery 2s. 2d.; and the performance began ‘half an hour after six o’clock.’ This hour was sometimes altered, as we find in an announcement of the reopening of Smock Alley Theatre, on 5th November 1738, the following:-
‘Whereas complaints have been made of the Plays being done too late, this is to give Notice that they intend to remedy this Inconvenience, to begin precisely at 6 o’clock, therefore ‘tis hop’d all Gentlemen, Ladies & others who intend to favour them with their company will not exceed that hour.’
There was no half-price in the Dublin theatres; no females sat in the pit; and none, male or female, came to the boxes except in full dress. The upper boxes, in a line with the two-shilling gallery, were called lattices, and over them, even with the shilling gallery, were the slips, also termed ‘pigeon-holes.’ The auditorium was in the form of a horse-shoe, and oranges and apples were hawked in the cheaper parts of the house. (O’Keeffe’s Recollections.)
In connection with the Dublin theatres were certain well-known supper-rooms. Sam’s Coffee House was kept by Sam Lee, leader of the band at the Crow Street Theatre. Isaac Sparks, the actor, founded a jovial meeting in form of a Court of Justice, wherein he presided in robes as Lord Chief-Justice Joker.
One of the contributory causes of the riot which drove Thomas Sheridan from Dublin was Whig jealousy of the influence of the Beefsteak Club, a notoriously Tory gathering, at whose dinners Mrs. Woffington presided. The family of the lady whose diary we have referred to witnessed the plays of *The Busy Body, Tamerlane, Macbeth, The Unhappy Marriage, The Distrest Mother, *in which Mrs. Woffington appeared as ‘Hermione,’ *Henry VIII, *and *Beggar’s Bush. *They were also present at Tate Wilkinson’s benefit on 25th February 1758, when *Jane Shore *and the farce of *Tom Thumb *were produced, and the ‘whole receipt of the house (not then so large as it was made by Mossop afterwards) was £154.’ On this occasion ‘seven rows of the pit were added’ to the boxes, and ‘railed in at box prices.’
Mr. Wilkinson informs us that ‘with the manager’s consent and Mr. Dexter’s approbation I wore Mr. Dexter’s grand suit, which was blue satin, richly trimmed with silver, looked very elegant, and, what was better, fitted me exactly.’ It must be remembered that the idea of dressing according to the country and period of the action of the drama is comparatively modern, though O’Keeffe tells us that Mrs. Kelf, when she played ‘Lady Elizabeth Grey’ in *The Earl of Warwick, *by Rev. Thomas Franklin, dressed the part from a painting by Vandyck. But he adds: ‘I saw Barry play “Othello” in a complete suit of English regimentals, with a three-cocked gold-laced hat, and Thomas Sheridan in “Macbeth” dressed in scarlet and gold uniform. … All the characters in the play of *Richard IJL *appeared in the same modern clothes as the gentlemen in the boxes wore, except “Richard” himself, and thus looked an angry Merry Andrew among the rest of the performers.’
In a performance of *Lionel and Clarissa *a contemporary ‘squib’ thus describes the way in which the hair of the principal male character was dressed:
‘His foretop so high, in crown he may vie
With the crested cockatoo.’
(O’Keeffe’s Recollections.)
In the farce of *Tom Thumb, *Wilkinson appeared as Queen Dolalolla and mimicked ‘Peg’ Woffington. In the new Crow Street Theatre the family of the lady referred to witnessed *A Bold Stroke for a Wife *and *Fortunatus, Hamlet, The Tempest, Henry IV., *and *The Man of Mode, *with the farce of the French Lady Never at Paris. (*Journal R.S.A.I. *for 1898, vol. xxviii. p.149.)
We have notice of a benefit performance at Mossop’s (Smock Alley) in 1764 for the orphans of a butcher who with his wife was crushed to death on an alarm of fire in Crow Street Theatre. It will be remembered that the two theatres were not then under the same management.
The versatility of the Dublin stock companies may be gauged by the following anecdotes. At Crow Street Digges was playing ‘Hamlet’ and ruptured a blood-vessel in the first scene. The play was immediately stopped and *She Stoops to Conquer *substituted for it. The manager’s apology having been accepted by the audience, the performers, who were all in the house, hastily dressed and went on. A gentleman in the pit had left the building immediately before the accident to Digges, for the purpose of buying oranges. He was delayed for some little time, and having left ‘Hamlet’ in conversation with the ‘Ghost,’ found on his return the stage occupied by ‘Tony Lumpkin’ and his companions at the Three Jolly Pigeons. He at first thought he had mistaken the theatre, but an explanation showed him the real state of affairs.
Again in the Theatre Royal *Romeo and Juliet *was acted by the stock company on 19th January 1821, followed by the opera of Guy *Mannering *on the 23rd, and on the 27th by Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro.
In 1770 Dawson obtained possession of Crow Street, and after continuing the struggle for two years, Mossop, totally ruined, retired from the management of Smock Alley also, in which he was succeeded by Thomas Ryder, an excellent comedian, who had gained much experience in the Irish provinces. He opened Smock Alley in September with She Would and She Would Not.
In 1776 the rent of Crow Street having fallen into arrear, Dawson surrendered the lease to Ryder. After a vain attempt to manage both theatres and the engagement at high terms of such actors as the Barrys, Sheridan, Foote, and Mrs. Abington, he handed over Smock Alley in 1781 to Richard Daly, one of his stock company, and the following year he became insolvent and joined Daly’s company as a player. Daly had reopened Smock Alley and introduced to a Dublin audience John Philip Kemble and his sister the celebrated Sarah Siddons.
The management of Crow Street was for a short time carried on by Mrs. Barry in the name of her third husband Thomas Crawford, but after a short and chequered occupancy the theatre was seized by the Sheriff’s officers for non-payment of rent, and Mrs. Barry transferred all her interest to Daly, who thus became the proprietor of both houses and of some Irish provincial theatres as well. During her tenancy the salaries of the actors had been irregularly paid, indeed Mrs. Barry herself refused to act until her husband produced her fee. On one occasion when ‘the ghost had refused to walk’ (Stage slang for non-payment of salaries.) the band struck work, and Crawford, who was acting ‘Othello,’ had to appear between the acts in his costume and ‘make-up,’ and play the fiddle in the orchestra to keep his audience in good humour during the interval.
In 1777 ‘Dolly’ Jordan made her first appearance as Miss Bland at Crow Street in the part of ‘Phoebe’ in *As You Like It, *and afterwards during the management of Richard Daly acted ‘Priscilla Tomboy’ in *The Romp. Her mother, Grace Philips, known as ‘Mrs. Frances,’ had acted ‘Desdemona’ with Tate Wilkinson, in Dublin in. 1758. She married a Mr. or Captain Bland, and her daughter Dorothy Bland with her mother joined Tate Wilkinson at York on the northern tour in 1782, the former acting under the name of ‘Miss Frances’ afterwards, for prudential reasons, changed to Mrs. Jordan. (It is said that the name was suggested to her by Wilkinson ‘as she had crossed the water’ to join his company - Retrospections of the Stage, *John Barnard.)
After 1790 she bore to the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., ten children who were known by the name of Fitzclarence. Her five daughters married, respectively, two earls, a viscount, the younger son of a duke, and a general in the British Army; and one of her sons, Colonel Fitzclarence, was created Earl of Munster, one of the King’s own titles. His son married his first cousin, likewise a grandchild of Mrs. Jordan, and the Countess died in London in October 1906.
In 1779 Mr Jeffries, brother-in-law to Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon, invited Mr. Colman to Dublin to establish another theatre. The site chosen was the right-hand side of College Green looking to-wards Trinity College, opposite the Houses of Parliament; but Colman was too timorous to risk the initial expenses, and the project was dropped.
In 1786 an Act of the Irish Parliament had prohibited dramatic performances in any other than a theatre held by patent from the Crown. Smock Alley ceased to be used as a theatre after 1788, and in 1790 was converted into a corn store, replaced in 1815 by the Roman Catholic Church of SS. Michael and John. The only vestige now remaining is an arched passage which led into the building from Essex Street. In the year of its final abandonment, Crow Street Theatre, redecorated and reconstructed, was again opened; but in 1792 from an unlikely quarter appeared a fresh rival.
In that year the Fishamble Street Music Hall was converted into a private theatre under the management of Lord Westmeath, and Frederick, better known as ‘Buck,’ Jones. The latter, a member of a County Meath family, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and is still commemorated in Jones’s Road, known as ‘Buck’ Jones’s Road in the sixties, in Drumcondra township; and his dwelling-house, for which he revived the ancient name of ‘Clonliffe,’ (It had previously been called Fortick’s Grove from Tristram Fortick, whose name is still to be seen in the inscription on an old almshouse in Little Denmark Street. The district is referred to as Clonlic in the charter of King John, and as Clonclyffe in that of Richard II.) still stands in the grouuds of Holy Cross College, and has given its appellation to the district.
In 1794 Jones obtained from Government permission to open a theatre for seven years, and two years later applied for. a new patent. He was advised to come to terms with Daly for the acquisition of Crow Street Theatre, and in 1797 he purchased Daly’s rights therein for the large annual payment of £1,332 in annuities to Daly and his children, above rent and taxes, and further expended £12,000 on permanent improvements. (Daly died in Dublin in September 1813, having been in receipt from 1798 of a pension from the Crown of £100 per annum.)
In 1814 a serious riot occurred owing to the substitution of *The Miller and his Men *for *The Forest of Bondy, *withdrawn owing to the extravagant terms demanded by the owner of the dog which appeared in the latter piece as .’The Dog of Montargis.’ Five years later a further riot was caused by Jones’s refusal to allow a singer named Miss Byrne to continue her performance, owing to her breach of contract in singing at an opposition concert. Jones, like most of his predecessors, had now fallen on evil days. The patent of Crow Street Theatre having expired, Mr. Henry Harris of Covent Garden purchased a renewal from Government, and entered into negotiations with Jones for the purchase of the premises, but on his refusal to hand them over, he was thrown into gaol for debt.
Harris abandoned the idea of purchasing Crow Street, and pending the acquisition of a new site, fitted up a theatre in the Round Room or the Rotunda, which he opened on 19th June 1820. Macready appeared there in the months of July and August. The box entrance was in Sackville Street, and the pit and gallery doors in Cavendish Row. The prices still remained at the familiar figures - boxes, 5s. 5d., pit, 3s. 3d., middle gallery, 2s. 2d., upper gallery, 1s. 1d.
The following year Harris secured a site in Hawkins Street, between Trinity College and the quays, on which stands the present Theatre Royal. Here, in an area previously occupied by one of the city meat markets, the Royal Dublin Society had erected premises, after successive removals from Shaw’s Court, off Dame Street, and Grafton Street.
On purchasing Leinster House in 1815, they transferred the Hawkins Street building to the Mendicity Institute for the suppression of street begging, from whom Harris secured it, the Mendicity Institute removing to Copper Alley, and thence in 1826 to the residence of the Earl of Moira on Usher’s Island.
The first stone of the new theatre was laid on 14th October 1820, the Hawkins Street frontage of the Royal Dublin Society’s building being allowed to remain unaltered. The theatre was designed by Mr. Beazley at an estimated cost of £50,000, a sum partly raised by the issue of debentures and annuities. The stage was 73 feet in breadth arid 60 feet in depth, and the auditorium measured 52 feet 6 inches from the curtain to the front of the centre box, arid 45 feet across the pit. The new house was opened on 18th January ~821, amongst the company being Paul Bedford, with *The Comedy of Errors *and *The Sleep Walker. *Messrs. Johnson and Williams acted the two ‘Dromios’ in the former.
The opening address, by George Colman the younger, contained the following lines
‘Here once a market reared its busy head,
Where sheep, instead of tragic heroes, bled.
Soon Science came; his steel the butcher drops,
And Learning triumphed over mutton chops!
Again the scene was changed by Wisdom’s rule,
Want’s refuge then succeeded Learning’s school.
No more in streets the shivering beggar stood,
Vice found correction here and Famine food,
Morality rejoiced at Sloth’s defeat,
And Pity smiled to see the hungry eat.
With the erection of the Theatre Royal, Hawkins Street, the history of the modern Dublin stage may be said to commence, but a few words are necessary as to the fate of the Crow Street house. This theatre was capable of containing 2,000 persons, and the acoustic properties were said to have been perfect. During Barry’s production of Alexander the Great, on a scale of magnificence intended to rival Woodward’s pantomimes, the resources of the stage were taxed to the uttermost. ‘Alexander’s high and beautiful chariot was first seen at the farther end of the stage (the, theatre stretching from Fownes’s Street to Temple Lane). He, seated on it, was drawn to the front, to triumphant music, by the unarmed soldiery. When arrived at its station to stop for him to alight … the chariot in a twinkling disappeared and every soldier was at the instant armed. It was thus managed. Each man laid his hand on different parts of the chariot; one took a wheel and held it up on high, this was a shield; the others took the remaining wheels, the axle-tree was taken by another-it was a spear; the body of the chariot also took to pieces, and the whole was converted into swords, javelins, lances, standards, etc.’ ‘I never,’ adds O’Keeile, ‘saw anything to equal in simplicity and beauty this chariot manoeuvre in **‘Alexander the Great.’
From this we may conclude that what is condemned as the *modern *craze for spectacle and over-staging is of older date than its critics seem to imagine. In Crow Street the green-room was on the side of the Lord-Lieutenant’s box, being on the opposite side to that of Smock Alley. The former theatre had been most elaborately restored by the unfortunate Jones, the best Italian artists having been employed on its internal decorations. The last performance in Crow Street theatre took place on 13th May 1820. The late actor-manager, H. Caicraft, informs us in *Leaves of a Manager’s Portfolio *that in 1824 the scenery, was already gone, and ‘there were sundry rents and chasms in the roof,’ and ‘that many detachments of unlicensed plunderers were busily employed knocking out the panels of the boxes and carrying off all bodily.’
After lying derelict for some time, part of the site was purchased in 1836 by the Apothecaries’ Hall and was sold by them in 1852 to the Catholic University for the use of their medical school, known as the Cecilia Street School. The stage-door in Temple Lane may still be identified, and portion of the east wall exists in the lower part of Fownes’s Street in which may be recognised traces of the entrance doors to the galleries. A large building in Temple Bar, used by Jones as a scene-room, was converted into a hat factory, and is now a stable.
The new theatre in Hawkins Street soon received the signal distinction of a visit from King George IV.,** **on 22nd August 1821, on which occasion the pieces commanded were *The Duenna *and St. *Patrick’s Day, *both from the pen of the gifted Richard Brinsley Sheridan, native of Dublin and personal friend of the royal visitor. This was the sole visit of an English sovereign to a Dublin theatre in the annals of the Dublin stage up to the close of the 19th century. (His present Majesty, King Edward VII., commanded a performance by Mr. Beerbohm Tree in the Theatre Royal for Friday 24th July 1903, but this was countermanded owing to the death of Pope Leo XIII. On the second Irish visit of their Majesties the following year, Mr. Tree had another command night on 28th April at which the king and queen were present, and were accorded a reception as enthusiastic as that bestowed on George iv)
A celebrated Irish piper named Fitzpatrick was engaged to play ‘God save the King” and ‘St. Patrick’s Day,’ and the entire audience enthusiastically joined in the singing of the National Anthem by the company. ‘The whole house,’ we are told, ‘stood up to welcome His Majesty, and such a shout-so tremendous,-so prolonged-was raised’ on his entré’, that surely was never heard in a theatre before.’ (Evening Post)
This ovation was soon to be succeeded by a very different scene, when the King’s representative had a reception as unfavourable as that of George IV. had been cordial. In 1822 the Marquis of Wellesley, then Lord-Lieutenant, had condemned the custom of dressing with garlands and orange sashes the statue of William III. in College Green on the anniversary of his landing in England; and John Smyth Fleming, Lord Mayor, had on 31st October issued a proclamation forbidding the practice, and thus disgusted the Orange faction.
On 14th December the Lord-Lieutenant visited the theatre in state, when *She Stoops to Conquer *and *Tom Thumb *were announced for performance. When ‘God save the King’ was played shouts were raised for ‘The Boyne ‘Water,’ and a bottle, hurled from the gallery, struck the drop-seene. Six persons were arrested for what was known as ‘The Bottle Riot,’ but after a trial lasting five days, the jury acquitted one of the prisoners and disagreed with respect to the other five, who were subsequently discharged. (An inmate of Simpson’s Hospital, named Hanbidge, informed Reverend T. R. S. Collins that he had thrown the bottle from the end of a stick.)
On 15th July 1822 Edmund Kean had made his first appearance in the Theatre Royal in the character of ‘Richard III., (His last appearance was on Friday 6th January 1832** **as ‘Octavian’ in The Mountaineers)and in August of the following year the great Catalani condescended to sing several *arias *from Mozart’s operas between the performance of the play and the concluding farce.
After letting the theatre to Mr. W. Abbott for the two years 1825-6 at the extravagant rent of £4,000 per annum, Mr. Harris finally retired in 1827, and was succeeded by Mr. Alfred Bunn. In 1828, after an engagement of Charles Kean, Bunn let the theatre for three months to Ducrow, for an equestrian performance entitled *The Massacre of the Greeks. *He again occupied the theatre with his circus in February and March 1835.
During Bunn’s management a stage-struck amateur named Luke Plunkett, member of a respectable family resident near Portmarnock, appeared as ‘Richard III**.’ **Some of his readings of well-known passages were exceedingly erratic, and his death scene so amused the audience ‘that they insisted on its repetition, with which demand the tragedian solemnly complied. He again appeared as ‘Coriolanus,’ but broke down and admitted that be could not continue the part, upon which the audience demanded a song, and in response he gave them ‘Scots wha hae’ with great spirit.
The Theatre. Royal had, on, the whole, catered well for the public, but was not left free from rivalry. Johnstone’s Royal Hibernian Theatre was established in Peter Street, and there Belzoni, the Sandow of his day, performed his athletic feats. He is now better known as the Egyptian explorer of his later years.
In 1827 Norman, the director of pantomime and spectacles, joined Bradbury the favourite clown (He was preferred by Dublin audiences to the celebrated Grimaldi.) in once more opening the theatre in Fishamble Street under the name of the ‘Sans Pareil.’
Yet another theatre was opened in Lower Abbey Street in October 1833 by the Messrs. Calvert under a patent granted four years previously to the two sons of Frederick Jones, as a tardy compensation for their father’s deprivation of the Crow Street patent. This continued open, under successive extensions, till 1844, when James Calvert, junior, became insolvent, and R. T. Jones sold all his rights in the patent and the patent itself to Mr. John Charles Joseph, a Dublin hotel proprietor, who transferred it to the Adelphi, now the Queen’s Royal Theatre, Great Brunswick Street.
On the 21st August 1830, J. W. Calcraft became lessee of the Theatre Royal, Hawkins Street, at an annual rent of £2,000, reduced soon after to £1,400, and also hired the ‘Adelphi,’ now the Queen’s Theatre, in Great Brunswick Street, at £225 a year. The former he held, with varying fortunes, for 21 years. His management opened inauspiciously, as during his first winter season so severe a snowfall was experienced in February, that for four days all traffic absolutely ceased, and Dublin resembled a city of the dead.
The summer of 1832 witnessed the first visitation of Asiatic cholera known in the Irish metropolis, which made itself felt on theatrical receipts. The season of 1839 was notable for a performance of *Richelieu *at which the author, Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, was present. So pleased was he with its production, that he ordered presentation copies of the play to be sent to each of the actors. Two years later was witnessed the last appearance on the Dublin boards of Tyrone Power, whose death was estimated by Mr. Calcraft as equivalent to a loss to him of £1,000 per annum.
From 1848 the management of the Queen’s Theatre had been in the hands of Mr. John Harris, who in 1851 obtained the lesseeship of the Hawkins Street theatre, then under ejectment for non-payment of rent amounting to £1,200. He spent £3,000 in repairs and decoration, and the theatre reopened with Boucicault’s *Love in a Maze. *From this we may date the palmy days of the ‘Old’ Royal, as veteran Dublin playgoers still affectionately term it. Mr. Harris started a series of Shakespearian revivals on a scale of unusual splendour, introducing for the first time Mendelssohn’s music in *A Midsummer Night’s Dream. *These performances achieved marked success. The company included Granby, J. Webster, F. Robson, T. C. King, Hurlstone, Stenton, Barsby, Gladstone, Mulford, Bellair, and Vivash; with Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Hudson Kirby, Mrs. Bellair, Miss Kate Dibdin, Miss Parry, Miss Jenny Marston, and Miss Braun, who were afterwards joined by Charlotte Saunders, Agnes Markham, and Mr. and Mrs. Huntley, whose son is the celebrated burlesque actor of the present day, G. P. Huntley. The ‘Macbeth’ of T. C. King was generally admitted to have been a fine piece of acting, and Granby is believed to have been the best ‘Falstaff’ that ever trod the boards. It is interesting to note that the late Sir Henry Irving made his first appearance in Dublin in the small part of ‘Francesco’ in *Hamlet *on 1st October 1861.
During the continuance of the Dublin exhibition of 1853 the Theatre Royal saw an uninterrupted performance of 516 nights. It must not be supposed that Harris limited himself to Shakespeare or to his excellent stock company. Grisi and Mario sang in Italian Opera in 1855, giving a foretaste of those annual engagements in which Dubliners had the privilege of hearing Tamburini, Lablache, Alboni, Giuglini; Santley, Trebelli, Bossi, Titjens; Sinico, and a host of others, while the veteran conductor Signor Arditi was as well known in Dublin as the Nelson Pillar.
Indeed, Dublin audiences had ere this not been strangers to the highest treats in vocalism. In 1841 had commenced the first series of Italian operas on the grand scale: Sims Reeves had sung in Dublin as early as 1845, and Jenny Lind appeared in *La Sonnambula *on 10th October 1848, when prices readied the unprecedented figure of dress boxes £1, l0s., second circle £1, pit 12s. 6d., first gallery 7s., second 5s.
In April 1855 Helen Faucit visited the Theatre Royal, and Catherine Hayes and Madame Ristori both had engagements in 1857. Sothern; Compton, and J. L. Toole all were seen between 1863 and 1865, and on the 6th April 1870, Ireland’s greatest modern favourite, Barry Sullivan, made his Dublin début.
But to the Theatre Royal a formidable rival, still flourishing amongst us, was now to appear. On the 27th November 1871, the Gaiety Theatre was opened in South King Street, close to St. Stephen’s Green. It was the venture of two young men, John and Michael Gunn, whose father had perished in the melancholy omnibus accident whereby six persons were drowned in the canal lock at Portobello Bridge. The theatre opened with *She Stoops to Conquer *and the burlesque of La *Belle Sauvage, *performed by Mrs. John Wood’s company. The evergreen Lionel Brough was the ‘Tony Lumpkin’ of the former, and the ‘Captain Smith ‘of the latter piece, in which Mrs. John Wood was ‘Pocahontas.’
Undeterred by the history of past rivalries, the Messrs. Gunn believed, and as the event proved rightly, that the second city of the Empire was equal to the support of two first-class theatres. They entrusted its construction to Mr. C. J. Phipps, F.S.A., and in the incredibly short period of six months and a fortnight from the laying of the first stone, the theatre was completed and fit for occupation.
The Gaiety Theatre has been built, decorated, and managed in accordance with the most modern ideas. The old tradition of the stock company was abandoned from the commencement, and the management learned to rely entirely on the visits of London companies. Even in the time of O’Keeffe ‘theatrical summer birds of passage from London found very good pickings in Dublin,’ and this was now to be the invariable rule.
In December 1873 was produced the inimitable pantomime of *Turko the Terrible, by *Mr. Edwin Hamilton, most versatile of Dublin literary men. In the following April the brothers Gunn acquired possession of the Theatre Royal, Hawkins Street, and from that date for six years the theatres were worked in conjunction.
That the public were not sufferers from the single ownership may be gathered from the list of engagements, which include the Carl Rosa Opera Company, with Maas, Snazelle, Leslie Crotty, Ludwig, Georgina Burns, and Julia Gaylord; Salvini in *Othello; *Isabel Bateman, Phelps, and Genevieve Ward, at the Theatre Royal and Hermann Vezin, Charles Matthews, Charles Wyndham, Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, Miss Neilson, and the D’Oyly Carte Company at the Gaiety.
On the 9th February 1880 a *matinee *performance of the Christmas pantomime *Ali Baba *was to have been given in the Theatre Royal in aid of the Dublin charities. But on that morning a fire unaccountably broke out, fortunately some time before the audience would have been seated; and in a few hours the theatre was reduced to a heap of smouldering ashes: the manager, Mr. Francis Egerton, unhappily losing his life in a noble devotion to duty.
In 1886 the Leinster Hall for concerts and theatrical performances, for the latter of which however it was ill adapted, was opened by Mr. Gunn on the site of the theatre which had been consumed. After many difficulties a patent was acquired by a new syndicate to revive the Theatre Royal, and on the same site was erected, from the designs of Mr. Frank Matcham, the present theatre, formally opened with a performance, by Mr. George Edwardes’ company, of *The Geisha *on 13th December 1897.
On 27th December 1904 the Abbey Theatre, erected at the angle of Abbey Street and Marlborough Street, at the cost of Lady Gregory, was opened for the production of plays by Irish writers, performed by Irish actors. In a conversazione held in this theatre at the commencement of the season 1906-7 Mr. W. B. Yeates spoke hopefully of the prospects of Irish drama. The stock company have been favourably received in London, and a school of Irish dramatic writers, including Mr. W. B. Yeates, Mr. Edward Martyn, Lady Gregory, Mr. J. M. Synge, and Dr. Douglas Hyde, has arisen, and shown a capacity for the production of original work which, in the present circumstances of English dramatic art, bids fair to attract attention. If these authors succeed in widening the scope of their dramatic writings without hurting Irish susceptibilities the Irish National Theatre may revive some of the past glories of the Dublin stage, whose traditions constitute a heritage not lightly to be cast aside.
This brings the tale of the Dublin theatres to a close. The Queen’s Royal Theatre, home of National melodrama, is still with us, and can proudly claim to be the oldest, as the Abbey Theatre is the youngest, of Dublin theatres. The ‘new’ Royal and the Gaiety still flourish in friendly rivalry, and two Music Halls, the Empire and the Tivoli, compete with’ the regular theatres for public patronage on lines’ very different from the music halls of 18th-century Dublin.