The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (16 page)

I have briefly discussed six publications that are mentioned in the Essex Sisters series. Numerous resources are listed in the back of the book. If you find a fascinating story—whether it’s about an outrageous wager or a horrid murder—please do share it with us on Eloisa’s Facebook page!

A Must for a Successful Season

We all know that Eloisa is a Shakespeare professor, but what you might not know is that she also edited some plays for scholarly publications. These included George Etherege’s
The Man of Mode
, first published in 1676. Her knowledge of literature and theatre is evident when characters quote from plays and sonnets. But when it comes to the Essex Sisters series, especially
The Taming of the Duke
, she drew more heavily on theatrical history than usual, particularly from Etherege’s Restoration-era play, which her characters perform. Eloisa told me that she feels Etheridge’s rake Dorimant is a model for all the Regency rakes we read about nowadays.

In
The Taming of the Duke
, the assorted company (along with professional actors) performed George Etherege’s
The Man of Mode
at the Holbrook Court Theatre. I thought it might be interesting to share the title page of the play, and an advertisement for purchasing a copy.

                       
Gillian Pythian-Adams had been seated in the library for two hours, painstakingly copying out actors’ parts from
The Man of Mode
.

The Taming of the Duke

Advertisement for
The Man of Mode
from
A Collection of Choice, Old and Rare Books.

The theatrical subplot in
The Taming of the Duke
really sparked my interest, and I decided to find out a bit more about the world of Regency theatre.

In nineteenth-century London, there was substantial demand for theatrical entertainment. Attending the theatre was a way to be seen at your “best,” because evening dress was obligatory. In
Much Ado About You
and
Kiss Me, Annabel
, the settings of the stories did not lend themselves to trips to the theatre. However, in
Pleasure for Pleasure
, theatres were mentioned numerous times, and in
The Taming of the Duke
, actors and theatres played a central role in the plot of the story. These are the seven theatres mentioned in the series: Adelphi Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre, Regency Theatre, Fortune Theatre, the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden, Olympic Theatre, and the Hyde Park Theatre.

To quote Shakespeare, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” I have come to the conclusion from my research on London theatres that there was as much drama off the stage as on. It seems that theatres were prone to fires, riots, wildly misbehaving actors, irascible owners, management squabbles, political intrigue, and financial difficulties.

The amount of information on the history of theatres in London is massive. I will provide a little bit of background, an amusing story or two, and most importantly, images. The goal of this pictorial is to provide you with a general idea of how theatres may have looked in the Regency era.

As a side note, in writing this section of the pictorial I had a couple of pesky little problems. One was how to spell “theatre”: “theater” (as in the United States), or “theatre” (as in Britain)? To correctly spell the theatre names I had to use the British spelling, so for the sake of uniformity I used that spelling throughout. Another little problem also involved the theatre names. Each of the theatres I researched had “Theatre Royal” in its
name, which became very confusing. I carefully kept each theatre’s history separate, but be aware you may see “Theatre Royal” attached to more than one theatre description.

The above illustration of the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden shows how the theatre would have appeared during the time of the Essex Sisters series.

The theatre was first erected by John Rich in 1733. Some thirty years later in 1762, it was partially rebuilt, but a year later a riot over ticket prices took place, demolishing the interior, including benches and chandeliers. The damage was so extensive that it took nearly a week to restore the theatre.

Then, on the night of September 20, 1808, the theatre burned to the ground. During the course of the play
Pizarro
, a gun had to be fired. Speculation at the time suggested that smoldering wadding, a cloth, or the paper wrapping used in muzzleloaders became lodged in the decorations of the stage.

The fire started at 4 a.m. and, given the combustible nature of theatres, by 6 a.m. the interior was gutted and the roof had fallen in. Due to a combination of the falling roof and scalding steam, an estimated twenty-two firemen perished. As if that wasn’t tragedy enough, the theatre’s entire contents were lost: the valuable scenery and stage properties, stage jewelry and armor, the actors’ elaborate costumes. Handel’s organ and numerous original scores were destroyed. In addition, seven houses near the theatre burned down.

To much fanfare and a vast crowd of spectators, His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales laid the first stone of the new Covent Garden Theatre on December 31, 1808. Amazingly, the rebuilt theatre reopened one year later, when Shakespeare’s tragedy
Macbeth
was performed on September 18, 1809—eight years prior to 1817, the year in which
Much Ado About You
was set.

Desperate to recoup their losses, the proprietors reduced the general admission seating and added more private boxes, while raising the price of admission from six to seven shillings for a private box and from three shillings and sixpence to an even four shillings for the pit (general admission). Even though the price of seats had not been raised in seventeen years, the increased prices distressed the public, leading to the Old Prices riots, or what was more commonly known as the “OP” riots. These riots continued on and off for the next two months in spite of arrests of the ringleaders by the Bow Street runners, and had a severe effect on the box office take.

The riots took place inside and outside the theatre, and clearly disrupted performances. To illustrate this, here is a contemporary quotation taken from
History and Illustration of the London Theatres
about the OP riots: “no female, nor any person but those who went either to enjoy the riot, or to riot themselves, would go to the Theatre.”
The book explains that any lady who appeared in the new lavish private boxes would be subjected to harsh insults from the pits and galleries, since the popular notion was these rooms had been designed for secret rendezvous.

At last the proprietors were forced to compromise, and they reduced the price of admission back to the original rates. A number of the private boxes were also removed. Peace was restored; however, the damage was already done. As
History and Illustration of the London Theatres
explains, the “confidence of female timidity in security was too much shaken to render the boxes of Covent Garden sufficiently refulgent with beauty and fashion, those magnets of attraction, early enough in the season to enable the proprietors to make up their loss.”

To return to Eloisa’s novels, Eliot Thurman in
Pleasure for Pleasure
goes to the Covent Garden Theatre in order to steal “clever remarks,” after his friend Darlington
severs their friendship. Eloisa admits that one of the jokes he stole—the idea that a gentleman’s occupation should be smoking tobacco—wouldn’t be written by Oscar Wilde for some years (
The Importance of Being Earnest
was first performed at the St. James’s Theatre in 1895). But she wanted to use it because Wilde’s withering sarcasm is utterly lost on Thurman, who delivers the line straight. This theatrical thievery is both a sign of Thurman’s stupidity and a hint of his future attempt to steal Josie’s virtue. He is one of the few truly despicable characters that Eloisa has created.

                       
Darlington was yesterday’s news, and [Thurman] was bursting with the ambition to make himself into Darlington’s successor. He was already in a good way to doing it. Last night he’d gone to the Covent Garden Theatre and surreptitiously written down a number of clever remarks.

Pleasure for Pleasure

Stories of romance, triumph, and disaster crowd Drury Lane’s past, and the historical associations of the theatre are incredible. The Irish actor and dramatist Charles Macklin was notorious for the murder of another actor in the greenroom—after a brawl involving a wig. Sixteen years prior to the setting of
Much Ado About You
, King George III was nearly shot by a madman as the king entered the royal box; unmoved, he stayed on to watch the performance of
She Would and She Wouldn’t
.

To me, this incident has distinct similarities to the night President Lincoln attended the theatre, although his visit ended tragically.

The newspaper story of the attempted assassination of King George was included in a book published in 1861 called
The Year 1800, or the Sayings and Doings of Our Fathers and Mothers
, which is a collection of newspaper articles. A cartoon and newspaper clipping of the event are included below.

The king was not the only family member to attend the theatre that night; as you can see in the article, the Duke of York was also there. At the time, that title was held by the second oldest child of the king, Frederick Augustus, who was created Duke of York and Albany, and Earl of Ulster, on November 27, 1784. Interestingly, while the king was very popular with his subjects, as was Frederick, this popularity did not extend toward his despised Prince of Wales. Eloisa adds this historical dynamic to the framework of
Kiss Me, Annabel
.

                       
Annabel felt a prickle of annoyance. [Rosseter] knew perfectly well that she was awaiting his proposal. Was it too much to ask that he actually
do
that particular deed, rather than chatter nonsense with a fat overgrown lummox of an English prince?

Kiss Me, Annabel

The “lummox of an English prince” is clearly a reference to the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne.

But let’s return to my overview of the Drury Lane Theatre just prior to the Regency period. In 1791, the 117-year-old theatre building was demolished and a new theatre was opened on March 12, 1794, staging
Oratorio
followed by
Macbeth
and
The Virgin Unmasked
.

Then, on the evening of February 24, 1809, the theatre burned to the ground—less than five months after the fire at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Public opinion was
that the incineration of two Royal Theatres in such a short period could not be an accident, but nothing was ever proven. A new Drury Lane theatre didn’t open for another three years, until 1812.

The Taming of the Duke
story begins in 1817, so at that point the new Drury Lane Theatre would have been only five years old and the Covent Garden Theatre eight years old. What’s clear from Loretta’s account, given below, is that her dismissal from the Covent Garden Theatre was less important than her planned triumph at the far more prestigious Drury Lane Theatre.

                       
The theater manager at Covent Garden had been most unsympathetic when she appeared, late for the performance, and limping. When Mr. Spenser’s consoling sympathy had led to a most enjoyable evening—if a most unpleasant outcome—the manager had terminated her employment with little more than a grunt and a wave of his head. The very memory made Loretta narrow her eyes. He would be sorry later, when she was the star at Drury Lane. Of course, she would be gracious.

The Taming of the Duke

Loretta believes Covent Garden’s prestige was far below that of Drury Lane, but the
History and Illustration of London Theatres
maintains that Covent Garden was “more popular and attractive” during this time period. From the historical record, it seems that Drury Lane was clearly struggling. After the seasons of 1815–16 and 1816–17, Drury
Lane management lowered the price of admission to increase attendance, after which the theatre was sold. The new owners made considerable improvements before it reopened in September 1818.

To be historically accurate, Eloisa would have had to switch the two theatres in the above quote; a young actress might well have been employed at the Drury Lane Theatre during that time period, but was less likely to be at Covent Garden. This is just a fun observation and certainly didn’t affect the story for me! From my vantage point, both theatres had equally turbulent histories, with a fickle public rushing back and forth between theatres seeking something new. A seesaw of fate determined their popularity at any given time.