Event Comment: At the Desire of several Ladies of Quality. And the principal Characters new Dress'd

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. It is not certain this is the first performance, but it may well have been. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@139, p. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 346. Pepys, Diary: Sir W. Pen and I to the Duke's house, where a new play. The King and Court there: the house full, and an act begun. And so went to the King's. Downes (p. 28): Sir Martin Marral, The Duke of New-Castle, giving Mr Dryden a bare translation of it, out of a Comedy of the Famous French Poet Monseur Moleire: He adapted the Part purposely for the Mouth of Mr Nokes, and curiously Polishing the whole....All the Parts being very Just and Exactly perform'd, specially Sir Martin and his Man, Mr Smith, and several others since have come very near him, but none Equall'd, nor yet Mr Nokes in Sir Martin: This Comedy was Crown'd with an Excellent Entry. In the Last Act at the Mask, by Mr Priest and Madam Davies; This, and Love in a Tub, got the Company more Money than any preceding Comedy

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This date marks the opening of the new theatre in Dorset Garden. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 31): The new Theatre in Dorset-Garden being Finish'd, and our Company after Sir William's Death, being under the Rule and Dominion of his Widow the Lady Davenant, Mr Betterton and Mr Harris, (Mr Charles Davenant her Son Acting for her) they remov'd from Lincolns-Inn-Fields thither. And on the Ninth Day of November 1671, they open'd their new Theatre with Sir Martin Marral, which continu'd Acting 3 Days together, with a full Audience each Day; notwithstanding it had been Acted 30 Days before in Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and above 4 times at court. [This play is also on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 18: Sir Martin.

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first production is not known, but the Gentleman's Journal, February 1692@3 (issued in March) makes clear that it followed Congreve's play: We have had since a Comedy, call'd, The Wary Widow, or Sir Noisy Parrot, by Henry Higden Esq; I send by here the Prologue to it by Sir Charles Sedley, and you are too great an Admirer of Shakespeare, not to assent to the Praises given to the Fruits of his rare Genius (p. 61). The play was announced in the London Gazette, No. 2875, 29 May-June 1693. The music for one song, All hands up aloft, was by Berenclow, and the song appears in D'Urfey, Wit and Mirth, 1699. Dedication, edition of 1693: But now it is forced to beg for your Protection from the malice and severe usage it received from some of my Ill natured Friends, who with a Justice peculiar to themselves, passed sentence upon it unseen or heard and at the representation made it their business to persecute it with a barbarous variety of Noise and Tumult. Gildon, The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton (p. 20): The actors were completely drunk before the end of the third act, and being therefore unable to proceed with this "Pleasant Comedy," they very properly dismissed the audience

Event Comment: Benefit Leigh. At the Desire of several ladies of Quality

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 3 years. With new Dresses and Decorations. The Characters dressed in the Habits of the Times. [Palmer Jun. was from the hay.] "It is necessary to remind both Macbeth and his Lady that there is a measured declamation, of which the natural utterance of passion knows nothing, and that words and syllables may be divided and subdivided till the fatigue of the ear overcome every other feeling...Between the first and second acts Ca ira was loudly called for from the pit and gallery. The clamour, after preventing the first part of the second act from being heard, subsided as unaccountably as it rose. The performers, in compliance with an admonition from the pit, began the act again, and proceeded without further interruption" (Morning Chronicle, 20 Feb.). "In Macbeth there was too much that was not Shakespeare, too much bad taste and shabbiness in the costumes of the witches, and all in all too much claptrap. He found it insufferable that Banquo should take the part of his own ghost and felt that the audience should behold the specter only in Macbeth's terror, as was the case with the banquet guests. 'Mr Kemble has desired on several occasions to suppress the ghost,' Meister says, 'but has never had the courage to do so.'" (J. H. Meister quoted in J. A. Kelly, 134). For Kemble's eventual courage in this matter see dl, 21 Apr. 1794.] Receipts: #425 6s. (383.2; 40.4; 2.0)