The Theatre of Eighteenth Century England I: Background, Sentimental Drama, and Handel's Operas

The eighteenth century is praised as the Age of Reason, and England was central to this movement, a hive of rational thinking. Writers such as John Dryden and Alexander Pope wrote in elegant, carefully crafted rhymed verse, and Samuel Johnson created a dictionary for the English language. The British were responsible for astonishing inventions throughout the sciences and in the arts during this era, an unusual amount of the creativity centered in tiny Scotland.

This surge of energy did not come from the idle pleasure-seekers of the Restoration. Instead, a rising middle class brought with it a strong ethic that made a virtue of hard work. Work was best accomplished not by drinking and debauchery, but by living a life of moderation, and the moderate, moral middle class was conducting the business of the country quite successfully, thank you very much.  In fact at the turn of the eighteenth century the British aristocracy was growing increasingly impoverished, while the bourgeoisie was becoming nouveau riche. Marriages began to be arranged frequently between classes. Such a union could gain a destitute aristocratic family a fortune, while it could gain a wealthy middle class family an entrée into society, perhaps even a title.

Politically an air of change swept through Great Britain.  By 1702 Parliament’s role had become stronger, while the monarch’s role was somewhat weakened.  Between 1721 and 1742, the government of England was more or less run by its most important or “prime” minister – the first was Robert Walpole. He took charge in part because, due to royal marriages that were more about European political unions than love matches, the kings of England through much of the eighteenth century were from the House of Hanover, in Germany.  In fact the first of them, George I, spoke no English, and his successor, George II, spoke only broken English. (George III, who presided over the disastrous American Revolution, spoke fine English, he merely went mad). 

How does the above history connect with theatre history? In the Restoration, aristocrats who attended the theatre had little else to do, almost nowhere else to go. Oh, they took carriage rides in the park, they attended balls, parties, abducted actresses, occasionally participated in the hunt. Pleasure was the business of the aristocracy. And as theatre holds a mirror up to nature, Restoration writers penned plays (most importantly and popularly comedies of manners) about the idle aristocracy. In the eighteenth century, increasingly wealthy merchants began to go to the theatre too, but NOT to the kind of theatre the Restoration had offered.  No plays like the silly Sir Fopling Flutter, and certainly not the downright lewd Country Wife for the middle classes! These merchants wanted plays that mirrored their OWN lives, in which vice was condemned and in which the virtues of hard work and “middle class morality” were praised.  So, much of the drama of the eighteenth century was an outright reaction against the drama of the Restoration.  Plays became filled with moral “sentiments” which is why we often refer to the eighteenth century as an age of “sentimental” drama.

The change was not abrupt.  More than twenty years passed from the last Restoration comedy of manners to the first completely sentimental comedy.  Let’s briefly trace the evolution:  You’ll remember (or WILL you?) that in 1698 Jeremy Collier wrote the pamphlet “A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage,” which denounced the Restoration style. In 1700 William Congreve wrote The Way of the World, one of the greatest comedies of manners, but felt compelled to end it in a happy 

marriage between Mirabell and Millamant.  Then in 1704 Colley Cibber (a famous actor of the day as well as a playwright and theatre manager) wrote a play called The Careless Husband, featuring the libertine Sir Charles Easy. This “easy” fellow has, after four acts of lecherous fun, a change of heart and life when he discovers that his wife has remained faithful to him NOT because 

In this key scene, Easy's wife discovers him, sans wig,
 with the maid, but instead of being outraged she places
a kerchief on his head so he won't catch cold

she doesn’t know about his many affairs.  Alas, she has known for a long time, but has chosen to love him still.  So while we still get four acts of naughty comedy in Cibber’s play, his ending at least has become more genteel than any recent play before it, and the last act is filled with sentimental moralizing.  At about the same time, George Farquhar, in his still quite playable and frequently

revived plays The Beaux Stratagem and The Recruiting Officer, also offers four acts of fun, but in the fifth a sort of moral awakening occurs, and the heroes and heroines get married.

      

Then, in 1722 we are thrust into the age of truly sentimental drama when Sir Richard Steele – his nickname was “honest Dick” – 

wrote a thoroughly sentimental comedy called The Conscious Lovers.  The title alone is a clear statement of the play’s philosophy:  we’ve moved from the Restoration Love in a Tub to sentimental and very “Conscious” Lovers!  Just in case the title 

doesn’t give it away, honest Dick wrote a preface and prologue which argued the new form into existence. First, this, from the preface to the published version, written after the play had proved a success:

“...anything that has its foundation in happiness and success, must be allowed to be the object of comedy, and…to introduce a joy too exquisite for laughter, that can have no spring but in delight…the tears which were shed on that occasion [opening night of The Conscious Lovers] flowed from reason and good sense, and…men ought not to be laughed at for weeping...”

“A joy too exquisite for laughter...” hmmmm... Next, the last lines from the prologue of the play, spoken every night as the show begins:

 “‘Tis yours, with breeding to refine the age,

To chasten wit, and moralize the stage.”

   

“To chasten wit, and moralize the stage...” hmmmm....“A joy too

exquisite for laughter...” hmmmm, encore! The story, briefly, concerns Indiana, a penniless but moral young woman, who’s in love with a young nobleman above her station. After withstanding many trials, it’s discovered that Indiana is really the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Sealand, so she can now marry her lord. Hurrah! The end. Implied in this marriage is the sort of marriage I noted earlier: a marriage between the aristocracy and the newly rich merchant class.  In fact the merchant Sealand (wealthy on the sea, wealthy on land, right?) saves the day and becomes a sort of hero in the play. Now this is the kind of theatre the moral middle class wants to see! Steele also includes a scene in which two friends, angered at each other are about to fight a duel, but “Mr. Bevil evades the quarrel with his friend,” in a highly moralistic speech.  It was thought to be one of the most important scenes in the play, and in an era where duels were fought on the least pretence, for all sorts of stupid reasons, honest Dick was probably correct to comment on it…but is it dramatic? It certainly is sentimental.

Steele by the way was a famous writer in other genres.  Together with Joseph Addison (who was also a successful playwright, composing among other works the neoclassic tragedy Cato), 

Steele wrote and edited some of the first English newspapers, The Tatler and The Spectator.  Steele also published the first British periodical devoted to the theatre, called, sensibly enough, The Theatre.   With the beginning of newspapers and theatre periodicals, the beginnings of theatre criticism in popular journalism began, and soon proliferated! 

      

Through this look at the comedy of the era, I hope you understand the shift to sentimentalism.  The changes in serious drama are similar.  Remember back to heroic tragedy jn the Restoration, in which over-sized heroic figures spouted rhymed couplets, as in Dryden’s Conquest of Granada. This gave way to Restoration tragedy, more free in form using blank verse and somewhat pushing the neoclassic conventions to one side, as in Dryden’s All for Love.  Then, in the early eighteenth century Nicholas Rowe wrote what historians have labeled “pathetic tragedy” – neoclassic in form, sentimental in content.  Rowe focuses on the suffering (pathos) of his heroines, so that the audience is moved to pity and compassion for all that these heroines are forced to endure.  The Ambitious Stepmother (1701) is an indicative title. In this play Rowe re-told the classical tale of Phaedra, earlier related by Euripides in Hippolytus and much later by Racine in Phèdre. But as Rowe’s title indicates, he domesticizes the play, disapproving the vile deed of that ambitious stepmother Phaedra and making the play more palatable for the middle class.  Similarly, Ambrose Phillips used Racine’s Andromache as the model for a play that he titled The Distrest Mother (1712), shifting the focus from classical heroine to mother of a family.

      

The boldest and most important change in serious plays was accomplished by George Lillo in 1731 when he wrote The London Merchant. In doing so he created a new genre that came to be known as “domestic” tragedy.  Whereas pathetic tragedy had sentimentalized classical figures, Lillo took his subjects from contemporary, everyday life, because these subjects were more immediate, applicable and instructive to the ordinary person.  By doing this Lillo’s rather mediocre play created a sensation! 

The story concerns the fall of George Barnwell.  George is an apprentice to Mr. Thorogood, who, as you may be able to guess by his name is a prosperous and thoroughly good merchant.  George is doing well in this apprenticeship, so well that he’s been promised the business when Thorogood retires, and not only that but the merchant’s thoroughly good daughter in marriage! Terrific! BUT!  George is led astray by a prostitute (hiss!), Mrs Millwood, who convinces him to steal from the merchant. He does and in doing so he kills his uncle!  Whoops! The play ends as George heads for the gallows. He dies, but he dies repentant, unlike the evil Mrs Millwood, who scoffs at the idea of repentance and goes to her death railing at the world. She, by the way, is by far the juiciest, most interesting character in the play!  As I say, this play caused a sensation -- EVERYbody in London saw it!  And who knows?  A few possibly even learned from it. That was the hope when The London Merchant was revived regularly well into the 19th century, usually at Christmas time, when it was watched by audiences of cringing apprentices. They were given tickets to this play as Christmas presents from their employers, who wanted them to learn the lesson of George Barnwell!

      

The business of learning a moral lesson at the theatre hardly began in the eighteenth century, but during this time throughout Europe the Horatian formula -- that drama should TEACH as well as delight -- leaned rather heavily on the TEACHing side!  Eighteenth century philosophy held that humans are by nature good. You may veer off the straight and narrow at times, but you have within you the proper moral strength to return to the path; and the best way to stay on the path is to use your reason!  Indiana does in The Conscious Lovers and she’s rewarded, George doesn’t in The London Merchant and he’s punished – that’s poetic justice.

      

Sentimental drama was not the ONLY form of drama on the stages of eighteenth century London.  In 1710 George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) arrived in London and single-handedly created a 

vogue for opera.  Between his arrival and 1740 Handel composed 38 Italian style grand operas, including Rinaldo in 1711 and Rodelinda in 1725. In many of his operas, Handel wrote leading and very difficult roles for a peculiar kind of male soprano known as a castrato. Yes, their testicles were snipped at a tender age, usually only effective at around age 6 and not after. Ouch! The most 

famous of these castrati were as popular as rock stars today, but while many were snipped, few were chosen as stars. And even the stars had their share of problems. See the excellent film Farinelli, named for one of the greatest of his kind. The last castrato, who worked until the turn of the twentieth century, can be heard on tape. The roles with which castrati once dazzled audiences are now taken on with less insidious side effects by countertenors. 

This Spanish piece offers a good and not overdone look at habit a la Romaine as well
as at castrati.

Handel wrote seven oratorios as well, oratorios being sung and instrumental music on a dramatic subject, but presented concert style, versus being fully staged. The most famous of these is of course The Messiah. 

Doctor Jack saw a huge production of the Messiah at the
gigantic Royal Albert Hall in April 2012.

Just in case you don't believe me!

The soprano, in white, was particularly good in the piece.