Home Theatricals and Preserving the Distinction of Rank
Like so much of Georgian England, home theatricals were about the preservation of rank.
Licensing Theaters
Despite the expenses incurred to stage amateur theatricals, these performances could not charge their audiences admission. Unlicensed paid public performances were illegal according to the Licensing Act of 1737.
Enacted by Robert Walpole’s government, the Licensing Act increase the government’s control over public theaters. As a result, spoken drama could only be performed legally at The Theater Royal in Covent Garden and The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the two theaters holding royal patents. (Moreover, “All new plays, additions to old plays, prologues, and epilogues performed by these theatres had to be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain fourteen days before the performance, and he had the power to refuse to allow the performance of any play. His decision was final and there was no possibility of an appeal.”(Haugen, 2014) But that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.)
Those in violation of the act would face a fine of £50 to each person acting for hire, gain or reward in a theatrical performance not licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. (Just a note to give a frame of reference: £50 would have been considered the equivalent of a year’s wage at a minimum wage job today.) That might not have been a lot to the wealthy peers, but for a more modest family, like say Jane Austen’s, it was a hefty amount.
Paid admission might be the biggest detail that set these endeavors apart from professional theater. In most other ways, they emulated professional (paid) theater. Frequently a mainpiece and an afterpiece and entre-act entertainments were performed. Prologues and epilogue—sometimes written by the players might frame the play. Some amateur theatricals even publicized their performances with newspaper reports (and were reviewed by the same—one shudders to think on the sort of things that might have been said) and even printed playbills. Plays performed might range from classical and Shakespearean to popular contemporary works, to amateur works written locally.
Preserving the Distinction of Rank
Marc Baer (1992) suggests many of the upper class might have preferred the relative isolation of the home theatrical setting. Several factors could have contributed to that preference. Audiences’ behavior in the era could range from noisy and rude to outright dangerous.
“Theatre patrons consumed large quantities of alcohol and food, and people arrived and left throughout the performance. Audiences chatted among themselves, and sometimes pelting actors with rotten fruit and vegetables if dissatisfied with the performances. At other times, audiences demanded that popular tunes or popular scenes be played repeatedly. James Boswell, the 18th century diarist, described mooing like a cow during one particularly bad play, to the great amusement of his companions. Rioting at theatres was also not uncommon…
rioting destroyed the Drury Lane theatre in London on six occasions during the century.
In general, audiences were a mix of rich and poor: boxes placed along the stage seated ‘persons of quality,’ while working-class men and women squeezed into hot and dirty galleries. Down below in front of the stage, young men would drink together, eat nuts, and mingle with prostitutes in the notorious pit. (Hudson, 2015)
Moreover, with the rise of the merchant class, the theater was becoming increasingly plebian. How better to preserve the distinction of rank than by attending a private, rather than a public, event?
“The rise of the private theatrical allowed aristocratic participants to choose plays that appealed to them, subverting this growing tendency toward commercialization by reclaiming the theatre from the marketplace and using sociability as the currency instead of money.” (Haugen, 2014) It also permitted them to be showcased themselves.
Changes in the nature of seating and lighting in theaters meant that high status persons would not be as visible as they once were: moving from on-stage seating to seats in expensive boxes; and foot lights and sidelights in the theater itself to better illuminate the stage and focus attention on the actor instead of the audience. A private theater offered the aristocracy a much better venue in which to see and, perhaps more importantly, be seen while preserving the distinction of rank by keeping out the lesser classes.
I love that picture of the riot. OMG! You could study it for hours and constantly find something new to observe. It is hilarious.