Actor Rebellion of 1733
Henry Fielding sided with the managers and produced several plays to aid the Theatre Royal, though this caused a backlash when the rebelling actors finally won the dispute.
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was run by the holders of one of the two official licenses, or letters patent, established by Charles II in 1660.
[1] In 1730, a notice in the Daily Journal stated that a patent would be issued to Booth, Cibber, and Wilks authorising the official government license to run the Theatre Royal.
[6] Matters were complicated by mass illnesses spreading across London; the epidemic, probably flu, reduced the number of actors able to work and many plays were cancelled.
Even Henry Fielding's play The Miser, which was to open early January, was postponed because of the poor health of its cast members, including Theophilus.
The fighting between the managers coincided with poor attendance from both the epidemic in London and other theatres attracting audiences with popular operatic performances.
On 22 March 1733, Hill, in a letter to Benjamin Victor, a dramatist who had arranged the sale of Booth's shares to Highmore,[10] criticised the fact that he was kept from buying into the theatre's management and attacked Theophilus.
[12] By this time, many of the partners, including Wilks, Ellys, and Colley Cibber, no longer wanted to be a part of the theatre and sought to sell their shares.
[16] According to the Daily Post of 29 May 1733: the Occasion we are inform'd was, that at Midnight on Saturday last several Persons arm'd took Possession of the same, by Direction from some of the Patentees, and lock'd up and barricado'd all the Doors and Entrances thereunto, against the whole Company of his Majesty's Comedians, as also against Mr. Cibber, jun.
notwithstanding he had paid to one of the Patentees several Hundred Pounds for one third Part of the Patent, Cloaths, Scenes, &c. and all Rights and Privileges thereunto annexed, for a certain Term not yet expired.
[17]The actors petitioned Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, the Lord Chamberlain, and requested that he settle the dispute, but he refused to involve himself in the matter.
He accused the management of bad treatment and wrote:[19] I could give the Publick a great many Instances of the Gentlemen's Mismanagement and of Injuries done to the Company this Season in their Direction.
But when I affirm that they have no Experience, no Knowledge, no Capacity, For Gathering together, Forming, Entertaining, Governing, Privileging, and Keeping a Company of Comedians ... more than the being able to purchase the Patent [...] it is a Truth that if any one does not now believe, I am positive that they will in a very little Time be thoroughly convinced of.
Within the response, Theophilus Cibber emphasised the inability of the management to effectively run the theatre, claimed that they were acting like tyrants, and alleged that they unjustly refused the offer by the actors to rent out the patent.
This did not calm the dispute; instead, the Grub-Street Journal of 14 June 1733 printed parts of John Vanbrugh's Aesop, a play that criticised the actor rebellion that took place in 1695.
[22] A pamphlet titled An Impartial State of the Present Dispute Between the Patent and Players was published during the late summer that attacked the actors.
It claimed that "all Men of Sense and Integrity seem to be entirely convinced that the Patentees of the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, have had great Injustice done them by the late Attempt of Part of their own Company to defraud them of their Property".
Although the Theatre Royal had replacement actors of a lesser talent and a few loyal experienced members, Henry Fielding joined the management's side of the dispute.
Of the 15 loyal actors that stayed with the Theatre Royal, only a few, including Kitty Clive, Christiana Horton, William Mullart, and Charles Stoppelaer, were of note.
[27] Victor, in his account of the time, wrote: In this maimed Condition the Business of Course went lamely on; for a very middling Company of Players could be expected to bring but thin losing Audiences, especially while Party prevailed, and those very Plays were acted much better in the Haymarket.
The unavoidable and melancholy Consequence of this Proceeding was, that there was a Ballance every Saturday Morning in the Office against the Manager, of Fifty or Sixty Pounds; and his Pride, as well as his Honour, were too nearly concerned not to prudence the Deficiency every Week with the utmost Exactness.
A 5 November hearing set a date for a trial, but the case fell apart before it was ever heard over the technical wording of a law that conflicted with the original request by the licensed theatre managers.
