It is easy to believe Mrs. Manley's high commendation of the actress but difficult to credit Mrs. Barry's objection to playing a part that was a natural sequel to all the heroic and sometimes wicked women she had played throughout her career. Her audience identified her with Lee's Roxana in The Rival Queens, Dryden's Cleopatra in All for Love, and his recent Cassandra in Cleomenes. Every playwright since 1680 had written expressly for her: Otway's Monimia in The Orphan was her first great part in 1680, followed two years later by Belvidera in Venice Preserv'd. Southerne had given her Isabella in The Fatal Marriage in 1694, Congreve was still to write for her his Zara in The Mourning Bride in 1697, and Rowe his Calista in The Fair Penitent in 1703. Cibber, in 1740, remembered her "Presence of elevated Dignity ... her Voice full, clear, and strong, so that no Violence of Passion could be too much for her." He emphasized that in "Scenes of Anger, Defiance, or Resentment, while she was impetuous, and terrible, she pour'd out the Sentiment with an enchanting Harmony." [6]
Mrs. Barry's ability and her strength of voice in expressing the passions led to the full development of the rant, which was the test of the dramatic actress as the aria is the test of the opera singer. Ordinarily in a tragedy, there were two: one, the melodious expression of unattainable love in the first part of the play, and the second in the death scene, usually of raving madness. In The Royal Mischief, there are at least six major rants, each more powerful and surprising than the one preceding it. If Mrs. Barry's ability was ever tested, it was with Mrs. Manley's Homais.
The story is that of another Messalina. Homais, married to the unloved Prince of Libardian, had had many lovers in her progress to the throne of Phasia: among them, Ismael, who had remained her creature and is willing to kill the Prince for one more night's favors. Even her eunuch Acmat is more than a mere pander to her desire for her husband's nephew, Levan Dadian, whom she has never seen but for whom she writhes nightly upon her bed in erotic desire, stimulated only by his life size picture and secondhand descriptions of him. She conspires with Acmat to inflame Levan Dadian with desire for her (her portrait was enough) and to bring about a meeting even though that prince was bringing home with him his virtuous bride, Bassima, princess of Colchis. Her proposal to enslave Levan Dadian might have been difficult if it had not been for the fact that years before, during a war between Phasia and Colchis, Osman, great general and now Chief Vizier to the Prince of Libardian, had captured Bassima, fallen in love with her (and she with him), but without a word on either side before and after he had freed her, they had remained platonically true to each other in spite of the passage of years, Osman's marriage to Selima, sister of his Prince, the offer (and rejection) of Homais' love, and of Bassima's recent marriage to Levan Dadian. When Levan Dadian brings Bassima to court, the recognition between Osman and Bassima is endured in silence, but the trusting Osman bares his heart to Homais' creature Ismael, who inflames the hitherto platonic Osman with unholy desire for the pure Bassima. The wily Acmat insinuates distrust for Bassima into Levan Dadian's heart at the same time that he inspires lust for Homais and brings about the promised meeting. Homais immediately sets about disposing of everyone who stands in her way. The Prince of Libardian is to be dispatched by Ismael. Osman is to be accused of infidelity with Bassima, who is to be poisoned by Ismael. Word of this gets to Osman, who urges Bassima to flee with or without him, but she refuses because her virtue would be called into question in either case. But plans go awry, the Prince is not dispatched, and while Levan Dadian is absent, Homais is seized by her husband and given the choice of drinking poison or submitting to death by the bow-string. She charms him out of killing her, and he, overcome by her beauty, weakly believes her promises and sets her free to pursue her wickedness.
Bassima, however, has been poisoned and is dying when Osman comes to her, urging the consumation of their passion then and there, before it is too late. Her gentle refusal to stray from virtue on her deathbed awakens him from his unplatonic spell, and he begs forgiveness but is interrupted in the middle of his contrite speech, led away, crammed alive into a cannon, and shot off. The soldiers, led by Ismael, revolt in favor of Homais and declare her queen. For a heady moment, she has attained her every desire as she stands exulting over the dying Bassima, whose husband is somewhat disturbed by the turn of events but whose attention is diverted when Homais takes him in her arms. But at the height of her triumph, the Prince burst in, sword in hand, and runs Homais through before she can change his mind. Unrepenting to the end, she goes to her death and into her final rant with defiance on her lovely lusty lips as she ticks off the men in her life one by one. In the last three minutes, Osman's faithful but jealous wife gathers his smoking remains, Levan Dadian falls on his sword, and the Prince of Libardian ends the play with
O horrour, horrour, horrour!
What Mischief two fair Guilty Eyes have wrought;
Let Lovers all look here, and shun the Dotage.
To Heaven my dismal Thoughts shall straight be turn'd,
And all these sad Dissasters truly mourn'd.
There is no need to point out that The Royal Mischief invited parody. Everything was in excess. No woman had ever been so lustfully wicked as Homais (played by Elizabeth Barry), no heroine so pure as Bassima (Anne Bracegirdle), no hero so faithfully platonic (Thomas Betterton), no husband so duped as the Prince of Libardian (Edward Kynaston), no wife so weakly jealous as Selima (Elizabeth Bowman), no man so easily a prey to lust as Levan Dadian (John Bowman), so much a creature as Ismael (John Hodgson), so vile a tool as Acmat (John Freeman). Each character was a stick figure for a single quality. Incidents happened so rapidly that continual surprise is the predominant emotion if one discounts the miasma of hot surging sex that hovers over the entire production. But it must have been effective when played by the greatest actors in London.
After reading both plays, one can believe that immediately after the presentation of The Royal Mischief, someone began putting together the parodies of obviously over-written scenes and high-flown language, burlesques of heroic acting by the acknowledged past-masters of the art, Thomas Betterton and Elizabeth Barry, as well as the mincing pasquinade of Anne Bracegirdle, who was as virtuous as the pure role she played. Since The Royal Mischief was played in May, near the end of the season, there was ample time to gloat over its absurdities during the summer months and have The Female Wits ready for the delectation of the Town early the following season. Like all satires, it had its day while the original was still fresh in the minds of the theatre-going public but was immediately forgotten because The Royal Mischief did not become a stock play.
The Female Wits is a continuous hilarious romp of scenes from The Royal Mischief and an entire gallery of burlesqued portraits of the famous actors who were as much under fire as Mrs. Manley herself. Elizabeth Barry's histrionic style of acting is held up to derision when Frances Maria Knight, who was playing the character satirizing Homais as well as a caricature of Mrs. Barry, is told to "stamp like Queen Statira does ... that always gets a Clap. No Stamp, and Hug yourself: Oh the strong Exstasie!" When Homais is stabbed, Marsilia gives the order, "D'ye hear, Property Man, be sure some red Ink is handsomely convey'd to Mrs. Knight." Penkethman, a short, slap-stick comedian mimicking six-foot Betterton as the faithful Osman is told to "Fetch long Strides; walk thus; your Arms strutting, your voice big, and your Eyes terrible"; and later, "Louder ... strain your Voice: I tell you, Mr. Pinkethman, this speaking Loud gets the Clap." Mrs. Bracegirdle's famous "pathetic" style of acting is parodied when Marsilia instructs Miss Cross how to speak a line: "Give me leave to instruct you in a moving Cry. Oh! there's a great deal of Art in crying: Hold your Handkerchief thus; let it meet your Eyes, thus; your Head declin'd, thus; now, in a perfect whine, crying out these words,
By these Tears, which never cease to Flow."
Reverse situations are used as comic devices. Possibly the climax of absurdity is reached when Miss Cross and Penkethman, instead of dying horrible deaths, find themselves on the roof-top (instead of in the dungeon) climbing into a celestial chariot that the Prince had been building for fifty years. They escape their pursuing enemies, thus making merry with the tragic conclusion of The Royal Mischief and using the same theatrical machinery that was being employed in Brutus of Alba. Marsilia caps this scene by describing in detail the events which were played seriously in The Royal Mischief: