Lord Falkland of course points at the play.
Prologue
[p. 116] lofty Tire. The Upper Gallery, the price of admission to which was one shilling. It was the cheapest part of the theatre, and is often alluded to in Prologue and Epilogue, but generally with abuse or sarcasm. Dryden, in his Prologue to Tate’s The Loyal General (1680), caustically advises:—
Remove your benches, you apostate pit,
And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the rope,
Or see what’s worse, the Devil and the Pope.
Dramatis Personæ
[p. 117] Harlequin, Willmore’s Man. Although no actor’s name is printed for Harlequin, the part was undoubtedly played by Shadwell’s brother-in-law, Tom Jevon, who, at the age of twenty-one, had joined the company in 1673. Originally a dancing-master (Langbaine notes his ‘activity’), he became famous in low comedy and particularly for his lithe and nimble Harlequins. In Otway’s Friendship in Fashion (1677) Malagene, a character written for and created by Jevon, says, ‘I’m a very good mimick; I can act Punchinello, Scaramuchio, Harlequin, Prince Prettyman, or any thing.’
Harlequin does not appear in Killigrew’s Thomaso. Mrs. Behn’s mime plays pranks and speaks Italian and Spanish. No doubt she derived the character from the Italian comedians who had been at the Royal Theatre, Whitehall, in 1672-3, as Dryden, in an Epilogue (spoken by Hart) to The Silent Woman when acted at Oxford, after a reference to a visit of French comedians, has:—