The common supposition that it was acted only once, is based on Addison’s inventory of Rich’s theatrical paraphernalia, in which are mentioned “the imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once.”[13] The play had been acted ten years previously, and Addison is speaking of an entirely different playhouse and manager so that this testimony, if it does apply to this play, is probably not to be given much weight. While the play may have been withdrawn from the stage after only one performance, Addison’s evidence does not establish the matter one way or the other.
Cibber’s next venture in tragedy was more successful, for while his adaptation of Shakspere’s Richard III has not received critical commendation, it was for over a century practically the only version presented on the stage and is still used by many actors.
When Cibber’s Richard III was originally acted at Drury Lane in 1700, Charles Killigrew, Master of the Revels, forbade the first act, because the distress of Henry, introduced from Shakspere’s Henry VI, might bring the exiled King James to the mind of the people; so that only four acts could be given. The play was a comparative failure at first, owing no doubt to the omission of so important and necessary a part of the revision, so that Cibber’s profits from the third night, as author, came to less than five pounds.[14] Later, when this act was restored, the piece became a success. As has been pointed out by Dohse[15] and Wood[16], Cibber may in making this adaptation have used the chronicles of Hall and others, and probably was influenced by The Mirror for Magistrates and Caryl’s English Princess (1667).
In his alteration Cibber has cut down the play to a little more than half its original length, and of this remainder only a little over a third is found in Shakspere’s Richard III, while the rest is from a number of Shakspere’s plays or is made up of original additions by Cibber.[17] The alterations vary from the change of single words,[18] to the addition of scenes entirely by Cibber. The omissions, such as Anne’s spitting at Gloster, I, ii, 146, are generally happy; the lines he has substituted are generally easier to understand, if less aesthetically pleasing, than those of the original; and the additions throughout are such as add clearness and theatric effectiveness.
Richard is made the central figure, so that the play revolves more closely about him than in Shakspere. A love story, more slightly developed than usual in the adaptations of this period, is introduced at the end of the play in accordance with contemporary usage. The women are made less prominent, the lyric chorus effect of the various scenes in which these women foretell and bewail is omitted, and the whole action is made more simple and direct. Shakspere’s Richard III is full of this lyric element which Cibber has excised.
With this curtailment of plot comes likewise a less highly presented delineation of character. Not only is the number of characters diminished, but modifications are made in those that remain. Richard becomes less the unfeeling hypocrite, by use of asides his motives and character are made more clear, and he is influenced more by love; his victims are not so vividly presented, and though their weakness of will and character is not less than in the original, the reader does not feel it so much. Cibber’s Richard III, like his King John, is more play than poem; in it Cibber has attempted to make everything subservient to dramatic effectiveness.
Perolla and Izadora was acted at Drury Lane on December 3, 1705, and published the next year. Lintot had bought the copyright November 14, 1705, a few weeks before its presentation, for thirty-six pounds, eleven shillings, next to the largest amount that he paid Cibber for any of his plays. Cibber explains that he omitted Woman’s Wit from the 1721 edition of his plays because it was so inferior a drama, which was no doubt his reason for omitting Xerxes; but why he should not have included Perolla and Izadora, which brought him a good third and sixth day at the theatre, though it does not appear to have been presented afterwards, is not clear, unless, as is probable, he included in this edition only such plays as had gained a more or less permanent place on the stage.
Cibber shows unusual modesty in his dedication of this play, which he founded on a part of the story of Perolla and Izadora from The Romance of Parthenissa[19] (1654) by Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery. He “saw so many incidents in the fable, such natural and noble sentiments in the characters, and so just a distress in the passions, that he had little more than the trouble of blank verse to make it fit for the theatre.”[20] Cibber has followed the events in Parthenissa very closely, making few changes or additions. However, he has Perolla and Izadora in love before the action begins, whereas they do not meet in the romance until after Perolla has saved the life of Blacius in what makes the end of Cibber’s second act; and at the close of the play he unites the lovers, while the story goes on indefinitely in Parthenissa. The characters display about the same qualities; Blacius is made perhaps a trifle more reasonable and Poluvius a little less so. The play is much better as a play than the original is as a story.
The play in general conforms to the French classical type; the unities are observed, the characters are few and noble, it is written in blank verse, and there are no humorous touches. Only in the two deaths and the one fight on the stage does the play violate the French tradition. In the death of the wicked, the reward of the virtuous, and the general nature of the action, it groups itself with the heroic plays of the preceding century, but of course it does not conform to that type in versification. Cibber was here probably writing under the influence of Corneille.
Ximena, or The Heroic Daughter, an alteration of Corneille’s Cid, was acted at Drury Lane, November 28, 1712, when it had a run of about eight performances;[21] but it was not printed until 1719, when it appeared in octavo after it had been revived at Drury Lane, November 1, 1718. Cibber explains that he thus delayed publishing the play because “most of his plays had a better reception from the public when his interest was no longer concerned in them.”[22] The dedication of Ximena brought a storm of criticism on Cibber[23] because in it he spoke of Addison as a wren being carried by Steele as an eagle, which figure he later applied, in his odes, to himself and the king. He had the judgment to omit this dedication from the collected edition of his plays.