“On the stage the principal actresses drag long trains after them, and are followed by a little boy in quality of a train-bearer, who is as inseparable from them as the shadow from the body. This page keeps his eye constantly upon the train of the princess, sets it to rights when it is ever so little ruffled or disordered, and is seen to run after it with all his might, when a violent emotion makes the princess hurry from one side of the stage to another.”
Drury Lane Theatre has an older record than Covent Garden. It dates from 1663, and in 1682 was the only theatre in London, being considered sufficient for the joint representations of the two old established companies of players, The King’s and The Duke’s. It was many times rebuilt, being more than once destroyed by fire; in fact nothing is more striking in the annals of theatres than the astonishing number of times nearly every theatre has been burnt down. The third house was burnt in February 1809, and its successor opened in 1812, with a prologue by Lord Byron. During Jane Austen’s first recorded visit to London, therefore, it would be in course of rebuilding, though on subsequent visits it would be very fashionable, being new.
Just as in novels during the lifetime of Jane Austen, there was an enormous change from the grandiloquent and conventional, to the natural and simple, and the same in poetry, so it was on the stage. The absurd conventionalism, the unsuitable dresses, no matter what, so long as they were grand, were exchanged for easy declamation and natural attitude.
Garrick, as we have said, was one of the first actors to begin this movement, and it is no wonder that he won the applause of London, and that crowds came to hear him, so that in 1744, when he was to act Hamlet, servants were sent at three o’clock in the afternoon to keep places for their employers, for there were then no such things as reserved seats. Fine actors and actresses abounded in the eighteenth century; Mrs. Siddons, who was born in 1755, did not give her farewell performance in Lady Macbeth until 1812, and lived long after. Both Mrs. Oldfield and Peg Woffington, however, had passed away before Jane’s time.
THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE
It was an age when people were wild about acting, and private theatres were a common hobby, many a young spark ruined himself in this extravagance, and The Times of 1798 mentions that there were no fewer than six private theatres in London and Westminster.
The plays commented upon in Jane’s letters seem to us very dull, “Fanny and the two little girls are gone to take places for to-night at Covent Garden; Clandestine Marriage and Midas. The latter will be a fine show for L[izzie] and M[arianne]. They revelled last night in Don Juan whom we left in hell at half past eleven. We had Scaramouch and a ghost, and were delighted. I speak of them; my delight was very tranquil, and the rest of us were sober minded. Don Juan was the last of three musical things. Five Hours at Brighton, in three acts, and the Beehive rather less flat and trumpery.”
“We had good places in the box next the stage box.... I was particularly disappointed at seeing nothing of Mr. Crabbe. I felt sure of him when I saw the boxes were fitted up with crimson velvet. The new Mr. Terry was Lord Ogleby, and Henry thinks he may do, but there was no acting more than moderate.”