The Audience
PATENT HOUSES
Non) fills ،1,8 dome
؛
tk, trim tbs
flames
Aid tbs ٥٠ ad tapers call
آ
all tbeir beams
red٥d ea^er 111 ۶o«t seats, tbej tbr٠n٤, the) squeexe,
And fans soft wawng), sbed a gentle bree«.
Pit, Boxes, Gall’ry sbine mitb blended rows.
Idles, and Bawds, and Cits and Bakes, and Bcawx,
’Tis smiling, cwrtsjin^ all. Tbe Fiddlers rise,
Tbe win٥d notes tbicken, and tbe mitsic flies . ٠
٠
—Tbe Upper Gallery: a Poem (London, 1753)
The articulate audience, along with text and actors, forms the third
and necessary element in tlie make-up of dramatic art. Eighteenth-century
articulateness ran the gamut foom quiet attentive acceptance of a play
ح
vociferous denunciation. Dr Avery and Dr Scouten liave outlined half a
dozen types of the latter which in the early period brouglit the house into
an uproar: quarrel among spectators, quarrel among actors, quarrel between
political factions, literary tensions and loyalties, management errors,
premeditated damnation, and spontaneous eruption. In all tlrese areas [
Garrick-period audiences maintained the tradition of British freedom "
speech and action. About once every ten years both patent theatres had
£٥
redecorate as a result of audience riots wliicli spared neitlier benches, drape؛'
nor chandeliers. During th؛ intervals the hiss an؛ catcal؛ carried on, aj
some quantity of Condells fruit concession seems often to have been lodge
٧4 JWIII V
LllC LIULll
٧
٧cai
come LU llic 141 uiicxpciicu ia٥lll٧44 aiiu
Hogarth’s caricatures of tlieir rational contemporaries. The notes of c٢٥
and Hopkins open the doors for US to tliis belravior. At the seventh pef
١٧٥
':
formance of The Foundling, 22 February 1748, writes Cross
tliat my Lord Hubbard lrad made a party this niglit to hiss
repor
Foundling off the stage, that yc reason was it ran too long & they want
98 See Sir St. Vincent Troubridge, “Theatre Riots in I-ondon,” Studies in English rhea
on stage as petulance expressed itself in pdting.98
in Memory of Gabrielle £„8
(London, 1952), pp. 84-97.
clxxxiv