Management and Operation
The experimental years for theatre managers, so harrassing during
tlie first part of the century, were about over for the patent tlieatres when
Garrick arrived. The buildings were established and financed. Acting
companies were assembled and carrying on in a tradition now crystallized.
Price scales for theatre seats, and means for collection for entrance fees lrad
become fixed. Problems which occur under the heading of management and
operation in this period, therefore, reduce themselves to four kinds: (!)
who the managers should be; (2) tlie policy which sliould guide their reper-
tory;
(3) the pressures they would be under in the management and
operation of personnel; (4) the minor material problems that would face
them. The second of these, the core of tlieatrical activity, merits a section
of its own for discussion of all aspects of determining tlie repertory. The
over-all governing policy had already been set by tlie provisions of tlie
I.icensing Act of 1737, whiclt stated that no new plays, or adtlitions to old
ones might be acted until copy had been approved by the I.ord Chamber-
lain. His office could muster as policy guides all tlie legislation from the
time ofjames I which had been ،lirected towards regulating the stage. No
play should contain seditious, libelous, profane, immoral, or obscene matter.
I shall deal here briefly, then, with the other three, and by tlaeatre.
DRURY LANE
TYPE OF MANAGER. The opening of this period, as Dr Scouten
has pointed out in Part 3 of this Work, saw Charles Fleetwood, a sometime
wealtliy gentleman with little aptness in theatrical affairs, holding the patent,
and turning over the repertory, reltearsals, costuming and stage manage-
ment
to liis leading actor, cliarles Macklin. The financial affairs of tlie
theatre lay in the power of Pierson, liis treasurer, and the deputy-treasurer
John Powel. Fleetwood was a charming spendthrift, Macklin was a great
actor, but a domineering director, Pierson seems to have possessed a per-
sonality which antagonized everyone. Fleetwood arranged to sell part of
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