Plays and Critics
COMPARATIVE NUMBER OF NEW PLAYS
Diversity lies at the heart of a theatre operated on a repertory system.
1 his truism applies with particular force to the theatres of London between
the years 1776 and 1800. During that period, in the three Theatres Royal
that sufficed to fill the needs of the playgoing public, nearly 1,200 different
mampieces and afterpieces were performed, of which about 750 were entirely
new. Some 160 different operas were produced at the King’s, 54 being heard
for the first time anywhere. For these twenty-four years the average number
°f new pieces of all different kinds produced each season at Drury Lane
Uas ten, at Covent Garden fifteen, at the Haymarket six. At the King’s
the average of entirely new operas for each season was only one. In order
to present all this to the public the managers availed themselves during
these years of well over a thousand performers.
At all the theatres the number of new afterpieces was very much larger
than the number of the new full-length mainpieces. At Covent Garden in
1798-99 it rose as high as 27, whereas in no theatre were more than 8 new
mainpieces ever produced within the course of one season. But it is to be
noted that a large number of these shorter farces, interludes, and burlettas
Wcrc of the most ephemeral nature, a considerable percentage of them
xung of an occasional sort (oftentimes written to please a certain actor
at the time of his benefit), and were never acted more than once. The
mainpieces, being more carefully selected, were not produced in as great
numbers or as rapidly as were the farces.
A few statistics may be adduced. The total average of all wholly new
P^ys produced each season at all the theatres was 31: 11 mainpieces and
~° afterpieces, the breakdown for each individual theatre being at Drury
banc 4 and 6 respectively, at Covent Garden 5 and 10, at the Haymarket 2
n 4- This does not include some 25 new pieces first exhibited at the Hay¬
market in the special “out of season” performances in the winter.
Covent Garden was invariably more active in presenting its patrons
, these new plays than were the other two theatres. In the seasons
‘lnL discussed its manager brought forward 119 new mainpieces and
47 new afterpieces, as opposed to 90 and 135 at Drury Lane, and, granting
bar more abbreviated season, 59 and 99 at the Haymarket. The only
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