The Audience
RESPONSIVENESS
I His present Monday His Majesty’s Servants will perform a Comedy
called . . These servants were the audience’s servants as well — a fact
that on many a night they were not allowed to forget. And yet at the same
time on them was bestowed both esteem and generosity. “The London
audience,” remarks Tate Wilkinson, “is the only one where respect and
attention is preserved for their favourite performers. ”247
Audiences have always been an occasional trial to actors, just as actors
have been an occasional trial to audiences. But throughout the eighteenth
century an ambiguity — or, rather, a paradox — that was never clearly stated
0r defined continued to exist between the two sets of persons who found
themselves on either side of the footlights. A feeling of neighborliness
fostered by the bright lights gleaming throughout the theatre sprang into
being every night at the rise of the curtain. When an audience was satisfied
U rewarded the performers, without waiting for the curtain to fall, with
instantaneous and tumultuous congratulations. If it was dissatisfied it
exerted its control over offenders who became, of a sudden, mere servants,
ar*d *0L,d and insistent orders were called out. Why has the play been
changed? Why is not Mr X or Mrs T appearing as announced? No, no!
'dffj oft! Send on the manager! An apology! All London loved its players.
But when in an angry mood, all London expected its players, then and there,
to be obedient.
Countless nights went by, every season at every theatre, without
s ur bance. And even when disturbances did arise, the audience far more
>mes than not was ready to forgive. The exhibition and the proof of their
authority over their “servants” were usually sufficient; having exerted it
Cy t^en wanted to sit back and enjoy both their entertainment and their
loney s worth. If, however, they realized that they had been in any way
II USt tlley were quick, with applause or with verbal apologies, to make
^mentis. The matter was clearly and correctly stated by Charles Dibdin
c younger, who said, “I always found that if you can only show an English
The Wandering Patentee, n, 15.
cxcv