THE STORY OF OLD DRURY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9086, 11 May 1908, Page 3

THE STORY OF OLD DRURY.

MANY FAMOUS ACTORS WHO HAVE APPEARED ON ITS STAGE.

The story of Drury Lane Theatre, which was seriously damaged by fire in March, is practically the story of the English stage from the Restoration to the accession of Queen Victoria. Drury Lane Theatre was first opened on April 8, 1663, under a patent granted to Thomas Killigrew by Charles 11. Killigrew had been page a to Charles 1., and had accompanied bis son in his exile, when ho played the part of an official jester. He was over fifty at the Restoration, with an eager appetite for posts and offices, and according to Mr Percy Fitzgerald his idea of theatre management partly due to the fact that ho had himself written plays. Killigrew'a first production at "The Lane" was a comedy called "The Humourous Lieutenant." The price 3 were 4s for the boxes, pit 2a 6d, middle gallery Is 6d, and gallery la. The most famous player under Killgrew's management was Nell GWynne, whom Pepys saw in "The Humourous Lieutenant"—"a silly play,, I think" —in 1665. .Pepys, pp3aking of her in another play, says: "So great performance of a comical part was never, T believe, in the world before." Possibly, however, "Sweet Nell's" historiu gifts wera as exaggerated as her philantrophy is said to have been*. The first Drury Lane Theatre was burnt down in 1672, sixty adjoining houses being also destroyed. The second theatre was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and was opened in March 1674. Mr Fitzgerald reprints some old "pay sheets" of the theatre which are interesting as showing the nightly receipts in the seventeenth century. On December 12, 1677, for example, a play called "All for Love" played to £2B 4s 6d, while on the 23th of the same month "The Death of Alexander the Great" play ed to £52 19s.

Thomas Killigrew died in 1681, and wan succeeded by his son, the Drury Lane company at that time including Betterton and Mrs Bracegirdle. From 1710 to 1747 Drury Lane was managed by Colley Cibber, actor, dramatist, and poet laureate. Among the players during Gibber's reign were Mrs Oldfield, who was buried in Westminister Abbey in 1730; the famous Irish actress, Kitty Clive; Quin, Macklin, and David Garrick, who made his first appearance at Drury Lane on Ootober,s, 1742, in "The Orphan." In 1747 Garrick became the theatre's manager, Peg Woffington, Kitty Clive and Mrs Robinson, who played Juliet in 1776, being among the many famous players appearing on his stage during his thirty years control. Garrick made his farewell performance on the stage at Drury Lane in a nlay called "The Wonder" on June 10, 1776. It is an examph of the completeness with whicn .this one theatre enshrines English theatrical history that Garrick, Macready in 1851, Henry Irving fifty-five years afcer : wards all bade their farewell to London within iis walls.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan became the theatre's manager after Garriclc's retirement, and the next prominent "star" was Mr.s Siddons, who appeared as Juliet in 1782, her brother, John Kemble, playing Hamlet a few months afterwards. Mrs Jordan, the famous comedienne, also appeared about this period.

In 1794 Sheridan rebuilt the theatre, and in 1809 it was again burnt down, the present playhouse being opened in 1812 with a prologue written by Lord Byron. Edmund Kern mado hi 3 historic first appeara;iC3 at D.ury Lane as Shylock in, 1814, and Macready first appeared there in Sheridan Knowles' "Virginius" in 1823. The lastnamed tragedian became manager of the theatrj eighteen years afterWards.

With tho increase i:i competition caused by the frooinsr of the minor theatres by t'.ie Act of 1843, Drury Lane fell upon bad t.'imn, and here the discovery was mada that Shakespeare apelt ruin. The long association of the theatre with pantomime makes it interesting to recall that the famous clown, Joseph Gritnaldi, took his farewell benefit at the theatre in 1828.