The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd DrawcansirMacklin, Charles
General
The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir
Macklin, Charles
English drama
The Larpent collection of the Huntington Library contains the
manuscript copy of Charles Macklin's COVENT GARDEN THEATRE, OR
PASQUIN TURN'D DRAWCANSIR in two acts (Larpent 96) which is here
reproduced in facsimile.[1] It is an interesting example of that
mid-eighteenth-century phenomenon, the afterpiece, from a period when
not only Shakespearean stock productions but new plays as well were
accompanied by such farcical appendages.[2] This particular afterpiece
is worth reproducing not only for its catalogue of the social foibles of
the age, but as an illustration of satirical writing for the stage at a
time when dramatic taste often wavered toward the sentimental. It
appears that it has not been previously printed.
As an actor Charles Macklin is remembered for his Scottish dress in the
role of Macbeth, for his realistic portrayal of Shylock, for his quarrel
with Garrick in 1743, and for his private lectures on acting at the
Piazza in Covent Garden. He is less well known than he deserves as a
dramatist although there has been a recent revival of interest in his
plays stimulated by a biography by William W. Appleton, _Charles
Macklin: An Actor's Life_ (Harvard University Press, 1960) and evidenced
in "A Critical Study of the Extant Plays of Charles Macklin" by Robert
R. Findlay (PhD. Thesis at the State University of Iowa, 1963). Appleton
mentions that Macklin lost books and manuscripts in a shipwreck in 1771
(p. 150) and that play manuscripts may also have disappeared in the sale
of his books and papers at the end of his long life at the turn of the
eighteenth century. It is possible that more of Macklin's work may come
to light, like _The Fortune Hunters_ which appeared in the National
Library in Dublin. Until a complete critical edition of Macklin's plays
appears, making possible better assessment of his merit, such farces as
THE COVENT GARDEN THEATRE will have to stand as an example of one genre
of eighteenth-century theatrical productions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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