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Garrick's Costuming
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
Extract
In nineteenth-century greenrooms one of the most frequently quoted of David Garrick's remarks concerned his reaction when it was suggested that he introduce the toga and Roman hairstyles to the stage: “I have already stood my ground against the pelting of oranges, but I dare not venture to confront flying benches and bottles.” From the days of Kemble onwards, this comment has, for many theatrical historians, defined Garrick's place in the revolution in costuming taste which began in the mid-eighteenth century and culminated nearly a century later. A pioneer of historical realism, Garrick appears nonetheless a circumspect one; his “progress” was considerable, yet marked by a sense of restraint, either because his own taste was insufficiently advanced or because he shrewdly stopped short of affronting the taste of his audience. Whether one applauds historical costuming or (in the fashion of our own times) bemoans it, one still tends to leave Garrick in the limbo of the “transitional.”
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1969
References
NOTES
1 See, e.g., Anne Bracegirdle in The Indian Queen (Odell, George C., Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving, New York, 1920, I, facing p. 206)Google Scholar, and Mr. Savigny as Oroonoko (engraving pub. T. Lowndes, 1776, Yale-Rockefeller Theatrical Prints Collection).
2 Wycherly requires it for Act II of The Gentleman Dancing-Master. See also the frontispiece to Much Ado about Nothing in Nicholas Rowe's edition of Shakespeare, 1709.
3 Hill, Aaron, Works (London, 1753), II, 247.Google Scholar N. B. Aaron the Moor wears a quasi-Roman costume in Peacham's 1595 drawing of Titus Andronicus.
4 E.g., Addison in the Spectator, 42 (April 18, 1711), and James Ralph in “The Taste of the Town,” 1731 (quoted by Odell, I, 325).
5 Notably in his letter to Robert Wilks, October 28, 1731, recommending that the Saxon costumes for Athelwold be based on the illustrations in R. Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities (Hill, Works, I, 89–90). But Hill was as cognizant of “Heightenings” (“because beauty must be join'd to propriety”) as of historical fidelity. In any case, it is unlikely that Wilks paid much attention to the playwright, for Hill wrote to him again on November 4 complaining that the manager had ignored his directions (Works, I, 96–99).
6 E.g., John Wilkes in 1759 declared that an actor's first regard should be to “sufficient exactitude to the age, time and circumstances of his character,” necessitating a thorough knowledge of “ancient history, and historical paintings, with the general customs and modes of dress, which then prevailed” (Baker, Herschel, John Philip Kemble, The Actor in his Theatre, Cambridge, Mass., 1942, p. 261).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 The Gentleman's Magazine, XCV (1825), 4.
8 Burnim, Kalman, David Garrick, Director (Pittsburgh, 1961), p. 77Google Scholar, plate 21; Stone, George W., The London Stage 1660–1800, Part Four 1747–1776 (Carbondale, Ill., 1962), I, cxiv.Google Scholar
9 Little, David M. and Kahrl, George M., ed., The Letters of David Garrick (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), I, 152–53.Google Scholar
10 Garrick Club catalogue no. 17; date from first appearance of the actors in these roles.
11 Mander, Raymond and Mitchenson, Joe, The Artist and the Theatre (London, 1955), p. 177.Google Scholar
12 “A New Rehearsal, or Bays the Younger,” quoted by Odell, I, 319.
13 The theatricality of the picture is attested to by Moelwyn Merchant, W., Shakespeare and the Artist (London, 1959), pp. 42–43.Google Scholar
14 All pictures reproduced in the Yale-Rockefeller Theatrical Prints Collection, except the Sayer engraving, reprinted by Odell, I, facing 448. Hereafter, unless otherwise noted, all pictorial material referred to can be found at Yale.
15 Doran, John, Annals of the English Stage (ed. and rev. Lowe, Robert W., London, 1888), III, 250.Google Scholar
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17 Holman: Thornwaite after Stewart (see Kopp, Wilhelm, Das Tragödienkostüm von Betterton bis Kemble in seiner Entwicklung zur historischen Treue, Bonn, 1929Google Scholar, fig. 43); Lewis: Thornwaite after Burney, pub. Bell, January 18, 1786; Ross: Thornwaite after Roberts, pub. Bell, July 8, 1776.
18 Burnim, p. 151.
19 Jennens: Burnim, plate 18; Rowe: Merchant, plate 71a; Hanmer: Merchant, plate 71b. See also the painting by John Runciman, 1767, untheatrical in origin: Merchant, plate 70a.
20 Burnim, pp. 147–48. The Vauxhall Lear painting has not survived.
21 De Fesch painting in Harvard Theatre Collection.
22 Barry as Romeo: Burnim, plate 8; Holman: Granville-Barker, Harley, Prefaces to Shakespeare (illustrated edn., London, 1963), IVGoogle Scholar, fig. 16; and Loftie, Major, A Selection of Dramatic Costumes in Which Various Celebrated Actors Appeared between the years 1768 and 1815 (London, 1815)Google Scholar, fig. 29. Loftie's folio, hand-colored, can be found in the New York Public Library Theatre Collection.
23 Burnim, plate 19.
24 Stone, I, 179–80.
25 Reprinted by Nagler, A. M., A Source Book in Theatrical History (New York, 1952), pp. 392–93.Google Scholar
26 Hill, , Works, II, 247.Google Scholar Hill's distinction between Roman and Greek-Persian corselets is inexplicable, since the costumes of Lotharius, Quin's Coriolanus, and The Roman Father were all fastened in front, though of course all are Roman. Throughout the period no consistent differences obtained between Greek and Roman costumes, and Persian dress differed only in that it usually partook of the costume à la turque.
27 Both the prints were published after Garrick's retirement, leaving one un certain just when in his career he wore either or both of them. But the play, adapted from Thomas Corneille's Persée et Démétrius, had been in the Drury Lane repertory since March 3,1753.
28 Holograph letter, Folger Library, Garrick Corr. Case II, folder 5, 1414–3; see Burnim, p. 76.
29 Same location; see Stone, I, cxv.
30 See Muriel Clare Byrne, St., “The Stage Costuming of Macbeth in the Eighteenth Century,” Studies in English Theatre History (London, 1952), pp. 52–64.Google Scholar Miss Byrne traces this costume through several productions of Macbeth and Cymbeline. Pictorial evidence of its use in other plays has been found at Yale and elsewhere. It must be noted that, although the suit was called “fancy” or “Spanish” in England, the ultimate inspiration for the design seems to lie in the Mezzetin costume of the Corn-media dell'arte.
31 Harvard Theatre Collection.
32 Hill, , Works, II, 364.Google Scholar
33 T. Lowndes, 1776, and Wenman, 1777.
34 The usual dress of Posthumus in Cymbeline (Figure 4) as pictured on Samuel Reddish and William Powell (see Byrne article). Powell also wore the suit as Cyrus in John Hoole's play of that name (see Doran, II, 252), and Spranger Barry appears in it as Timon of Athens in a Bell engraving of 1776 (New York Public Library Theatre Collection). It survived at least until 1789, when Robert Bensley wore it as Prospero at Drury Lane (Loftie, op. cit.).
35 Op. cit., fig. 1.
36 Burnim, p. 114.
37 Fitzgerald, Percy, The Garrick Club (London, 1904), pp. 154–57.Google Scholar
38 See Lawson, Cecil C. P., A History of the Uniforms of the British Army (London, 1940–1941), II, 198–205, 54–84, 229–56.Google Scholar
39 Quoted by Burnim, pp. 121–22.
40 Doran, II, 286.
41 Burnim, p. 122, plate 6.
42 Byrne, p. 59.
43 Letters, II, 837–38, 846.
44 Ibid., Ill, 1203–4.
45 Macklin wore such a costume after I.vi in his 1773 production (accd. Byrne), and in subsequent revivals it appears that both he and Smith wore “fancy suits” throughout the play. This surprising tradition held fast until Kemble's 1794 Macbeth in the rebuilt Drury Lane.
46 See Byrne, art. cit.
47 Doran, III, 250.
48 Russell, D. A., “Hamlet Costumes from Garrick to Gielgud,” Shakespeare Survey 9 (1956), p. 54.Google Scholar
49 Burnim, pp. 76–77, from Lichtenberg's Visits to England, ed. Margaret Mare and W. H. Quarrell (Oxford, 1938), pp. 21–23.
50 Widmann, Wilhelm, Hamlets Bühnenlaufbahn, 1601–1877 (Leipzig, 1931)Google Scholar, plate 5.