XV. Theatrical Performances

The dinners and balls seem to have been expensive enough, but another demand for expenditure, especially in items of dress, arose from the constantly increasing popularity of the theatre. In Philadelphia the first regular theatre season began in 1754, and from this time forth the stage seems to have filled an important part in the activities of society. We find that Washington attended such performances at the early South Street Theatre, and was especially pleased with a comedy called _The Young Quaker; or the Fair Philadelphian_ by O'Keefe, a sketch that was followed by a pantomimic ballet, a musical piece called _The Children in the Wood_, a recitation of Goldsmith's _Epilogue_ in the character of Harlequin, and a "grand finale" by some adventuresome actor who made a leap through a barrel of fire! Truly vaudeville began early in America.

Mrs. Adams from staid old Massachusetts, where theatrical performances were not received cordially for many a year, wrote from Philadelphia in 1791: "The managers of the theatre have been very polite to me and my family. I have been to one play, and here again we have been treated with much politeness. The actors came and informed us that a box was prepared for us.... The house is equal to most of the theatres we meet with out of France.... The actors did their best; the 'School for Scandal' was the play. I missed the divine Farran, but upon the whole it was very well performed."

The first theatrical performance given in New York is said to have been acted in a barn by English officers and shocked beyond all measure the honest Dutch citizens whose lives hitherto had gone along so peacefully without such ungodly spectacles. As Humphreys writes in her _Catherine Schuyler_, "Great was the scandal in the church and among the burghers. Their indictment was searching.... Moreover, they painted their faces which was against God and nature.... They had degraded manhood by assuming female habits."[226]

But in most sections of the Middle Colonies, as well as in Virginia and South Carolina, the colonists took very readily to the theatre, and in both Pennsylvania and Virginia, where the curtain generally rose at six o'clock, such crowds attended that the fashionable folk commonly sent their negroes ahead to hold the seats against all comers. Williamsburg, Virginia, had a good play house as early as 1716; Charleston just a little later, and Annapolis had regular performances in 1752. Baltimore first opened the theatre in 1782, and did the thing "in the fine style," by presenting Shakespeare's _King Richard_. Society doubtless tingled with excitement when that first theatrical notice appeared in the Baltimore papers.

     "THE NEW THEATRE IN BALTIMORE Will Open, This Evening, being the 15th of January ... With an HISTORICAL TRAGEDY, CALLED KING RICHARD III

         *       *       *       *       *

     AN OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE by MR. WALL to which will be added a FARCE, MISS IN HER TEENS

         *       *       *       *       *

     "Boxes: One Dollar: Pit Five Shillings: Galleries 9d. Doors to be open at Half-past Four, and will begin at Six o'clock.

     "No persons can be admitted without Tickets, which may be had at the coffee House in Baltimore, and at Lindlay's Coffee House on Fells-Point.

     "No Persons will on any pretence be admitted behind the Scenes."

This last sentence was indeed a necessary one; for during the earlier days of the American theatre many in the audience frequently invaded the stage, either to congratulate the actors or to express in fistic combat their disgust over the play or the acting. It was not uncommon, too, for eggs to be thrown from the gallery, and both this and the rushing upon the stage was expressly forbidden at length by the authorities of several towns. Every class in colonial days seems to have found its own peculiar way of enjoying itself, whether by fascinating through beauty and brilliance the supposedly sophisticated French dukes, or by pelting barn-storming actors with eggs and other missiles.

The limits of one volume force us to omit many an interesting social feature of colonial days, especially of the cities. How much might be said of the tavern life of New York City and the vicinity, how much of those famous resorts, Vauxhall and Ranelagh, where many a device to arouse the wonder of the fashionable guests was invented and constructed! Then, too, much might be related about the popular "fish dinners" of New York and Annapolis, the horse races in Virginia and Maryland, the militia parades and pageants at Charleston. But sufficient has been offered to prove that the prevalent idea of a dreary atmosphere that lasted throughout the entire colonial period is false; certainly during the eighteenth century at least, the average American colonist obtained as much pleasure out of life as the rushing, ever-busy American of our own day.