Mrs. Clive

“ Coming to Drury Lane in 1728 while still in her teens, Kitty Rafter (1711-1785) quickly became a favorite of the town by virtue of her singing voice, vivacity, and gift for mimicry. Admired first as a singing actress, Miss Rafter in 1731 gave unequivocal notice of her considerable talent as a comic actress in the role of Nell in Coffey's The Devil to Pay, one of several hundred she mastered. Her specialties: Flora in The Wonder, Lady Bab in High Life Below Stairs, Lappet in The Miser, Catherine in Catherine and Petruchio, Mrs. Heidelberg in The Clandestine Marriage, and the Fine Lady in Lethe. ”

“ It is pretended by the Managers, that they have the same Right to discharge an Actor that a Master has to turn away a Servant, than which nothing can be more false and absurd; for, when a Master dismisses a Servant, there are many thousands besides to apply to; but when the Managers dismiss an Actor, where are they to apply? ”

“ As to my Performances, the Audience are the only, proper Judges: But I may venture to affirm, That my Labour, and Application, have been greater than any other Performers on the Stage. I have not only acted in almost all the Plays, but in Farces and Musical Entertainments ”

“ Although there were sporadic performances of "legitimate" drama in unlicensed playhouses between 1737 and 1743, full-time professional actors and actresses were in effect locked into the approved theaters during the regular theatrical season. Suspecting a cartel directed against them personally and professionally by the "Bashas" Rich at Covent Garden and Fleetwood at Drury Lane, [1] the players from Drury Lane in the summer of 1743 banded together and refused to perform the next season until salaries and playing conditions improved. ”

“ Whether, or no, some particular Salaries were so, I will not pretend to determine; yet, in the whole, they did not amount to more than had been allowed for many Years, when the Theatre was under a frugal and exact Regulation; when the Managers punctually fulfilled, not only all Engagements to their Actors, but to every other Person concerned in the Theatre, and raised very considerable Fortunes for themselves. ”

“ The actors, in presenting their case (Gentleman's Magazine, XIII, November 1743, 609) , hit at Fleetwood for citing 1708-1709 salaries, for "the Stage [then] both of Drury-Lane and the Hay-market, were in so wretched a Condition ... as not to be worth any body's Acceptance." The players use instead salaries of the 1729 players "to place the salaries of the present Actors in a true light," since the stage in that year flourished. In 1729, Wilks, the highest paid actor, earned more than his later equal, Garrick. All other principals' salaries were comparable. ”

“ Macklin, as Fleetwood's lieutenant, had to try to pacify actors, workmen, creditors; as actor he commiserated with the players. With the coming of Garrick from Goodman's Fields to Drury Lane late in the 1741-1742 season and with a progressively disgruntled Clive all the principals in the revolt are under one—leaky—roof. ”

“ Clive (and Macklin) among the principal players stayed with the ineffective proprietor of Drury Lane, John Highmore. Jealous that Highmore and not he gained control of Drury Lane after former shareholders either died or sold out, Theophilus Cibber demanded, among other things, that Highmore share profits with his players rather than pay fixed salaries. He then led the Drury Lane players in revolt in the autumn of 1733 to the New Haymarket where they played without a license until March of the 1733-1734 season, at which time they returned to Drury Lane under the new management of Fleetwood. ”

“ Clive, "for the low-salary'd Players are always at the labouring Oar, and at constant Expence, while the rest are serv'd up once or twice in a Week each, as very fine Dishes," one of whom, he says, is Mrs. Clive, an "avaritious" person whom he is confident "has found, and feels, her Error by this Time." ”

“ It is unlawful to act any where but with them; Necessity or Inclination brings every one to the Stage; if the former happens to be the Case, they will not readily find an Employment; and if the latter, they will not be fit for one; so that it will appear an Act of great Injustice and Oppression. If it should be objected, That the Actors Demands are so exorbitant, that the Managers cannot comply with 'em? ”

“ Fleetwood had not yet contacted her for engagement at Drury Lane even though he could not "but know I am disengag'd from the other Theatre." Nor could have Clive expected much of a salary from him even if he did call on her since the last season he offered her "not near half as much as he afterwards agreed to give another Performer, and less than he then gave to some others in his Company." Mrs. Clive could not but conclude that the managers were in league to distress her. ”

“ The "Town," as her own play The Rehearsal (I.i. 159-170) shows, was always her judge in matters professional.
Fielding's prologue to his revised Author's Farce (1734) , spoken by Mrs. Clive, compares the settled, prosperous former days at Drury Lane with those of 1734, when "... alas! how alter'd is our Case!/ I view with Tears this poor deserted Place." [11] With few exceptions, the "place" continued strangely in decline even with a competent company and often with a full house. The falling-off continued until the advent of Garrick, who with Lacy in 1747 co-managed the theater into a new era. ”

“ Clive first speaks of salary, a matter obviously important to her "Liberty and Livelihood." [15] One writer on the dispute, in a quasi-satirical tract, denounces the managers in this regard and in so doing echoes Mrs. Clive: "When there are but two Theatres allowed of, shall the Masters of those two Houses league together, and oblige the Actors either to take what Salary or Treatment they graciously vouchsafe to offer them, and to be parcelled out and confined to this House or t'other, just as they in their Wisdoms think meet ”

“ Clive's MS letters, Appendix, "An Edition of the Afterpieces."
[13]
See Crean, "Life and Times," p. 215. A pertinent example of actors' seeking redress is, of course, the revolt of 1694-1695, described by John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (London. 1708) , pp. 43-44; Augustan Reprint Society publication number 134 (Los Angeles, 1969) , with an Introduction by John Loftis, is a facsimile of the first edition.
[14]
See Arthur H. Scouten, "Introduction," The London Stage (Carbondale, III.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961) , Pt. 3, xcv, cxlvii, and Dramatic Congress, p. 20.
[15]
Cf. ”

“ This evidence, if not in itself damning to Fleetwood's designs toward his actors, at least indicates the internecine breach at Drury Lane. (The inter-theater conflict, important for its effect on repertory and morale, is adequately examined in theater histories and lies outside my interests in this essay.)
Mrs. Clive admits, however, that reduced, unpaid, or "handled" salaries were not the first fear of the actors ”

“ Macklin writes in his Reply to Mr. Garrick's Answer (p. 27) that "it ought to be known that when this Letter was carried to Mrs. Clive, and her Name to it desired, she had the Honour and Spirit to refuse, upon any Consideration, to be made so ridiculous a Tool to so base a Purpose."
Others were not so generous as Macklin. The author of The Disputes between the Director of D——y, and the Pit Potentates, one "B.Y.," champions the cause of the non-principal players against such as Mrs. ”

“ With Highmore gone, a period of uneasy peace obtained. The players, however, were not to win so easily the next dispute, the one that took place after the passage of the licensing act. [9]
Mrs. Clive's decision to stay with Highmore rather than defect was probably made because "two women—Mrs. Wilks, the widow of her [Kitty's] old theatrical idol, and Mrs. Booth—were in he [* the? her?] direction" of the theater. [10] But in light of Fielding's words and her actions and statements in regard to the welfare of Drury Lane and its actors throughout her career, I believe that Mrs. ”