Garrick, David

born Feb. 19, 1717, Hereford, Herefordshire, Eng.

died Jan. 20, 1779, London

British actor, producer, and playwright.

Tutored in his boyhood by Samuel Johnson, he settled in London as a wine merchant before winning fame with his acting debut as Richard III in 1741. In diverse roles in plays such as King Lear, Hamlet, and Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, he was acclaimed for his naturalistic style and came to be regarded as one of England's greatest actors. As part owner and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre (1747–76) he made it London's most prosperous theatre, reformed theatrical stage practices, and replaced many Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare with his own versions. He wrote over 20 plays.

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▪ English actor, poet, and producer

Introduction

born Feb. 19, 1717, Hereford, Herefordshire, Eng.

died Jan. 20, 1779, London

 English actor, producer, dramatist, poet, and comanager of the Drury Lane Theatre.

Early years

      Garrick was of French and Irish descent, the son of Peter Garrick, a captain in the English army, and Arabella Clough, the daughter of a vicar at Lichfield cathedral who was of Irish extraction. David was born at Hereford, where his father was on recruiting duty. In the family home at Lichfield, the seven children were reared on the highest moral principles in conditions of strict economy. To obtain full pay, after several years on half pay, Captain Garrick joined an infantry regiment at Gibraltar, and David, then 14, as eldest son at home, reported family progress in lively letters that, on the whole, did credit to the Lichfield grammar school. In 1736 Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the ecclesiastical court of Lichfield, who lived in the bishop's palace and lent his premises for private theatricals organized by his young protégé, advised that “Little Davy” should be sent to the academy opened in that year by Samuel Johnson (Johnson, Samuel) at Edial, near Lichfield. This venture lasted only a few months, and on March 2, 1737, Johnson and Garrick set out for London; according to Johnson, he had two-pence-halfpenny in his pocket and David three halfpence.

      Garrick entered his name as a law student at Lincoln's Inn and prepared to study with a friend of Walmesley's at Rochester, Kent, but his father's death in March 1737 and a legacy of £1,000 from an uncle made possible a change of plan. David had spent some months at Lisbon as apprentice to his uncle, a vintner, and he and his elder brother set up as Garrick & Co., wine merchants—Peter at Lichfield and David in London, in Durham Yard, off the Strand. His business took him into places of entertainment, where he soon had a large acquaintance, including the actor Charles (“Wicked Charlie”) Macklin (Macklin, Charles), with whom he conferred on modern theories of acting, and the elegant but unreliable Charles Fleetwood, manager of Drury Lane Theatre, one of the two theatres authorized by the 1737 Licensing Act, the other being Covent Garden. In April 1740, Drury Lane produced Garrick's first comedy, Lethe, or Esop in the Shades.

Beginning of career as an actor

      Garrick entered the acting profession anonymously, in a mask. In March 1741, upon the illness of the actor billed to take the part, he dashed onto the stage as Harlequin at a small, unlicensed theatre in Goodman's Fields. Soon afterward the proprietor took a company to Ipswich for the summer season, and Garrick appeared there in Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko as Aboan, a noble savage, with his face blackened, and later played Captain Duretête, in George Farquhar's The Inconstant. He was thereafter well received in several parts, but when he applied at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, neither Fleetwood nor old John Rich, manager of Covent Garden, wanted him. He had to return to Goodman's Fields. His mother had died in 1740, but he still dared not tell his family that he had entered a profession then generally held in low esteem. Not until the night after his astounding first appearance as Richard III in 1741 did he break the news to Peter.

      The instant success of a young, unknown actor in a major tragic Shakespearean part remains one of the romances of theatrical history. The Garrick legend was founded in a single night. Audiences, weary of the pompous recitative and stately attitudinizing imposed by French tradition, were ready for the naturalistic new style, and they soon perceived that this bright young man could do anything. He was equally good in Pamela, a dramatization of Samuel Richardson's novel; in Thomas Otway's The Orphan and Venice Preserv'd; in Colley Cibber's Love Makes a Man: or, The Fop's Fortune; in King Lear; and in a farce he himself wrote, The Lying Valet. He wrote to Peter: “Mr. Pit, who is reckon'd ye Greatest Orator in the house of Commons, said I was ye best actor ye English stage had produc'd.” Alexander Pope (Pope, Alexander) had pronounced: “That young man never had his equal an actor, and he will never have a rival.” Thomas Gray wrote to Horace Walpole that a dozen dukes a night attended Goodman's Fields. So much adulation, so easily won, might have demoralized a less stable character, but Garrick, though highly strung and sensitive, had a strong vein of common sense and remarkable staying power.

      Fleetwood was now eager to secure him for Drury Lane and offered a salary larger than ever proposed to any performer. Before the season of 1742–43 Garrick went over to Dublin, where he played at the theatre in Smock Alley with the captivating Peg Woffington (Woffington, Peg), with whom he was already in love, and whom he hoped to marry. There, his success was tremendous, and he continued to triumph at Drury Lane from 1742–45, playing such diverse roles as Hamlet; the simple-minded Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist; and the voluble Francis Archer in George Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem. But Fleetwood's patent of the theatre was running out, and he was a ruined man. In 1743 Garrick sued him for £600 arrears of salary and led an actor's strike against him, one side effect of which was a quarrel with Macklin. A reconciliation was arranged in 1747, but Macklin's senile mutterings, noted down by his biographer, became the fountainhead of the anti-Garrick legends of vanity, avarice, meanness, and arrogance.

      In the winter of 1745–46 Garrick was in Dublin, sharing with Thomas Sheridan (Sheridan, Thomas), the playwright and actor-manager, in the direction of the Theatre Royal. During this time negotiations began for Garrick to become part owner and manager of Drury Lane Theatre. In the season of 1746–47 Garrick made his only appearances at Covent Garden. John Rich had also secured James Quin, the outstanding exponent of the old style of acting, and the season became a duel between them.

Reforms of Drury Lane Theatre

      In April of 1747 friends in the city helped Garrick to raise £8,000, his share of the purchase money for the lease and furnishings of Drury Lane Theatre and renewal of the patent, in partnership with one James Lacy, a failed actor with a flair for the entertainment trade, who had been stage manager at Covent Garden. Garrick was to perform and to choose plays and players; Lacy, assisted by a weakish, devoted younger Garrick, “Brother George,” dealt with the business side. Drury Lane, redecorated, reopened in September 1747 with Macklin as Shylock and a prologue by Johnson that set forth Garrick's principles, as a producer, of devotion to Shakespeare and reform of plays and players and ending with the famous appeal:

The drama's laws the drama's patrons give,

For we, who live to please, must please to live.

…'Tis yours this night to bid the reign commence

Of rescued nature and reviving sense.

      Garrick was unwell, however. He had endured many minor ailments, indicative of overstrain, in the past months, during which he had never acted more poignantly. The infidelities and extravagance of Peg Woffington had convinced him that they had better not marry. He had announced to his brilliant new troupe that they would find his rule stricter than any to which they were accustomed. Among his stars were Macklin, Woffington, and Kitty Clive (Clive, Kitty), the only actress of whom he was said to be afraid, but one who was to become a dear friend.

      He had made plans for reforming audiences as well as actors. He tried refusing admittance behind the scenes and on the stage and attempted to discontinue the practice of reduced entry fees for those who left early or came late, but these changes resulted in riots. He planned to bring down the orchestra from the gallery and to enlarge the auditorium. The apron—a forestage in front of the curtain onto which players marched, struck a pose, and took up their stances for lengthy soliloquies—became less prominent with the new, natural style of acting. Garrick hoped to introduce new lighting, but not until 1765 did he get his footlights and sidelights, which were oil lamps with reflectors.

      Most important was to be his choice of plays and manner of production. He was going to produce much more Shakespeare (Shakespeare, William), purged of the coarse language and effects of Restoration drama: the name of Garrick should be remembered with that of Shakespeare. He would add a death scene between Romeo and Juliet but restore much of the original text lost in adaptations by the Restoration playwrights, Thomas Otway and Colley Cibber. He would present Nahum Tate's 1681 adaptation of King Lear, without the Fool and with a happy ending, and give The Fairies (A Midsummer Night's Dream) without the clownish artisans and Hamlet without the gravediggers and the tragic fate of Ophelia. Florizel and Perdita (adapted from The Winter's Tale) and Dryden's version of The Tempest would make charming light operas. He would rewrite The Taming of the Shrew, adapting the role of Katharina for Kitty Clive. In general, his audiences, accustomed to rewritings of Shakespeare, accepted his “improvements” with docility: they at least had the merit of keeping the plays on the stage by suiting them to the taste of the time. Moreover, Garrick's acting and casting often succeeded in interpreting character in a way closer to Shakespeare and new to the audience.

      On June 22, 1749, Garrick married Eva Maria Veigel, a Viennese opera dancer who spoke little English and was a devout Roman Catholic. Under the stage name of La Violette, she had enchanted audiences at the Opera House in the Haymarket in 1746, and, although she had refused to dance for Garrick at Drury Lane in 1748, the following year she consented to retire. The marriage, though childless, was happy, and the Garricks' hospitality became famous.

Successes and setbacks

      At Drury Lane, Garrick went from strength to strength. He had already appeared in most of the parts in which he was best liked, and he realized with good humour that, as he was slightly below middle height and had put on weight, he had better give up youthful characters and add to his fame in the more mature roles—Abel Drugger, King Lear, Macbeth, Richard III. His mobile features, dark complexion, and eyes—widely praised for their lustre, expressiveness, and piercing brilliance—were famous on and off stage. In search of “copy,” he frequented the law courts and House of Commons and would even visit the scene of a family tragedy. Critics disagreed as to whether he excelled in tragedy or comedy. He himself once told a young aspirant that comedy called for the greater skill.

      Though he raised Drury Lane Theatre from penury to astounding financial success and, by his improvements in 1747–48 and 1762 and by the acting of his company, had made it London's most flourishing theatre, he had his setbacks. He burdened his players with some deadly historical and classical tragedies. He could turn disaster to success, however. When his theatre was wrecked by hooligans in November 1755, he faced a hostile house with courage. When in 1769 preternaturally wet weather washed out his cherished Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon, he refurbished both costumes and script for London, played The Jubilee to packed houses, and emerged with a profit. He was accused of avarice—though his inconspicuous charities were many—and was laughed at for his vanity and love of staying at great houses. He was involved in a succession of “paper wars” with touchy and even slanderous disappointed writers and players, such as Charles Churchill, who praised and attacked him, and Samuel Foote, who ridiculed the extravagant Shakespeare Jubilee. Garrick's caricatures of fellow actors in the Duke of Buckingham's The Rehearsal in his early days gave wide offense. His rivalry with Rich, at Covent Garden, was sometimes acrimonious; sometimes it led to new success. Rich had prided himself on his Christmas pantomimes; Garrick's, with superb effects and lighting by Philip James de Loutherbourg (Loutherbourg, Philip James de), a young expert in scenic design who came to Garrick from Paris, far surpassed them. For his own spectacular “Christmas gambol,” Harlequin's Invasion (1759), with music by William Boyce, he wrote the patriotic song, “Heart of Oak.”

      Though “Heart of Oak” is perhaps the only poem by which he is remembered, his quality as a poet is shown by songs added to plays and by verses to Peg Woffington (the early ones those of a young man deeply in love, the bitter “Epistle to Mrs. Woffington” of 1745 exposing “the naked truth”) and to his wife. As a dramatist (he wrote more than 20 plays and “entertainments” and adapted many more), he suffers from having written for a particular company and audience; and his farces and burlesques, though lively, have not held the stage. Only The Clandestine Marriage (1766), written with George Colman (Colman, George, the Elder) the Elder, is still successfully revived. His letters, however, have lasting interest. All of his life a prolific letter writer, he wrote as he acted, with ease, spontaneity, and versatility. His letters are a valuable source for the details of his busy life, the tangled theatrical history of his time, and his character and outlook.

Last years

      In 1763 the Garricks departed for a continental tour. They enjoyed sightseeing in Italy in aristocratic company, but Mrs. Garrick suffered agonies from what was, apparently, a slipped disk, and Garrick contracted typhoid in Venice and nearly died in Munich. They wintered in Paris, where Garrick enlarged his acquaintance with French literary and theatrical celebrities, Shakespearean enthusiasts, and the philosophes. After returning (spring 1765), he appeared in no new parts, but 10 years passed before he prepared to sell his share of the Drury Lane patent. A series of farewell performances included four Shakespearean parts—Benedick, Hamlet, Richard III, and Lear—as well as Abel Drugger, Sir John Brute from Sir John Vanbrugh's The Provok'd Wife, Archer from The Beaux' Stratagem, and, for his last performance, Don Felix from Susannah Centlivre's The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret.

      Garrick's retirement was happy. In London he was a member of Johnson's Literary Club and Brooks's. At Hampton he had his duties as squire, his library and garden, his dogs, and his nieces and nephews. All of his life a sufferer from kidney trouble, he was taken ill while staying with his old friends Lord and Lady Spencer at Althorp Park, Northamptonshire, for the New Year, 1779, and died at his house in Adelphi Terrace shortly thereafter.

      Garrick was buried in the Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey; a monument in Lichfield cathedral bears Johnson's famous “I am disappointed by that stroke of death that has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.”

Major Works

Lethe: or, Esop in the Shades (1740); The Lying Valet (1741); Miss in Her Teens; or, The Medley of Lovers (1747); Lilliput (1756); The Male Coquette; or, Seventeen Fifty Seven (1757); The Guardian (1759); Harlequin's Invasion (1759); The Enchanter; or, Love and Magic (1760); The Farmer's Return from London (1762); The Clandestine Marriage (1766; with George Colman the Elder); Neck or Nothing (1766); Cymon (1767); Linco's Travels (1767); A Peep Behind the Curtain, or The New Rehearsal (1767); The Jubilee (1769); The Irish Widow (1772); A Christmas Tale (1773); The Meeting of the Company; or, Bayes's Art of Acting (1774); Bon Ton; or, High Life Above Stairs (1775); The Theatrical Candidates (1775); May-Day; or, The Little Gypsy (1775).

Additional Reading

The Plays of David Garrick, ed. by Harry William Pedicord and Frederick Louis Bergmann, 7 vol. (1980–82), includes Garrick's own plays and his adaptations of those of Shakespeare and others. Garrick's plays are also collected in The Plays of David Garrick, ed. by Gerald M. Berkowitz, 4 vol. (1981). Garrick's correspondence is collected in Letters, ed. by David M. Little and George M. Kahrl, 3 vol. (1963), which also includes an excellent short biography by Kahrl. Other unpublished letters may be found in Some Unpublished Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. by George Pierce Baker (1907); and Pineapples of Finest Flavour, ed. by David Mason Little (1930, reissued 1967). The long-missing record of Garrick's trip to Paris in 1751 was published as The Diary of David Garrick, ed. by Ryliss Clair Alexander (1928, reprinted 1971).Early biographies include Arthur Murphy, The Life of David Garrick, 2 vol. (1801, reprinted 1969), a racy and anecdotal study; Thomas Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, new ed., 2 vol. (1808, reprinted 1969), a solemn but popular study by a man who knew Garrick; Percy Fitzgerald, The Life of David Garrick, 2 vol. (1868, reprinted 1971); Joseph Knight, David Garrick (1894, reprinted 1969); Florence Parsons, Garrick and His Circle (1906, reprinted 1969); Frank A. Hedgcock, A Cosmopolitan Actor: David Garrick and His French Friends (1911, reissued 1969); Elizabeth P. Stein, David Garrick, Dramatist (1938, reissued 1971); and Margaret Barton, Garrick (1949, reprinted 1978). Subsequent biographies include Carola Oman, David Garrick (1958); George Winchester Stone, Jr., and George M. Kahrl, David Garrick (1979); Phyllis T. Dircks, David Garrick (1985); Alan Kendall, David Garrick (1985); and Jean Benedetti, David Garrick and the Birth of Modern Theatre (2001). Gerald M. Berkowitz, David Garrick (1980), is a bibliography.

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