‘Theatrical Life,’ Garrick’s and ours

Without theater impresario and actor David Garrick, we wouldn’t have celebrity licensed merchandising. Charles-and-Camilla commemorative teacups, Britney Spears perfume, the Olsen Twins empire, John Wayne china plates — we have Garrick to thank for those.

Oh, yes, and for Shakespeare as well.

“David Garrick (1717-1779), a Theatrical Life,” a Garrickpalooza of paintings, playbills, furniture, etchings, texts and other objects at the Folger Shakespeare Library, depicts the far-flung interests and influence of this remarkable 18th-century actor, writer, theater manager, entrepreneur and international celebrity, who revolutionized the way theater was done in England and elsewhere.

His Drury Lane Theatre exists to this day, although the building has burned down twice since Garrick strode in the footlights. “Miss Saigon” played there for 10 years, and his brainchild, the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund, still provides financial aid to performers who fall on hard times.

His natural style of acting helped elevate the craft from a job performed by prostitutes and scalawags to a profession and an art form. “Garrick gave actors — and most importantly, actresses — a living wage so they didn’t have to depend on male ‘patrons,’” says Erin C. Blake, one of the exhibit’s curators.

“They could be actresses, not mistresses. One of Garrick’s improvements was getting male patrons off the stage, so there was more of a separation between performer and audience. Before, men wanted to get as close as possible to their favorite actress or dancer.”

Miss Blake notes the other ways Garrick made acting more respectable, including darkening the theater; allowing actors some degree of privacy backstage; and eliminating half-price admission after the third act of the main attraction, which led to rioting. “He also pioneered side lighting so that the actors did not have to stand under a chandelier to be seen, which resulted in more natural and dynamic acting styles,” Miss Blake says.

Garrick introduced ensemble acting, intense preparation for comic and tragic roles, and professional standards for acting companies and backstage personnel. He got rid of the rhetorical, declamatory mode of acting that made plays seem little more than glorified poetry readings. After seeing Garrick, Alexander Pope observed, “That young man never had his equal … and he will never have a rival.”

Perhaps most significantly, Garrick was an ardent champion of William Shakespeare, who had fallen way out of fashion in the 1700s. Garrick performed much of the canon in his theater, and he also created a Temple to Shakespeare on the grounds of his house at Hampton (just down the road from Hampton Court).

Among the most arresting objects in the exhibit is the mahogany elbow chair designed by William Hogarth, richly carved with masks, snakes, cloven feet and musical instruments, as well as a portrait of Shakespeare.

Also on display is Louis Francois Roubiliac’s terra-cotta preparatory sculpture of Shakespeare; the life-size marble statue is in the British Museum.

“David Garrick turned a national poet into the national poet,” says James C. Kuhn IV, one of the exhibit’s curators. “In 1769, he organized and financed the Shakespeare Jubilee, a three-day celebration of the Bard that was to include fireworks, a procession of Shakespeare characters, a horse race and many commemorative knickknacks.”

The jubilee was rained out, to the point where the Avon River flooded. “It was a complete bust, and the jubilee was widely satirized after the fact by the wits of the time,” Mr. Kuhn says. “And Garrick was chief among them. He produced and wrote ‘Jubilee: A Farce,’ which ran 92 performances at Drury Lane.”

The Jubilee may have been rain-sogged, but it did mark the creation of Shakespeare as England’s national poet and the beginning of a culture and industry some now call “bardolatry.”

No doubt about it, Garrick was mad about the Bard.

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