Colley Cibber

I've had more fun in the last week learning about a Glorious Revolution playwright I knew nothing about. Colley Cibber was an actor, manager of the Drury Lane theatre, and playwright, writing plays of his own and adapting others. His version of Shakespeare's Richard III was the definitive version of the play and the most performed Shakespeare play throughout the 1800s, so much so that people objected to the original version... preferring Cibber's "acting version" instead. Lawrence Olivier even included some of Cibber's lines in the classic movie version of Richard III. Cibber is especially known for his autobiography, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian, which set off many of the satirists of the time because of his braggadocio. It's a fascinating book, filled with stories and gossip about all the actors of the time. Alexander Pope was driven mad by Cibber's vanity and was furious that Cibber was named Poet Laureate in 1730, making him King of the Dunces in his Dunciad. Right now we've been reading Love's Last Shift, his first play which was immensely popular, being performed over 80 times. Vanbrugh wrote a sequel to it which we're also reading, The Relapse. A couple of years ago someone combined the two plays in a performance in San Francisco... called Restoration Comedy. Colley Cibber's real strength was not so much in his acting or his writing, but in his great sensitivity to the audience. He was aware of how theatre was an exchange between actor and audience and was able to recognize moods and trends and adjust for it. Increasingly during this time the theatre included music and dance as a nod to the growing popularity of opera; the more elaborate costumes, props, and sets of the time reflected the influence of French spectacle on English theatre as well.