John Rich (producer)
Encyclopedia
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He opened the New Theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...
(1714) and then the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1732) and began putting on ever more lavish productions. He introduced pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
to the English stage and played a dancing and mute Harlequin
Harlequin
Harlequin or Arlecchino in Italian, Arlequin in French, and Arlequín in Spanish is the most popularly known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian Commedia dell'arte and its descendant, the Harlequinade.-Origins:...
himself from 1717–60 under the stage name of "Lun."
Biography
Rich's theatre specialized in what contemporaries called "spectacleSpectacle
In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French spectacle, itself a reflection of the Latin spectaculum "a show" from spectare "to view,...
." Today we might call them "special effects." His stagings would endeavour to present actual cannon shots, animals, and multiple illusions of battle. By 1728, Rich was synonymous with lavish (and successful) productions.
Lewis Theobald
Lewis Theobald
Lewis Theobald , British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire...
was working for Rich on writing pantomimes. When Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
wrote the first version of The Dunciad
The Dunciad
The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the Dunciad Variorum was published anonymously in 1729. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a...
, and even more in the second and third editions, Rich appears as a prime symptom of the disease of the age and debasement of taste. In his Dunciad Variorum
The Dunciad
The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the Dunciad Variorum was published anonymously in 1729. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a...
of 1732, he makes John Rich the angel of the goddess Dulness:
- Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease
- Mid snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease;
- And proud his mistress' orders to perform,
- Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm." (III l. 257-260)
The battle between Cibber's Drury Lane and Rich's Lincoln's Inn Fields Pope summarizes as,
- "Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's-Inn;
- Contending Theatres our (Dulness's) empire raise,
- Alike their labours, and alike their praise."
Yet, at the same time, 1728 was the year that Rich produced John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
's Beggar's Opera, and the play ran so successfully that it was famously said the play "made Gay rich and Rich gay." John Gay was a long time friend of Pope's and a frequent collaborator of his. In 1732, Rich opened the Theatre Royal Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, the first of three theatres on the site, now known as the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
.
Christopher Rich (theatre manager)
Christopher Rich was a lawyer and theatrical manager in London in the late 17th and early 18th century, and the father of the important impresario John Rich...
, upon his death in 1714. By that point, Rich had already begun acting in plays and taking a hand in the theatrical management. His father had set the reputation and direction of the Lincoln's Inn Theatre during the War of the Theatres
War of the Theatres
The War of the Theatres is the name commonly applied to a controversy from the later Elizabethan theatre; Thomas Dekker termed it the Poetomachia....
in the 1690s, and John Rich continued it. In particular, John Rich exaggerated the theatricality of the Restoration spectacular
Restoration spectacular
The Restoration spectacular, or elaborately staged "machine play", hit the London public stage in the late 17th-century Restoration period, enthralling audiences with action, music, dance, moveable scenery, baroque illusionistic painting, gorgeous costumes, and special effects such as trapdoor...
by creating a new form of hireling drama designed strictly to generate opulent stagecraft. After becoming majority owner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, his control grew as he sought to get the rest of the shares. It was the success of Beggar's Opera that allowed him, in the end, to open the new theatre at Covent Garden.
During his time as producer and director, Rich had multiple battles with his acting companies and rival managers, including Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
. In Cibber's Apology, he blames the degradation and skyrocketing costs of play productions on Rich. The general opinion of satirists was that Cibber was thoroughly as guilty as Rich, and the Cibber children went on to carry forth the habits of their father, just as John Rich carried forth and exaggerated the habits of his. Cibber's Drury Lane
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....
and Rich's Lincoln's Inn (and then Covent Garden) theatres were in competition throughout Rich's lifetime. Indeed, the two theatres twice put on the same play at the same time, with Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
and King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
in 1756-7. Rich's company also staged a number of rarely-seen Shakespearean plays, among them Cymbeline
Cymbeline
Cymbeline , also known as Cymbeline, King of Britain or The Tragedy of Cymbeline, is a play by William Shakespeare, based on legends concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobelinus. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance...
.