Spirit of The Times - Theatre Writing

Theatre Writing

The early Spirit covered goings on at all of New York's playhouses. Jacksonian entertainment was stratiying by class, however, and the Spirit quickly relegated most of its coverage to the Park Theatre. Any coverage of the Bowery or Chatham Garden theatres was negative from about 1832 on. Porter wrote in 1840 that the "Bowery, . . . is to be transmogrified into a Circus shortly, the 'Bowery boys' having lost their taste for the illegitimate drama, and they never had any other." He visited the Bowery on a few other occasions, and his reviews on it are full of mockery and derision:

By reasonable computation there were about 300 persons on the stage and wings alone—soldiers in fatigue dresses—officers with side arms—a few jolly tars, and a number of "apple-munching urchins." The scene was indescribably ludicrous. Booth played in his best style, and was really anxious to make a hit, but the confusion incidental to such a crowd on the stage, occasioned constant and most humorous interruptions. It was every thing or any thing, but a tragedy. In the scene with Lady Anne, a scene so much admired for its address, the gallery spectators amused themselves by throwing pennies and silver pieces on the stage, which occasioned an immense scramble among the boys, and they frequently ran between King Richard and Lady Anne, to snatch a stray copper. In the tent scene, so solemn and so impressive, several curious amateurs went up to the table, took up the crown, poised the heavy sword, and examined all the regalia with great care, while Richard was in agony from the terrible dream; and when the scene changed, discovering the ghosts of King Henry, Lady Anne and children, it was difficult to select them from the crowd who thrust their faces and persons among the Royal shadows.

The Battle of Bosworth Field capped the climax—the audience mingled with the soldiers and raced across the stage, to the shouts of the people, the roll of the drums and the bellowing of the trumpets; and when the fight between Richard and Richmond came on, they made a ring round the combattants to see fair play, and kept them at if for nearly a quarter of an hour by "Shrewsberry clock."