Actor Rebellion of 1733 - Contemporary Response

Contemporary Response

Many of the local newspapers were quick to respond to the rebellion. An article in The Craftsman dated 2 June 1733 described the actors as "malecontent Players" who were busy in mutiny. On 7 June, the Grub-Street Journal stated, in an article by Musaeus, that Theophilus was selfish. Another article in the Grub-Street Journal, by Philo Dramaticus, attacked the management for not understanding how theatres are supposed to work. The managers were the first to state their defence and argued that everything they did was correct and that the actors had no reason to complain, especially over the treatment that they received.

The actors responded later in June with A Letter from Theophilus Cibber, Commedian, To John Highmore, Esq. Within the response, Theophilus Cibber emphasised the inability of the management to effectively run the theatre, claimed that they were acting like tyrants, and alleged that they unjustly refused the offer by the actors to rent out the patent. This did not calm the dispute; instead, the Grub-Street Journal of 14 June 1733 printed parts of John Vanbrugh's Aesop, a play that criticised the actor rebellion that took place in 1695. On 26 June, the Grub-Street Journal in an article by Musaeus claimed that many of the problems that the actors complained about were caused by previous managers, who were also actors, and not by the current management that was composed of outsiders. Additionally, Musaeus claimed that actors in general were unfit to run the theatre.

A pamphlet titled An Impartial State of the Present Dispute Between the Patent and Players was published during the late summer that attacked the actors. It claimed that "all Men of Sense and Integrity seem to be entirely convinced that the Patentees of the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, have had great Injustice done them by the late Attempt of Part of their own Company to defraud them of their Property". The actors responded in an article published in the Daily Journal of 26 September. Also during the summer, Edward Phillips produced The Stage-Mutineers, a play that started on 27 July and ran for twelve nights. The play made fun of actors, writers, and the management as a whole. Even though it was attacked in the Grub-Street Journal of 9 August, theatre historian Robert Hume described the play as "harmless stuff". Regardless, Fielding was personally mocked as Crambo, one of the characters within the play, and was offended by the portrayal.