File:Shakspere to Sheridan; a book about the theatre of yesterday and to-day (1922) (14803207413).jpg

Identifier: shaksperetosheri00thal (find matches)
Title: Shakspere to Sheridan; a book about the theatre of yesterday and to-day
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Thaler, Alwin, 1891-
Subjects: Theater -- England History English drama -- History and criticism Actors and actresses -- England Theaters -- England London
Publisher: Cambridge : Harvard University Press (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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d the playbills of the twopatent houses show that the great majority of successfulpieces after their first run at one house or the other weresoon adopted by its rival. I have already had much to sayof OKeeffe, yet I shall draw upon him again, for his notesupon managerial methods are invaluable, even though hisplays are of no particular consequence. A great many ofhis plays appeared at Drury Lane,^ though he actuallysold all but one of them to the Haymarket and CoventGarden. Not without reason, then, is his complaint thatDrury Lane never paid him a shilling for any of thesepieces.^ Equally interesting is his statement that he wasnot retained by any theatre, but that, like Otway andSoutherne, and his contemporaries Cumberland and Rey-nolds, he sold his work to one house or another without 1 Oulton, II, 179; OKeeffe, II, 312-315. * Apologyy I. 91- As shown by the playbills in the British Museum. * He did get £33, 6j., si. in 1798 for Shes Eloped^ the one play which hesold to Drury Lane.
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THE PLAYWRIGHTS 53 being under contract to any. Drury Lane did, as a matterof fact, seem to recognize that it was under moral obliga-tions to OKeeffe, for the management considered favor-ably his request for a benefit when he was in need shortlyafter his retirement. The managers, however, must havehad an understanding among themselves on this matterof producing each others plays, for OKeeffe also writesthat in 1781, when the Lord Chamberlains wife especiallyrequested that two of his Haymarket pieces be presentedat Covent Garden, Colman was grudgingly prevailedupon to permit the performance, though he refused asimilar request two years later,^ At the close of the eighteenth century the problem ofcopyrights and acting rights was still unsolved, but, evenso, the authors were beginning to hold their own with theclose bargainers of old who drank their champagneout of authors skulls. They did particularly well whenGovernment sought to suppress their work entirely, assometimes happened after

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