genuine mistake or a deliberate attempt to deceive, but whichever is the case it suggests a degree of popular familiarity with Shakespeare’s play in the first two decades of the seventeenth century.
The contemporary reference in Anthony Munday’s
Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon
(printed in 1601, but commissioned by Philip Henslowe in February 1598), to “Hubert, thou fatall keeper of poore babes” 2 must relate to Shakespeare’s play rather than the
Troublesome Raigne
or the historical sources in which Arthur is a youth rather than the much younger child of Shakespeare’s play. Since this did not appear in print until the 1623 Folio, the implication is that it had sufficiently impressed itself in the playgoing consciousness by the close of the sixteenth century as to make the reference easily recognizable. Further evidence that the play was regularly staged during this period can be adduced from the fact that it’s included in a document dated 12 January 1669 that lists plays “formerly acted at Blackfriars and now allowed of to his Majesties Servants at the New Theatre,” which, given that the King’s Men did not acquire Blackfriars until 1608, suggests the play’s continued stage popularity into the early seventeenth century.
There is, however, no subsequent record of any public performance, until it was revived at Covent Garden in 1737, and evidence suggests that this was after a long period of neglect. This revival was due to the rumored imminent production of a more stridently anti-Catholic adaptation by Colley Cibber, which prompted David Garrick to stage his version at Covent Garden. Defending his adaptation, Cibber wrote in the
Daily Advertiser
in February 1737 that “many of that Fam’d Authors Pieces, for these Hundred Years past, have lain dormant, from, perhaps, a just Suspicion, that they were too weak,for a compleat Entertainment.” 3 Similarly, the playbill for the 1745 Drury Lane production proclaimed that it was “Not acted 50 years.”
However, from this point onward, and until the third quarter of the nineteenth century,
King John
becomes a popular, or at least regular, element of the patent houses’ repertoires. In the 120 years following the Covent Garden revival, it appeared in at least fifty-eight seasons in either London or the provinces or both, and in three seasons there were rival London productions. During the eighteenth and early to mid-nineteenth centuries the play attracted some of the foremost actors of the day, including Garrick (as both John and the Bastard), Sheridan (who originally played John to Garrick’s Bastard), Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Siddons, John Philip Kemble, and Charles Kemble.
Charles Kemble subsequently staged his own version at Covent Garden in 1823, and by 1830 the play was sufficiently well known for it to receive a burlesque treatment. 4 William Charles Macready, who had made his first appearance in the play in Charles Kemble’s company, produced the play himself at Drury Lane in 1842. Shortly afterward, the Theatres Regulation Bill of 1843 ended the duopoly of the London patent theaters and Samuel Phelps (who had earlier played Hubert with Charles Kemble) mounted his own production at Sadler’s Wells in 1844 and 1851, and at Drury Lane in 1865 and 1866. Charles Kean also mounted some of the early nonpatent productions of
King John
at the Princess’ Theatre in 1852 and 1858, as well as in American tours in 1846 and 1865. Following Phelps’s 1866 production, however, it appears to lapse in popularity once more and does not appear again on the London stage until Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s West End revival at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1899, although it was produced at Stratford by Osmond Tearle in 1890.
In the twentieth century, the play was presented at the Old Vic three times in the eight years following the First World War—in 1918, 1921 and 1926—and then appears with less and less frequency in the Old Vic’s repertoire:
The contemporary reference in Anthony Munday’s
Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon
(printed in 1601, but commissioned by Philip Henslowe in February 1598), to “Hubert, thou fatall keeper of poore babes” 2 must relate to Shakespeare’s play rather than the
Troublesome Raigne
or the historical sources in which Arthur is a youth rather than the much younger child of Shakespeare’s play. Since this did not appear in print until the 1623 Folio, the implication is that it had sufficiently impressed itself in the playgoing consciousness by the close of the sixteenth century as to make the reference easily recognizable. Further evidence that the play was regularly staged during this period can be adduced from the fact that it’s included in a document dated 12 January 1669 that lists plays “formerly acted at Blackfriars and now allowed of to his Majesties Servants at the New Theatre,” which, given that the King’s Men did not acquire Blackfriars until 1608, suggests the play’s continued stage popularity into the early seventeenth century.
There is, however, no subsequent record of any public performance, until it was revived at Covent Garden in 1737, and evidence suggests that this was after a long period of neglect. This revival was due to the rumored imminent production of a more stridently anti-Catholic adaptation by Colley Cibber, which prompted David Garrick to stage his version at Covent Garden. Defending his adaptation, Cibber wrote in the
Daily Advertiser
in February 1737 that “many of that Fam’d Authors Pieces, for these Hundred Years past, have lain dormant, from, perhaps, a just Suspicion, that they were too weak,for a compleat Entertainment.” 3 Similarly, the playbill for the 1745 Drury Lane production proclaimed that it was “Not acted 50 years.”
However, from this point onward, and until the third quarter of the nineteenth century,
King John
becomes a popular, or at least regular, element of the patent houses’ repertoires. In the 120 years following the Covent Garden revival, it appeared in at least fifty-eight seasons in either London or the provinces or both, and in three seasons there were rival London productions. During the eighteenth and early to mid-nineteenth centuries the play attracted some of the foremost actors of the day, including Garrick (as both John and the Bastard), Sheridan (who originally played John to Garrick’s Bastard), Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Siddons, John Philip Kemble, and Charles Kemble.
Charles Kemble subsequently staged his own version at Covent Garden in 1823, and by 1830 the play was sufficiently well known for it to receive a burlesque treatment. 4 William Charles Macready, who had made his first appearance in the play in Charles Kemble’s company, produced the play himself at Drury Lane in 1842. Shortly afterward, the Theatres Regulation Bill of 1843 ended the duopoly of the London patent theaters and Samuel Phelps (who had earlier played Hubert with Charles Kemble) mounted his own production at Sadler’s Wells in 1844 and 1851, and at Drury Lane in 1865 and 1866. Charles Kean also mounted some of the early nonpatent productions of
King John
at the Princess’ Theatre in 1852 and 1858, as well as in American tours in 1846 and 1865. Following Phelps’s 1866 production, however, it appears to lapse in popularity once more and does not appear again on the London stage until Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s West End revival at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1899, although it was produced at Stratford by Osmond Tearle in 1890.
In the twentieth century, the play was presented at the Old Vic three times in the eight years following the First World War—in 1918, 1921 and 1926—and then appears with less and less frequency in the Old Vic’s repertoire:
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