Shakespeare and Garrick (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Shakespeare and Garrick Fiona Ritchie Vanessa Cunningham . Shakespeare and Garrick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. vii + 231. $99.00. Vanessa Cunningham's Shakespeare and Garrick throws much needed new light on the role played by the eighteenth-century actor-manager in popularizing Shakespeare. The thrust of this book is to claim a place for Garrick as a literary as well as a theatrical figure. To this end, Cunningham examines a selection of Garrick's Shakespeare alterations (the term is preferred to "adaptation" on the grounds that it was more commonly used in the eighteenth century) which span [End Page 408] his theatrical career: Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Florizel and Perdita, Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, and Hamlet. Cunningham takes issue with the two predominant "myths" about Garrick and Shakespeare: firstly, that he restored to the stage plays not seen in their original form since Shakespeare's day and secondly the characterization of Garrick as a "vandal" who "hacked and hewed" the sacred texts of the bard. Cunningham believes the reality is "both more complicated and more interesting" and builds on important work done by Michael Dobson and Jean I. Marsden in taking eighteenth-century alterations seriously in order to elucidate what Shakespeare meant to playgoers and readers in this period. Cunningham is certainly right to argue for alteration as a positive response to Shakespeare in the eighteenth century. The book positions Garrick as working at a cultural moment before what Cunningham terms "the divorce of stage and page" in Shakespeare reception. Garrick, she argues, popularized Shakespeare through his stage presentation of his works but also through the preparation and publication of alterations. What emerges here is an analysis of Garrick's versions of Shakespeare, which, while it takes account of eighteenth-century audience taste, emphasizes the status of these alterations as literary responses to Shakespeare. Cunningham's book does important work in recovering this neglected aspect of Garrick's career but paradoxically this emphasis marginalizes the status of these alterations as performance pieces. Garrick's relationships with several Shakespeare editors are discussed in detail, particularly where this is relevant to the preparation of his alterations. Garrick's Macbeth (first performed in January 1744) is considered in conjunction with Samuel Johnson's Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth (which was produced as a specimen for his edition of Shakespeare and published in 1745) and Cunningham also examines Garrick's professional relationship with William Warburton (whose edition of Shakespeare appeared in 1747). In both cases, the implication is that it was the editors who influenced the actor but it is of course possible that the reverse was true and that Garrick's performances made them think differently about the play in question. Most likely they simply had "differing ends," the editors being concerned with textual matters and Garrick with producing a playable script. The inclusion of Antony and Cleopatra in an account of Garrick's popularization of Shakespeare is perhaps questionable since this version was not a stage success; it was performed only six times in 1759 and never revived, although it was printed (unusually before the first performance). However, it does give rise to an interesting discussion of Garrick's collaboration with Edward Capell, who helped the actor prepare this alteration as he worked on his edition (published in 1767–68). Capell is seen as an editor particularly aware of the theatregoing public [End Page 409] but whether this was due to his position as Deputy Examiner of Plays (apparently undertaking more of this work than his superior) or Garrick's influence as a result of their collaboration is left unclear. The final chapter examines George Steevens's potential contribution to Garrick's version of Hamlet: Cunningham identifies some textual amendments to Garrick's preparation copy of the play (housed in the Folger Shakespeare Library) as in Steevens's hand, although she notes that the relationship of this text to what was actually performed in 1772 is unclear. Elsewhere alterations are given a rationale based on textual issues rather than on performance. The analysis of Romeo and Juliet is interesting for its validation of the climactic scene in which the two lovers are granted a final reunion...