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The Rival Widows
''The Rival Widows, or the Fair Libertine'' is a 1735 comedy play by the British writer Elizabeth Cooper. The plot is a re-gendered mashup of two popular eighteenth-century genres: the libertine comedy (in the tradition of William Wycherley and George Farquhar) and the comedy of sentiment (man-of-feeling plays in the tradition of Colley Cibber and Sir Richard Steele). The beautiful and brilliant libertine widow Lady Bellair battles the hypocritical friend and rival Lady Lurcher for the attentions of man of feeling Freelove. Bellair loves Freelove, but is exasperated by his rhetoric of feeling and his lack of interest in using witty exchanges or clever plotting to try to seduce her and win her love. In response, she creates various strategems to essentially manipulate him into tricking her into agreeing never to love him, knowing that she will desperately want anything that is forbidden to her. Her character is well summarized early in the play with her own comment that "my pleasures ...
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Elizabeth Cooper (dramatist)
Elizabeth Cooper or Elizabeth Price (1698? – 1761?) was an English actress, playwright, and editor. She is known for creating an early collection of poetry. Life Elizabeth Price is thought to have been born in the year 1698 or before. She was brought up in Westminster after her father died and her mother was left a pauper. On 25 February 1722 she married John Cooper, a Covent Garden auctioneer specialising in Art and books. After her husband died in 1729, she became an actress and later a playwright. When the theatrical business took a downturn, she turned her hand to other writing. Cooper created an anthology of poetry ''The Muses' Library'' (1737), which gathered together English verse from the 11th to the 16th century, covering Edward the Confessor to Samuel Daniel. She achieved this by contacting the family of artists and due to the goodwill of William Oldys. Despite its readability and the inclusion of relevant biographies, the book was not a commercial success, and it f ...
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Covent Garden Theatre
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, maki ...
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The Rival Widows, Or Fair Libertine, Cover
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pron ...
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Comedy Play
Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy ending. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, the ''Divine Comedy'' (Italian: ''Divina Commedia''). The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it have been carefully investigated by psychologists. The predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play insti ...
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John Hippisley (actor)
John Hippisley (14 January 1696 – 12 February 1748) was an English comic actor and playwright. He appeared at Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden in London, and was the original Peachum in ''The Beggar's Opera''. He opened a theatre in Bristol, the Jacobs Well Theatre, where he and his daughter Elizabeth Hippisley appeared. Life Hippisley was born near Wookey Hole in Somerset. Hippisley's first recorded appearance took place at Lincoln's Inn Fields in November 1722, as Fondlewife in William Congreve's '' The Old Bachelor''; he is announced in the bills as never having appeared on that stage before. This was followed in the same season by Sir Hugh Evans in Shakespeare's '' The Merry Wives of Windsor'', Gomez in John Dryden's ''The Spanish Friar'', Polonius in ''Hamlet'', Pandarus in ''Troilus and Cressida'', and other comic parts. He remained at Lincoln's Inn Fields until the season of 1732–3, playing among many other characters Sir Francis Gripe in Susanna Centlivre's ...
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Roger Bridgewater
Roger Bridgewater (died 1754) was a British stage actor of the eighteenth century.''The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama'' p.XXXIX He worked as party of the Drury Lane company for many years, specialising in dramatic roles, before switching to Covent Garden in 1734. In later years he frequently played Falstaff. Selected roles * Earl of Northumberland in ''Sir Thomas Overbury'' by Richard Savage (1723) * Captain Gaylove in '' A Wife to be Let'' by Eliza Haywood (1723) * Orbasius in '' The Captives'' by John Gay (1724) * Ulysses in ''Hecuba'' by Richard West (1726) * Count Basset in ''The Provoked Husband'' by Colley Cibber (1728) * Malvil in '' Love in Several Masques'' by Henry Fielding (1728) * Timophanes in ''Timoleon'' by Benjamin Martyn (1730) * Lord Briton in '' Bayes's Opera'' by Gabriel Odingsells (1730) * Shamwell in '' The Humours of Oxford'' by James Miller (1730) * Laelius in ''Sophonisba'' by James Thomson (1730) * Athelwold in ''A ...
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Lacy Ryan
Lacy Ryan (c. 1694–1760), English actor, appeared at the Haymarket Theatre about 1709. Life By 1718 he had joined the company at Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he shared the lead with his friend James Quin. He took leading roles in ''Richard III'' and ''Hamlet'' with Anna Maria Seymour.Roland Metcalf, "Seymour , Anna Maria (c.1692–1723)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 200accessed 26 May 2015/ref> In 1719 he appeared in the comedy ''Kensington Gardens'' by John Leigh. In 1732 he followed the company to Covent Garden, and there, he remained until his death. Iago, Cassius, Edgar (in ''King Lear'') and Macduff were among his best parts. Another signature part was the title role in Nathaniel Lee's tragedy ''Theodosius''. Selected roles * Valentine in ''The Wife's Relief'' by Charles Johnson (1711) * Young Gentleman in ''The City Ramble'' by Elkanah Settle (1711) * Marcus in '' Cato'' by Joseph Addison (1713) * Astrolabe in '' The Wife ...
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Thomas Chapman (actor)
Thomas Chapman (1683-1747) was a British stage actor. A long-standing member of John Rich's Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre company, he was popular for his comedy roles. Although he also played in tragic plays, his reception for them were less acclaimed.The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama p.xli Selected roles * Meanwell in ''The Impertinent Lovers'' by Francis Hawling (1723) * Beggar in ''The Beggar's Opera'' by John Gay (1728) * Dion in ''Sesostris'' by John Sturmy (1728) * Mirza in '' The Virgin Queen'' by Richard Barford (1728) * Ridolpho in ''Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburgh'' by Eliza Haywood (1729) * Artaban in ''Themistocles'' by Samuel Madden (1729) * Dogrel in '' The Wife of Bath'' by John Gay (1730) * Constant in '' The Coffee House Politician'' by Henry Fielding (1730) * Alcander in ''Periander'' by John Tracy (1731) * Lysimachus in ''Philotas'' by Philip Frowde (1731) * Nicanor in '' Merope'' by George Jeffreys (1731) * Barzanes in ...
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Anne Hallam
Anne Parker (1696-1740) was a British stage actress of the eighteenth century. She is also known by her married names Anne Berriman and Anne Hallam. She first appeared at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in 1720 as Regan in ''King Lear'' and Melinda in ''The Recruiting Officer'' and from 1723 she was a regular part of John Rich's company there. In 1726 she married a fellow Lincoln's Inn actor Joseph Berriman. Following his death in 1730 she remarried to another actor William Hallam and was known as Mrs Hallam for the remainder of her career. From 1732 she moved with the rest of Rich's company to the newly-built Covent Garden Theatre. She became particularly known for her performances as Lady Macbeth. She died on 5 June 1740 and was buried in Mitcham.Highfill, Burnim & Langhans p.32 Selected roles * Adeliza in ''Edwin'' by George Jeffreys (1724) * Valeria in ''Belisarius'' by William Phillips (1724) * Camilla in ''The Roman Maid'' by Robert Hurst (1724) * Cleora in ''The Bath Unm ...
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Christiana Horton
Christiana Horton (c. 1696 – c. 1756) was an English actress. She first appeared in London as Melinda in ''The Recruiting Officer'' in 1714 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Here she remained twenty years, followed by fifteen at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. At both houses during this long career she played all the leading tragedy and comedy parts, and Barton Booth (who discovered her) said she was the best successor of Anne Oldfield. She was the original Mariana in Fielding's ''The Miser'' (1733). Selected roles * Melinda in ''The Recruiting Officer'' by George Farquhar (1714) * Emmelin in ''Lucius'' by Delarivier Manley (1717) * Caelia in '' The Masquerade'' by Charles Johnson (1719) * Isabella in '' The Revenge'' by Edward Young (1721) * Olivia in '' The Artifice'' by Susanna Centlivre (1722) * Clary in '' The Rival Modes'' by James Moore Smythe (1727) * Ethra in ''Medea'' by Charles Johnson (1730) * Mariana in ''The Miser'' by Henry Fielding (1733) * E ...
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1735 Plays
Events January–March * January 2 – Alexander Pope's poem ''Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot'' is published in London. * January 8 – George Frideric Handel's opera ''Ariodante'' is premièred at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. * February 3 – All 256 people on board the Dutch East India Company ships '' Vliegenthart'' and ''Anna Catherina'' die when the two ships sink in a gale off of the Netherlands coast. The wreckage of ''Vliegenthart'' remains undiscovered until 1981. * February 14 – The ''Order of St. Anna'' is established in Russia, in honor of the daughter of Peter the Great. * March 10 – The Russian Empire and Persia sign the Treaty of Ganja, with Russia ceding territories in the Caucasus mountains to Persia, and the two rivals forming a defensive alliance against the Ottoman Empire. * March 11 – Abraham Patras becomes the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) upon the death of Dirck van Cloon. A ...
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British Plays
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *''Brit(ish)'', a 2018 memoir by Afua Hirsch *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) See also * Terminology of the British Isles * Alternative names for the British * English (other) * Britannic (other) * British Isles * Brit (other) * Briton (d ...
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