8. The Play’s the Thing
Everybody missed Shakespeare. By the 1720s, when Ben attended plays and George studied them, it had been more than a century since the Bard of Avon had put down his quill. Writers like Kit Marlowe and Ben Jonson had helped William Shakespeare create a golden era for theater around the year 1600, and rival companies competed to catch the imaginations of their audiences. New stages were built. Rich and poor alike flocked to see the latest offerings—the rich got seats, while the poor paid a penny for standing room.
There were always concerns about morality. Playwrights and directors had to dance around the demands of censors. Many of Shakespeare’s bawdiest puns reflect this tension. Those who have ears to hear will get the joke, but there’s nothing explicit to offend the authorities.
While some upper-class citizens patronized the theater, others avoided it as a haven for lowhfes. In 1597, the Lord Mayor complained to the Queen’s Privy Council that theaters “are the ordinary places for vagrant persons . . . thieves, horse stealers, whoremongers . . . contrivers of treason, and other idle and dangerous persons to meet together and to make their matches to the great displeasure of Almighty God and the hurt and annoyance of her Majesty’s people.” He went on to suggest that the plays encouraged idleness in the unemployed, enticed apprentices away from their work, and kept people from attending “sermons and other Christian exercises, to the great hindrance of trades and profanation of religion.”1
A few years later, Thomas Dekker railed against the theaters in similar terms:
Do they not induce whoredom and uncleanness? Nay, are they not rather plain devourers of maidenly virginity and chastity? For proof whereof, but mark the flocking and running to Theatres and curtains, daily and hourly, night and day, time and tide, to see plays and interludes; where such wanton gestures, such bawdy speeches, such laughing and fleering, such kissing and bussing, such clipping and culling, such winking and glancing of wanton eyes, and the like, is used.2
And he wasn’t just talking about what happened on stage. People paired up at the theater and went home to do disgraceful things. “Theaters are snares unto fair women,” he charged.3
These attitudes became even more prominent as Puritan power grew in the mid-1600s. Theaters were shut down after Parliament deposed Charles I, but when Charles II returned from France in 1660 to restore the monarchy, it also meant a restoration of the artistic life of London. Playwriting had its next great heyday, with the “Restoration comedies” of Sir George Etherege, William Wycherley, Aphra Behn, William Congreve, and others. For the most part, these were plays about the English upper class. Comedy was found in the characters’ hypocrisy, their over-attention to manners, and the need to hide their affairs. Behavior that Puritans found scandalous was now back in the open. And for the first time, women were permitted on stage (previously, female roles had been played by men or teenage boys). It was no secret that many actresses supplemented their income with prostitution. In fact, it was widely known that Charles II’s main mistress was an actress, Nell Gwyn.
The old opposition to the theater’s immorality didn’t vanish. It just lacked clout. As long as the dissolute Charles II was on the throne, London theater had free rein. But when William and Mary took over in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, the nation seemed ready to find a sensible middle course. In 1698, clergyman Jeremy Collier published A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, in which he critiqued specific plays for their immodesty and negative themes. “Here is a large collection of debauchery,” he observed. “Sometimes you have it in image and description; sometimes by way of allusion; sometimes in disguise; and sometimes without it.”4 Collier seemed especially upset with how “smuttily” the actresses talked.5
Other writers responded, defending the theater. As much as they wanted to dismiss Collier’s criticisms, they recognized that he had captured the public spirit. The party was over. There was less and less of a market for Restoration excesses. William Congreve, Richard Steele, and others began writing softer plays, with restrained language and even some lessons in morality.
So when Ben Franklin and James Ralph arrived in London late in 1724, they found a theater world in flux, waiting for the next heyday. Shakespeare was long gone, and the Restoration comedies had run their course. No wonder some theaters turned to Italian opera and French farce. English playwriting was still trying to find its way. There were a few prominent actors worth following—Colley Cibber and, in the next generation, David Garrick—and there were some producers creating impressive spectacles, but the new plays being produced were hit or miss, mostly miss. (That also explains why the booming literary genre in the following decades was satire. When entertainment quality is poor, make fun of it. This is how James Ralph eventually succeeded, as well as Henry Fielding, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift.)
Three Plays
In English society in the 1600s and 1700s, theater was the lively art, revealing the popular spirit of the time. This is the culture that Ben and George grew up in, participated with, and changed.
We’ve already seen that Ben was watching plays in London at a critical time of his life, and we’ll soon see that George was impacted by theater in England, mostly as a student in Gloucester. Moreover, as his career developed, Whitefield replaced theater in England, Scotland, and America, wherever he went on his preaching tours. He was the best show in town. Everywhere, people commented on his dramatic delivery and the emotional power of his presentation. By studying the state of theater in England and the dearth of theater in America, we can get a sense of the cultural hole that Whitefield filled, with Franklin’s help.6
Three plays hit the London stage, with considerable popularity, between 1722 and 1731—from the time just before Ben came to London to the time George went to Oxford.
The Conscious Lovers by Richard Steele exemplified the new, softer style of theater—less offensive, more moral. Produced in 1722, it enjoyed a run of eighteen nights, lengthy for its time. The play’s prologue made it clear that a new ethic was being followed. “No more let ribaldry, with license writ, usurp the name of eloquence or wit.” This playwright’s aim was “to chasten wit and moralize the stage.”7
Some critics, still mourning the demise of the edgy humor of Restoration comedy, panned this sentimental story. It had all the ingredients of the old style—high-born characters, couples in and out of love, mistaken identity, and so on—but the passions were muted. At the play’s climactic moment, the main character chose not to have a duel with his rival. In true comedic form, there was a happy ending with multiple marriages, but this was the result of good choices made by the characters, not the whimsy of fate.
This play had come and gone by the time Ben got to town, but its lessons had seeped into the culture (or perhaps the culture had seeped into the play): Happy lives are the results of wise decisions. Don’t count on a whimsical universe to provide you with a happy ending just because you say clever lines. You need to work for what you get. James Ralph belonged in a Restoration comedy—clever, lusty, little sense of moral responsibility; all he lacked was the social status. Ben almost followed him into that kind of life, up to the point where he tried to steal Ralph’s mistress. In so doing, Ben created his own little morality play. He learned that choices have consequences. Betray a friend, and you’re likely to lose that friend. Success in life comes through responsible decision making, not untamed passions. This was the new spirit of London. It formed the moral foundation of The Conscious Lovers and a whole new slate of sensible plays to follow, and it became Ben’s gospel.
If he had stayed in London another year and a half, Ben would have seen The Beggar’s Opera, a musical satire unlike anything that had ever been done. Opening at Lincoln’s Inn Fields on January 29, 1728, it smashed the box-office records and became the talk of the town. Part of its popularity came from its mockery of Italian opera, a genre many Londoners might have been growing weary of. It was also a thinly veiled commentary on political corruption—and critics kept guessing about who the targets were. Yet The Beggar’s Opera made its greatest splash by being about, well, beggars: thieves, tramps, and hookers. The “hero”—if you can call him that—was Macheath, a notorious robber. Much of the play took place in lairs and brothels. London’s ugly underbelly was taking center stage.
The city had grown steadily as the capital of a burgeoning empire, but its underclass was growing faster than its upper class. Crime was becoming a problem. Certain sections of the city were being written off as slums. Magistrates had their hands full, and public hangings were common. In 1724, a burglar named Jack Sheppard was finally caught and executed, but not before becoming one of London’s foremost celebrities. Books were written about him. The Drury Lane Theatre produced a panto about him. He had a portrait painted.
With The Beggar’s Opera, playwright John Gay capitalized on this public fascination with crime. He broke new ground in setting a play among the lower class. Most previous plays—going back to the Greeks—had featured aristocrats. Slaves and servants occasionally appeared, but in support of wealthier masters. Restoration comedy was thoroughly an upper-class affair. But this play turned everything upside down. Look, lowhfes are human too!
This had two major consequences that affected the life and work of Ben Franklin and George Whitefield. In biblical terms, you might say it exalted the humble and humbled the proud. The play carried a powerful satirical message that everyone’s a crook. Scene 1 began:
Through all the employments of life,
Each neighbor abuses his brother;
Whore and rogue they call husband and wife,
All professions be-rogue one another.8
That was played out in the course of the story, but it was the dirty little secret that every Londoner knew. We’re all corrupt! Jailer, judge, priest, politician. At least the burglars are honest about it. At the tender age of nineteen, Ben had already been shafted by the crown-appointed governor of Pennsylvania. Young George was dealing with the greed and duplicity of his stepfather. “There is none righteous, no, not one,” the Scriptures thundered.9 The London stage was a strange place to hear that message, but there it was.
By tearing down the pretensions of the ruling class, The Beggar’s Opera lifted up the dignity of the lower class. By charging that aristocrats are no more righteous than anyone else, the play put all citizens on an equal footing. This played into a new populism emerging in England and growing in the colonies.
Ben Franklin was returning to an America with a strong working class and a limited aristocracy. Over the next half century, important decisions would be made about the value of persons in different classes, and Ben would be involved in many of those decisions. This growing awareness of human depravity, among rich and poor alike, would lead to the implementation of checks and balances, of regular elections, of local militias. You couldn’t just count on aristocrats to do the right thing. Ben had learned that the hard way.
There was also a religious revolution brewing. The Methodist movement would grow in England by reaching out to coal miners, common workers, and servants. George Whitefield and the Wesley brothers would reject the aristocratic spirit of the established church and preach in public squares and fields. Lowhfes were welcome to repent and receive God’s blessings. Macheath himself could be reborn through God’s grace.
The third play of note in this period was The London Merchant, by George Lillo, opening at Drury Lane in 1731 and performed often in the following decade. Nearly as popular as The Beggar’s Opera, it was a cautionary tale about a young apprentice who falls for the wrong woman and descends into a spiral of theft, murder, and punishment for those crimes. “Be warn’d ye youths, who see my sad despair,” the man intones. “Avoid lewd women, false as they are fair. . . . By my example learn to shun my fate; (How wretched is the man who’s wise too late!)”10
This play was as moralistic as The Conscious Lovers, only tragic. The apprentice was a good guy who made bad choices, letting his passions override his good judgment. Penitent at the end, he still had to pay for his crimes.
And payment is an important theme here. This play lives in the world of the middle class. What The Beggar’s Opera did for the underclass, The London Merchant did for the bourgeoisie, putting it on stage for everyone to see. Socially, the middle class—and especially the merchant class—was growing in numbers, wealth, and influence. Many land-rich aristocrats were cash poor, while the merchants were flush. Lillo’s play reflected this new reality, and it wove a fabric of middle-class morality that had seldom been seen on stage before. Every action has its consequence; every sin has its cost. The scales always balance out.
It’s worth noting that it was little more than a year after the opening of this play when Ben Franklin, back home in Philadelphia, published the first volume of Poor Richard’s Almanac, which began celebrating this same sort of morality in the colonies. Franklin himself embodied the rising middle class as a tradesman whose business grew through hard work and good decisions.
George Whitefield had his own rise to prominence during the 1730s, though his route was more circuitous. As a student, an actor-in-training, a barkeep, a collegian, a servant to other collegians, a small-group participant, a minister, a missionary, and an evangelist, he would grapple with many of the themes that the London stage had introduced in the previous decade. He served aristocrats; he preached to paupers; and he became a phenomenally successful merchant of the gospel. Along the way, he learned about guilt and grace and good decisions, and he taught what he learned.
The London theater didn’t give him his message, but it readied the population for what he had to say.