Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. 1st piece: Never acted in this
Theatre. [Prologue by
George Colman, elder. Monologue by
Hester Lynch Piozzi (
European Magazine, May 1797, p. 343).]
True Briton, 12 Apr.: Tickets to be had of
Mrs Siddons, No. 49,
Great Marlborough-street. "
The scenery destroyed much of
the effect of
the tragedy; for
the characters are supposed to be 'steeped in poverty to
the very lips;' and yet
their apartments would have become a family in
the meridian of wealth and prosperity. Mrs Siddons was also too well dressed for
Mrs Wilmot" (
Monthly Mirror, May 1797, p. 308). "In
the scene in which [Mrs Siddons's] son having put into her hands a casket to keep, and she having touched a spring it opens and she sees jewels, her husband (
Kemble) enters, and in despair exclaims, 'Where shall we get bread?' With her eyes fixed on
the jewels, she runs to him, knocks
the casket against her breast and exclaims, 'Here! Here!' In Mrs Siddons's tone and in her look
there was an anticipation of
the murder which was to take place" (
Robinson, I, 39). Receipts: #618 2s. (386.8.6; 43.19.0; 2.4.0; tickets: 185.10.6) (charge: #211 1s.)