Event Comment: The
Duke's Company. The date of the premiere is not known.
Pepys saw it on 6 March 1679@80, calling it a "New Play," and that may have been the first day. The Prologue alludes also to the
Duke of York's triumphant return from
Scotland on 24 Feb. 1679@80, and the play was entered in the
Term Catalogues, May 1680. For
Mrs Bracegirdle as the "little Girl," see
Edmund Curll,
History of the English Stage (1741), p. 26, and
Lucyle Hook,
Anne Bracegirdle's First Appearance,
Theatre Notebook, XIII (1959), 134. For
Betterton as
Castalio and
Mrs Barry as
Monimia, probably as they performed in the next decade, see
Cibber, Apology, ed.
Lowe, I, 116, 160.
Downes (
Roscius Anglicanus, p. 37) gives the same cast except for omissions and except for
Serina-Mrs Mountfort, who acted it later. Downes (pp. 37-38) adds: [
Monimia,
Belvidera in
Venice Preserved, and
Isabella in
The Fatal Marriage] These three Parts, gain'd her the Name of Famous $Mrs Barry, both
at court and
City; for when ever She Acted any of these three Parts, she forc'd Tears from the Eyes of her Auditory, especially those who have any Sense of Pity for the Distress't. These 3 Plays, by their Excellent Performances, took above all the Modern Plays that succeeded. A song for this play,
Come all the youths whose hearts have bled, the music by
Forcer, is in
Choice Ayres and Songs, The Third Book, 1681