Event Comment: [This New Comedy (by
Mrs Elizabeth Griffith)
seems not to have been performed this night, according to the author's
Preface to her Edition of 1772. Shuter had been unattentive and absent from many rehearsals]: At length though late [in the season] a day was appointed for the representation, and on that morning
Mr Shuter appeared at rehearsal, pretty much in the same state as before, and confessed himself incapable of performing his part, that night. Upon which the play was oblig'd to be further postponed, and handbills were sent about at noon, to advertise town of the disappointment....A further final day was afterwards determined on, but the audience being out of humour at their former disappointment, called Mr Shuter to account for it, on his first appearance; which threw him
into such confusion, that he was not able to get the better of it, throughtout the whole performance...in the hurry of his spirits the actor not only forgot his part, the deficiency of which he endeavoured to supply with his own dialect, but also
seemed to lose all idea of the character he was to perform; and made the
Governor appear in a light which the author never intended: that of a mean, ridiculous buffoon. [Mrs Griffith concluded her
preface by relating how her friends stood by the piece, but two or three in the gallery, when it was given out again objected and threw an apple at the chandeliers, which so perturbed the management that the play was withdrawn. She therefore published it by subscription, prefixing the names of about 440 subscribers, persons of the first quality, including
James Boswell,
Edmund Burke,
Col. Burgoyne, the
Duke of Devonshire,
David Garrick,
Mrs Montague,
William Richardson, and a host of writers, players, and people of fashion. This list provides a pretty good roster of those who filled the boxes and part of the
pit of both theatres at the time.] Paid
Younger #2 2s. for the license for
A Wife in the Right (Account Book). Receipts: #218 12s. (Account Book)