Event Comment: The
Duke's Company.
Pepys, Diary: To the Opera, and there saw
Romeo and Juliet, the first time it was ever acted; but it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do, and I am resolved to go no more to see the first time of acting, for they were all of them out more or less.
Downes (p. 22): Note, There being a Fight and Scuffle in this Play, between the House of Capulet, and House of Paris;
Mrs Holden Acting his Wife, enter'd in a Hurry, Crying, O my Dear
Count! She Inadvertently left out, O, in the pronuntiation of the Word
Count! giving it a Vehement Accent, put the House into such a Laughter, that London Bridge at low-water was silence to it. This Tragedy of
Romeo and Juliet, was made some time after into a Tragi-comedy, by
Mr James Howard, he preserving
Romeo and
Juliet alive; so that when the Tragedy was Reviv'd again, twas Play'd Alternately, Tragical one Day, and Tragicomical another; for several Days together. [No specific notices are known which would indicate when Howard's version appeared.