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 h
ands a casket to keep,
and she having touched a spring it opens
and she sees jewels, her husb
and (
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.)