Event Comment: Play never acted before. [This new tragedy by
MacNamara Morgan is mercilessly scourged by
Paul Hiffernan in
Tuner No 1, (21 Jan.), pp. 41-61]: To Tune it in
Lilliputian Score : @Such sighing@Such Billing@Such Flashing@Such Heeling@
And Dying@
And Killing@
And Dashing@
And Kneeling@Such Rizing@Surprizing!@Such Falling@
And Bawling@Such Attitudes@
And Flattitudes@Were ne'er exhibited before.@ In the representation
Mr Barry spared no pains;
Miss Nossiter and Mr Smith strained hard-
Mrs Bland, as far as her part exposed itself, did it with alacrity, but vanished abruptly in a storm of Lust.
Mrs Vincent put as good a face on wanton barbarity as possible-
and Mr Sparks who can do justice to a more spirited character, supported his
Arcadian Kingship with becoming equanimity...It is a Romance crush'd together without choice, unconnected
and full of Exidents not Incidents.
Musidorus and Pamela , are duplicates to
Pyrocles and Philoclea , which lengthen by so much the play, with repetition of the same dull nauseous tale of love, stirr'd up now
and then by a bounce
and a cracker-many persons come on we know not why,
and disappear we know not wherefore....This new piece is an outlaw from all rules of Criticism; the Unities of Time, Place,
and Action are unobserv'd; Plot, Moral, Verisimilitude, or even Probability unknown: many scenes bid defiance to possibility....
Mr Rich stopp'd at no expence as to the Dresses
and Decorations,
and reprieving the play's duration to the utmost extent of Managerian clemency