Event Comment: Benefit for Miss Brunton. 1st piece [1st time; T 3, by Mariana Starke, based on La Veuve du Malabar, by Antoine Marin LeMierre. Prologue by William Thomas Fitzgerald. Epilogue by Richard John Hughes Starke (see text)]: With new Scenes and Dresses. And a Procession representing the Ceremonies attending the Sacrifice of an Indian Woman on the Funeral Pile of her deceased Hqsband. 2nd piece: Not acted these 18 years [acted 4 May 1776. Miss E. Brunton was from the Norwich theatre]. Morning Chronicle, 1 Feb. 1791: This Day is published The Widow of Malabar (1s. 6d.). Public Advertiser, 21 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Miss Brunton, No. 35, Gerrard-street, Soho. [The mainpiece is sometimes stated to have been 1st acted at Mrs Crespigny's private@theatre@in@Camberwell, 1790, but "'The Widow of Malabar' was not first produced at Mrs Crespigny's Theatre. The Tragedy performed there is called 'The British Orphan' (also by Mariana Starke)" (Gazetteer, 24 Jan. 1791).] Receipts: #338 13s. (208.7; 2.8; tickets: 127.18)

Event Comment: Possibly this was acted by the King's Company, which had given it on 16 Nov. 1660 and 8 Jan. 1661. Evelyn, Diary: This Night was acted before his Majestie the Widow, a lewd play

Event Comment: W. S. Clark (Works of Orrery, 1, 40-41) believes that this is Thomas Middleton's play, not one by Orrery. Henry Savile to George Savile: I am come newly from my Lord of Orrery's new play called The Widow, whose character you will receive from better hands. I will only say that one part of it is the humour of a man that has great need to go to the close stool, where there are such indecent postures as would never be suffered upon any stage but ours, which has quite turn'd the stomach of so squeamish a man as I am, that am used to see nothing upon a theatre that might not appear in the ruelle of a fine lady (Savile Correspondence, ed. W. D. Cooper, Camden Society, LXXI [1858], 4)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 216. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 348. Nell Gwyn also attended this performance; see VanLennep, Nell Gwyn's Playgoing, p. 406. There is no indication as to whether this is the premiere; the play was not licensed for publication until 27 Nov. 1676. Preface to Settle's Ibrahim (licensed 4 May 1676): Having a Play, call'd the Triumphant Widow, given him [Thomas Shadwell] to bring into the Duke's Playhouse, he spitefully foists in a Scene of his own into the Play, and makes a silly Heroick Poet in it, speak the very words he had heard me say, and made reflexions on some of the very Lines he had so senselessly prated on before in his Notes [to The Empress of Morocco]

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first production is not known, but the Gentleman's Journal, February 1692@3 (issued in March) makes clear that it followed Congreve's play: We have had since a Comedy, call'd, The Wary Widow, or Sir Noisy Parrot, by Henry Higden Esq; I send by here the Prologue to it by Sir Charles Sedley, and you are too great an Admirer of Shakespeare, not to assent to the Praises given to the Fruits of his rare Genius (p. 61). The play was announced in the London Gazette, No. 2875, 29 May-June 1693. The music for one song, All hands up aloft, was by Berenclow, and the song appears in D'Urfey, Wit and Mirth, 1699. Dedication, edition of 1693: But now it is forced to beg for your Protection from the malice and severe usage it received from some of my Ill natured Friends, who with a Justice peculiar to themselves, passed sentence upon it unseen or heard and at the representation made it their business to persecute it with a barbarous variety of Noise and Tumult. Gildon, The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton (p. 20): The actors were completely drunk before the end of the third act, and being therefore unable to proceed with this "Pleasant Comedy," they very properly dismissed the audience