George Jolly: Difference between revisions
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After 1667, Davenant and Killigrew were able to mollify Jolly somewhat by putting him in charge of "the Nursery," a school for the training of young actors.<ref>Latham and Matthews, pp. 304, 434.</ref> Jolly still maintained his touring troupe, which was successful at playing cities outside London — provided they didn't stay too long. In 1669 the city authorities of [[Norwich]] complained about Jolly to the King; the actors' popularity with the town's cloth workers had led Jolly to stay there for three months, and the town fathers were worried over his impact on the wool trade.<ref>Joseph Donohue, ed., ''The Cambridge History of British Theatre'', Vol. 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004; p. 173.</ref> |
After 1667, Davenant and Killigrew were able to mollify Jolly somewhat by putting him in charge of "the Nursery," a school for the training of young actors.<ref>Latham and Matthews, pp. 304, 434.</ref> Jolly still maintained his touring troupe, which was successful at playing cities outside London — provided they didn't stay too long. In 1669 the city authorities of [[Norwich]] complained about Jolly to the King; the actors' popularity with the town's cloth workers had led Jolly to stay there for three months, and the town fathers were worried over his impact on the wool trade.<ref>Joseph Donohue, ed., ''The Cambridge History of British Theatre'', Vol. 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004; p. 173.</ref> |
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The available evidence indicates that theatre managers of this age, from [[Philip Henslowe]] and [[Francis Langley]] to [[Christopher Beeston]], were sometimes (often, regularly) ruthless and unscrupulous. Jolly was cut from the same cloth. (His name was a malapropism: Jolly wasn't jolly.) He has been characterized as an "irascible" man "whose hot temper made it difficult for him to keep a company together."<ref>Londre, p. 10.</ref> [[Alfred Harbage]] wrote that Jolly "always proved venal in proportion to his opportunities, and it is difficult to feel much sympathy for him."<ref>Alfred Harbage, ''Thomas Killigrew, Cavalier Dramatist, 1612–1683'', Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930; reprinted New York, Benjamin Blom, 1967; p. 119 n. 26.</ref> |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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Revision as of 13:05, 16 November 2007
George Jolly, or Joliffe, (in Germany, Joris Joliphus or Jollifous) (fl. 1640 – 1673) was an actor and theatre impressario of the middle seventeenth century. He was "an experienced, courageous, and obstinate actor-manager"[1] who proved a persistent rival for the main theatrical figures of Restoration theatre, Sir William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew.
Nothing is known of Jolly's early life. He began his acting career c. 1640, at the crisis point of Caroline era theatre and society, when the English Civil War was about to start. The Puritan authorities suppressed the London theatres in Spetember 1642; Jolly, like most actors, playwrights, and poets, was a royalist supporter, and served the then Prince of Wales in Paris until 1646. Jolly eventually organized a company of fourteen actors and led them around Europe from 1648 to 1659. They began in Germany, and were in Poland and Sweden in 1649 and 1650; then they moved on to Vienna. They regularly performed in Frankfurt, and may have performed before the future King Charles II there in 1655.[2] Jolly brought woman actors onto the stage in Germany in the early 1650s, anticipating the greatest innovation of the Restoration theatre in England by nearly a decade.[3]
With the end of the Interregnum period and the return of Charles to the throne, the London theatres re-opened; in August 1660 Killigrew and Davenant received a patent to establish two theatre companies under royal patronage, the King's Company and the Duke's Company respectively — their famous "duopoly." Jolly was late in returning from the Continent, but had set up his own acting troupe by November 1660, which was apparently made up mostly of personnel from William Beeston's last effort; they acted at the Cockpit Theatre. By March 1661 they were at the old Red Bull Theatre, where Samuel Pepys saw them perform William Rowley's All's Lost by Lust. They were working in the Salisbury Court Theatre by September of that year.[4]
On December 24, 1660 Jolly obtained his own patent from the King to run a company and theatre — a development that the erstwhile rivals Davenant and Killigrew united in opposing, as strenuously as they could. Jolly maintained a toehold in London for two years, but in 1662 took his company on a tour of provincial cities. On January 1, 1663 he was granted another royal license to play in any city in England except for London and Westminster. During this time, Jolly leased his London license to Killigrew and Davenant for £4 weekly. They falsely claimed that Jolly had sold them his license, which led to its revocation in July 1667.[5][6]
Jolly was left behind in one key development of Restoration dramaturgy: the use of scenery. The London patent companies built larger and more elaborate theatres for themselves, equipped with ever more advanced resources for the scenes and properties needed for the spectaculars of the era. Jolly's touring companies had to travel light, as the touring companies of English Renaissance theatre had done in previous generations. Jolly therefore preserved the last remant and vestige of the theatre of the previous age into the Restoration era.
After 1667, Davenant and Killigrew were able to mollify Jolly somewhat by putting him in charge of "the Nursery," a school for the training of young actors.[7] Jolly still maintained his touring troupe, which was successful at playing cities outside London — provided they didn't stay too long. In 1669 the city authorities of Norwich complained about Jolly to the King; the actors' popularity with the town's cloth workers had led Jolly to stay there for three months, and the town fathers were worried over his impact on the wool trade.[8]
The available evidence indicates that theatre managers of this age, from Philip Henslowe and Francis Langley to Christopher Beeston, were sometimes (often, regularly) ruthless and unscrupulous. Jolly was cut from the same cloth. (His name was a malapropism: Jolly wasn't jolly.) He has been characterized as an "irascible" man "whose hot temper made it difficult for him to keep a company together."[9] Alfred Harbage wrote that Jolly "always proved venal in proportion to his opportunities, and it is difficult to feel much sympathy for him."[10]
See also
References
- ^ Montague Summers, The Playhouse of Pepys, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Truber, 1935; p. 115.
- ^ Felicia Hardison Londre, The History of World Theater from the English Restoration to the Present, New York, Continuum International, 1999; p. 10.
- ^ Laurence Selenick, The Changing Room: Sex, Drag, and Theatre, London, Routledge, 2000; p. 208.
- ^ Robert Latham and William Matthews, The Diary of Samuel Pepys Companion, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2000; pp. 433-4.
- ^ Londre, p. 17.
- ^ Latham and Matthews, p. 434.
- ^ Latham and Matthews, pp. 304, 434.
- ^ Joseph Donohue, ed., The Cambridge History of British Theatre, Vol. 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004; p. 173.
- ^ Londre, p. 10.
- ^ Alfred Harbage, Thomas Killigrew, Cavalier Dramatist, 1612–1683, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930; reprinted New York, Benjamin Blom, 1967; p. 119 n. 26.