“Damn him and the spikes”: Richard III, riot, and the formation of an Australian colonial theatre public

Abstract

On 26 December 1833, the first licensed theatre in New South Wales offered its first Shakespeare play—Colley Cibber’s adaptation of Richard III. The event entailed a riot and the lead actor being charged with assault for hurling an audience member from the stage. Using insights drawn from scholarship on the Covent Garden “Old Price Riots” in 1809, this essay investigates the Sydney Theatre Royal’s 1833 disturbance as an indicative phase in the development of a colonial theatre public. Thirty years after this troubled beginning, majestic theatre venues hosted international stars throughout Australia’s major cities. What constituted this rapid transformation? The press, satire, and travesty were instrumental through their vividly performative negotiation of the contradictions of this British penal colony’s love for Shakespeare. Of this phenomenon, Richard III, a drama of disrupted authority and (with Othello) the most popular play on the colonial Australian stage, proffers the ideal case study.

Keywords

• shakespeare
• colonial australia
• theatre
• riot
• john meredith
• barry sullivan
• charles kean