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Life
1717-1779; the celebrated English actor-manager; wrote and produced The Irish Widow (Drury Lane 1772); went on a Dublin tour in 1742, offering a highly successful in Hamlet and The Recruiting Officer.
ODNB FDA
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Works
The Irish Widow (T. Becket 1772) [1st ed.], 50pp.
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References
G. C. Duggan, The Stage Irishman: A History of the Irish Play and Stage Characters from the Earliest Times (1937; NY: Benjamin Blom; reiss. 1969), writes: ‘David Garrick, The Irish Widow, continued a favorite with Dublin public well into the 19thc. The widow, Martha Brady, and daughter of Sir Patrick O’Neale [a leading Irish char. for generations], is in love with young Whittle; but her father wishes her to remarry to
his uncle; young Whittle and she plot to have her appear in full flight of improvidence and Irish brogue, frightening old Whittle off.’
Note also: ‘The Jubilee in Honour of Shakespeare’ as performed at the Theatre in Waterford (Esther Crawley & Son, Euclid’s Head, in Peter St., Waterford, 1773), probably by David Garrick, as including tableau by him for the Stratford Shakespeare festival of 1769. Duggan quotes ‘“Faith Garrick, you were once in Dublin city, / In sweet Smock alley you have cut a figure; / Oh you’d be great were you a little bigger”, says Mrs Abin[g]don in a epilogue to the farce The Sultan delivered at Crow St. Theatre in 1778. (Ibid., p.179; and note that the lines were adapted from a prologue to Griffith’s Variety.)
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Notes
Oliver Goldsmith wrote of Garrick in Retaliation: ‘Here lies David Garrick, describe him me, who can, / ... Abridgement of all that was pleasant in a man / ... Yet with talents like these, and an excellent heart / The man had failings, a dupe to his art / On stage he was natural, simple, affecting / It was only when he was off he was acting.’
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