David Garrick (play)

David Garrick (1864) is the title of a comic play by Thomas William Robertson. It premiered at the Haymarket Theatre in London, on April 30th, 1864. It was a major success for the actor Edward Askew Sothern, who played the title role. The play was designed as a star vehicle, since the actor playing Garrick has to portray Garrick himself as an actor giving a performance. A scene from the play was painted by Edward Matthew Ward, a friend of Sothern's.

The story is, according to the title page of one printed version, "Adapted from the French of 'Sullivan,' which was founded on a German Dramatization of a pretended Incident in Garrick's Life." It has very little to do with reality, in fact: among other things, it ends with Garrick (presumably) married to a woman named Ada Ingot -- Garrick's real wife was Eva Marie Veigel.

Plot Summary

The plot concerns a young woman, Ada, who has developed a crush on the actor David Garrick so strong that she is refusing to accept a marriage arranged by her father, Mr. Ingot. Ingot contrives to meet with Garrick and initially tries to pursuade him to leave the country or give up acting, but when Garrick learns the reason, he assures Ingot that he will be able to cure Ada of her attraction if they will just be arranged to meet. Garrick is sympathetic to Ada's plight because he himself has fallen in love with a girl he doesn't know, but he promises her father that he will not make any romantic moves on her.

Garrick is invited to a dinner party at Ingot's house, where he is stunned and horrified to realize that Ada is the very girl he had been admiring from afar, but because of his promise, he goes through with his plan. He spends the evening tormenting the other guests and pretending to be a drunk and a gambler. When he leaves, Ada is crushed, but she agrees to go through with the marriage her father intends for her. At this point her fiancé Richard Chivy comes in, actually as drunk as Garrick was just pretending to be, and he tells the Ingots about how he just met David Garrick at his club and listened to him tell a story of how he had spent an evening pretending to be a scoundrel so as to cure a girl of her attraction to him. Chivy does not recognize that the story is about Ada and her father, though they both recognize themselves, and Ada is cheered by the news. Chivy then mentions how someone at the club insulted the girl and father of Garrick's story, and that Garrick is now scheduled to fight a duel with the man.

The next day, Ada goes to Garrick's home, both to escape her impending marriage and to try to stop the duel set for later in the day. Chivy has followed her, and she hides from him. Garrick learns that Ada is hiding in the room, but he plays dumb and offers to help Chivy look for her. Not long after they leave, Mr. Ingot arrives and finds Ada, and says he will disown her because of how she has misbehaved. Ada is so upset by the news that she faints; Ingot tries to tell her he didn't mean it, but when he sees she has fainted unconscious he goes to get help. Ada then awakens, the last thing she heard being that she was disowned. Garrick eventually comes into the room and tries to comfort Ada, and he convinces her that her father loves her and that she should listen to him. Ingot overhears this and decides that David Garrick is a better man than Chivy, and so he agrees to allow Ada to marry him.

Outside Links

Edward Matthew Ward's "Scene from David Garrick" from the Tate Gallery