Editing Colley Cibber (section)

==Actor==
[[File:Anne Bracegirdle.png|thumb|right|alt=Comely English 18th century actress, with short wavy hair and heavy-lidded eyes, her dress showing much decolletage.|Cibber had "melancholy Prospect of ever playing a Lover with" leading actress [[Anne Bracegirdle|Mrs. Bracegirdle]].]]

Cibber began his career as an actor at Drury Lane in 1690, and had little success for several years.<ref>Barker, p. 10</ref> "The first Thing that enters into the Head of a young Actor", he wrote in his autobiography half a century later, "is that of being a Hero: In this Ambition I was soon snubb'd by the Insufficiency of my Voice; to which might be added an uninform'd meagre Person&nbsp;... with a dismal pale Complexion. Under these Disadvantages, I had but a melancholy Prospect of ever playing a Lover with [[Anne Bracegirdle|Mrs. Bracegirdle]], which I had flatter'd my Hopes that my Youth might one Day have recommended me to."<ref>Cibber (1966a), p. 182</ref>
At this time the London stage was in something of a slump after the glories of the early [[English Restoration|Restoration]] period. The [[King's Company|King's]] and [[Duke's Company|Duke's companies]] had merged into a monopoly, leaving actors in a weak negotiating position and much at the mercy of the dictatorial manager [[Christopher Rich (theatre manager)|Christopher Rich]].<ref>Ashley, p. 82; Milhous, pp. 51–79</ref> When the senior actors rebelled and established a cooperative company of their own in 1695, Cibber—"wisely", as the ''Biographical Dictionary of Actors'' puts it—stayed with the remnants of the old company, "where the competition was less keen".<ref>Highfill ''et al.'', p. 216</ref> After five years, he had still not seen significant success in his chosen profession, and there had been no heroic parts and no love scenes. However, the return of two-company rivalry created a sudden demand for new plays, and Cibber seized this opportunity to launch his career by writing a comedy with a big, flamboyant part for himself to play.<ref>Ashley, pp. 26–27; Sullivan, pp. xiii–xiv</ref> He scored a double triumph: his comedy ''[[Love's Last Shift|Love's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion]]'' (1696) was a great success, and his own uninhibited performance as the Frenchified [[fop]] Sir Novelty Fashion ("a coxcomb that loves to be the first in all foppery"<ref>Cibber's comment in the ''dramatis personae'', quoted by Salmon in the ODNB.</ref>) delighted the audiences. His name was made, both as playwright and as comedian.<ref>Ashley, p. 27; Sullivan, p. xiii</ref>
[[File:Colley Cibber as Lord Foppington in The Relapse by John Vanbrugh1.jpg|thumb|alt=Interior scene of a young Cibber in fine 17th century clothes, richly embroidered, wearing a full wig, holding up a pinch of snuff in his right hand between thumb and forefinger, with the snuffbox and handkerchief in his left hand.|Colley Cibber plays the part of Lord Foppington in [[John Vanbrugh]]'s [[Restoration comedy]] ''[[The Relapse]]'']]
Later in life, when Cibber himself had the last word in casting at Drury Lane, he wrote, or patched together, several tragedies that were tailored to fit his continuing hankering after playing "a Hero". However, his performances of such parts never pleased audiences, which wanted to see him typecast as an affected fop, a kind of character that fitted both his private reputation as a vain man, his exaggerated, mannered style of acting, and his habit of ad libbing. His most famous part for the rest of his career remained that of Lord Foppington in ''[[The Relapse]]'', a sequel to Cibber's own ''Love's Last Shift'' but written by [[John Vanbrugh]], first performed in 1696 with Cibber reprising his performance as Sir Novelty Fashion in the newly ennobled guise of Lord Foppington.<ref name=odnb /> Pope mentions the audience jubilation that greeted the small-framed Cibber donning Lord Foppington's enormous wig, which would be ceremoniously carried on stage in its own [[sedan chair]]. Vanbrugh reputedly wrote the part of Lord Foppington deliberately "to suit the eccentricities of Cibber's acting style".<ref name=odnb />

[[File:William Hogarth - David Garrick as Richard III - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A young actor—wearing a red ermine-edged gown over a green doublet and stuffed hose, with white stockings, and a gold medallion hanging from a blue ribbon about his ruffed neck—falls melodramatically on to the couch in a tent of red curtains with gold tassels. Inside, in the background, hangs a lamp illuminating a painting of the crucifixion; in front, a blue silk drape has fallen to the floor. His discarded armour lies to his right (the viewer's left), above which mountains behind the tent are visible in the distance.|[[David Garrick]]'s innovative realistic performance as Richard III broke with Cibber's melodrama tradition.]]

His tragic efforts, however, were consistently ridiculed by contemporaries: when Cibber in the role of [[Richard III (play)|Richard III]] made love to Lady Anne, the ''[[Grub Street Journal]]'' wrote, "he looks like a pickpocket, with his shrugs and grimaces, that has more a design on her purse than her heart".<ref>Issue of 31 October 1734, quoted in Barker, p. 38 and Highfill ''et al''., p. 217</ref> Cibber was on the stage in every year but two (1727 and 1731) between his debut in 1690 and his retirement in 1732, playing more than 100 parts in all<ref name=odnb /> in nearly 3,000 documented performances.<ref>Koon, p. 192</ref> After he had sold his interest in Drury Lane in 1733 and was a wealthy man in his sixties, he returned to the stage occasionally to play the classic fop parts of [[Restoration comedy]] for which audiences appreciated him. His Lord Foppington in Vanbrugh's ''The Relapse'', Sir Courtly Nice in [[John Crowne]]'s ''[[Sir Courtly Nice]]'', and Sir Fopling Flutter in [[George Etherege]]'s ''Man of Mode'' were legendary. Critic John Hill in his 1775 work ''The actor, or, A treatise on the art of playing'', described Cibber as "the best Lord Foppington who ever appeared, was in real life (with all due respect be it spoken by one who loves him) something of the coxcomb".<ref>John Hill, ''The actor, or, A treatise on the art of playing'', 1775, p. 176, quoted by Salmon in the ODNB</ref> These were the kind of comic parts where Cibber's affectation and mannerism were desirable. In 1738–39, he played Shallow in Shakespeare's [[Henry IV, Part 2]] to critical acclaim,<ref>Barker, p. 175</ref> but his Richard III (in his own version of the play) was not well received.<ref>Barker, pp. 175–176</ref> In the middle of the play, he whispered to fellow actor [[Benjamin Victor (theatre manager)|Benjamin Victor]] that he wanted to go home, perhaps realising he was too old for the part and its physical demands.<ref>Barker, p. 176</ref> Cibber also essayed tragic parts in plays by Shakespeare, [[Ben Jonson]], [[John Dryden]] and others, but with less success. By the end of his acting career, audiences were being entranced by the innovatively naturalistic acting of the rising star David Garrick, who made his London debut in the title part in a production of Cibber's adaptation of ''Richard III'' in 1741. He returned to the stage for a final time in 1745 as Cardinal Pandulph in his play ''Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John''.<ref name=odnb /><ref>Ashley, p. 33</ref>
{{clearleft}}