page_title: Theatre of Scotland
section_title: 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: Theatre of Scotland / Drama / 18th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Carruber's Close plaque, High Street. Site of an early, but short-lived attempt by the poet, Allan Ramsay, to reintroduce Theatre to Scotland almost two centuries after playhouses were closed during the Protestant Reformation. 973091
context_page_description: Theatre in Scotland refers to the history of the performing arts in Scotland, or those written, acted and produced by Scots. Scottish theatre generally falls into the Western theatre tradition, although many performances and plays have investigated other cultural areas. The main influences are from North America, England, Ireland and from Continental Europe. Scotland's theatrical arts were generally linked to the broader traditions of Scottish and English-language literature and to British and Irish theatre, American literature and theatrical artists. As a result of mass migration, both to and from Scotland, in the modern period, Scottish literature has been introduced to a global audience, and has also created an increasingly multicultural Scottish theatre.
  Scottish theatre dates back at least as far as the Middle Ages. Because of the linguistic divide between Lowland Scots and Scottish Gaelic speakers and puritanism in the wake of the Scottish reformation, it has been a late development. A third problem was the union which removed patronage. Scottish "national drama" emerged in the early 1800s, as plays with specifically Scottish themes began to dominate the Scottish stage.
context_section_description: Major figures: Allan Ramsay, Joanna Baillie, John Home, Catherine Trotter, Newburgh Hamilton, James Thompson, David Mallet
  Major plays: Eurydice, Fatal Friendship, Love at a Loss, Courtship A-la-Mode, Love at First Sight, The Petticoat-Ploter, The Doating Lovers, Sophonisba, Agamemnon, Tancrid and Sigismuda, Masque of Alfred
  Drama was pursued by Scottish playwrights in London such as Catherine Trotter (1679-1749), born in London to Scottish parents and later moving to Aberdeen. Her plays included the verse-tragedy Fatal Friendship (1698), the comedy Love at a Loss (1700) and the history The Revolution in Sweden (1706). David Crawford's (1665-1726) plays included the Restoration comedies Courtship A-la-Mode (1700) and Love at First Sight (1704). These developed the character of the stage Scot, often a clown, but cunning and loyal. Newburgh Hamilton (1691–1761), born in Ireland of Scottish descent, produced the comedies The Petticoat-Ploter (1712) and The Doating Lovers or The Libertine (1715). He later wrote the libretto for Handel’s Samson (1743), closely based on John Milton's Samson Agonistes. James Thompson's plays often dealt with the contest between public duty and private feelings, and included Sophonisba (1730), Agamemnon (1738) and Tancrid and Sigismuda (1745), the last of which was an international success. David Mallet's (c. 1705–65) Eurydice (1731) was accused of being a coded Jacobite play and his later work indicates opposition to the Walpole administration. The opera Masque of Alfred (1740) was a collaboration between Thompson, Mallet and composer Thomas Arne, with Thompson supplying the lyrics for his most famous work, the patriotic song Rule, Britannia!.
  In Scotland, performances were largely limited to performances by visiting actors, who faced hostility from the Kirk. In November 1727, Edinburgh Town Council denounced stage plays. The Court of Session reversed the magistrates' pleas, but Rev Robert Wodrow complained of plays as "seminaries of idleness, looseness and sin." A pamphlet of the time described actors as, "the most profligate wretches and vilest vermin that hell ever vomited out... the filth and garbage of the earth, the scum and stain of human nature, the excrement and refuse of all mankind." In 1729, the Scots Company of Comedians, formed for dramatic entertainments, was forced to close. The Edinburgh Company of Players were able to perform in Dundee, Montrose, Aberdeen and regular performances at the Taylor's Hall in Edinburgh under the protection of a Royal Patent. In 1727, Allan Ramsay wrote his Some Hints in Defence of Dramatic Entertainment. Ramsay was instrumental in establishing them in a small theatre in Carruber's Close in Edinburgh, but the passing of the 1737 Licensing Act made their activities illegal and the theatre soon closed. In 1739, the Presbytery of Edinburgh closed a production of Macbeth. In 1752, Glasgow's first theatre was burnt down, shortly after George Whitfield complained it was the "Devil's Home". Dundee and Perth seemed more tolerant. Dundee formed a Company of Players in 1734, but in 1784, the Dundee Town Council prevented a company from Edinburgh from entering. Perth did not seem to suffer these censorships, but it was 1780 before theatre was properly produced there. Aberdeen's theatres were closed in 1745 and 1751 by clergy as well. A new theatre was opened on Edinburgh's Canongate in 1747 and operated without a licence into the 1760s.
  In the later eighteenth century, many plays were written for and performed by small amateur companies and were not published, meaning most have been lost. Towards the end of the century there were "closet dramas", primarily designed to be read, rather than performed, including work by James Hogg (1770–1835), John Galt (1779–1839) and Joanna Baillie (1762–1851), often influenced by the ballad tradition and Gothic Romanticism. The blank verse tragedy Douglas, by John Home, was first performed in 1756 in Edinburgh. The play was a remarkable success in both Scotland and England for decades, attracting many notable actors of the peri
caption: Carruber's Close, site of an early, but short-lived attempt by the poet, Allan Ramsay, to reintroduce theatre to Scotland in 1737.
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