page_title: John Vanbrugh
section_title: The Haymarket theatre
hierarchical_section_title: John Vanbrugh / Public life / London / The Haymarket theatre
caption_attribution_description: English: A reproduction as a postcard of the Italian Opera House (King's Theatre), built by John Vanbrugh, at the Haymarket before it was destroyed by a fire on 17 June 1789. The original print was earlier published in Charles John Smith's Historical and Literary Antiquities,[1] Messrs Bernard Quaritch, Ltd.[2] The book and print was republished as: Smith, Charles John (1875) Historical and Literary Curiosities, London: Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly, pp.&#160;Plate 97 Retrieved on 10 February 2011. The original print measures 18 cm x 21.3 cm and is under the H. R. Beard Collection F94-14. TM 376. Victoria and Albert Museum, London Deutsch: William Capon (1757-1827): Italian Opera House (King's Theatre). (Architekt: de:John Vanbrugh). Bleistift und Wasserfarben. Originalgröße: 18 cm x 21,3 cm H. R. Beard Collection F94-14. TM 376. Victoria and Albert Museum, London
context_page_description: Sir John Vanbrugh was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife, which have become enduring stage favourites but originally occasioned much controversy. He was knighted in 1714.
  Vanbrugh was in many senses a radical throughout his life. As a young man and a committed Whig, he was part of the scheme to overthrow James II and put William III on the throne. He was imprisoned by the French as a political prisoner. In his career as a playwright, he offended many sections of Restoration and 18th century society, not only by the sexual explicitness of his plays, but also by their messages in defence of women's rights in marriage. He was attacked on both counts, and was one of the prime targets of Jeremy Collier's Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage. In his architectural career, he created what came to be known as English Baroque. His architectural work was as bold and daring as his early political activism and marriage-themed plays, and jarred conservative opinions on the subject.
context_section_description: In 1703, Vanbrugh started buying land and signing backers for the construction of a new theatre in Haymarket, designed by himself and managed by Vanbrugh along with Thomas Betterton and his associate William Congreve. It was intended for the use of an actors' cooperative (see The Provoked Wife below) and hoped to improve the chances of legitimate theatre in London. Theatre was under threat from more colourful types of entertainment such as opera, juggling, pantomime (introduced by John Rich), animal acts, travelling dance troupes, and famous visiting Italian singers. They also hoped to make a profit, and Vanbrugh optimistically bought up the actors' company, making himself sole owner. He was now bound to pay salaries to the actors and, as it turned out, to manage the theatre, a notorious tightrope act for which he had no experience. The often repeated rumour that the acoustics of the building Vanbrugh had designed were bad is exaggerated (see Milhous), but the more practical Congreve had become anxious to extricate himself from the project, and Vanbrugh was left spreading himself extremely thin, running a theatre and simultaneously overseeing the building of Blenheim, a project which after June 1705 often took him out of town.
  Unsurprisingly under these circumstances, Vanbrugh's management of the Queen's Theatre in Haymarket showed "numerous signs of confusion, inefficiency, missed opportunities, and bad judgment". Having burned his fingers on theatre management, Vanbrugh too extricated himself, expensively, by selling the business in 1708, though without ever collecting much of the putative price. He had put a lot of money, his own and borrowed, into the theatre company, which he was never to recover. It was noted as remarkable by contemporaries that he continued to pay the actors' salaries fully and promptly while they were working for him, just as he always paid the workmen he had hired for construction work; shirking such responsibilities was close to being standard practice in early 18th century England. Vanbrugh himself never seems to have pursued those who owed him money, and throughout his life his finances can at best be described as precarious.
caption: The Queen's Theatre, by William Capon.
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