Debt, Desire and Decorum

...the publication of Mary Nash's The Provoked Wife (Little, Brown, 358 pp , $12 50), the life of its subject, Susannah Cibber, was the piecemeal property of theater historians, musicologists and students of the 18th century My own first question—Susannah who?—will be raised, I think, by many others Moreover, nonspecialists will probably not be excited to learn from the jacket that she was a star of the London stage between 1736-65, the favorite leading lady of the great Shakespearean actor David Garnck, that Handel wrote and reset parts of the Messiah expressly for her voice, and that she was the daughter-in-law of Colley Cibber (the King of the Dull in Pope's Dunciad) For quite opposite reasons, one might be put off by the blurb's appeal to popular taste ("a life more bawdy, touching romantic" than any of the parts the actress played), and decide to leave this book to readers avid for backstage scandals and trite comparisons of public roles with private tribulations Yet to heed those first, superficial impressions would be to deprive oneself of a rare pleasure a rich, complex story told by an author in sensitive and sensible possession of Us elements She neither invents conversation nor intensifies situations that speak for themselves Her prodigious research is never intrusive, every item of information is introduced with a purpose, not as instruction for its own sake, however odd and extraneous it initially might seem The annals of barber-surgeons and Parliamentary reports on atrocities in debtors' prisons, to cite just two examples, provide an understanding ot the prosperity and squalor, the gentility and violence, that shaped the heroine even before she was born Susannah Arne in 1714 Her father was an upholsterer-undertaker (The two occupations were combined in the 17th century, when the middle class began to rent funeral paraphernalia from carpenters and tailors, who then "undertook" the embalming that had been the exclusive function of barber-surgeons serving the aristocracy ) The male Antes followed this trade for generations, earning well, living high, "their lives tinged with the sensational and the macabre They gambled fiercely in work and play and tended to end their days in bankruptcy, debtors' prison, and ignominious death " The family was strangely indifferent to its own sufferings Susannah's parents "kept a rich Christmas" in 1713 while her grandfather was dying of cold and hunger at the Mar-shalsea prison nearby When she was 11, her uncle "languished and perished" in a dungeon under circumstances that later prompted an official inquiry If Susannah's father ushered souls out of the world—little caring that undertaking was considered a sleazy business by his betters—her mother, a midwife, assisted others into it Unlike her husband, too, she was solicitous of her children's feelings Her son Thomas, the noted composer, while a cruel, unscrupulous man, showed a tenderness in his works (such as "The Lass with the Delicate Air" and the familiar settings for Shakespeare's songs) that may have derived from his early days with her Similarly, the ingratiating, "melting" style that Susannah would perfect in public and private may have come ftrom watching her mother's generally unsuccessful attempts to influence her father The actress wrote long afterward that Mrs Arne taught her "the farthest way about was the nearest way home, and you see the force ot Education Mrs Aine's Catholicism also influenced her childrens futures—through the "glorious music' for the Saidinian Embassy Chapel, center ot the foreign theatrical community in London, where she worshipped with them Mr Arne had no intention of encouraging his offspring to enter musical or dramatic careers, though, since they were every bit as disreputable as his own calling Thomas was sent to Eton, Susannah was tutored at home She was an apt pupil, and later, when her associates were known as "the beautiful Peg Woffington" or "the pert Kitty Clive," she was "the learned Mrs Cibber " The threat of financial disaster in 1729 made it necessary to bring Thomas home from school, he practiced the violin in secret and was soon entertaining the rich Seeing there was money to be made from his gifted children, the father leased a small opera house where Thomas and his friends could present their musical dramas with Susannah as featured artist Her training was limited to what was deemed suitable for young ladies, still, the voice that audiences were to find thrilling could already be heard, "small, low and ardent, a sound between a chime and a sigh " Thus did obedience to her father, and fear that without this new income he might suffer the fate of her forebears, lead this pious, decorous girl of 17 into a brilliant career on the stage Before long she came to the attention of Handel, who coached her with uncharacteristic patience, and of the notorious Colley Cibber, owner-manager of the Drury Lane Theater In 1732 that stage favorite and court jester, having recently been appointed Poet Laureate, leased the old playhouse to his actor-son Theophilus The younger Cibber was an absurd version of his grotesque father At least Colley had a merry, self-ingratiating way of amusing the bored nobility, Theo "made a lifetime career of self-abasement, drawing out of a newly genteel audience which admired fine feeling above all things, a reluctant, uncomfortable and cruel laughter " In love for the one time in his life, he proposed marriage to the chaste Susannah Despite his physical repulsiveness, and his reputation for lechery and brutality, she accepted, because her father saw financial salvation in the match Her mother, in contrast, viewed it as catastrophic, and negotiated a contract—extraordinary in an era when a wife's property belonged unequivocally to her husband?providing that Susannah's salary be placed in trust, some to be invested, the rest for her "sole and separate use " Remarkably, Theo signed it, no doubt reasoning that his creditors could not attach her earnings, and that she would dutifully devote them to his needs Although he was quickly to become unfaithful and neglectful, Theo at first spent much time and effort in furthering his wife's career She was soon cast in the kind of role she would become famous for the virtuous wife attempting to rouse her husband from his "deep lethargy of vice," in Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift After three wretched years, Susannah sought to enforce the trust agreement, which Theo had simply ignored He retaliated by selling her costumes and by ordering her to receive the attentions of William Sloper, a young squire to whom he was heavily in debt If she refused, he warned, their furniture would be seized Susannah, "daughter niece and granddaughter of ruined tradesmen," complied, and Theo set up a menage a trois, profiting from her sexual favors to Sloper and in a position to blackmail both indefinitely Enraged when the two fell in love, he sued Sloper for ?,000 to cover the loss of his wife's "services and assistance " An award of ?0 signified the jury's contempt for the plaintiff Now pregnant with Sloper s child, and banned from the stage, Susannah lived in retirement with her lover He was willing to settle Theo's debts in return for a separation, but the aggrieved husband instituted a second suit The ?00 he won was the last money he would ever get from this source The couple disappeared for two years, turning up in Dublin in 1741, Susannah, now under Handel's protection as she rehearsed for the first performance of the Messiah, was to be out of Theo's reach forever Nash's admirable control over a history that could easily topple into farce or bathos is nowhere more evident than in her account of the rendition of "He was Despised," the ana Handel composed for Susannah She describes it as "an anguished dialogue between human voice and the strings of the small orchestra, which seemed to shudder at each of the singer's phrases despised rejected acquainted with grief" When her voice...

...warm, wounded and personal"—ceased, the Chancellor of Saint Patrick's Cathedral rose to his feet Deeply moved, he exclaimed "Woman, for this all thy sins are forgiven thee " He spoke for everyone present and the audience marveled at the great composer's "magnanimous genius" in giving these lines to a Magdalene Welcomed back to the stage at home on the strength of her Dublin triumph, Susannah did not suggest a fallen woman In fact, she was incapable of playing anyone who "committed crimes, broke laws, or even exceeded the rules of politeness"—with two interesting exceptions Constance in King John, a tiger in the name of mother-love, and Lady Brute in The Provok'd Wife, who, far from being reconciled to her husband's cruelties, felt "she had a right to find a man who would cherish her " Susannah acted this role with special relish and played it in her last appearance before her death in 1766 These obvious parallels in the private and public lives of an actress are not the program-note cliches I wrongly suspected might detract from Nash's biography They are rescued from platitude by the author's firm grasp of the connections between sentiment, taste, and the interests of the rising middle class Susannah Cibber never achieved her greatest ambitions to share with Garnck the ownership of the Drury Lane, and to be accepted by the gentry But on stage she was a lady, "a priestess of sensibility " Her success was not unrelated to the debtors' prisons of her past, and it is Nash's signal accomplishment that she has made us know it...