the stage, Cibber shifts the Hogarthian tone from an ineluctable moral formula (the wages of sin equal death) to one that transforms social and moral punishment into lyrical pageantry. To accomplish this, he uses the mechanical humor of harlequinade and omits three grim occasions portrayed by Hogarth: Hackabout's apprehension by Sir John Gonson in a garret (Pl. 4), her early death from venereal disease (Pl. 5), and her funeral with its morally dubious mourners (Pl. 6). Cibber replaces the potential moral commentary of these three prints with stage antics and dance. Cibber's harlot "Kitty" is sent to Bridewell like Hogarth's Moll Hackabout (Pl. 4), but her punishment there turns magically into a dance.

The "Keeper" forces her and other women to beat hemp, but the blocks suddenly disappear; in their stead appear her lover Harlequin, with Scaramouch and others, and all "dance off" to the "Ridotto al'Fresco," while the Keeper "runs away frighted." The threat of punishment vanishes with the blocks. At the "Ridotto," in a stage set depicting a Vauxhall scene, people appear in masquerade, and a grand "Comic Ballad" is performed to various musical tunes. But this is not the end of the pantomime, for yet to come is "The Judgment of Paris," John Weaver's "Dramatic Entertainment" after the "Manner of the Ancient Greeks and Romans," which had premiered in February 1733. [10]

Though he was quite consciously imitating Hogarth's "Celebrated Designs," Cibber's directions do not specify that costuming duplicate Hogarth's contemporary London figures such as the notorious Mother Needham, Colonel Charteris (Pl. 1), Justice Gonson (Pl. 4), or the quarreling doctors Misaubin and Rock at Moll's deathbed (Pl. 5). [11] In addition to changing the name "M. Hackabout" to "Kitty" the "Country Girl," Cibber dubs his Charteris character "Old Debauchee," Needham "Madame Decoy," and the Jew who keeps Kitty, "Beau Mordecai."

The comic element asserts itself in the first stage scene as Harlequin hides in Kitty's trunk and then disguises himself as a cadet, imitating Hackabout's lover in Hogarth's second print. During this stage trick, Madame Decoy sings new verses to an eighteenth century ballad celebrating the innocent beauties of rural poverty (Air I, "What tho' I am a Country Lass"). Clearly, audiences familiar with the more biting pictorial scenes of a harlot's life would be easily diverted, even relieved, by the elaborate mixture of Greek and Italian elements, and the flourish of songs in the parodic ballad opera tradition. Cibber of course capitalized on the occasion, popularity, and familiarity of Hogarth's six prints in 1733, but his theatrical realization clarifies the quality of pantomimic entertainment with its numerous contemporary graphic allusions, revealing an aborted moral embellished by a splay of music and masque.

Theophilus Cibber's entertainment was quite successful on the London stage, having a good run at the patent theaters and the fairs in 1733 and for a while thereafter. [12] Furthermore, it is related to an important event in Drury Lane history. Cibber seceded with a group of actors in May of 1733 from that theater because of management disputes. After playing at the fairs, the protesting actors performed at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket until the spring of 1734 when they returned to Drury Lane. In a letter to patentee John Highmore, Cibber wrote of the Harlot's Progress: "This entertainment (for which I am indebted to Mr. Hogarth's designs) the Town were pleased to approve of and encourage." But, he adds, it might have been performed "three months sooner than it was, but for the Obstructions I met with from my Partners." [13] This theatrical quarrel created much public discussion in the first decade of the century (LS, 3, 1, "Introduction," passim). Hogarth included in his print "Southwark Fair" (which came out after August 1733) a showcloth of John Laguerre's engraving "The Stage Mutiny," a print that in turn had been inspired by the actors' secession. Hogarth's additions to the Laguerre print demonstrate his close touch with these events (HGW, I, 156-7). [14] The Harlot's Progress provides us with a good example of the genre "Grotesque Pantomime," and throws much light on the London stage entertainment stream of an evening that included Hogarth, harlequin, Venus and Paris, as well as dancing and singing.

Hogarth's eight prints of "A Rake's Progress" of 1735 [15] provided the subject—the rise and fall of a libertine—for a morality ballad opera more than forty years later. The 15-scene stage piece, entitled The Rake's Progress, elaborates visually and musically the formula: follow virtue and avoid vice. The author clearly counted on audience familiarity with the graphic scenes many years after their appearance, and on an increased receptivity to explicit moralizing. This manuscript was submitted by the unknown playwright to Drury Lane sometime between September 1778 and June 1780. The possible date is most clearly focused in the Sheridans' joint management. Richard assumed the management in 1776 and held it to at least 1809, but his father Thomas managed it with his son only for the seasons 1778-1779 and 1779-1780. [16] I think it is therefore possible to suggest a date for the manuscript between September 1778 when Thomas Sheridan came to Drury Lane, and the end of the 1779-1780 theatrical season, when he left at the age of 61. [17] The piece was not performed.

Like the Cibber work, the text consists of stage directions and songs. Allusions to Hogarth appear in title, characters, plot, and specific scenes. Moreover, a "transparency" introduces the artist in a literal stage portrait. This device praises Hogarth and reminds the audience of the graphic correspondences in dramatic form to come.

The Rake's Progress makes significant changes in the content of Hogarth's series, expanding characters and scenes, and altering the denouement somewhat from madness to suicide. New elements of music and clowning change his lugubrious didacticism to a lyrical warning in a form I call "morality ballad opera." The morality and masque features appear in such characters as "Virtue" and "Vice" who frame the piece, and "Liberty" and "Benevolence" who descend and ascend on a cloud, at the end