Ralph Wewitzer

Ralph Wewitzer (1748–1825) was an English actor. He won critical acclaim in supporting parts, but was never given leading roles. He had a 44-year acting career, and is thought to have learned over 400 speaking parts.[1]

Ralph Wewitzer
Bust-length engraved portrait of Ralph Wewitzer, in cloak, long wig and tricorne hat
Portrait of Ralph Wewitzer in character, as Dr. Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor
Born1748
Died1825
Occupationactor

Early roles at Covent Garden

He was born on 17 December 1748 in Salisbury Street, Strand, London, to Peter and Ann Wewitzer; his parents were involved in the theatre, and his father was Swiss or Norwegian.[2][3] He is identified by Gerald Reitlinger and Kalman Burnim as Jewish by background.[4][5]

Wewitzer was once apprenticed to a jeweller. He made his first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre in May 1773 as Ralph in The Maid in the Mill, it is said for the benefit of his sister Sarah Wewitzer. On 21 November 1775 he was the original Lopez, a Spanish manservant in The Duenna by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. For 14 years he remained at Covent Garden.[2]

It was said that in the early days Wewitzer, in debt, went to Dublin, where he acted under Thomas Ryder. Among his parts at Covent Garden were Filch in The Beggar's Opera, Champignon in The Reprisal by Tobias Smollett, Jerry Sneak in The Mayor of Garratt by Samuel Foote, Simon Pure in A Bold Stroke for a Wife by Susanna Centlivre, Dr. Pinch in The Comedy of Errors, Coromandel (an original part) in Frederick Pilon's Liverpool Prize, 22 February 1779, and Dr. Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor.[2][6]

Wewitzer had many parts, mainly as servants or similar, in minor comedies of Thomas Holcroft, John O'Keeffe, Pilon, and others. In Omar, or a Trip round the World, by O'Keeffe, with music by William Shield, produced at Covent Garden on 20 December 1785, Wewitzer delivered an effective harangue in what purported to be the language of a Polynesian chief.[2]

Haymarket Theatre, Drury Lane company and the management of the Royalty Theatre

On 8 July 1780 Wewitzer appeared at the Haymarket Theatre as Fripon in Miles Peter Andrews's comic opera Fire and Water, then first produced. At the same house, at which he appeared during many consecutive summers, he was Diana Trapes on 8 August 1781, when The Beggar's Opera was played en travesti. In 1785 John Palmer built the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square, opened in 1787. On his failure and imprisonment in 1789 he gave the management to Wewitzer, who severed his connection with Covent Garden and sought to make the Royalty a popular house, on the lines Sadler's Wells. It ended in a collapse, costing him money and reputation.[2]

In August 1790 Wewitzer was at the Haymarket Theatre, where he was seen for two or three summers; and in September 1791 he was with the Drury Lane company at the King's Theatre in Haymarket. Here he was on 20 April 1792 the first Larron, a smuggler, in The Fugitive, altered by Francis Richardson from The Coxcomb of Beaumont and Fletcher. At Drury Lane he played Gripe in The Cheats of Scapin by Thomas Otway, and Moses in Sheridan's The School for Scandal.[2][7]

Later life

After the Drury Lane Theatre fire of 1809, Ralph Wewitzer went with the company to the Lyceum Theatre. There he was on 30 September 1811 the first La Fosse in Thomas Moore's M.P., or the Blue Stocking. On the reopening night of Drury Lane (10 October 1812) he was one of the gravediggers in Hamlet. Soon after this time his name disappeared from theatre bills.[2]

Wewitzer played a part in arranging the marriage in 1815 of the actress Harriot Mellon to Thomas Coutts, who died in 1822 at age 86; and he was for a short time a member of her household. An account in Mrs. Cornwell Baron Wilson's memoirs of Harriot suggests that Wewitzer was either a family friend, or knew her from the time when she joined the Drury Lane Theatre, which was 1794–5. He acted as an adviser.[2][8][9]

Harriot Coutts after 1822 was left with Thomas's large fortune and bank partnership, but also with the hostility of Coutts's family from his first marriage. She was mercilessly lampooned.[2][8] A pamphlet Mr. Percy Wyndham's Strictures on an Impostor was written in alignment with Wewitzer's financial interests, and taxed her with falsehood and ingratitude.[2] Ernest Hartley Coleridge, biographer of Coutts, commented that it proclaimed "the wrongs and sufferings of the decayed actor, Ralph Wewitzer", and declared it "probable that Wewitzer, who was old and poor, had been interviewed and had complained of ingratitude and neglect, but it is evident that he had not unfolded the tale in which he figures as hero or villain."[10]

In his later years, Wewitzer drew a pension from the Covent Garden fund. He died in poverty at lodgings in Wild Passage, Drury Lane, on 1 January 1825. His body was removed by his landlady, to whom he was in debt, from an expensive coffin supplied by his sister.[2]

Acting style

Wewitzer gradually acquired a reputation in low comedy character parts, especially foreigners.[2] At the time, the representation of ethnicity or foreign accent tended to be left to the actor, not being specified or written in dialect by the playwright. Comedic Jewish roles were a new development in the later 18th century.

Besides Wewitzer, Robert Baddeley and John Quick had standing as "Jewish impersonators". The convention was of a "Jewish cant", based largely on Dutch-accented broken English with modified consonants.[11] Wewitzer played accented Jewish roles.[12] On the other hand, Anthony (John Williams) wrote of Wewitzer suggesting his acting range was limited, but his performances masterly:[13]

Yet his Caius and clowns we may see and admire,
  And his Bellair, like glass, is engendered by fire.
  Frenchmen are free from unpleasant grimace,
  And his Jews you would swear were all born in Duke's Place.

The last line may reference the central Dukes Place synagogue in the City of London.[14]

Works

Wewitzer wrote for the Haymarket Theatre The Gnome a pantomime acted in 1788 (not printed); and for the Covent Garden Theatre The Magic Cavern, a pantomime played 27 December 1784, published 1785. He also published:[2]

  • Pedigree of King George III, lineally deduced from King Egbert 1812
  • A jest book, School for Wits, a Choice Collection of Bons Mots, Anecdotes, and other Poetical Jeux d'Esprit, 1815
  • Dramatic Reminiscences, by Ralph Wewitzer, Comedian
  • Theatrical Pocket-book, or brief Dramatic Chronology, 1814
  • A brief Dramatic Chronology of Actors, &c., to which is added a Miscellaneous Appendix, 1817.

Family

Wewitzer married, firstly, in Liverpool in 1776, Mary Daniels (they had one daughter), and secondly a Miss Brangin, in 1787.[3]

Notes
  1. Highfill, Philip H.; Burnim, Kalman A.; Langhans, Edward A. (1993). A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. SIU Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8093-1803-2.
  2. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Wewitzer, Ralph" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 60. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. Thomson, Peter. "Wewitzer, Ralph (1748–1825)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29151. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. Reitlinger, Gerald R. (1969). "The Changed Face of English Jewry at the end of the Eighteenth Century". Transactions & Miscellanies (Jewish Historical Society of England). 23: 38. ISSN 0962-9688. JSTOR 29778784.
  5. Burnim, Kalman A. (1992). "The Jewish presence in the London theatre, 1660-1800". Jewish Historical Studies. 33: 68. ISSN 0962-9696. JSTOR 29779912.
  6. Also Vandervelt (an original part) in Holcroft's Duplicity on 13 October 1781, Cutbeard in Epicœne by Ben Jonson, Basil in Follies of a Day by Holcroft on 14 December 1785, Juno in the burletta Midas, Smuggler in The Constant Couple by George Farquhar, Gardiner in King Henry VIII, Frenchman in Lethe by David Garrick, Tattle in Love for Love by William Congreve, Lord Plausible in The Plain Dealer by William Wycherley, Puritan in A Duke and No Duke by Nahum Tate, Grutti in The Bird in a Cage by James Shirley, Razor in The Provoked Wife by John Vanburgh, first carrier in the First Part of King Henry IV, Sir Philip Modelove in Bold Stroke for a Wife, Oldcastle in The Intriguing Chambermaid by Henry Fielding, Papillion in The Lyar by Samuel Foote, Rigdum Funnidos in Chrononhotonthologos by Henry Carey, Tipkin in The Tender Husband by Richard Steele, Medium in Inkle and Yarico by Samuel Arnold and George Colman the Younger.
  7. Also Sir William Wealthy in The Minor by Samuel Foote, Ephraim Smooth (original part) in O'Keeffe's A Nosegay of Weeds, on 6 June 1798, Canton in The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick, Shadrach in The Young Quaker by O'Keeffe, Elbow in Measure for Measure, Abednego in The Jew and the Doctor by Thomas John Dibdin, Abraham (original character) in Holcroft's The Vindictive Man on 20 November 1806, and Gibbet in The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar.
  8. Perkin, Joan. "Beauclerk [née Mellon; other married name Coutts], Harriot, duchess of St Albans (1777?–1837)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18533. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  9. Baron-Wilson, Cornwell (1839). Memoirs of Duchess of St. Albans. Vol. I. London: Henry Colburn. p. 202.
  10. Coleridge, Ernest Hartley (1920). The Life of Thomas Coutts, Banker. Vol. II. London, New York: John Lane. p. 246.
  11. Rhodes, R. Crompton (1929). "The Belle's Stratagem". The Review of English Studies. 5 (18): 138–139. ISSN 0034-6551. JSTOR 508557.
  12. "Theater". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
  13. Highfill, Philip H.; Burnim, Kalman A.; Langhans, Edward A. (1993). A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. SIU Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-8093-1803-2.
  14. "JCR-UK: the former Great Synagogue, Dukes Place, London EC3 (City of London) and London E1, England". www.jewishgen.org.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Wewitzer, Ralph". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 60. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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