Pox on Both Your Houses: The Battle of the Romeos

This article examines the 1750 “Battle of the Romeos,” a twelvenight run of Romeo and Juliet at both of London’s patent theatres, during which audiences sought to compare the performances of David Garrick at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane to those of Spranger Barry at the theatre in Covent Garden. With reference to Garrick’s 1748 and 1750 print editions of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, media representations of the battle, and insights from the Cross-Hopkins theatre diaries concerning the profitability of competition and the importance of paratexts such as prologues and epilogues, I argue that examination of non-parodic imitation and repetition in print and performance, and not only differentiation in performance, is crucial to understanding the effects of dramatized competition upon celebrity.