John Evans (1693?â€"1734?), was an actor, who confined his
performances to Ireland.He seems to have had a share in the management
of Smock Alley Theatre with Thomas Elrington and Griffith. The only
characters associated with his name are Alcibiades in ‘Timon of
Athens,’ Shadwell's alteration from Shakespeare; and Lieutenant
Story in ‘The Committee, or the Faithful Irishman,’ of Sir Robert
Howard. These were played about 1715. Evans had a good voice and just
delivery, and was an actor in request. He was, however, corpulent and
indolent. Playing at Cork ‘in the last year of the reign of Queen
Anne,’ he was invited by some officers then on duty to a tavern,
where he proposed the health of the queen. This involved him in a
quarrel with an officer of Jacobite views. In a duel which followed
Evans disarmed his adversary. Upon his return to Dublin Evans found
that the quarrel had been misrepresented, and that he was held to have
insulted the army. Permission to continue the play ‘The Rival
Queens’ was refused until Evans had apologised. This he was very
reluctantly compelled to do. One of the malcontents bidding him kneel,
Evans retorted, ‘No, you rascal, I'll kneel to none but God and my
queen.’The affair was afterwards arranged. Hitchcock simply speaks
of him as ‘a Mr. Evans.’ According to Chetwood, three years later
than the above incident, Evans went to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn
Fields, and on the journey back to Ireland was taken ill of a fever at
Whitchurch, Shropshire, whence he was carried for better advice to
Chester and there died, in the forty-first year of his life, and was
privately buried in the cathedral without monument or inscription.
These dates, no unusual thing with Chetwood, are irreconcilable with
what is elsewhere said concerning Evans.
performances to Ireland.He seems to have had a share in the management
of Smock Alley Theatre with Thomas Elrington and Griffith. The only
characters associated with his name are Alcibiades in ‘Timon of
Athens,’ Shadwell's alteration from Shakespeare; and Lieutenant
Story in ‘The Committee, or the Faithful Irishman,’ of Sir Robert
Howard. These were played about 1715. Evans had a good voice and just
delivery, and was an actor in request. He was, however, corpulent and
indolent. Playing at Cork ‘in the last year of the reign of Queen
Anne,’ he was invited by some officers then on duty to a tavern,
where he proposed the health of the queen. This involved him in a
quarrel with an officer of Jacobite views. In a duel which followed
Evans disarmed his adversary. Upon his return to Dublin Evans found
that the quarrel had been misrepresented, and that he was held to have
insulted the army. Permission to continue the play ‘The Rival
Queens’ was refused until Evans had apologised. This he was very
reluctantly compelled to do. One of the malcontents bidding him kneel,
Evans retorted, ‘No, you rascal, I'll kneel to none but God and my
queen.’The affair was afterwards arranged. Hitchcock simply speaks
of him as ‘a Mr. Evans.’ According to Chetwood, three years later
than the above incident, Evans went to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn
Fields, and on the journey back to Ireland was taken ill of a fever at
Whitchurch, Shropshire, whence he was carried for better advice to
Chester and there died, in the forty-first year of his life, and was
privately buried in the cathedral without monument or inscription.
These dates, no unusual thing with Chetwood, are irreconcilable with
what is elsewhere said concerning Evans.
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