Source: Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1 June 1664
Production: Ben Jonson, Epicœne, or The Silent Woman, King’s House, London, 1 June 1664
Text: Thence to W. Joyce’s, where by appointment I met my wife (but neither of them at home), and she and I to the King’s house, and saw “The Silent Woman;” but methought not so well done or so good a play as I formerly thought it to be, or else I am nowadays out of humour. Before the play was done, it fell such a storm of hayle, that we in the middle of the pit were fain to rise; and all the house in a disorder, and so my wife and I out and got into a little alehouse, and staid there an hour after the play was done before we could get a coach, which at last we did (and by chance took up Joyce Norton and Mrs. Bowles. and set them at home), and so home ourselves, and I, after a little to my office, so home to supper and to bed.
Comments: Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was a British naval administrator and diarist. Pepys and his wife Elisabeth saw Ben Jonson‘s Epicœne at the King’s House (subsequently the Theatre Royal Drury Lane). Though the stage was roofed, the pit was open to the sky.