David Garrick (play)

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David Garrick (1864) is the title of a play by Thomas William Robertson. It was a major success for the actor Edward Askew Sothern, who played the title role. The play was designed as a star vehicle, since the actor playing Garrick has to portray Garrick himself as an actor giving a performance.

The plot concerns a young woman whose father asks Garrick to cure her of her romantic devotion to the actor. Garrick, who has never met the woman, agrees to act like a drunken boor in order to cure her of her misplaced feelings. Unfortunately when he meets her he falls for her, while nobly trying to keep up his performance.

A scene from the play was painted by Edward Matthew Ward, a friend of Sothern's.