THE LONDON STAGE CHAPTER I The Theatre-The Curtain-The Paris Garden-The Hope-The RoseThe Globe-The Swan-The Newington-The Blackfriars-The Fortune -The Red Bull-The Cockpit-The Whitefriars--The Salisbury Court -Audiences-Actors-Plays-Music-The Question of Scenery-A Play-day at the Blackfriars. IN N mediæval times the Miracle plays, Mysteries, and Moralities, the earliest forms of the Western drama, were represented in churches or on wooden movable platforms raised in the market places; but from Henry the Seventh's reign, when a passion for dramatic amusements began to develop among all classes, to the earlier years of "the Virgin Queen," the trained companies of actors, which many noblemen attached to their households, when not required by their lords, would roam from town to town giving public performances, usually in inn yards; and it was the ancient inn yard, with its open area, its two or three tiers of galleries with rooms at the back, that was taken as a model for the first English theatre, a model that has never since been departed from. Upon the site of what is now Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, during the Middle Ages, stood the Priory of St. John the Baptist; at the Reformation it shared the common fate of religious houses, and after lying in ruins. for some time, one Giles Allen purchased the ground and leased it out for building. One of these plots was taken by James Burbage, Burbadge, or Burbidge-the name is indifferently spelt-an actor in the Earl of Leicester's company, but a joiner by trade, in partnership with his father-in-law, John Braynes, and thereon they erected a circular wooden building, open to the sky, at a cost of £600 or £700, for theatrical and other amusements, which they named the Theatre,' and which was opened to the public in the autumn of 1576. Not for long, however, did this novel venture enjoy a monopoly; during the following year a rival house sprang up in its immediate neighbourhood, and was called the Curtain; the name still survives in Curtain Road. Writing at this time, Stow says: "Many houses have been there builded [on the site of the Priory] for the lodgings of noblemen, of strangers born, and otherwise. And near unto are builded two publique houses for the acting and shew of Comedies, Tragedies, and Histories for recreation. Whereof the one is called the Courtein and the other the Theatre, both standing on the south side towards the field." The Elizabethan drama, as we understand the term, was not yet born; Marlowe, the first of the great dramatists, did not produce his Tamburlaine until about eleven years afterwards, and the earliest known plays of John Lyly and George Peele do not date farther back than 1584. Ralph Roister Doister, Gammer Gurton's Needle, and Gordubuc, the first dramatic works in the English language that have any claim to be styled comedy and tragedy, were written at a much earlier 1 Mr. Ordish, a weighty authority, in his Early London Theatres, opines that this was the first building erected in Europe for the performance of secular plays. In 1600, Paris had but two theatres, London nine or ten. date, but only for private performance.1 On the public stage were represented Moralities," "Jigs," "Interludes," and such a barbarous medley of bombast and buffoonery as we have in the old plays of Damon and Pithias, Appius and Virginia, and Cambyses--which Shakespeare has immortalised by his reference to "the King Cambyses vein," in Henry IV. From these and similar specimens of the pre-Marlowe drama that have descended to us, we can form a tolerably accurate idea of the dramatic portion of the entertainment given at the earliest theatres. At the Theatre there was a movable stage for dramatic performances, but the entertainment consisted mostly of tumbling, vaulting, rope dancing, and fencing. A passage in Lambard's Perambulations of Kent (1576) affords a curious hint as to the prices charged for admission. "Those who go to Paris Gardens, the Bell Savage, or the Theatre to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, must not account of any pleasant spectacle unless first they pay one penny at the gate, another at the 4 3 1 The first-named piece was written by Nicholas Udall, Master of Eton College, previous to 1553, and was probably acted by his scholars; the second was by John Still, also a clergyman, and played at Christ's College, Cambridge; while Lord Sackville's Gordubuc, or Perrex and Porrex, was performed before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, in 1561. 2 In the "Moralities," the vices and virtues were personified. The recently revived Everyman is a fair specimen of that species of composition. The "Jig" was made up of satirical verses, recited or sung by the clown to the accompaniment of pipe and tabor, to which he danced. "Interludes" were satirical dialogues on the follies and vices of the time; they were first introduced by John Heywood in the reign of Henry VII. 3 Mr. Ordish conjectures that the word playhouse was derived from the Anglo-Saxon plega hus, plega signifying a game or sport, while stage-play was so called from the circumstance that dramatic performances always took place on scaffolds or stages. The inn yards continued to be used for dramatic exhibitions for some years after this time, and the Bell Sauvage on Ludgate Hill was one of the most famous of these extemporised playhouses. |