Shakespeare of Stratford/Shakespeare's Theatres

by Tucker Brooke

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SHAKESPEARE’S THEATRES^[1]

The plays of Shakespeare were acted during his lifetime upon every variety of stage then existing. These differed in elegance, convenience, and even in the fundamental facilities for acting, to an extent which it is now hard to realize. They may be classified as follows:

A. Theatres in London and its environs.

(a) Public Theatres.

(1) The Inn-yards. Since the city authorities of London refused to countenance professional acting, regular theatres might not be built within the ‘liberties’ or district subject to municipal control. Hence the only public performances within the city proper^[2] took place in the interior yards of inns, a time-honored scene of dramatic as well as acrobatic and pugilistic exhibitions. Five inn-yards were particularly noted in this way: that of the Bell Savage on Ludgate Hill, just west of the city wall; of the Boar’s Head, Whitechapel, east of the city wall; of the Cross Keys and Bell in Gracechurch Street, and the Bull in Bishopsgate Street. The last three were all within the city wall and on a line leading from London Bridge on the south to Bishopsgate and the northern suburbs in which the ‘Theatre’ and ‘Curtain’ stood. Shakespeare’s plays may have been occasionally performed in any of these. We know that his company, the Chamberlain’s, acted regularly at the Cross Keys in the winter of 1594,^[3] and that their predecessors, Lord Strange’s men, played in the same inn-yard in 1589.

(2) Playhouses in Finsbury Fields, north of London Wall.

(i) The ‘Theatre,’ built in 1576 by James Burbage, father of Shakespeare’s colleague, the great actor. This was the first building specially erected for the presentation of plays. It was on the edge of Finsbury Fields (or Moorfields), beyond Bishopsgate Street, in which ward Shakespeare lived (in St. Helen’s parish) previous to 1597. This theatre, which was large, but open to the weather and not very conveniently situated, was employed largely, though not exclusively, by Shakespeare’s company until it was demolished in 1598.

(ii) The ‘Curtain,’ a smaller structure of the same type as the ‘Theatre’ was built in 1577 and was still standing in 1627. It was very near the ‘Theatre’ and originally its rival, but at times was under the same management. It was certainly used by Shakespeare’s company in 1598, and the poet Marston alludes to the performance of Romeo and Juliet there.

(3) Playhouses south of the Thames, in Surrey.

(i) Newington Butts, an inconveniently situated theatre more than a mile from the river, in use occasionally from 1580 or earlier. In June, 1594, a combination of the Admiral’s and Chamberlain’s companies, in which Shakespeare was presumably included, performed there. Among the plays then acted were Andronicus, The Taming of a Shrew, and Hamlet.^[4]

(ii) The ‘Rose.’ On the Bankside near the southern shore of the Thames, opposite London. Built by Philip Henslowe in 1587. The ‘Rose’ was circular in shape and more elegant, as well as much more accessible than the ‘Theatre.’ In 1592 it was used by Lord Strange’s company (with which Shakespeare may have been associated), but later was ordinarily tenanted by Shakespeare’s chief rivals, the Admiral’s men, till 1600, when the latter opened a new theatre, the ‘Fortune,’ north of London Wall on the opposite side of Finsbury Fields from the ‘Theatre’ and ‘Curtain.’ This last theatre, being permanently in the possession of his competitors, was probably never used for Shakespeare’s plays.

(iii) The ‘Globe,’ constructed in 1599, partly of timber taken from the dismantled ‘Theatre,’ stood near the ‘Rose,’ which it far surpassed in size and magnificence. It was the usual place for the performance of Shakespeare’s plays from the middle of 1599 till it was burned in 1618 in the course of the presentation of Henry VIII.^[5] A large part of the poet’s wealth came from his interest in the ‘Globe.’^[6]

[Two other playhouses on the Bankside—the ‘Swan,’ built in 1595, and the ‘Hope,’ built in 1618—do not appear to have been used by Shakespeare’s company.]

(b) Private Theatres.

(1) The Second Blackfriars Playhouse.^[7] This was an indoor theatre as distinguished from the partially roofless public playhouses. It was constructed by the Burbages in 1596 by throwing together rooms in the Blackfriars building, near Temple Bar in an aristocratic residence district on the northern (London) bank of the Thames. On account of objections from influential dwellers in the neighborhood, Shakespeare’s company was not able to act in the Blackfriars till 1609,^[8] after which year it was used as a winter house for the Globe company. The Blackfriars was termed a ‘private’ theatre largely as a subterfuge to obviate the hostility against a public playhouse in the district. It was private only in the sense that it catered to the fashionable public, charging high admission fees and introducing special innovations such as artificial lighting, elaborate music, and the privilege of sitting on the stage. It came ultimately to be thought of as a more important playhouse than the democratic ‘Globe,’ but not probably during Shakespeare’s lifetime.

(2) Private Theatres for Occasional Performances.

(i) The Royal Palaces. During Shakespeare’s lifetime royalty did not attend playhouses, but special performances at court were frequent under Elizabeth and much more numerous under James I. The stage would usually be erected on such occasions in the great hall of the palaces of Greenwich, Whitehall, and Hampton Court. At the Christmas season of 1594, for example, Shakespeare is known to have acted in two comedies before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich.^[9] At Christmas, 1597, Love’s Labour’s Lost was acted before the Queen at Whitehall; and at Christmas, 1608, Shakespeare’s company presented a total of six plays before the court of James I at Hampton Court.

(ii) The Inns of Court. Gala performances in the halls of the London Inns of Court, under the auspices of the lawyers who composed the particular ‘inn,’ were notable events. We have record of the performance of The Comedy of Errors at Gray’s Inn in 1594^[10] and of Twelfth Night at the Middle Temple in 1602.^[11]

(iii) The Private Houses of Noblemen. In 1605 a performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost, for the amusement of James I’s queen, Anne of Denmark, was arranged, to take place either at Lord Southampton’s London house or at that of Sir Robert Cecil, Viscount Cranborne.^[12] In December, 1603, Shakespeare’s company traveled much farther afield and performed before James I at Wilton, the country house of the Earl of Pembroke.

B. Provincial Theatres. Outside of the London district regular theatres did not exist in Shakespeare’s time, but performances of his plays were given by his own company throughout the length and breadth of England. Various conditions made it necessary that a London company should spend a considerable part of its time in ‘traveling.’ These were the hostile attitude of the Mayor and corporation, which sometimes made it impossible to secure an acting place near the city; the discomfort and inaccessibility of the public playhouses in bad weather; periods of financial stringency, when the popularity of some rival attraction temporarily prevented a company from making expenses in London; and, most of all, the constant recurrence of the plague.

The danger of spreading plague infection was continually argued by the opponents of drama in London, and there seems to have been worked out a sort of compromise principle that plays must cease when the reported plague deaths reached the number of thirty or forty a week. 1593, 1603, and 1609 were great plague years, in which there was very little acting in London, and consequently much traveling; but even after Shakespeare’s company attained its high and assured position under the special favor of James I, there were few years in which it did not travel for a period. Allusions to this laborious and distasteful mode of life are found in the poet’s sonnets,^[13] and the first edition of Hamlet specifies that the play had been acted in Cambridge and Oxford as well as London. It would seem that traveling professional companies were not permitted to use the college halls of the universities, which were the scene of the local academic plays; but in all towns recognized noblemen’s companies were entitled to the use of the town halls for their plays. James I’s patent to Shakespeare and his fellows definitely grants them the right to act ‘within any townhalls, or motehalls, or other convenient places . . . within our said realms and dominions.’^[14] The country houses of gentlemen were frequently visited by traveling companies.^[15]

1. For an extensive and admirable treatment of this subject see J. Q. Adams, Shakespearean Playhouses, 1917.
2. Very roughly speaking, within the circuit of the old city wall.
3. The Lord Chamberlain wrote to the Lord Mayor of London, Oct. 8, 1594: ‘Where my now company of players have been accustomed for the better exercise of their quality, and for the service of her Majesty if need so require, to play this winter time within the city at the Cross Keys in Gracious Street, these are to require and pray your Lordship (the time being such as, thanks to God, there is now no danger of the sickness) to permit and suffer them so to do.’
4. Probably the pre-Shakespearean version, by Kyd.
5. See ante, p. 114. The ‘Globe’ was rebuilt in 1614.
6. See ante, pp. 31–32.
7. There had been a first Blackfriars Theatre, in a different part of the old monastery, in 1576–1584, but with this Shakespeare was not concerned.
8. During part of the previous period the Children of the Queen’s Chapel were permitted to act there as tenants of the Burbages,
9. See ante, p. 14.
10. See ante, p. 101.
11. See ante, p. 108.
12. See ante, p. 102.
13. E.g. Sonnets 27, 28, 50, 51.
14. See ante, p. 46.
15. For details of the various provincial towns known to have been visited by Shakespeare’s company see J. T. Murray, English Dramatic Companies, i. 107–9, 183–4, and E. K. Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, ii. 192–220.