No More Learning

Early in 1597,
negotiations began again for an extension of the lease, and it
appears that Allen consented to execute it, on condition that the
yearly rent was raised by £10, and that the Theater should be used
as a playhouse for five more years only. James Burbage died in
1597, and was succeeded in the property by his sons Richard and
Cuthbert. The lease expired, and the Theater was closed. The
company probably moved to the Curtain; and, in the winter of
1598-99, availing themselves of the clause in the lease, the
Burbages forestalled Allen by pulling the Theater down, to erect
it on the other side of the river as the Globe.
The history of the Curtain is obscure. There is evidence
that the Theater was the first playhouse to be built; but the
Curtain is mentioned very shortly afterwards, and its opening may
be dated in 1577. It stood near Finsbury fields, not far to the
south of the Theater, within the precinct of the same priory of
Holywell, and took its name from Curtain close, a meadow once in
the possession of the priory on which, later, was built a house called
Curtain house. The name survives in Curtain road, Shoreditch.
Who built it and what it cost are points yet to be discovered ; but
that, like the Theater, it was round in shape and built of wood are
suppositions that can hardly be controverted, even if reliance be
not placed on the argument that Shakespeare's King Henry V
(the prologue of which refers to this wooden 0') was acted here
in the summer of 1599. It would be unsafe to deduce from the
word 'cockpit' in the same passage that the Curtain was unusually
small. Its history was uneventful. On the closing of the Theater,
the Chamberlain's company seems to have removed there, and they
kept it open during the early days of the Globe. When leave was
sought to open the Fortune in Cripplegate, it was granted by the


## p. 254 (#272) ############################################

254
The Elizabethan Theatre
privy council on the understanding that the Curtain was to be
closed; nevertheless, it remained open, and, after the accession of
James I, became the home of queen Anne's (lately the earl of
Worcester’s) company. It is mentioned as in use in 1623, and as
standing in 1627.
Little is known of the playhouse at Newington Butts. The
direct evidence consists of, first, an entry in the privy council
register for 1586, stating that the council had desired the lord
mayor to prohibit plays in the city, and had taken the like order
for the prohibiting of plays at the Theater ‘and th' other places
about Newington’; secondly, an undated warrant from the privy
council, now referred to August 1592', rescinding an order which
had restrained lord Strange's servants from playing at the Rose,
and had enjoined them to play three days (? a week) at Newington
Butts ; thirdly, an entry in the accounts of Philip Henslowe, the
theatrical manager, at the head of a list of receipts from per-
formances : 'In the name of God Amen begininge at Newington
my Lord Admeralle men and my Lorde Chamberlen men, As
ffolowethe 1594'; and, last, an enumeration by Howes, in his
continuation of Stow's Annals (1631), of the London playhouses
built within the last sixty years, which concludes with: 'besides
one in former time at Newington Buts. ' Indirect evidence has
been drawn from analogy? The warrant of the privy council
above mentioned implies that the house had then been standing
for some years. Nothing further is known of its history.
Philip Henslowe, by trade a dyer, and an acute man of business
interested in undertakings of various kinds, leased an estate in
the Clink liberty, Southwark, in 1585, and, in 1587, was con-
templating the building upon it of a playhouse, of which, if it was
built at all, we hear nothing till some years later. In his diary
or book of accounts, which is one of the chief authorities for the
dramatic history of the period, he is found in February 1592
sharing the receipts of lord Strange's men—nothing being said of
the playhouse at which they were acting. Another entry (in a
book which must be admitted to be one of the most confused
accountbooks ever kept, besides having suffered from neglect and
unscrupulous treatment) is a statement of the money he spent
'a bowte my playe howsse' (the Rose) ‘in the yeare of op lord
1592. ' Nothing is said in the account about repairs, and it bears
6
i Greg's Henslowe's Diary, vol. 11, pp. 45 and 52–53. For the text, see eund. ,
Henslowe Papers, p. 43.
9 By Ordish, p. 144.


## p. 255 (#273) ############################################

The Rose and the
Globe
255
all the marks of a building account; while Henslowe's want of
regularity in following the Marian or the popular system of dating
by the year-or, indeed, any system at all—makes the confusion
still greater. It seems pretty certain, however, that 1592 here
means 1592; that the account is not for building, but for extensive
repairs amounting almost to rebuilding; and that the work was
completed in the early part of the year, in time for lord Strange's
men to occupy the house in February. This implies that the play-
house contemplated in 1587 had been built and, therefore, used?
In June 1594, the Rose on the Bankside in Southwark was the play-
house of the Admiral's company, with Edward Alleyn at its head.
Alleyne 'left playing' in 1597; and, in 1598, the Chamberlain's
company moved across the water from the Curtain, and built the
Globe. The prosperity of the Rose began to decline, perhaps
through unequal competition. By 1600, it had fallen into a bad
state of repair, and its situation was considered inconvenient in
winter. When the Admiral's company moved to the Fortune, in
1600, other companies occasionally occupied the Rose till 1603.
After the accession of James I, it was used sometimes for sports.
The Rose was built mainly of timber, lath and plaster, though
entries in Henslowe's accounts for bricks and bricklaying seem
to imply a brick foundation for the wooden walls. The stage was
painted ; there was a tirehouse, or actors' dressingroom, behind
it, with a room over it, and a flagstaff.
Though the Blackfriars was the next playhouse to be built,
it is more convenient to consider first the most important of
Elizabethan playhouses, the Globe. The reason why the Chamber-
lain's men left the Curtain for the other side of the river is not
clear. There may have been some decline in the attractiveness of
Finsbury fields as a holiday ground; or the common council may
have protested with effect against the usual procession through the
city. Bankside was certainly a popular resort, and Southwark
the district where pleasureseekers went to see bullbaiting and
bearbaiting, to the public gardens and to the stews. Unable
to come to terms with the landlord of the Theater, Richard and
Cuthbert Burbage, as we have seen, pulled down their old play-
house and used the materials in building the Globe, which stood, as
is commonly supposed, to the south-west of Paris garden and to the
south of what was then Maiden lane and is now the east-to-west part
1 The account of the Newington Butts house and the Rose given above follows that
of Greg, Henslowe's Diary, vol. 11, pp. 43—48 and 73. For another view, which must
be held to be superseded, see Ordish,
pp. 149–155.


## p. 256 (#274) ############################################

256
The Elizabethan Theatre
of Park street, on ground at present occupied by a brewery? This
was the house, from its opening till 1642, of the Chamberlain's and
King's company; here Richard Burbage acted, and here Shakes-
peare's greatest plays were produced. Our knowledge of the ap-
pearance and construction of the Globe is chiefly derived from the
contract for the building of the Fortune, which was to be made like
it, specifically in certain details, as well as generally, with certain
minor exceptions. The contract will be quoted in connection with
the Fortune theatre. Shops, stews and playhouses all had signs
at that time, and the earliest Globe was so called from its sign of
Atlas bearing the globe on his shoulders. It appears in a drawing
of 1610 as a round structure, rising above a larger round sub-
structure of some considerable height, which, it has been suggested,
enclosed a passage leading from the entrance door (or doors) to
various entrances to the 'yard. ' Structure and substructure were,
almost certainly, of wood, resting on a foundation of bricks and
cement. Its interior arrangements will be discussed later. On
Tuesday 29 June 1613, a new play on the history of Henry VIII
called AU is True was being performed, and, when the king
entered the masque at cardinal Wolsey's, certain ‘chambers' were
shot off. 'Some of the paper or other stuff,' is Sir Henry Wotton's
account, 'wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the
thatch' (on the roof over the galleries). The house was burned
to the ground within less than an hour. “Yet nothing did perish
but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks. ' Another con-
temporary statement says that the escape of the audience was
marvellous, 'having but two narrow doors to get out. ' Whether
these two include the door by which the players entered the
tiringhouse, or whether they were both for the use of the audience,
cannot now be determined. The usual practice appears to have
been to have one entrance door only to the body of the house.
A contemporary ballad advises 'stage-strutters' to give up their
dissipations and spend their money on tiles for the roof. This
advice, or the latter part of it, seems to have been taken when
the playhouse was rebuilt in the following year, more handsomely
than before, its 'thatched hide' being then a thing of the past.
The cost of the new playhouse was £1400, and it was the ‘fayrest
that was in England. ' Its shape on rebuilding was octagonal
outside, and, apparently, inside also.
1
i On the situation of the Globe, however, see Wallace, C. W. , in The Times of
2 October 1909, p. 9, col. 4, and subsequent correspondence in The Times and The
Athenæum.


## p. 257 (#275) ############################################

a
The Blackfriars
257
It has been supposed that, after the King's company began to
act at the Blackfriars, the Globe became their summer playhouse,
the Blackfriars being used in winter. Further evidence is needed
before this question can be determined, though we have seen that
the situation of the Rose was considered inconvenient in winter;
the Globe is found in use in February.
In February 1596, James Burbage, already in difficulties with
the landlord of the Theater, bought of the executor of Sir Thomas
Cawarden, late master of the revels, for £600, the freehold of
a complicated collection of rooms, great and small, stairs, cellars
and yards (including 'seven great upper rooms' all on one floor,
formerly one great and entire room), which lay in Blackfriars,
near the Pipe office, adjoining the house of Sir George Cary. The
buildings, which had been in the occupation of Cawarden, were in
the old precinct of the ‘Blackfriars preachers,' or Dominican monks,
and had formed part of their monastic dwelling. Blackfriars, in
those days, was a popular resort, not, like Finsbury fields, for the
people, but for nobles and gentry, who went there to play tennis ;
there were also a few aristocratic houses on a small portion of the
site of the monastery. In making up his mind to establish a play-
house, in defiance of the law, within the city walls, Burbage must
have counted for support less on the people than on the nobility; and,
to some extent, the proceeding is an argument in favour of the view
that royal and aristocratic support was the chief encouragement of
the drama. These seven rooms Burbage turned into an indoor or
“private' playhouse, spending on it a larger sum than had hitherto
been spent on any playhouse in London, and constructing a build-
ing which recent discoveries have shown to be much larger than
was commonly supposed? The term 'private' does not imply that
the public were excluded; the corporation, in an order for the
suppression of the Blackfriars in 1619, refer to it explicitly as a
publique playhowse. ' Burbage's intention, however, was, doubt-
less, to construct a playhouse which should attract aristocratic
patrons by greater seclusion and comfort, the auditorium being
completely roofed over, and, perhaps (though this is thorny
ground), by a stage which might reproduce to some extent the
scenic completeness attained in the indoor performances at court.
In November 1596, the inhabitants petitioned against the es-
tablishment of a playhouse in their midst, but ineffectually. In
July 1597, letters patent were issued to Nathaniel Giles, master
1 See, in The Times, 11 September 1906, p. 6, cols. 1 and 2, Old Blackfriars
Theatre,' by Wallace, C. W. , and eund. , Children of the Chapel, chap. I.
E. L. VI.
17
>
6
1
CH, X.


## p. 258 (#276) ############################################

258
The Elizabethan Theatre
of the chapel children, to impress boys for the Queen's service;
and, about this time, the chapel children are found occupying
Burbage's new playhouse. In 1600, Richard Burbage leased the
Blackfriars to one Henry Evans for 21 years at a yearly rent of
£40, and Evans continued the children's performances. Later,
came trouble over Evans's too drastic exercise of the powers
granted to Giles under the patent; the playhouse ceased to pay;
the lease was assigned; the chapel children, who, after James's
accession, had been reconstituted as the children of queen Anne's
revels, lost the royal patronage after their performance of East-
ward Hoe in 1605, and were again obnoxious in their production
of Biron. In August 1608, Richard Burbage took back the lease
to Evans, and, a little later, the King's company began to use the
house themselves. In January 1619, the corporation tried to close
the Blackfriars, but the privy council stepped in and confirmed its
use; and the King's company continued to play there without
interruption till 1642. )
The move of the Chamberlain's men to Bankside left the north
bank of the Thames without any strong theatrical attraction, and
Henslowe and Alleyn endeavoured (not without strenuous but in-
effectual opposition from local and municipal authorities) to cater
for the population of that part of the town by building the Fortune
playhouse off Golding (now Golden) lane in the parish of St Giles
without, Cripplegate. The extant contract for the building, made
by Henslowe and Alleyn with Peter Street, carpenter, is so in-
teresting, in the light it throws on the material and structure
of the Globe and the Fortune, and, indirectly, of Elizabethan
playhouses in general, that part of it deserves quoting verbatim.
The frame of the saide howse to be sett square and to conteine ffowerscore
foote of lawfull assize everye waie square wihoutt and fiftie five foote of like
assize square everye waie win with a good suer and stronge foundacõn of
pyles brick lyme and sand bothe whoat & win to be wroughte one foote of
assize att the leiste above the grounde And the saide fframe to conteine
Three Stories in heighth The first or lower Storie to Conteine Twelve foote
of lawfull assize in heighth The second Storie Eleaven foote of lawfull assize
in heigth And the Third or upper Storie to conteine Nyne foote of lawfull
assize in height all which Stories shall conteine Twelve foote and a halfe
of lawfull assize in breadth througheoute besides a Juttey forwardes in
either of the saide Twoe upper Stories of Tenne ynches of lawfull assize with
ffower convenient divisions for gentlemens roomes and other sufficient and
convenient divisions for Twoe pennie roomes wth necessarie Seates to be
placed and sett Aswell in those roomes as througheoute all the rest of the
galleries of the saide howse and wth suchelike steares Conveyances & divisions
woute & wthin as are made & Contryved in and to the late erected Plaie-
howse On the Banck in the saide pishe of gro Savio's Called the Globe Wth a
Stadge and Tyreinge howse to be made erected & settup wthin the saide iframe


## p. 259 (#277) ############################################

The Fortune
259
with a shadows or cover over the saide Stadge. . . . And weh Stadge shall con-
teine in length ffortie and Three foote of lawfall assize and in breadth to
extende to the middle of the yarde of the saide howse The same Stadge to be
paled in belowe wth good stronge and sufficyent newe oken bourdes And like-
wise the lower Storie of the saide fframe w'hinside, and the same lower storie
to be alsoe laide over and fenced wih stronge yron pykes And the saide Stadge
to be in all other proporcons Contryved and fashioned like unto the Stadge of
the saide Plaie howse Called the Globe Wth convenient windowes and lightes
glazed to the saide Tyreinge howse And the saide fframe Stadge and Steare-
cases to be covered wth Tyle and to have a sufficient gutter of lead to Carrie &
convey the water frome the Coveringe of the saide Stadge to fall backwardes
And also all the saide fframe and the Stairecases thereof to be sufficyently
enclosed woute wth lathe lyme & haire and the gentlemens roomes and Twoe
pennie roomes to be seeled woh lathe lyme & haire and all the flowers of the
saide Galleries Stories and Stadge to be bourded wth good & sufficyent newe
deale bourdes of the whole thicknes wheare need shalbe and the saide howse
and other thinges beforemencõed to be made & doen To be in all other
Contrivitions Conveyances fashions thinge and thinges effected finished and
doen accordinge to the manner and fashion of the saide bowse Called the
Globe Sareinge only that all the princypall and maine postes of the saide
fframe and Stadge forwarde shalbe square and wroughte palasterwise wth
carved proporcons Called Satiers to be placed & sett on the Topp of every of
the same postes 1.
The contract is dated 8 January 1599/1600, and the work, which
was to cost £440, was to be finished by 25 July. The actual cost
worked out at £520, and the playhouse appears to have been
opened in November or December 1600, by the Admiral's men, who
occupied it throughout the remainder of the period. It is notice-
able that the outside was square. The Fortune was burned down
in 1621, and all the wardrobe and playbooks were destroyed; it
was rebuilt, some two years later, round in shape and of brick.
It appears, in its later years, to have become a popular house,
rather despised by the more refined.
The Rose fell out of use in 1603, and the importance of the
Blackfriars and the Fortune robbed Bankside of much of the
patronage of playgoers. When the Globe was burned in 1613, it
seems to have been feared that the King's men would move back
to the north of the river; and a petition was addressed to the
king by the company of Watermen, praying that the players might
not be allowed to have a playhouse in London or Middlesex within
five miles of the city-which petition was not granted.
In 1589, Francis Langley, who held a small office at court,
purchased the manor of Paris garden. In November 1594, we
find the lord mayor protesting against his intention to build a
playhouse on his property. The project was not dismissed; but
it is not certain when the Swan playhouse was built. It may
| Transcribed from Greg, Henslowe Papers, pp. 5 and 6.
17-2


## p. 260 (#278) ############################################

260
The Elizabethan Theatre
have been open in 1596. The Swan was used for plays, at any
rate until 1620, and was still standing, though in a dilapidated
state, in 1632. Dramatically, its history is unimportant; but
the house has acquired notoriety from the fact that a con-
temporary drawing, or copy of a drawing, of its interior—the
earliest view known of the interior of a playhouse—is in existence,
Probably in or about the summer of 1596, John de Witt, a
Dutchman, visited London. (It may be noted here that much of
our information concerning the London playhouses of the day
comes from foreigners, to whom they were objects of great
interest and surprise. ) The drawing in question was discovered
in the library at Utrecht, in the commonplace book of another
Dutchman, Arend von Buchell, accompanied by a descriptive
passage headed Ex observationibus Londinensibus Johannis De
Witt. The passage, with the drawing, may have been copied
from a now lost letter or journal written by de Witt. The
drawing, a rough sketch, must be used, therefore, with caution ;
but so many of its details correspond with the details of the
Swan found in the contract for the building of the Hope, which was
to be like it in many respects, that it may be taken as giving a
rough idea of the general plan of an Elizabethan public playhouse!
The drawing is made from a point which, roughly speaking, would
correspond to the position of a man sitting in the middle of the
front row of the upper circle of a large modern theatre, or the
gallery of a small one.
The main features of the playhouse are clear enough. It is a
tall, round (or, possibly, oval) 2 structure some fifty feet high”, with
three roofed galleries, divided into 'rooms,' or boxes, running right
round it and interrupted only by the tirehouse behind the stage.
The yard is open to the sky; there are no seats in it, and the
audience can stand close to the stage on three sides, finding it
1 All reproductions of this drawing (e. g. in Ordish, Early London Theatres, p. 265)
having beneath them the words Ex observationibus Londinensibus Johannis De Witt,
taken from the manuscript, are made, not from the original, but from the engraving pub-
lished by Gaedertz in his Zur Kenntnis der altenglischen Bühne, Bremen, 1888. For a full-
sized reproduction direct from the original, see Wheatley, On a contemporary drawing
of the Interior of the Swan Theatre, N. 8. 8. 1888; and for a reproduction on a reduced
scale, The Quarterly Review, April 1908, facing p. 450. The engraving is fairly accurate;
but the lines indicating the part of the circumference of the playhouse furthest from
the tire-house have been omitted, to make room for the misplaced words mentioned
above.
2 That is, round, or oval, inside. In Vischer, View of London, 1610, it appears
twelve-sided. See, also, the 1627 map of the manor of old Paris garden in Furnivall's
Harrison's England, vol. 11, facing p. i.
8 For a calculation of the measurements, see Wheatley, 4. 8.
9


## p. 261 (#279) ############################################

The Swan
261
probably between waist-high and shoulder-high. The description
accompanying the drawing states that the building would hold
tres mille homines in sedilibus—three thousand persons in the
sedilia or galleries. Calculations have been made to prove that,
if de Witt is rightly reported and meant what he said, and if the
number of rows in the three galleries be taken to be eleven, a
house two thirds of the size of the present Drury Lane theatre
would be required to afford sitting accommodation for that number
of spectators, if every seat in the entire circle was full; while the
open yard would give standing room to a great many more. The
number 3000, moreover, is not so surprising as appears at first
sight; and that the Swan theatre should provide room for it per
cent. of the total population of London and Westminster does not
seem fantastic, when it is remembered that, according to John
Taylor, three or four thousand persons daily crossed the river
to Bankside in the days when the Globe, Rose and Swan were
all open as playhouses, and bearbaiting, also, was in progress.
A difficulty is caused by de Witt's statement that the Swan was
built of flint-stones heaped together and supported by wooden
columns, painted so like marble as to deceive the shrewdest eye.
In no extant specification, not even that of the Hope, is there
any mention of stone, and another foreigner, who visited London
two years later, expressly states that all the playhouses on Bank-
side were of wood-sometimes, as we know from other sources,
plastered over. Various suggestions have been made for getting
round de Witt's statement. It is simpler to believe him correct
and to suppose that, in this feature (as, perhaps, in another to be
dealt with later) the Swan was exceptional.
The extant contract with the builder shows that the Hope
on Bankside, which had been a bear-house, was newly built as a
playhouse by Henslowe and Jacob Meade in 1613. Possibly, the
burning of the Globe in that year induced Henslowe to try
for the Bankside public once more. The house was occupied
by the lady Elizabeth's and the Prince's companies, and Ben
Jonson's Bartholomew Fayre, which was acted there in 1614,
informs us that it was a dirty and evil-smelling place. In 1616,
apparently, it fell out of use as a playhouse. As the contract
states, it was of the same size as the Swan, and the roof over
the galleries 'was tiled, not thatched. Vischer's View of London
1 In Wheatley, W. 8. But see Greg, Henslowe's Diary, vol. 11, p. 134, note 1.
? E. g. , the contract for the Fortune : ante, pp. 258—9.
3 Printed in Greg, Henslowe Papers, pp. 19 f.


## p. 262 (#280) ############################################

262
The Elizabethan Theatre
(1616) shows it octagonal outside; but Hollar (1647) makes 'it
round. It was of wood, with a brick foundation.
Three other playhouses belonging to this period must be
mentioned. The Red Bull stood at the upper end of St John
street, Clerkenwell, and seems to have been opened about 1599.
In 1633, Prynne's Histrio-Mastix mentions it as recently rebuilt
and enlarged. It was occupied early in James I's reign by the
Queen's company, and remained in use, till 1642, by this and
other companies. Between 1642 and 1660, several attempts were
made to act there ; it was opened at the restoration by Rhodes,
formerly prompter at the Blackfriars ; Samuel Pepys saw a play
wretchedly performed to a poor house there, in 1661; and, by
1663, it was abandoned.
The Cockpit was a 'private' playhouse in Drury Lane, and
seems to have been erected on the site of a cockpit in or about
1615. It was opened by the lady Elizabeth's company, which,
in 1625, passed to queen Henrietta; and it remained in use till
1642. After 1660, it was occupied by the Duke's company under
Sir William D'Avenant, till they moved to the new theatre in
Portugal row, Lincoln's Inn fields in 1662.
Its second name,
the Phoenix, probably came into use when it had been restored
after the sacking of it by the 'prentices in 1617.
The Salisbury court or Whitefriars playhouse was built in
1629 near the hall of the old Whitefriars monastery, which had
previously, at any rate since 1610, been used for plays. It was
occupied first by the children of the King's revels, and then by
the Queen's. It was a 'private' playhouse, and was in use for
a brief time after the restoration.
The capital difference between the pre-rebellion public stage
and the modern stage lies in the fact that the former was a
platform stage, while the latter is a picture stage. The modern
audience sees the drama as a moving picture in a frame, or as in
a room with one wall, and only one, knocked out. The Elizabethan
audience surrounded the stage on three sides, partly encroaching
even on the fourth; they saw the drama as a scene enacted in their
1
midst and—in the case of the groundlings, the spectators standing
in the yard—very close to them. It is practically impossible for
performers on the stage to compose groups that shall show an
equally artistic shape on three sides at once, and the use of
daylight prevented many of the visual effects that have been
practised since the time of Garrick.
The eye was appealed to


## p. 263 (#281) ############################################

The Stage
263
less forcibly than the ear. The drama was rhetorical, and the
actor more of a rhetorician than he is today, since the audience
looked to his enunciation of the poet's words for much of the
pleasure that the picture stage supplies through the eye. 'Spec-
tacular' plays, such as England & Joy, produced at the Swan
in 1603, were not unknown; spectacle was aimed at and enjoyed;
but word, voice and action were the chief elements in the drama.
And authors, being free from the modern playwright's necessity to
lead up to a 'situation,' a stage picture, on which the curtain may
fall sharply at the close of each act, made the play, rather than
each division of it, the artistic whole.
The stage begins with the bare platform on trestles, which
could be taken away when the space was needed for sports that
did not require it. Later, the space between the platform and
the ground is found concealed with boarding, and a low rail runs
round the edge of the stage. The rudest performance, whether
in innyard or 'ring,' supposes some place where actors can dress
and wait concealed, and whence they may have access to the
platform when their turn comes. This gives opportunity for a
background-a matter, however, of small importance in a stage
open on three sides
and also develops into the tirehouse. Ques-
tions as to the nature and use of this background and as to the
development of the tirehouse into a somewhat elaborate structure
lie at the root of all the difficulties in the restoration of an idea of
the Elizabethan stage.
It is impossible not to turn back with curiosity to the drawing
of the Swan theatre, the earliest extant view of the stage of the
period. The platform it shows is supported near the front on
two rough, solid beams, concealed by no 'paling. ' Halfway, or
rather more than halfway, towards the back, two very solid
turned pillars, resting on heavy square bases and with capitals
above, stand on the stage, at a distance from each other of
nearly its whole breadth, and support the front edge of a pent-
roof, which seems to project over the stage to a much smaller
distance than the position of the pillars would indicate. This
discrepancy is but one of many difficulties raised by the drawing.
Behind the pillars, under the pentroof and right at the back of
the stage, rises a wall with two large arched doors, each about
halfway between the centre of the back wall and its outer
extremity. On the wall, between the doors, the draughtsman has
written mimorum aedes, indicating that this is the 'actors' house. '
At some distance above the tops of the doors, the wall is broken


## p. 264 (#282) ############################################

264
The Elizabethan Theatre
by a gallery, in which sit what may be musicians, or actors taking
part in the play, but what certainly seem to be spectators; and,
above the gallery again, the wall rises to the point where the upper
edge of the pentroof starts. Above the level of the pentroof,
there appears another story, of equal or nearly equal width with
the wall of the tirehouse. There are two windows in it, facing
the auditorium, and, in a little doorway open in the side, on the
(spectator's) right, a man, either holding a flag or blowing a
trumpet, stands on the upper edge of the pentroof (which must
be supposed to turn the corner of the building on both sides).
The roof of this upper story, apparently, is thatched, and from
the summit on the (spectator's) right flies the flag bearing the
sign of the house, a swan. Near the front of the stage, an actor
in woman's dress is sitting on a bench; behind the bench stands
another, also in woman's dress; while, from the corner on the
(spectator's) left, an actor, bearing a long spear or staff, is striding
along the front of the stage towards the centre. There are no
hangings of any kind visible in any part of the drawing.
Some features in the drawing may be recognised from other
descriptions as correct—the existence of the tirehouse, the turret,
the waving flag showing that it is a play day, the blowing of the
trumpet showing that the play is about to begin (though the
draughtsman has shown the house as empty). Further examina-
tion raises a number of difficulties.
In the first place, this stage is not movable; or, if it can be
removed, those two heavy pillars supporting the small pentroof
must rest, not on the visible bases on the stage, but on the ground
below. If the stage is moved, the pillars will be in the way of any
exhibition that is taking place, and it is difficult to imagine that
these pretentious bases are shams. We are forced to conclude
that the stage of the Swan was not movable. Again, how far are
these pillars intended to be from the back wall of the stage, the
front wall of the tirehouse? The drawing shows them at the very
least a third of the way down the stage; yet the perspective is so
faulty that the pentroof seems to project at the most a few feet
forward from the wall. Granted that the pillars are right and the
pentroof wrong, the latter still does not correspond at all closely
with the 'heavens' or roof, which, in the Hope, as we know from
the contract, was to extend all over the stage, and which is known
to have existed in other playhouses of the period. The matter is
trilling at first sight, but is of importance because, mainly on the
position of the pillars in this drawing, a whole theory of the pro-
а


## p. 265 (#283) ############################################

The Alternation' Theory
·
265
duction of plays has been formed! To clear the ground, it may be
said at once that there is no occurrence before 1640 of anything
which can fairly be considered evidence of a front curtain on a
public stage (though, doubtless, it was in use at court and uni-
versity performances), and that the theory of the common use of
& front curtain is no longer tenable. On the other hand, there
is ample evidence that, somewhere on the stage, there were
hangings of silk, or wool, or 'painted cloth, sometimes, appa-
rently, when tragedies were acted, of black. Of hangings painted
in perspective to represent the scene of the play, there is no
mention in a public or private playhouse, though they were in
use at court and university performances. We hear of actors
peeping through before the play begins, and of an impatient
audience throwing things at the hangings. Stage directions
printed in the playbooks, though rendered an untrustworthy
guide by the impossibility of telling whether they were drawn
up by the author or manager, or by the printer or some other
unauthorised person, and whether they applied to performance at
court, in a public playhouse, a private playhouse, or a provincial
hall or innyard, seem to show that the public stage of the day
required at least three divisions: namely, the front part of the
stage; a back part, commonly used for interiors, which could be
disclosed by the drawing of curtains, and which, when disclosed,
could, of course, absorb the front part and occupy the entire stage;
and, thirdly, a place above to serve for upper chambers, balconies
like Juliet's, galleries, towers and so forth. Arguing from this and
from the position of the pillars in the drawing of the stage of the
Swan, the theory referred to supposes a regular course of 'alterna-
tion' throughout an entire play, much like that which was followed
by each act of an old-fashioned melodrama, in which the front scene
was used while the back scene was being set,' the author's duty,
in the days of Elizabeth as in our own, being to contrive a scene
of some sort, which the plot might or might not require, to fill up
the
time needed by the 'tire-men’ or sceneshifters. Accordingly, the
theory mentioned supposes a curtain or traverse' hung between
the pillars shown in the drawing of the Swan, that is, at about one
third, or half, of the depth of the stage, which should conceal
1 Chiefly by Brodmeier, C. , Die Shakespeare-Bühne nach den alten Bühnenan-
weisungen, Weimar, 1904. It has been exhaustively criticised by Reynolds, G. F. ,
Some principles of Elizabethan staging, Chicago, 1905.
Some confusion might be avoided if the word 'depth' were consistently used for
the measurement from the front of the stage to the back, and width' for that from
side to side.
6


## p. 266 (#284) ############################################

266
The Elizabethan Theatre
7
1
1
1
from spectators the preparations for the next scene going on
behind it.
The attempt to work out this 'alternation' theory by dividing
the extant plays of the period into front and back scenes has not
been successful'. A further difficulty arises from the fact that not
all the spectators were in front of the stage. A traverse between
the pillars would not conceal what was going on behind it from
people on either side of the stage. To block out their view, further
traverses at right angles to that between the pillars would be
necessary. The result, inevitably, would be to conceal not only
the back scene from them, but a great deal of the front scene, too,
on which action would be in progress. An even greater difficulty
attends the suggestion that, since there are notable instances
where it would be absurd for actors to enter the front scene by the
only available entrance, that is, through the traverse, there must
have been hangings all along both sides of the stage so that actors
might enter from the sides. It is to be noted, too, that this theory
supposes the upper stage or balcony to be concealed by the
traverse. This would mean that all scenes in which the balcony
was occupied must be back scenes, which is not easy to establish,
and makes it impossible that the audience should ever have used
the balcony; while three extant illustrations of the stage—the
title-pages to Richards's Messallina (1640) and Alabaster's Roxana
(1632), and the picture of a 'droll' on the stage of the Red Bull
which forms the frontispiece to Kirkman's The Wits (1673)-dis-
tinctly show the traverse hanging from below the balcony, while the
first and the last show a separate curtain for the balcony itself.
This theory seems to lose sight of the simple origin of the stage
-a temporary platform erected in the midst of a crowd and sur-
rounded by spectators regarding it from nearly all the four sides-
and to err from over-anxiety to credit an Elizabethan audience with
a susceptibility to the incongruous. The very naïve tradition of the
miracles and early moralities, in which two or more scenes, some-
times representing localities hundreds of miles apart, were on the
stage simultaneously, had not died out; and the audience may be
fairly supposed to have been no more offended by the conventions
of dramatic space than is a modern audience by those of dramatic
1 See Reynolds, op. cit. , and Wegener, R. , Die Bühneneinrichtung des Shake-
speareschen Theaters, Halle, 1907. For the practical defects of Brodmeier's proposed
reconstruction, see Archer, W. , in The Quarterly Review, no. 415, April 1908. The
*Elizabethan' stage reconstructed at Harvard in 1904 was planned on the alterna-
tion theory. For an illustration and description, see 'Hamlet on an Elizabethan Stage,'
by Baker, G. P. , Shakesp. Jahrbuch, vol. XLI (1905), pp. 296 ff.
6


## p. 267 (#285) ############################################

The Swan and the Hope Stages
267
time, which allow an imaginary half-hour to pass in an actual five
minutes. In his Apologie for Poetrie (written about 1580—1),
Sidney writes:
For where the stage should alwaies represent but one place, . . . there is . . .
many places, inartificially imagined. But if it be so in Gorboduck, how much
more in al the rest, where you shal have Asia of the one side, and Affrick of
the other, and so many other ander-kingdoms, that the Player, when he
commeth in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or els the tale wil not
be conceived ?
His words are borne out by numerous cases in extant plays, where
two or more places are imagined to be on the stage at the same
time; and it scarcely needs the evidence of ascertainable instances
to prove that an Elizabethan audience would not have the least
objection to seeing properties (such as the bench in the drawing
of the Swan) brought on the stage without concealment and left
there after they had served their turn, though it is extremely
likely that susceptibility to the incongruous grew, as time went on,
under the influence of Jonson and the classical playwrights. In
spite of this, it is abundantly clear that there was a back stage,
which could be revealed by drawing a curtain.
The fact is significant that, just as the Hope, though planned on
the lines of the Swan, was to be built of wood, not ilint, so, in the
contract with the builder, it is directly stated that he shall also
builde the Heavens all over the saide stage to be borne or carryed
without any postes or supporters to be fixed or sett uppon the
saide stage. ' It is possible, therefore, that the pillars of the Swan
were as the drawing shows them, and that the pentroof covered
half or nearly half the stage; but that the plan was found incon-
venient, was confined to the Swan and was discarded by Henslowe
when he built the Hope. In that case, the Swan may have had
the front and back scenes divided by the lofty traverse, and have
used them as suggested by the theory summarised above; but it is
at least unfortunate that the draughtsman should have hit on a
playhouse the arrangement of which was unique and discredited.
The construction may well have been different in different
houses; and there are several ways in which the necessary back
stage may be reconstructed and the requirements of stage direc-
tions fulfilled, without imposing a strict ‘alternation theory' or
incurring the difficulties referred to above. According to one
scheme', the pillars supporting the 'heavens' (if pillars there be)
play no part in the division of the stage. The stage proper runs
* This account follows, in the main, that suggested by Chambers, E. K. , 'The Stage
of the Globe,' in the Stratford-on-Avon Shakespeare, vol. 2, pp. 351 f.
6
9


## p. 268 (#286) ############################################

268
The Elizabethan Theatre
right back to the wall of the tirehouse. The gallery either
does not project, or projects only very slightly, in front of
that wall. From the level of its floor, hangings fall to the
stage, occupying, not the whole width of the stage, but most, or
the whole, of that part of it which lies between the two doors, the
doors being left uncovered. For this purpose, it is necessary to
suppose the doors further apart than they are in the drawing
of the Swan. These hangings, when drawn back, reveal the lower
chamber of the tirehouse in use as part of the stage, possibly with
a floor raised slightly above the stage level. Here, the strolling
players in Hamlet would perform, and here, Henry VIII would sit
in his closet. The room would be big enough to hold a fair
number of people; in the Fortune, for instance, an inner chamber
20 feet wide would still leave 114 feet on either side for the doors.
And the scene could always overflow on the stage proper. And,
since a third entrance is frequently mentioned and almost always
necessary, a door in the back of this chamber must also be
supposed, large enough to admit of 'properties' such as beds,
banqueting tables and so forth being brought through it. The
stage proper is thus entirely free of hangings, except those in front
of the chamber under the tirehouse; and the fact that this chamber
must have been low and dark seems of less importance when it
is remembered that plays were acted in unencumbered daylight.
There were hangings, also, in front of the balcony above. The
theory is not without its difficulties, the chief of which are that
many of the audience must have been unable, from their position in
the house, to see into the inner chamber, and that, when there were
actors or spectators in the balcony, they, too, would have been
unable to see into it? This view, to some extent, is borne out by
the title-pages of Messallina and Roxana mentioned above; but,
as neither of these shows the whole width of the stage, no certain
conclusions can be drawn from them. Another scheme makes
the gallery project some feet from the wall of the tirehouse, with
the traverse hanging from its floor and concealing all the doors
when it is drawn. There is, thus, a kind of corridor stage behind
the stage proper ; but, once more, any actors or spectators there
may be in the gallery will be unable to see what is taking place on
the back stage, and it is also necessary to imagine that every scene
in which doors are mentioned must have been a scene in which
1 Wegener's suggestion (op. cit. ), that there was a kind of ekkyklema on which
deathbeds and the like could be wheeled over the back stage and brought forward,
does not seem to be supported by sufficient evidence, though such a contrivance
would certainly have been useful.


## p. 269 (#287) ############################################

6
Stage Appliances and Properties 269
the back stage was used. To obviate these difficulties, a suggestion
has recently been put forward that the two side doors were not
flat in the wall of the tirehouse but set in walls slanting towards
it, while the traverse before the corridor hangs further up the
stage (i. l. nearer the back wall) and, when drawn, conceals only
the third, central door. The same suggestion curves the gallery
forward at each side, at an angle corresponding with that of the
walls containing the side doors, so that its occupants might see the
back stage, and even provides semicircular projections, or bays, in
order to make quite sure? .
The space beneath the stage was sometimes 'paled in' by
boarding, which, though not shown in the drawing of the Swan,
must have been a common feature, because many instances occur of
actors (especially when playing ghosts) appearing and disappearing
through trapdoors, and of dead bodies being thrown down through
them. We read of flames and even of a “brave arbour' appearing
from below. If the stage was strewn with rushes, as it seems to
have been, the use of the trap must, sometimes, have been difficult;
and, in any plays where the trapdoor was needed, the 'matting' on
the stage, which Sir Henry Wotton mentions, apparently as an
unusual thing, in his account of the burning of the Globe in 1613,
must have been out of the question. There was also, in some
playhouses at all events, an appliance by which players could be
let down from above, as if descending from heaven, though it
appears to have been more difficult to draw them up again.
Whether the appliance worked from the balcony or the heavens'
is not ascertained.
Painted scenery on the public stage there was none, though the
mention in an inventory of the Admiral's men's properties, compiled
by Henslowe in 1598, of 'the clothe of the Sone and Mone,' certainly
seems to imply some attempt of this nature, and though the figures
of men and animals frequently appeared in the woven or painted
hangings. But there is abundant evidence that the properties were
many and elaborate. Houses, beds, rocks, ramparts, wells, property
horses, and even structures serving as shops, are mentioned as being
brought on the stage, and there is strong evidence for the solid
1 By Archer, U. S. See, in particular, the reproduction of a model by an
architect, Walter H. Godfrey, of & stage according to the specification of the Fortune,
illustrating Archer's article. The model itself was on view in the Exposition théâtrale,
Paris, 1908.
One objection to this arrangement is that it would make the drawing of the
traverse (which we know the gallery to have had) a very complicated affair.


## p. 270 (#288) ############################################

270
The Elizabethan Theatre
t
representation of woods and separate treesThough there was no
attempt at creating a picture, considerable care and expense were
incurred in the provision of properties. Yet these attempts at
realism, for which an Elizabethan audience, according to its lights,
had as keen a desire as a modern audience, long went hand in
hand with the simplest devices. The names of the places were
fastened over the doors, especially in cases where the stage re-
presented two scenes at once; and where the presence of specta-
tors on the stage reduced the space, the properties for which there
was not room were sometimes indicated by nuncupative cards, a
practice which prevailed, at this time, also in France. Such cards,
however, must be distinguished from the 'title-boards,' which, in
private theatres, were fastened up, or held up by the speaker of
the prologue, to give the title of the play.
Performances at private playhouses? may be taken to have
approximated to those at universities, inns of court and royal
residences, in aiming at the taste of more refined audiences than
did the public playhouse—though too much stress should not be
laid on the supposition. Noblemen, ambassadors and other great
.
,
people went to the public playhouses; but, while it is on record
that Elizabeth went to the Blackfriars, she is not known to
have ever visited the Globe. Private playhouses were completely
roofed over, and, though performances took place there in the
afternoons as in public playhouses, they were, occasionally at all
events, performed in artificial light, the windows being covered
over. Instead of the 'yard' filled with 'understanding' spectators
or 'groundlings,' there was a pit, with seats.
The evidence shows that a performance at court was very
different from a performance in a public or private playhouse.
It was for this honour, ostensibly, that the company worked all the
year, and, when the master of the revels had selected, after com-
petition, the companies and the plays they should perform, the
author was often called upon to revise his play; and the perform-
ance ended with prayers for the queen. Elizabeth's accounts show
an annual outlay for airing and furbishing up the court stock of
costumes and appliances, besides considerable expense for wires,
lights, properties and mechanical contrivances". The old domus
of the miracles survive in the 'painted houses' of the players at
1 On properties, see Reynolds, op. cit. , and his article, "Trees on the stage of Shake-
speare'in Modern Philology, vol. v, p. 153.
On this question, see Wallace, op. cit.
3 All the evidence has been collected by Feuillerat, A. , Documents relating to the
Office of the Revels.
6


## p. 271 (#289) ############################################

Costumes.
The Audience
271
court; and there can be little question that painted scenery was
not unknown! Under James I, great advances were achieved by
the arts of stage decoration and production through the masques
written by Ben Jonson and mounted by Inigo Jones; but the
public stage was little affected, if at all. Not until the return of
D'Avenant and other adherents of Charles I and II from France
and Italy, to be followed by Betterton's mission to Paris-not
until the drama became more nearly dependent on court favour
than it had been made even by the exclusive royal patronage of
companies on the accession of James I, did the public stage
make a corresponding advance; and then it drew its inspiration
from other sources. The main appeal to the eye in public
playhouses before the rebellion was made by the costumes of
actors. Now and then, as in miracles, a rudimentary attempt
at dramatic propriety in costume was made. For the most part,
players wore the ordinary dress of the day, some, even of the
male characters, appearing in wigs, and some—especially, it would
seem, in cases of disguise and of minor players acting more than
one part-having their faces concealed by masks. Makeshift and
errors of taste were not unknown even in London playhouses ;
but Henslowe's extant accounts show that the costumes were
splendid and costly-velvet, gold lace, copper lace and other
rich materials being freely used. The speaker of the prologue
appeared in a black cloak.
The creation of an atmosphere for the play (which is the aim
that modern stage production is endeavouring, often in strangely
inartistic fashion, to achieve by scenery) was left to the descriptive
words of the poet, the voice of the actor and the imagination of the
audience. The audience of those days must certainly be supposed
to have been more susceptible to the message to the ear, and less
to deficiencies in the message to the eye, than that of our own
time; but, while taking into account the larger part played by
the Elizabethan drama in intellectual life, we must be careful not
to credit the spectators with a much greater earnestness in the
playhouse. Abundant evidence proves that-what with the throng
of groundlings in the yard, intent mainly on the fighting and the
broader humour; what with the gallants making their way through
the tirehouse and lying or sitting on stools on the stage', smoking
the pipes which their pages filled for them, and intent on display-
ing themselves rather than on listening to the play; what with the
1 For distinct evidence of scene shifting in a university performance, see Nichols :
Progresses of King James 1, vol. 1, p. 538.
On this subject, see Wallace, op. cit. chap. XI.


## p. 272 (#290) ############################################

272
The Elizabethan Theatre
women of the town and their admirers in the galleries ; what with
here and there a Bobadill or Tucca ready to brawl at any moment
-the Elizabethan audience, whether in a public or in a private
playhouse, was not the rapt body of enthusiasts which later times
have been tempted to imagine it. It included, however, Walsing-
hams and Southamptons, refined and intellectual admirers of the
drama, and their numbers must have exceeded those of the Sidneys
who scoffed and of the Northbrookes who railed. It is impossible
to reconstruct past acting ; but it is safe to conclude that the
players whose duty it was to embody the creations of Shakespeare,
Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, to the satisfaction of the best
intellects of the reigns of Elizabeth and James, with practically no
scenic illusion to aid them, must have cultivated to a high degree
the arts both of declamation and of expressing character. The
improvement in the drama consequent on the coming of uni-
versity wits probably called forth a corresponding improvement
in the actor's art, and there is some evidence that a decline
in acting followed or accompanied the decline of the drama in
the seventeenth century. That declamation was often attended
by its besetting sin of rant is recorded in Hamlet's advice to the
players (Hamlet, act III, sc. 2) as well as in various passages of other
contemporary writers, which imply that the actors of the Fortune
(in its later days), the Red Bull and the Cockpit were great offenders
in this respect, and that the evil grew during the latter half of the
period. The player's response, however: 'I hope we have reform'd
that indifferently with us, Sir,' coupled with the admonition of
Hamlet, is pretty good evidence that, at the Globe, declamation
was not allowed to degenerate. As to the quality of the character
acting, the elegy on Richard Burbage shows how vivid this was at
its best; though, of course, it is impossible to tell how deeply, even
under Shakespeare's guidance, Burbage penetrated into the signi-
ficance of the characters he played. The evidence of Flecknoe,
who, in his Short Discourse of the English Stage (1664) praises
Burbage for a 'delightful Proteus' that maintained his character
throughout, even in the tyring-house,' must represent a tradition
and an ideal rather than the statement of an eyewitness. That
the female characters were all played in the playhouses by
boys, youths, or young men, generally implies, to modern minds,
incongruity and poor acting; but the popularity of boys'
companies goes to show that boys, when thoroughly trained, can
do better than we give them credit for today'. The spectacle,
1 See Wallace, op. cit. chaps, Iv and ix; and cf. Raleigh, W. , Shakespeare (1907),
pp. 119-120.
>


## p. 273 (#291) ############################################

Variety of Appeal
273
at any rate, must have been pleasanter than that of women
playing male parts, and 'squeaking Cleopatra' may have boyed
her greatness with better artistic effect than some actresses have
achieved
Much of the inequality in the plays of Shakespeare, as well
as of their popularity during his lifetime, can be explained by the
consideration that he wrote for a mixed audience, and succeeded
in pleasing all? . The appeal of his plays to the best intellects of
the time needs no showing. For the more intelligent of the
common spectators, in whose lives the drama filled the place now
occupied by the lending library, the press and, to some extent, the
pulpit, there was not only the strong story but the expression of
comment and criticism on many aspects of life and on facts of
the varied world, some of them only remotely connected with
the actual plot. For lovers of sport and action, there were ex-
hibitions of swordplay, wrestling and so forth, which the drama
had woven into its own texture, besides battles, murders and
other incidents which, as St Évremond noticed a century later, the
English public liked to see on the stage. For all amateurs of
wit, there were exhibitions or contests in punning and jesting-
another form of entertainment which the drama, to a great ex-
tent, absorbed into itself-ranging from the keen wordplay and
literary parody to the gross joke or hint for the groundlings.
That Shakespeare would willingly have dispensed with the latter,
we know from the passage in Hamlet referred to above. The
'gag' of the clown must have been the more annoying because
it was the common practice to conclude a performance, and some-
times to interrupt it, with a 'jig,' performed by Tarlton, Kemp,
Armin, or some other ‘fool'--an indispensable member of every
company_answering to the 'laughable farce' which followed the
tragedy until days within the memory of living men. To the
possible attractions of the playhouse must be added music, played
both during and between the acts. That at Blackfriars was
especially esteemed, as was, naturally, that of the children's com-
panies, and public theatres attempted to emulate their success
in this matter. Where the 'noise,' or orchestra, sat is not certain;
it was not till after the Restoration that it was placed between
the stage and the audience, and, in the period under notice, it
probably occupied in some playhouses the space marked orchestra
in the drawing of the Swan, perhaps on both sides of the stage.