THE ELIZABETHAN THEATER
In 1576, James Burbage, father of the great actor, Richard Burbage, and
himself a member of the Earl of Leicester's company, built the first
London playhouse, the Theater in Shoreditch. In the next year a second
playhouse, the Curtain, was erected nearby, and these seem to have
remained the only theaters until 1587-1588, when probably the Rose, on
the Bankside, was built by Henslowe. In 1599 Richard and Cuthbert
Burbage, after some difficulty over their lease, demolished the old
Theater and used the timber for the Globe, near the Rose, on the
Bankside. The Swan, another theater, had been built there in 1594,
somewhat to the west; and in 1614 the Hope was erected hard by the old
Rose and the new Globe, which in 1613 had replaced the old Globe.
Meantime the Fortune had been built by Henslowe and Alleyn in 1600 in
Golden Lane to the north of Cripplegate, on the model of the Globe, and
the Red Bull was erected in the upper end of St. John's Street about
1603-1607. These were all public theaters, open to the air, built of
wood, outside the city limits and the jurisdiction of the city
corporation.
Before the Theater, plays had been acted in various places about the
city, and especially in inn-yards, some of which long continued to be
used for dramatic performances. At an early date also, the companies of
children actors connected with the choirs of St. Paul's and the Queen's
Chapel had given public performances, probably indoors, at places near
St. Paul's and in Blackfriars. When the Burbages were in difficulties
about the Theater, they had leased certain rooms in the dismantled
monastery of Blackfriars, but had then released these to a company of
children which acted there for some years. In 1608 the Burbages regained
possession of this property, and Shakespeare's company began acting
there. This Blackfriars theater was known as a private theater in order
to avoid the application of certain statutes directed against the public
theaters, but it differed from them merely in being indoors, with
artificial lights, and higher prices. It was used by Shakespeare's
company as a winter theater, while the Globe served for summer
performances, and it was the model for various other private theaters,
two of which survived the Protectorate and became in turn the models for
the Restoration Theater. Drury Lane and Covent Garden, indeed, trace
their ancestry back directly to the Blackfriars through the Cockpit and
the Salisbury Court playhouses.
The companies of actors which occupied these theaters were cooeperative
organizations. Eight or ten actors formed a company, leased a theater,
hired supernumeraries, bought plays, and shared in the profits. In
Elizabeth's reign they secured a legal position by obtaining a license
from some nobleman, and so were known as the Earl of Leicester's men,
Lord Admiral's men, and so on. On the accession of James I, the leading
London companies were taken directly under patronage of members of the
royal family. During Shakespeare's time there were innumerable
companies, but the tendency was for the best actors to become associated
in a few companies, and for each company to keep to a particular
theater; so that at the accession of James I, there were only five adult
companies in London with permanent theaters. The best companies were
frequently employed to act at court, and during the summer or when the
plague was raging in London, they often toured the country. The
children's companies flourished from time to time, and especially from
1599-1607 they were, as we learn from _Hamlet_, formidable rivals of the
men.
[Page Heading: Companies of Actors]
The history of the adult companies shows the growth of two distinct
interests, that of Henslowe and Alleyn, and that of the Burbages.
Henslowe, whose diary is one of the chief documents for the history of
the theater, built the Rose, and in partnership with his son-in-law, the
famous actor Alleyn, controlled the Fortune and the Hope, and the
companies known as the Admiral's and the Earl of Worcester's men, and
later on the Queen's and the Prince's men. The Burbages owned the
Theater, the Globe, and the Blackfriars, and were in control of
Shakespeare's company. This company, at first the Earl of Leicester's
men, was known by the names of its various patrons, Strange's, Derby's,
Hunsdon's, and the Lord Chamberlain's, until in 1603 it became the
King's men. For a short time, as Lord Strange's men, it acted at the
Rose, and apparently later at the playhouse in Newington Butts, but its
regular theaters were the Theater, the Globe, and Blackfriars. With this
company Shakespeare was connected from the beginning, and he aided in
making it the chief London company. For a time, Alleyn and the Admiral's
men were its close rivals, but even before the accession of James I,
Shakespeare and Burbage had given it a supremacy that it maintained to
the closing of the theaters.
There are various pictures of the exterior of Elizabethan theaters in
the contemporary maps or views of London, the best representation of the
four Bankside theaters being the engraving of Hollar printed in the
Tudor edition of _Twelfth Night_. This was first published in
_Londinopolis_, 1657, but represents the Bankside as it was about 1620.
Four pictures of interiors have been preserved, that from Kirkman's
_Drolls_, those from the title-pages of _Roxana_ and _Messalina_, and
the DeWitt drawing of the Swan, reproduced in the Tudor Shakespeare, _1
Henry VI_. The drawing from Kirkman's _Drolls_ is usually known as the
Red Bull stage, but it was not issued until 1679, and does not seem to
have anything to do with the Red Bull or with any other regular
theater. The _Messalina_ and _Roxana_ pictures are small, and both show
a rear curtain and a projecting stage. The DeWitt drawing was done from
hearsay evidence, is inaccurate in details, and represents a theater
with a movable stage, probably not long regularly used for plays; it
gives little idea of the stage, but does afford a good general notion of
the interior of a public theater. The contract for the Fortune theater,
built on the model of the Globe, except that it was square instead of
octagonal, has been preserved and enables us to complete this view of
the interior in detail.
[Page Heading: Public Theaters]
The public theaters were usually round, or nearly round, wooden
buildings of three stories. These stories were occupied by tiers of
galleries encircling the pit, which was open to the air. The stage
projected halfway into the pit, and was provided with dressing rooms in
the rear, and a protecting roof overhead, supported in some cases by
pillars. At the top was the 'hut', a room used to provide apparatus for
raising and lowering persons or properties from the stage, Light when
needed was provided by torches. Admission to standing room in the pit
was usually only a penny, but seats in the gallery or boxes or on the
stage cost much more, rising as high as half a crown. Performances were
given on every fair day except Sunday, and a flag flying from the hut
indicated that a play was to be performed. Some of the public playhouses
were used for acrobats, fencing, or even bear-baiting as well as for
plays; but the better theaters, as the Globe and Fortune, seem to have
been limited to dramatic performances.
The size and arrangement of the stage doubtless varied somewhat with the
different theaters, and considerable changes seem to have been
introduced by the indoor private theaters. But the Curtain was used from
1577 to 1642, some new theaters were modeled closely on the old, and the
same plays were acted on different stages, so it is apparent that in all
the stage was the same in its main features. For clearness these may be
again enumerated. The stage was a platform projecting into the pit, open
on three sides, and without any front curtain. In the rear were two
doors, and between them, an alcove, or inner stage, separated from the
front stage by curtains. Above the inner stage was a gallery, also
provided with curtains, and over the doors were windows or balconies.
The arrangement of doors, inner stage, gallery, and curtain may have
varied somewhat, but the essential elements are a curtained space at the
rear, and a gallery above. Trap-doors were also provided, and the hut
overhead supplied the machinery for ascents and descents of gods and
goddesses.
[Page Heading: The Fortune Theater]
Our diagram for the ground floor of the Fortune shows a square-cornered
stage with doors flat on the rear, while the perspective drawing from
Dr. Albright's _Shaksperian Stage_ shows a tapering stage, as in the
_Messalina_ picture, with doors on the bias. Some stages may have had
rounded corners with doors in the side. The pillars were not necessary
in the private theaters; or in some public houses where other means were
found for supporting the roof.
[Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF THE FORTUNE THEATER
Dimensions: 80 ft. square on the outside; 55 ft. square on the inside,
the stage 43 ft. wide and extending to the middle of the pit.]
The performance of a play differed in many ways from one to-day. There
was no scenery and there were no women actors. Though scenes were used
in court performances as early as 1604, they do not seem to have been
employed by the professional companies to any extent until after the
Restoration. Female parts were taken by boys, and, except in plays acted
by the children's companies, there were rarely more than two important
female characters in a play. Though without scenery, the Elizabethan
stage was by no means devoid of spectacle. Processions, battles, all
kinds of mythological beings, ascents to heaven, descents to hell,
fire-works, and elaborate properties, were employed. Numerous
contemporary plays indicate that neither the fairyland of _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_, nor the magnificent court of _Henry VIII_, was
devised without an eye to the resources of the stage. Large sums of
money were lavished on costumes, the cost of a coat often exceeding the
price paid an author for a play. Costume was anachronistic; Cleopatra
was impersonated by a boy in stays and farthingale; and Caesar, probably
by Burbage, in a costume much like that worn by the Earl of Essex. Some
attention, however, was paid to appropriateness. Shepherds were clothed
in white, hunters in green; and doubtless mermaids, fairies, Venuses,
and satyrs were given as appropriate a dress as fancy could devise. The
action of a play seems usually to have been completed in two hours.
There was sometimes music between the acts, but there were no long
waits, and little stage business.
[Page Heading: Stage Presentation]
The peculiarities in the presentation of a play due to the arrangement
of the stage were considerable, and have been the subject of much
discussion and misunderstanding among investigators. There is, however,
no doubt that the action was largely on the front stage, and that most
of the scenes, at least in Shakespeare's lifetime, were designed for
presentation on this projecting platform. Since there was no
drop-curtain, actors had some distance to traverse, on entrances and
exits, between the doors and the front. At the end of a scene or a play,
all must retire, and the bodies of the dead must be carried out. Hence a
tragedy often ends with a funeral procession, a comedy with a dance. The
indications of scene supplied by modern editors for Shakespeare's plays
help to visualize a modern presentation, but are misleading as to
Shakespeare's intentions or an Elizabethan performance. The majority of
scenes in his plays differ strikingly from those in a modern play in
that they offer no hints as to the exact locality. Often it is not clear
from the text whether the scene is conceived as indoors or outdoors, in
the palace, or the courtyard, or before the entrance. Even when the
scene is presumably within a room, there is often no indication of the
nature of the furnishings, never any of the elaborate attention to
details of setting, such as we find in a play by Pinero or Shaw.
Sometimes placards were hung up indicating the scene of a play, but
apparently these merely gave the general scene, as "Venice" or "Verona,"
and did not often designate localities more closely. In fact the
majority of the scenes were probably written with no precise conception
of their setting. They were written to be acted on a front stage, bare
of scenery, projecting out into the audience. This did not represent a
particular locality, but rather any locality whatever.
The inner stage and the gallery above, and to some extent the doors and
the windows, were used to indicate specific localities when these were
necessary. The gallery represented the wall of a town, an upper story of
a house, or any elevated locality. The doors represented doors to houses
or gates to a city, and the windows or balconies over them were often
used for the windows of the houses. The inner stage was used in various
ways to indicate a specific locality requiring properties, and this use
apparently increased as time went on, and especially in the indoor,
artificially lighted private theaters. In any case, however, when the
curtains were opened, the inner stage became a part of the main stage,
and while action might take place there, it might also serve as a
background for action proceeding in the front. Properties could be
brought on and off the inner stage, behind the closed curtains, hence
large properties were confined to its precincts. Furniture, as chairs,
tables, or even beds, could, however, be pushed or carried out from the
inner to the outer stage. A play might be given on the front stage
without using the curtained recess at all, but numerous references to
curtains make it clear that the inner stage was used from the early days
of the theater.
[Page Heading: Inner Stage]
The uses of the inner stage have been much discussed and are still in
dispute, but they may be summarized briefly. _First_, the inner stage
was used for a specific, restricted, and usually propertied locality--a
cave, a study, a shop, a prison. _Second_, the inner stage was used for
scenes requiring discovery or tableaux. Numerous stage directions
indicate the drawing of the curtains to present a scene set on the inner
stage, as Bethsabe at her bath, Friar Bungay in bed with his magical
apparatus about him, Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess. _Third_, the
use of the inner stage was extended so that it represented any
propertied background, especially for scenes in a forest, church, or
temple. In _As You Like It_, for example, the last four acts are located
in the Forest of Arden. "This is the Forest of Arden," says Rosalind as
soon as she arrives there; and even before this, Duke senior alludes to
"these woods," and later we learn that there are practicable trees on
which Orlando hangs his verses. The forest setting, consisting of trees
and rocks, was placed on the inner stage and served to give a scenic
background. Of course, different places in the forest are to be
presumed, but one forest background would be sufficient for all. In the
course of the four acts, however, there are three scenes (II. ii; II.
iii; III. i) that are not in the forest, but at unspecified and
unpropertied places about the palace and Oliver's house. For these
scenes the curtain would be closed, shutting off the forest background
and transferring the spectators to the unspecified localities of Act I,
_i.e._, to the bare front stage. _Fourth._ An extension of this last use
made it possible to employ the curtain to indicate change of scene.
Several scenes, where no heavy properties were required, might succeed
one another on the front stage with the curtains closed; but the opening
of the curtains would reveal a special background and a manifest change
of scene. One instance of this use of the inner stage is seen in the
immediate change from an outdoor to an indoor scene, or _vice versa_.
The scene is in the street, _i.e._, on the front stage; the person
knocks at one of the doors and is admitted to a house; when he
reappears, it is through the inner stage, the curtains of which have
been drawn, disclosing the setting of a room. Or this process is
reversed. In _A Yorkshire Tragedy_, there is an interesting case of such
an alternation from indoors to outdoors, with one character remaining on
the stage all of the time. A more extensive use of this "alternation"
could be employed to indicate marked changes of place. As long as the
action remains in Venice, the bare front stage will do, but a transfer
to Portia's house at Belmont can be made by means of the curtains and
the inner stage. In the later plays at the private theaters this use of
the inner stage, then better lighted, seems to have increased,
especially in the change from a street or general hall to special
apartments.
[Page Heading: Evolution of the Theater]
These uses of the inner stage, together with that of the upper stage or
gallery, gave a chance for considerable variety in the action, and
rendered the rapid succession of scenes less bewildering than one would
at first suppose. Shakespeare's stage was the outcome of the peculiar
conditions of acting by professionals in the sixteenth century, but it
was also a natural step in the evolution from the medieval to the modern
stage. On the medieval stage there was a neutral place or _platea_ and
special localized and propertied places called _sedes_, _domus_, _loca_.
On the Elizabethan stage the front stage is the _platea_, the inner and
upper stages the _domus_ or _loca_. In the Restoration theater the
scenery was placed on the inner stage and shut off from the outer stage
by a curtain. With the use of scenery, the inner stage became more
important, and the projecting apron of the front stage was gradually cut
down. The proscenium doors in front of the curtain long survived their
original use as entrances, but, as a rule, they have now finally
disappeared with the front stage. The modern picture-frame stage of
to-day is the evolution of the inner stage of the Elizabethans.
Similarly the method of stage presentation has changed only gradually
from Shakespeare's day to ours. The alternation from outer to inner
stage was very common in the Restoration theaters, where flat scenes
were used instead of a curtain, and it may still be seen in the
production of melodrama or of Shakespeare's plays. A painted drop shuts
off a few feet of the stage, which becomes a street or a hall, while
properties and scenery are being arranged in the rear. When the drop
goes up, we pass from the street or the court of the wicked Duke to the
Forest of Arden, just as the Elizabethans did.
The Elizabethan stage affected Shakespeare's dramatic art in many ways.
The absence of scenery, of women actors, and of a front curtain, the use
of a bare stage that served for neutral or unspecified localities,
naturally influenced the composition of every play. But the theatrical
presentation was by no means as crude or as medieval as these
differences from modern practice seem to indicate. The intimacy
established between actors and audience by the projecting stage, the
rapidity of action hastened by the lack of scenery or furniture, the
possibilities of rapid changes of scene rendered intelligible by the use
of the inner stage, were all manifest advantages in encouraging dramatic
invention. The traditions formed in this theater for the presentation of
_Hamlet_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and the other plays, were handed on from
Shakespeare and Burbage to Lowin and Taylor, to Betterton, Cibber, and
Garrick, down to the present day; and have perhaps been less
revolutionized by scenery and electric lights than we might imagine.