THE STAGE IN SHAKESPEARE'S DAY
When Shakespeare was at work the women of the plays were represented by
men or boys. In the highest society the Elizabethan women might take
some part in masques or pageants without rebuke, but the appearance of a
woman on the public stage in Shakespeare's day would have aroused
something like the emotion that would be caused by the appearance of a
Moslem woman unveiled in the chief thoroughfare of a fanatical
Mohammedan city, or a suffragist in the House of Commons. Costumes were
those of the day. Just as the great painters of Italy dressed the heroes
and heroines of Bible story in the contemporary costume, so the actor of
Shakespeare's time did no more than wear the best Elizabethan clothes he
could assume. Scenery was unknown. The front curtain, opening in the
middle, revealed a bare stage with perhaps a balcony at the back. This
was sometimes used by the actors, but where the play did not require a
balcony, visitors to the play would find their places there, just as at
the Queen's Hall, when a piano or violin recital is given, the orchestra
is sometimes added to the auditorium. A trumpet flourish warned
playgoers that the curtain was about to rise, and between the acts a
small company of musicians helped the interval to pass.
=GUILD CHAPEL AND SCHOOL=
It was not until the celebrated Inigo Jones designed scenery for certain
masques given at the Court of King James that the traditional bareness
of the boards was covered, and it was not until the time of Charles II.
that women began to make their appearance upon the boards and unite the
stage with the second estate. Many writers have emphasised the
difficulties besetting the Elizabethan dramatist; Sir Philip Sidney
himself has apologised to the spectator for the heavy overdraft on his
imagination, and we have but to consider some of the most striking
moments in our poet's work to realise what they must have lost under the
Elizabethan tradition. How could bare boards conjure up a vision of
Juliet's garden, of the wood "outside Athens" in which Titania and
Oberon met, of Prospero's island, of the Forest of Arden? How could any
boy, however smoothly spoken, present a Rosalind, a Juliet, a Miranda,
or Cordelia? While we wonder at these things, it is well to remember
that to those who have never eaten wheat, acorns may prove very
satisfactory fare. The tradition of the theatre being so strictly
circumscribed, nobody could imagine anything better than bare boards,
boy heroines, and modern costumes. There are many sound judges of stage
matters to-day who are very strongly of the opinion that we have
travelled too far in the opposite direction, that by reason of costly
mounting, extravagant costumes, alluring music, and the rest, we are no
longer able to maintain that "the play's the thing." Doubtless the need
for the finest possible expression of thought, and the knowledge that
his words must carry the full burden of success, stimulated not only
Shakespeare, but every dramatist of the great Elizabethan age.
There was one special advantage attaching to the limitation of stage
equipment--touring was a simple matter. When we remember that three or
even four days were required to travel on horseback from London to
Stratford-on-Avon, owing to the bad tracks that enjoyed the courtesy
title of roads, and the fords that must be crossed out of flood time, it
is easy to see that no part of the cumbersome equipment of the modern
stage could have been taken far out of London without vast and
unremunerative labour. But the Elizabethan actor travelled light, and as
soon as the fine weather came he would leave London for the country, and
tour in all manner of unexpected places until autumn warned him home,
because it was no longer possible to pass from town to town.
To turn up the old touring list of the Elizabethan companies is to find
special attention given to towns of which no town is on the first
touring list to-day. Saffron Walden (the quaint market-town in Essex,
that opposed the coming of the Great Eastern Railway, and is now served
by a little branch line), Rye in Sussex (then probably a seaport of some
dimensions), Marlborough, Coventry, Oxford, Faversham, Hythe, Bath, New
Romney, Folkestone--here are some of the cities or towns that the
touring companies delighted to honour in the best season of the year.
There is ample evidence to show that some companies crossed the border
into Scotland, and that others went still farther afield--to France,
Germany, Austria, and other countries. Probably these companies were
sent abroad by their patrons and supporters, and were consequently
assured of a hearing and adequate remuneration. It is hardly probable
that the conditions of continental travel would have been favourable
enough, or the security for life and property great enough, to tempt
even third-rate English actors oversea unless they had a definite
programme and an assured welcome.
Some have thought that Shakespeare in his acting days travelled on the
Continent, or at least into Scotland, but modern expert opinion does not
accept the suggestion; it rather inclines to the belief that the poet
did no more than make a small provincial tour. As far as the Continent
is concerned, his quaint ideas of French pronunciation and European
geography should do much to settle the question with regard to these
countries. His references to Denmark in "Hamlet" are no more than he
could have founded on a brief chat with actors who had been there. Then,
again, the period of his active and sole association with the actor's
profession was brief; he soon became playwright and manager as well, too
busy to stir far beyond the boundaries of London until the time came
when he could enjoy his brief period of well-earned ease. Dr. Sidney Lee
says that the name of Shakespeare does not appear in any known list of
the actors who travelled from England between 1580 and 1630, a period
more than sufficient to cover the debatable years. Against this must be
set the fact that the name appears in certain records of the town of
Aberdeen as that of a member of a travelling company visiting the city
in the period covered by Dr. Lee's investigations.
Despite an infinity of research, the figure of William Shakespeare in
London remains very dim. He is reputed to have been a good actor; but
Richard Burbage the tragedian and William Kemp the comedian were greater
actors than he. He played with them before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich
Palace, in a couple of scenes designed to celebrate Christmas. We are
told that he took the part of the Ghost in a performance of his own
"Hamlet" and the part of old Adam in "As You Like It." These very brief
glimpses into his life as an actor are the more unsatisfactory because
he remained a player long after he had achieved greatness as a
playwright. When he left the boards it was to return to
Stratford-on-Avon and live the retired life. It may be taken for
granted, then, that his talents as an actor were not in any way
extraordinary, or those who witnessed his rising fame as a dramatist
would have left some record of his other work. His advice to the players
in "Hamlet" is often and justly quoted in evidence of the attention he
had given to the theory of the acting art, but there is evidence to be
found in the Sonnets to show that he did not admire himself as an actor.
Some very recent research in the Record Office shows that the poet
lodged with a family of French Huguenots named Mountjoy, at the corner
of Monkwell Street and Silver Street, in the City of London, where a
public-house called the Coopers' Arms now stands.
=HOLY TRINITY CHURCH AND THE AVON--STRATFORD=
As far as we can tell, the poet had been five years in London before he
started upon his life-work, and he entered the arena of the playwright
at the age of twenty-seven. His methods were his own. The stories and
legends that other men had set down, often crudely, in form of
chronicle, or even of a play, he melted in the crucible of his own brain
and gave back in a new and beautiful form. The play can be traced to its
source, whether that source be a _novellino_ of Masuccio, or Holinshed's
"Chronicles," or Plutarch's Lives in North's translation, from which
some passages are copied _in extenso_. The poet himself would seem to
have had but little consciousness of the worth of his own work. In his
time plays were not published. Publication was supposed to destroy the
playgoer's interest in the work presented, and many Elizabethan plays
owe their survival to the happy accident that enabled some unscrupulous
person to collect a set of the actors' parts and print them, in order
either to dispose of the acting rights for private use, or to derive the
ordinary profits of the sale. When a play was written for and bought by
a manager, it became his absolute property. He could request the author
to rewrite or modify passages deemed ineffective; he could even call in
another man to tinker the work, unrestrained and unrebuked. It is
supposed that Shakespeare first showed his great parts as a dramatist in
improving other men's work for Manager Burbage, and that this constant
exercise of talent upon reproductions, the most of which are absolutely
unknown to us, paved the way for the development of his gift upon
original or quasi-original work.