Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599-1609

by Bernard Beckerman

INTRODUCTION

From 1599 to 1608 or 1609 the Globe playhouse was the home of the Chamberlain-King’s company and the only theater where it publicly presented its plays in London. The Globe was imitated by Henslowe, the theater magnate, and lauded by Dekker, the playwright. Upon its stage Shakespeare’s major tragedies enjoyed their first performances. Located among the stews and marshes of the Bankside, it drew across the Thames its audience, men and women, gentlemen and journeymen, sightseeing foreigners and native playgoers.

Yet for us the playhouse signifies more than a physical structure for the presentation of plays. It has become the symbol of an entire art. Its construction initiated a glorious decade during which the company achieved a level of stability and a quality of productivity rarely matched in the history of the theater. So rich was the achievement that virtually all interest in the Elizabethan drama radiates from the work of these years.

Circumstances attendant on the building of the Globe playhouse were instrumental in developing the distinctiveness of this endeavor. The new playhouse itself was regarded as the last word in theaters. Alleyn and Henslowe modeled the Fortune upon it. Dekker, in a widely known paragraph from The Gull’s Hornbook, praised the wonder of it. In the design of the Globe there were significant changes from former playhouses. It was a theater built by actors for actors. To subsidize it a new financial system was instituted which more fully than heretofore interrelated theater and actors.

Furthermore, young men had recently taken over the entire enterprise, playhouse and company. Until 1597 James Burbage had maintained some connection with the Lord Chamberlain’s men. Builder and owner of the Theatre, lessor of Blackfriars, he had exercised a strong influence on the course the company took. In the midst of the uncertainty marking the negotiation for a new lease on the Theatre, James Burbage died, bequeathing to his sons and, by association, to the actors an equivocal inheritance. From his death in 1597 to the building of the Globe in 1599, the company was adrift, playing mainly at the Curtain. How much responsibility and authority the elder Burbage had relinquished to the young men before 1597 is virtually impossible to determine, but the records indicate that he played an active part in the management of theatrical affairs until the end of his life.[1] After his death the erection and success of the Globe devolved upon young, presumably enthusiastic, but not green men of the theater.

At this time Shakespeare, even then the leading playwright of the Lord Chamberlain’s men, was passing into a new phase of dramatic activity. The major tragedies were soon to come from his pen. The romantic comedies, in a style which he had developed earlier, were shortly to reach their perfection in Twelfth Night. The histories were to appear no longer. None of the plays written between 1600 and 1609 was considered a history by the editors of the First Folio. Since Henry V, dated 1599, probably appeared before the completion of the Globe, Shakespeare wrote no history play for the Globe company. On the other hand, Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet are the only plays, written before the opening of the Globe, which were labeled tragedies. Such categorization is somewhat artificial, but it does accentuate the fact that the settlement of the company at the Globe was followed shortly by a shift of emphasis in Shakespeare’s work.

One more significant change occurred at this time. Either a dispute with his fellows or an irrepressible wanderlust led the leading clown, Will Kempe, to break with the company. Apparently before the stage of the Globe was painted and the spectators admitted, he severed his connection with the Lord Chamberlain’s men, though he had been among the original five who had taken a moiety of the lease on the projected playhouse. After his departure, there followed a period of great stability in the acting company. In the entire decade there were only two replacements, owing to the deaths of actors, and three additions with an expansion from nine to twelve members in 1603.

This nexus of events does not necessarily prove that there was a stylistic or artistic change in 1599. Nor does it imply that little in procedure, tradition, and equipment was carried over from the Theatre and the Curtain to the Globe. But it does indicate that circumstance and planning combined to modify the character of the enterprise, to make it not merely a continuation of the past but the start of a new theatrical endeavor. As such, the opening of the Globe serves as an excellent point of departure for a special study of the company sometimes dubbed “Shakespeare’s” but in this book termed “the Globe.”

In 1608–1609 the King’s men, acquiring the private indoor theater of Blackfriars, brought the distinctive period to a close, for with the leasing of Blackfriars, according to Professor Gerald Bentley, came a change of outlook.[2] He emphasizes two major factors which led to this change. First, the audience at the private theater differed markedly from that at the public playhouse: the former audience was sophisticated and exclusive whereas the latter was rude and representative. The contrast has been fully elaborated by Alfred Harbage in Shakespeare and the Rival Traditions. Secondly, the indoor theater, relatively intimate, lit by candles, required an alteration in style of acting and provided a subtler control of mood. To substantiate the theory that the King’s men faced these differences squarely, Bentley cites the employment of Jonson, skilled in writing for Blackfriars and the Children of the Queen’s Revels; the appearance of a new type of play from the leading playwright, now writing with Blackfriars in mind; and the engagement of Beaumont and Fletcher, neither of whom had previously written for this company. Altogether the events grouped around the move to Blackfriars indicate that then too a new start was made, and Bentley convincingly demonstrates that within a short time Blackfriars became the leading playhouse for the King’s men in point of prestige and profit.

Until now I have alluded rather generally to the building of the Globe in 1599 and to the acquisition of Blackfriars in 1608–1609. Since the assignment of several plays depends upon a more exact dating, there is a need to arrive at more precise limits.

Shortly after the 26th of February, 1599, construction of the Globe commenced under the supervision of Peter Streete, the man with whom Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn contracted a year later to erect the Fortune theater along the same lines. From Streete’s building schedule for the Fortune, we can estimate that the Globe took twenty-eight to thirty weeks to complete, and thus the earliest opening date would have been in late August or early September, 1599.[3]

At the Blackfriars playing by the King’s men began sometime between June 24, 1608, when the company took a lease of the premises, and the autumn of 1609, when the decline of a severe plague permitted a resumption of playing. In January, 1609, the players received a reward from His Majesty “for their private practise in the time of infeccon.” Testimony by Richard Burbage and John Heminges in 1612 indicates that playing commenced some time during the winter of 1608–1609. A temporary reduction of plague deaths in February and March, 1609, makes this the likely period during which Shakespeare and his fellows first played at Blackfriars and so terminated the Globe years.[4]

In the main the canon of Shakespeare’s plays produced between 1599 and 1609 is set. Several plays are in dispute, but on the whole, considering the nature of much of the evidence, the degree of unanimity among scholars is amazing.[5]

Of about nine of the plays sufficient external evidence exists to verify their placement between 1599 and 1608. There is general agreement that Platter is referring to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar when he describes a performance on September 21, 1599. Its absence from Meres’ list places it after September 7, 1598, and Chambers dates the play 1599–1600. Twelfth Night, first mentioned in connection with a performance at the Middle Temple, February 2, 1602, is variously dated 1599 to 1601. Suggestions of an initial performance at the Middle Temple by Wilson and at Whitehall by Hotson do not affect the assignment of date and need not be discussed here.[6] Despite several attempts to force back the date of the first draft of Hamlet to 1583, the year 1601 is still the accepted date for the play as we know it. In an essay in 1944 Chambers confirmed his dating which appeared in William Shakespeare (1930). Wilson supports this date, and Gray and Kirschbaum have argued against the use of Harvey’s marginalia as evidence of an earlier date.[7]

Troilus and Cressida was written before February 7, 1603, when it is listed in the Stationers’ Register “as yt is acted by my lo: Chamblens men.” The implication is of a recent appearance, but Hotson has made an attempt to set the date back before 1598. The nub of his argument is that the enigmatic title “Love’s Labour’s Won,” which appears under Shakespeare’s name in Meres’ list, really means “Love’s Pains Are Gained,” thus fitting the subject of Troilus and Cressida.[8] This line of reasoning has yet to win support.

The upper limits of Othello, Measure for Measure, and King Lear are set by their performances at Court on November 1, 1604, December 26, 1604, and December 26, 1606, respectively. The lower limits are unknown, but no responsible authority has suggested dating any of these plays before 1602.[9]

The limits for Antony and Cleopatra are set at the upper end by the listing in the Stationers’ Register of May 20, 1608, and at the lower by Daniel’s corrections to his Cleopatra in the new edition of Certain Small Workes (1607). On the same day on which the entry for Antony and Cleopatra was inserted, Pericles was registered. This play, however, had been witnessed by the Venetian ambassador sometime between January 5, 1606, and November 23, 1608.[10]

Stylistic evidence or contemporary allusion serves to date four plays in this period. All’s Well That Ends Well is dated in 1602–1603 by Chambers, in 1602 by Kittredge and Harbage; all do so on stylistic evidence. Allusions to the doctrine of equivocation (II, iii, 9-13) place Macbeth in 1606, and this date is widely accepted.[11] Stylistic evidence leads most scholars to place Timon of Athens in 1607–1608, and this type of evidence, combined with allusions of a tenuous nature, leads them to assign Coriolanus to 1608.

Several plays are on the borderline at either end of the period. As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry V were “staid” from printing according to the Stationers’ Register entry of August 4, 1600. Since none of them appears in Meres’ listing in 1598, they all fall within the two-year intervening period. In dating As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing there is very little evidence for narrowing the period. The appearance of Kemp’s name in speech prefixes in Much Ado (IV, ii) places it before the opening of the Globe. O. J. Campbell points out that As You Like It must have been written after the edict against satire on July 1, 1599. These facts, together with the general consensus, lead me to include As You Like It in the 1599–1608 repertory and to exclude Much Ado.

Henry V is more narrowly limited by the allusions to Essex’s campaign in Ireland (Chorus, V, 30-34). The commencement of the campaign was on March 27, 1599, the sad conclusion on September 28, 1599. Since the Globe did not open until the end of August or early September, the weight of the evidence excludes Henry V. It also excludes Cymbeline at the end of the decade. Mentioned first by Simon Forman, who saw a performance between April 20th and 30th, 1611, the play is variously dated in 1609 or 1610. The earliest date suggested by Chambers is the spring of 1609.

One play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, remains in dispute. Despite the conflict with testimony from Meres, Hotson places the first performance of Merry Wives on April 23, 1597, when it was supposedly performed for the Knights of the Garter at Windsor. Alexander accepts this date.[12] Chambers, Kittredge, and Harbage date the play in 1600–1601, and Chambers points out the appearance of a line from Hamlet, “What is the reason that you use me thus?” (V, i, 312) in scene xiii of the bad quarto of Merry Wives (1602). On this basis and in the absence of any appropriate time when the play could have been performed before the Queen at a Garter installation, Chambers dates the play in 1600–1601. McManaway admits that many questions about the play are unanswerable at present, although he grants that there may have been revisions over a period of years beginning as early as 1597. Nevertheless, as he notes, its absence from Meres’ list still remains a bar to an early dating. Consequently, we may treat it as part of the list of new plays written for the Globe playhouse.[13]

For supplementary evidence about the staging of Shakespeare’s plays at the Globe, we turn to the pieces of his less gifted colleagues who supplied the Globe company with scripts. Twelve plays are extant which we know or have reason to believe were performed only by the Chamberlain’s or King’s men between 1599 and 1609. Of these, three were written by Jonson: Every Man Out of His Humour, Sejanus, and Volpone. The first was written “in the yeere 1599” according to the 1616 Folio, and the revised epilogue refers to presentation at the Globe. Sejanus, according to Jonson, was “acted, in the yeere 1603. By the K. Maiesties Servants.” Volpone, again according to Jonson, was acted “in the yeere 1605. By the K. Maiesties Servants.”

Barnes, Wilkins, and possibly Tourneur each contributed one play to the King’s men’s repertory now extant. Barnes provided The Devil’s Charter, played before the King “by his Maiesties Servants” on February 2, 1607.[14] Wilkins supplied Miseries of Enforced Marriage. Q. 1607 contains the advertisement “As it is now played by his Maiesties Servants.” The Revenger’s Tragedy, uncertainly linked with Tourneur’s name, appeared in quarto with the inscription: “As it hath beene sundry times Acted, by the Kings Maiesties Servants.” Chambers dates the play 1606–1607.

The remaining six plays are all anonymous and all ascribe production to the Chamberlain’s or King’s men on the title pages of their quartos. A Larum for London was registered on May 27, 1600, and printed in 1602. Thomas Lord Cromwell was registered August 11, 1602, “as it was lately acted.”[15] Fair Maid of Bristow, entered in the Stationers’ Register February 8, 1605, is dated 1604 by Chambers. The London Prodigal appeared in quarto in 1605 and was probably produced in 1603–1605. The Merry Devil of Edmonton, although registered on October 22, 1607, is mentioned in T. M.’s Black Book in 1604. Chambers dates the play about 1603. Lastly, A Yorkshire Tragedy, entered May 2, 1608, may have been written a year or two earlier.[16]

The final additions to the 1599–1608 repertory consist of two plays which were presented by the Chamberlain-King’s men as well as by another company. The first, Dekker’s Satiromastix, presented between the production of Poetaster in the spring of 1601 and its entry in the Stationers’ Register on November 11th of that year, contains on the Q. 1602 title page the information that it had been “presented publikely by the ... Lord Chambelaine his Servants; and privately, by the Children of Paules.” Certainly this was unusual procedure and must be taken into consideration in applying the play to Globe stage conditions. The second, Marston’s The Malcontent, dated 1604, was “found” and played by the King’s men, presumably in retaliation for the theft of one of their plays by the Children of the Queen’s Revels. The title page and induction of Q. 1604 refer to additions by Marston and Webster in order to accommodate the play to an adult company. About the status of The First Part of Jeronimo, the stolen play, it is difficult to be exact. Boas dates the play after 1600.[17] Since the extant Q. 1605 may reflect the copy of the Revels’ production, Jeronimo has been cited for supplementary evidence only.

Thus, the final list of extant works first produced at the Globe playhouse between 1599 and 1609—the Globe plays—consists of fifteen Shakespearean and fourteen non-Shakespearean plays. Upon the evidence of these scripts, the bulk of this study is based.

Chapter One
THE REPERTORY

The magnificent dramas of Shakespeare that assumed flesh and motion upon the Globe stage in its golden decade shared the boards with hack plays, near cousins to the present-day soap operas and grade-B westerns. It is easy to forget that the company which produced Hamlet also presented The London Prodigal, and that the same Burbage who shook the super-flux as Lear may well have portrayed the ranting, melodramatic husband of A Yorkshire Tragedy, a model indeed of a figure tearing a passion to tatters. Masterpieces and minor pieces followed one another in rapid succession in the same playhouse, and the customs of their production were the result of a single repertory system.

Among the various contending works on Shakespearean stage production the one subject that is invariably neglected is this repertory system. And yet, an understanding of how a theatrical company goes about the business of presenting its plays is a necessary step in working out a theory of staging. Who sees the show and who pays the bill more often determine the possibilities of production than other high-minded considerations. To know what the Elizabethan repertory system was and how it operated requires the answers to certain basic questions: How many performances was a play likely to receive? In what sequence were these performances given? How long did a play remain in repertory? How long were the rehearsal periods for new plays? How many roles did an actor have to command at one time? Where were new plays first presented? In essence, all these questions can be contained in one all-embracing question: How did an acting company market its wares? for let us remember that in the Elizabethan theater we find one of the earliest examples of theater as a commercial enterprise.

The pattern of performing which I call the repertory system came into being with the appearance of the first permanent playhouses. Their erection in London was a sign that the actors had discovered the means as well as the possibility of gaining the patronage of the large city populace for long periods of time. No longer did the players have to be nomads. No longer was it necessary for a handful of sharers with their apprentices and hired men to trudge from village to village in order to find paying audiences. After 1570 the nomadic troupes that played London for short engagements matured into resident companies that toured occasionally. Though even the most illustrious of the companies continued to travel in the provinces when conditions demanded, their welfare and status were tied to the fortunes of the public playhouses. Touring was an act of desperation. That way lay poverty. Well-being depended upon permanence and permanence depended upon the effective exploitation of the potential audience.

Naturally not every Londoner was a playgoer. The average play might have been witnessed by 30,000 people over a period of a year and a half. The assumption here is that the play performed to a capacity audience, each member of which saw the play once. More likely, however, not more than 15,000 to 20,000 people saw the average play. To calculate the size of the usual theater-going populace in London is difficult. One conclusion is evident, however. Given the capacity of the public playhouse, somewhat between two and three thousand persons, the companies had to change their bills frequently if they were to attract sufficient spectators. Their practices in doing so are the bases of the repertory system.

By 1599, the year in which the Globe playhouse was constructed, these practices were well established. A five-year period of growth in the theater preceded the construction of the Globe. A decade of relative stability in theatrical affairs followed. During those years it may not have appeared to the professional players that the time was settled, for a serious plague in 1603 severely curtailed playing schedules and lively competition from the children’s companies drew customers to the private theaters after 1600. But a retrospective survey of the years from 1599 to 1609 makes it evident that the decade was one of peak prosperity for the public theaters.

From 1597 to 1602 the Lord Chamberlain’s men and the Lord Admiral’s men shared a virtual monopoly of public stage presentation. In 1597 the production of The Isle of Dogs by Pembroke’s men had aroused the ire of the Privy Council, for what offense it is not now clear. One of the authors, Nashe, fled; Ben Jonson, either as part-author or as actor, together with two other actors, was imprisoned for some months. On July 28 all plays were prohibited. Disastrous as this event was for the Pembroke’s men, it served to strengthen the Lord Admiral’s and Lord Chamberlain’s men, for in a minute of the Privy Council, dated February 19, 1598, they alone of the men’s companies were permitted to play in London. Not until 1602 was the monopoly successfully challenged. In that year Worcester’s men received permission to perform in London, and in actuality became a party to a new tripartite monopoly. Final confirmation of their privileges came in 1603–1604 when the Stuart family, drawing the theater under its patronage, dispensed royal patents to each of them.

A fourth company to receive a patent was the Children of the Queen’s Revels. The patent is proof that the competition of the private theaters was a serious matter. For several years between 1600 and 1605 the boys and their literary foster fathers had achieved a fashionable popularity. But by 1606 the most successful of these troupes, the Children of the Queen’s Revels, seems to have forfeited the protection of Her Majesty. Whatever may have been the reasons, the children’s companies never were able to maintain the continuity of the men’s companies.

From time to time throughout the decade minor adult companies drifted into London, played several performances, and departed. An Earl of Derby’s company appeared at Court for three performances in 1600 and 1601, thereafter passing into the provinces whence they had come. Henslowe records two performances by Pembroke’s men on October 28-30, 1600. No further word is heard of them. One performance at Court, on January 6, 1603, is noted for Hertford’s men, otherwise a provincial company. But no professional group successfully challenged the supremacy of these three leading companies which, in the course of the decade, became entrenched in their grand playhouses: the Chamberlain-King’s men at the Globe, the Admiral-Prince’s men at the Fortune in 1600, and the Worcester-Queen’s men at the Red Bull about 1605.

Concerning two of these companies, the Lord Admiral’s and Worcester’s, there is substantial evidence of the ways in which they functioned. The evidence appears in the diary of Philip Henslowe, wherein he noted dealings with both companies. The bulk of the records pertains to the Admiral’s company, for which we have performance lists from 1592 to 1597 and debit accounts from 1597 to 1603. Records of Worcester’s men appear for a shorter time in Henslowe’s Diary, but the material, debit accounts from 1602–1603, reveals that both companies operated in essentially the same ways.

For the third of these companies, the Lord Chamberlain’s men, no similar body of evidence exists. The law cases involving Heminges with Witter and Thomasina Ostler reveal the presence of a unique financial arrangement in this company, yet one which continued alongside the traditional theatrical organization. Like the other public companies, the Lord Chamberlain’s men were organized into a partnership of sharers who managed and maintained the group. As sharers they purchased plays, bought costumes, hired actors, tiremen, and bookkeepers, paid licensing fees, rented a theater, shared profits and expenses, and carried on the manifold duties of a theatrical enterprise. The novelty of the arrangement was that the company rented the theater from some of its own members. Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillips, John Heminges, Thomas Pope, in varying proportions, owned profitable shares in the Globe playhouse. This overlapping of proprietary interests may tend to obscure the actual similarity of the Chamberlain’s theatrical organization to that of its rivals, for though the financing of the companies differed, the system of management was the same.

Evidence pertaining to actual performances by the Lord Chamberlain’s men is rare. What clues we have take the form partly of letters or notes discovered among nontheatrical documents and concerned only secondarily with the stage and partly of records of Court performances or title pages of texts that provide us with occasional information about what was appearing on the boards of the Globe. Alone, these items bear little weight. Their principal value lies in their agreement with the conditions reflected in Henslowe’s Diary, and it is to this source that we must turn to secure a picture of how plays were produced in the Elizabethan age.[1]

The theatrical periods for which Henslowe kept records cannot be considered seasons in the modern sense. During the severe plague of 1592–1594, playing all but ceased. After the abatement of the disease and a false start at Newington Butts, the Lord Admiral’s men commenced regular performances at the Rose on June 17, 1594. Playing continued without unusual interruption until the following March 14, 1595. After the Lenten season, the company recommenced playing on Easter Monday, April 21st, and played through June 26th. During the summer season the tour in the provinces was brief, for the company reopened on August 25th and again played without exceptional interruption through February 28, 1596. Performances resumed on April 12th, again after Lent, and continued through July 18, 1596. Here occurred an unusually long summer break which lasted until October 27th, during which time the company traveled in the provinces. Save for a curious suspension from November 16th through the 24th, the company played at the Rose from October 27th until February 12, 1597. A brief Lenten observance followed, and performances began again on March 3rd and continued until July 19th. The presentation of The Isle of Dogs halted general theatrical activity on July 20th,[2] and although the Rose opened on July 27th and 28th, the Privy Council order of the latter date suspended all playing until “Alhallontide next.”

In the preceding schedule we may discern a more or less regular pattern of playing. A Lenten suspension is almost invariably observed, though the duration of the observance varies. A less regular summer break, usually from mid-July to October, intervenes, the length of time depending upon the severity of the plague. Finally, during the Christmas holidays performances are given about half the days of the month. During each December from 1594 through 1596 this interruption occurs, and is presumably the result of the company’s activity at and about the Court.

The day by day program of the Lord Admiral’s men follows the same sort of irregularity, as a glance at two weeks of performances will show.

Let us choose a time from an ordinary, uneventful season. On Monday afternoon of November 10, 1595,[3] if we had crossed the Thames to the Rose on the Bankside, we should have seen Longshank, a reasonably new play. Already it had had four performances, having opened for the first time on the previous August 28th. However, we might have discovered that this was an old play newly revived, Peele’s Edward I. On Tuesday, the 11th, the company presented The Disguises, an even newer play, having opened on the previous 2nd of October. It had already been played five times and oddly enough this day’s performance, the sixth, would be its last. On Wednesday and Thursday, we could have seen the first and second parts of Tamberlaine. Both plays had been doing brisk business, Part I from the time of its revival on August 30th, 1594, and Part II, from its revival on December 19, 1594. Typical of the Elizabethan theater would be the performance of Part II of a play the day after Part I. We should have been particularly fortunate in seeing the Tamberlaines, for these performances were to be the last in this revival. On Friday, November 14th, we could have attended the premiere of A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies, which proved to be a moderately successful piece. The Seven Days of the Week, a very successful play, which had opened the previous June, would receive its fourteenth performance on Saturday, and was to continue to hold the stage until the following December 31st, totaling twenty-two performances in all. There was to be no playing on Sunday, which was usual, nor on Monday, which was unusual.

From Tuesday through Thursday, November 18th-20th, we should have seen Crack Me This Nutte, Barnardo and Fiametta, and Wonder of a Woman, all recent plays. The first had opened as a new play the previous September 5th and enjoyed some success. In 1601 it would be revived. The second play had had its premiere several weeks earlier, on October 30th, and was not as successful as the first. The third piece also had opened recently, on October 16th, and it too had excited only a moderate response. On Friday, a week after its premiere, we would have had the chance to hear A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies once again. It was to continue in the repertory for another year, with a total of nine performances, making it an average success. Finally, on Saturday, November 22nd, at the end of our two-week visit, Seleo and Olempo was on the bill, a play which had opened initially the 5th of the previous March. This performance, its eighth, would bring it near the end of its run of ten performances. On February 19, 1596, a little less than a year after its opening, the play would leave the boards, its prompt-book lost in the dust of the Rose playhouse.

Thus, in two weeks we could have seen eleven performances of ten different plays at one playhouse. On no day would we have found the theater repeating the play of the day before. Among the plays the majority, six of the ten, would have been new works, produced since the return of the company from its summer tour. Two others were carry-overs from the previous spring and two were older plays which had been revived. Nor would these plays have appeared regularly in the succeeding weeks. If we had remained in London for two additional weeks, we should have found some repetition of the plays we had already seen as well as some plays that would be new to us.

Again there would be eleven performances in two weeks.[4] Five performances would repeat works of the previous fortnight’s bill. The remaining six performances would have been divided among five plays: a new play for two performances; another play which had opened that autumn; two parts of a play from the previous spring, whose performances, like those of Tamberlaine, would have been arranged on successive days; and a play which would appear once and disappear. Altogether, in four weeks we should have been able to see fifteen different plays, only five of which would be repeated, and one of which would attain three performances. Most of the plays would be less than one season old, a few, holdovers from the previous season, and only two or possibly three could be considered “old” plays. Of the fifteen, two would have been completely new plays, and, in fact, the only play to have had three performances in four weeks would have been a recent addition to the repertoire, A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies.

The alternation of the plays was irregular. The choice of play from day to day must have followed the exigencies of the moment. Over an extended period, on the other hand, a broad pattern may be observed. A new play or revival usually opened to a good house despite the doubling of admission prices. Several days or a week later a second performance would be given, and then, depending on the enthusiasm of the audience response, the play would be repeated several times a month at first, then less frequently, the intervals between performances becoming longer and longer until the play would be presented once a month. Within a year or a year and a half, it would fade from the theater. Such was the usual course. Naturally, a popular work would continue longer and be revived more often, whereas a “flop” would leave the boards almost immediately.

In the total winter season from August 25, 1595, through February 28, 1596, of which we have considered four weeks, the company gave one hundred and fifty performances of thirty different plays. Eighty-seven performances, or 58 per cent of the total, were of the fourteen new plays produced that season. Five performances, 3.3 per cent, were of one play, The Jew of Malta, revived that season. Forty-six performances, or 30.7 per cent, were given by the eight plays from the previous season which were less than a year old, counting from December 1, 1594. Only twelve performances, 8 per cent, were of the seven plays which were more than a year old. This distribution, which is similar for all the seasons covered by Henslowe’s records, emphasizes how dependent the company was on the continuous addition of new plays to its stock in order to maintain itself in London.

The sheer volume of production is staggering. How strenuous the demands must have been upon the actors! Although we are familiar with the extensive repertory which an opera singer must command, at least it is a repertory which in large measure has assumed classical limitations. The Elizabethan actor, on the contrary, had to remember the old and learn the new at the same time. He had to retain the lines of the older plays, for not only might he wait weeks and months between performances of a particular play, but occasionally he might be asked to give a single performance of a long neglected play.[5] He also had to commit to memory an amazing number of new plays each season. In the three-year period from June 5, 1594, to July 28, 1597, a leading actor of the Lord Admiral’s company, such as Edward Alleyn or Thomas Downton, had to secure and retain command of about seventy-one different roles, of which number fifty-two or fifty-three were newly learned.

The manner in which the acting companies secured new plays has been fully discussed by Greg and Chambers[6] so that a brief summary will suffice. Sometimes the actors would buy a finished book, as evidenced by the purchase of Strange News Out of Poland for £6 on May 17, 1600. However, the more usual way of dealing with the impecunious poets who supplied them with scripts was for the Admiral’s men to approve a plot outline of a play, upon which approval they would pay the playwright or playwrights an advance. As portions of the book were received, further advances were given until the entire work was submitted and full payment, usually £6 in this period, was made. Although the names of a large number of playwrights appear in Henslowe’s records, most of the new plays performed by the Admiral’s men came from the pens of less than a dozen men.[7]

Three different types of relationships seem to have existed between actors and the playwrights. In one type Shakespeare and Heywood, actors of their companies, presumably wrote for their own fellows exclusively. In another Ben Jonson went free-wheeling in his passage from one company to another and back again. Between these extremes was a man like Dekker who generally confined his writing to the Admiral’s men, at least at this time, although he did write occasionally for other companies.

Upon receipt of the play from the author, the actors put it into production without much delay. Of the eighty-eight new plays presented during this period by the Admiral’s men, Henslowe records data on the purchase of both the book and properties for twenty-eight of them.[8] Only one, Polyphemus, shows a substantial lapse between the final payment for the script on February 27, 1599, and the purchase of “divers thinges” for production on October 5, 1599. Since the purchase of these “divers thinges” only totaled 8s., the play may very well have been produced earlier, the later entry relating to properties or costumes which were added to the production. Of the twenty-seven other plays, the time between final purchase of the manuscript and the first indication of production extends from three to fifty-one days, the average duration being a little over twenty days. That many of the payments were for costumes which had to be tailored indicates that the time lapse was even less than the records show. For example, the longest delay, fifty-one days, came between the purchase of Brute on October 22nd and the payment for “cottes of gyantes” for the same play on December 12, 1598. Probably the order for the coats had been placed considerably earlier.

Three special cases, those of Two Angry Women of Abington, Part II, and Thome Strowd, Part II, of the Admiral’s men, and A Woman Killed with Kindness of Worcester’s men, demonstrate that in some instances production was begun before the writing was completed. The book of Two Angry Women was paid for in full on February 12, 1599, although gowns had been paid for on January 31st and “divers thinges” on February 12th. Payment in full is recorded for Thome Strowd on May 5, 1601, although suits had been bought on April 27th. Lastly, Heywood received £3 as final payment on A Woman Killed with Kindness on March 6, 1603, although costumes had been paid for on February 5th and March 7th.

The entire conception of play producing reflected here is one of continuous presentation. As soon as a poet turned over his play to the actors, they would introduce it into the repertory with very little delay. There is no indication that special occasions provided the moment for unveiling a new play or that long-range planning for a season was part of the Elizabethan or Jacobean scheme. Immediate concerns, the nature of which we know too little, probably dictated the day-to-day program of the theatrical fraternity. Responsive to the vicissitudes of political, hygienic, and economic conditions, the players within their strictly traditional guild organization maintained an empirical, nontheoretical, professional attitude.

Let us turn back to the winter season of 1595–1596 to trace the introduction of new plays into the repertory. Four days after the opening of the season, on August 29th, Longshank was presented. Six days later, on September 5th, it was followed by Crack Me This Nutte, another play followed on September 17th (The New World’s Tragedy), and still another on October 2nd (The Disguises). For the rest of this season there were premieres on October 16th (Wonder of a Woman), October 30th (Barnardo and Fiametta), November 14th (A Toy to Please Chaste Ladies), November 28th (Henry V), and in 1596 on January 3rd (Chinon of England), January 16th (Pythagoras), January 23rd (Seven Days of the Week, Part II), and February 12th (Blind Beggar of Alexandria). The longest interval between the production of new plays was thirty-five days, November 28th to January 3rd, though the intervening performances numbered only twenty. The shortest interval, of six days, occurred twice, at the beginning and near the end of the season. Obviously the lack of regularity, apparent in other aspects of production, also existed in the frequency with which new plays were presented.

Nor does the study of the year-to-year pattern reflect any greater regularity. For example, in December, 1594, three new plays were presented, in December, 1595, none, in December, 1596, four. The presentation of so many new plays in the latter year was owing without doubt to the absence of any new plays in November, 1596. Consequently, though we cannot determine a fixed number, we can calculate the average number of new plays introduced into the repertory in one year.

Over the three-year period 1594–1597 the actors of the Admiral’s company had an average interval of 14.7 days or roughly two weeks between the opening of new plays. While the interval ranged from two days to fifty-seven, the mean interval was 13 days. Thus it would be accurate enough to say that the company produced a new play every two weeks during the playing season. For the years 1597–1603 we have evidence of the number of new plays produced each year but not of the number of performances given. Consequently, to correlate all the evidence it is necessary to calculate not only the average intervals between premieres of new plays but also the average number of plays produced from 1594 to 1597. The Diary reports the lists of performances continuously from June 5, 1594, to July 28, 1597, a total of three years and fifty-three days. Since 1596 was a leap year, the entire period consisted of 1,149 days during which fifty-four new plays were produced, averaging one play for every 21.3 days. Thus, about seventeen new plays were presented each year by the Lord Admiral’s men.

Chambers, describing the repertory of the Admiral’s men from 1597 to 1603, estimates that they added seventeen new plays in 1597–1598, twenty-one in 1598–1599, twenty in 1599–1600, seven in 1600–1601, fourteen in 1601–1602, and nine in 1602–1603. If we exclude the figures for 1602–1603, a season shortened by the death of Elizabeth, an average for the five years comes to 15.8 new plays each year. The unusually meager count of seven plays for 1600–1601 may reflect, as Chambers suggests, a reliance on the older repertory after Edward Alleyn’s return to the company. Or it might indicate that the company toured extensively that year.

Until now we have considered only one company. Fortunately Henslowe served as banker for Lord Worcester’s men from August 17, 1602, to March 16, 1603, a period of 212 days. During that time they commissioned twelve new plays. A simple equation based on the ratio of 12 plays to 212 days as x plays are to 365 days yields us twenty plays as the total this company would have reached if they had continued to produce new works at the same rate for the rest of the year. However, since the period covered by the accounts was the most active part of the theatrical year, it is likely that the total would have been nearer to seventeen. Furthermore, the average interval between the openings of new plays by the Worcester’s men comes to 16.6 days. Allowing for the uncertainty of the length of this particular season, calculated as it is on expense payments, not actual performances, this average is in line with the earlier figure of 14.7 days between openings. Thus two of the three important public playhouses in London each presented about seventeen new plays a year, grouping them in two seasons so that a new play was presented every fourteen or fifteen days.

The evidence for the third of these companies, the Lord Chamberlain’s men, is scanty; to determine whether or not it followed the system of the other two companies is hazardous at best. As Greg aptly noted more than half a century ago, “We know practically nothing of the internal workings of the Lord Chamberlain’s company.”[9] Yet, here and there, links between this company and the others suggest that in general all of them followed the same repertory practices.

Between June 5th and 15th, 1594, the Lord Admiral’s and Lord Chamberlain’s men played together at Newington Butts. Henslowe’s performance list does not clarify whether they functioned as one company or two. In fact, only the excellent deduction of Greg, who followed Fleay in this, made it clear that the combination ceased after that date, for the list of subsequent performances proceeds without a break. Of the ten performances, five were of plays now generally ascribed to the Chamberlain’s men.

Fleay, extolling the virtues of the Chamberlain’s men at the expense of the Admiral’s, asserts that he has been unable to trace at any time “more than four new plays produced by [the former company] in any one year.”[10] This conclusion might stem from a recollection of a note by Malone: “It appears from Sir Henry Herbert’s office-book that the King’s company between the years 1622 and 1641 produced either at Blackfriars or the Globe at least four new plays every year.” He goes on: “ ... the King’s company usually brought out two or three new plays at the Globe every summer.”[11] Both statements indicate that no less than four plays were produced annually. A study of Herbert’s list of licenses supports them. From July, 1623, to July, 1624, licenses for thirty-five plays are recorded. Four may be discarded for our present purposes.[12] Of the remaining thirty-one, eleven were licensed for the Palsgrave’s company, seven (six new and one old) for the Prince’s men, eight (six new and two old) for the King’s men, four (three new and one old) for the Lady Elizabeth’s servants, and one for the Queen of Bohemia’s company. G. E. Bentley very persuasively accounts for the greater number of plays licensed for the Palsgrave’s men by pointing out that the fire at their playhouse, the Fortune, on December 9, 1621, deprived them of their prompt-books and that in 1623–1624 they were striving to repair the damage to their repertory.

The discrepancy between the six new plays of 1623–1624 and the estimated seventeen of 1594–1603 is not a mark of conflict in the evidence. Times had changed. The King’s men needed only a third of the new plays that they had produced in earlier years. The use of a private theater largely accounts for this change, for the seats of Blackfriars could be filled four or five times over by the audience from a single performance at the Globe. What is really significant is that the King’s men presented the same number of new plays as the Prince’s men, and that the practices of Shakespeare’s fellows were in harmony with those of other companies.

Only an idolatrous love of Shakespeare can lead us to conclude that from 1599 to 1609 the Lord Chamberlain’s men produced appreciably fewer plays than the other companies did. All were in lively competition, in which, as Platter noted, “those which play best obtain most spectators.” To maintain that the Globe company produced only four or five new plays a year, we must prove that Shakespeare’s plays were of such popularity that they could be repeated again and again while other companies had to change their bills daily. However, we have no evidence to show that this was the case. Certainly, Falstaff was a perennial favorite, but so was Barabas the Jew. A play such as Richard II was old by 1601. Twelfth Night, or Malvolio, held the stage, it seems, but so did The Spanish Tragedy, or Jeronimo. Yet Henslowe’s schedule reveals that the old war horses such as Jeronimo, The Jew of Malta, Faustus, and Tamberlaine, altogether, provided no more than 11 per cent of the performances of the Lord Admiral’s company throughout the entire recorded period and no more than 6 per cent in any one year (see Appendix A, chart ii). We should like to think that Shakespeare’s work had more commercial appeal than Marlowe’s or Kyd’s. But can we suppose that it had a popularity, let us say, five or six times greater? A sobering thought on the enigma of popularity must strike us when we realize that Pericles was, if its succession of quartos offers any evidence, more popular than Antony and Cleopatra, and that The Winter’s Tale, if Court performances are any measure, appealed to royalty more than King Lear. Furthermore, once we eliminate the plays which in all likelihood were given few performances, such as Troilus and Cressida, All’s Well and Measure for Measure, we are left with too few Shakespearean plays to sustain a theatrical company in the London of 1600. A reference to the list of Court performances between 1603 and 1642 verifies the pattern reflected in Henslowe’s records. Aside from their first appearances before James, when they presented many old stand-bys, the King’s men usually offered the latest plays to Their Majesties, and when Shakespeare died, the works of other writers rapidly superseded his at Court.[13] Like the commonalty, royalty expected to see the current “hit.”

The plays we now regard as great literary works were struck off in the harassing atmosphere of a commercial enterprise. Most of the plays were failures or temporary successes. Most of those produced by the Admiral’s men played their few, in many cases very few, performances and passed away without any further trace but the notation by a shrewd businessman. Of the one hundred and thirteen plays listed by Henslowe between 1592 and 1597, sixty-seven would certainly be unknown without the Diary and another twelve would probably be unknown (see Appendix A, chart i). However, among the thirty-four plays that would be otherwise known, only twenty-seven are extant, or about 24 per cent of the plays listed by Henslowe. By assuming that the twenty-nine extant Globe texts represent a similar percentage of the Globe repertory, we arrive at a conclusion that 116 plays were actually produced by the company between 1599 and 1609. But during these years the theater suffered closings of extraordinary duration because of the plague.[14] In addition, the Globe period is calculated from September, 1599, to March, 1609. Actual playing time, therefore, amounted to about seven and a half years. This estimate divided into the 116 new plays gives us a result of 15.6 plays as the average number of new works offered by the Globe company each year. Actually, in estimating these figures, some allowance must be made for Shakespeare’s superiority. How much, however, is virtually impossible to say. Nor is an actual figure necessary as long as we realize that the repertory systems of all three companies were fundamentally the same. In effect, the figures that we have for the Lord Admiral’s and Worcester’s men are a far safer guide to actual Globe practice than any other evidence.

As lovers of literature, we need be grieved little by the disappearance of 75 per cent of the plays, at least judging from contemporary response. Generally the plays that have come down to us were the more popular pieces. Either they were printed, or discussed, or alluded to. At the same time they were played more frequently. The seventy-nine plays which we know only through Henslowe provided 496 performances in five years. The other thirty-four played 403 performances in the same period. On an average we find the plays otherwise known to us played nearly twice as many performances as those mentioned by Henslowe.

Those pieces that attained popularity and whose stage life extended over a period of years run like strong threads through the repertory of an Elizabethan company. But between the strands there was much filler, plays which spoke their brief piece upon the platform and departed within a few months. Seven to eight performances were the average number for a play. Many did not attain even this many representations. Three out of every ten plays had no more than one or two performances. Less than one out of ten went beyond twenty performances. An extensive and actually wonderful process of winnowing out the chaff was at work. This process was the repertory system. As a result of it, the plays that could bring back an audience year after year survived to speak for the age (see Appendix A, chart ii).

The process of winnowing out the ineffectual pieces was supplemented by the custom of revivals. Periodically, plays of the recent past would be brought back to the stage for another run. Usually the pattern of performances for a revival would follow that of a new play: close-packed performances at first and a tapering off until representation ceased. The Spanish Tragedy, or as Henslowe entitles it, Jeronimo, offers a clear example of the process at work. In March, 1592, it was presented for three performances, in April, again for three performances, in May it reached its peak with five performances, and in June played twice. The hiatus in the summer and fall of 1592 interrupted the normal cycle. On resumption of playing in December, Jeronimo appeared again, was repeated twice in January for the last times. These performances were by Strange’s men. Four years later, on January 7, 1597, the Lord Admiral’s men revived it as a “new” play, indicating that it had been substantially revised. Subsequent performances followed with diminishing frequency with intervals of 4, 6, 5, 9, 10, 28,[15] 14, 21, 26, 29 days. The play was further revived in September or October of 1601, this time with additions by Jonson.

Twenty plays in Henslowe’s list show definite evidence of revival, either during the 1593–1597 period or the 1599–1601 period. Only Doctor Faustus shows continual performance from 1594 to 1597. Originally revived on October 2, 1594, it was performed from time to time by the Lord Admiral’s company which did not allow more than four months to elapse between performances. There was a later revival toward the end of 1602.

Among the nineteen remaining plays the manner of revival varied somewhat. Nine of them seem to have been altered or enlarged considerably for the revival. Usually these plays had been off the stage for several years. Fortunatus was reworked by Dekker in November, 1599, after it had lain idle for three and a half years. Jeronimo, as we saw already, had not been offered for four years when it was revived as “new” in January, 1597. Tambercame, Part II, was three and a half years old when presented as “new” on June 11, 1596. Two of the plays, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and Phaethon, show evidence of alteration as do the rest, but specifically for Court performances. Though there is no certainty that revivals in the public playhouse occurred at the same time, it is not unlikely, as we shall discover.

One advantage of the Elizabethan method of revivals—abetted by the absence of copyright laws—was that it enabled a writer to rework his own or someone else’s work. Through how many versions, for example, did the narrative of Hamlet pass to reach its final stage? We know of three at least: the one played by the “Lord Admeralle men & Lorde Chamberlen” at Newington Butts on June 11, 1594; the one contained in the 1603 Quarto; the one announced as “newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie.” The constant sifting of the repertory not only screened out hack pieces, it also provided time for the refinement of masterworks.

In instances where no proof of literary revision exists, there is evidence sometimes of theatrical revision. Four plays from four to six and a half years old were revived after 1597. The purchase of properties for them indicates that they received new productions. Of the last six of the twenty plays revived, only the cessation of playing and, after an extended lapse of time, the resumption of performances tell us that they were revived.

Revived plays, for all practical purposes, were treated as new. Instead of maintaining a play in continuous repertory over an extended period of time during which performances of the work would be given at regular intervals, the players permitted a work to fade out of the repertory for a time, to be restored later with or without changes for another cycle of performances. That this was also the method of the Lord Chamberlain’s men is attested to in a letter written by Sir Walter Cope to Sir Robert Cecil in 1604. Upon inquiring for a new play for the Queen, Sir Walter was informed by Richard Burbage that Her Majesty had seen their new plays, “but they have Revyved an olde one Cawled Loved Labore lost.”[16] Whether or not this “olde play” had been presented since its performance at Court in 1597–1598, we do not know. But its description as an old play suggests that it had lain dormant for some time before its revival in 1604.

In the same letter Sir Walter complains of difficulty in finding “players Juglers & Such kinde of Creaturs” to perform for the Queen. Yet, according to the formula which appears in the Privy Council minute of February 19, 1598, the Lord Chamberlain’s men were permitted to stage plays so that “they might be the better enhabled and prepared to shew such plaies before her Majestie as they shalbe required at tymes meete and accustomed, to which ende they have bin cheefelie licensed.” Why were they not ready then? Just what was the relationship between the public players and the Court? To what extent did the players prepare their plays specifically for the nobility? More than one scholar has been tempted to demonstrate that particular plays were prepared for the Court or courtly occasions. Usually the demonstration has had to rely on allusions in a script, for external evidence indicates that such a practice was extremely rare.

For example, we can trace the career of Fortunatus with minuteness. Its first performance is recorded in Henslowe’s Diary on February 3, 1596; thereafter it runs through a normal cycle of six performances until May 26th. Between November 9th and November 30th, 1599, Dekker received £6 for rewriting the play. We may presume that it underwent a complete revision since £6 is the usual payment for a new work. On December 1st, he received an additional £1 for altering the work, and on December 12th £2 for “the eande of fortewnatus for the corte.” In addition, sometime between December 6th and 12th £10 were laid out “ffor to by thinges for ffortunatus.” The entries indicate clearly that a revival for the public playhouse had been planned, for which Dekker was commissioned to rewrite the play. The performance at Court could not have been the initial reason for the revival; otherwise the book would not have needed a new ending so soon. After the revision was completed, perhaps even before the Court performance had been spoken for, the play was publicly produced. Yet, when the company was called upon by the Queen in holiday season, it hurriedly had Dekker furbish up a graceful and complimentary conclusion for performance before the Queen on December 27, 1599.

While it is true that the plays chosen for Court performance had been proven in public, it is equally true that the plays were geared to the public. Usually with slight alteration, though occasionally with much, the essentially public play was readied for Queen Elizabeth, and later for King James and his family. The Admiral’s men paid Middleton 5s. for a prologue and epilogue for Friar Bacon “for the corte” on December 14, 1602, surely a small sum to invest in pleasing a sovereign. Of course, for the holidays of 1599–1600, the company had paid Dekker fully £2 for alterations to Phaethon for the Court. An additional pound was laid out for “divers thinges” for the Court. Yet when the play was brought out two years earlier £5 had been spent on its furnishings for public presentation.[17]

Few plays produced by the professional players received their first performances at the Court. Reference to the summary of court performances (Appendix A, chart iii) will show that, of 144 plays presented at Court between 1590 and 1642, only eight seem to have been intended especially and initially for the Court. Two were presented in 1620, five after 1629. Only one comes from the first decade of the seventeenth century.[18]

During the holiday season of 1602–1603 the Lord Admiral’s men gave three plays at Court. Presumably one of these was As Merry As May Be, for on November 9, 1602, John Day was given 40s. “in earneste of a Boocke called mery as may be for the corte” and on November 17th, Day, Smith, and Hathway were paid £6 more. What the occasion was for this extraordinary procedure we cannot now discover. The Admiral’s men were at Court on December 27, 1602, March 6, 1603, and possibly March 8th. On which of these nights As Merry As May Be was played, we do not know. Considering the practice of the Admiral’s men, it is not impossible that, despite the entry by Henslowe, the first performance of As Merry As May Be was at the Fortune.

All other plays, in one way or another, show the marks of public performance. In many instances insufficient evidence prevents us from concluding with any certainty whether or not a Court performance was initially envisioned; so many plays exist only as titles in the warrants. But where evidence appears, it supports the contention that public performance preceded Court performance. In eight cases we have the date of the licensing of a play by Sir Henry Herbert as well as the date of its first Court performance. Naturally, in each case the licensing came first. Herbert’s records give substantial support for the assumption that the plays were acted the day they were licensed.[19] For example, Malone notes against the license for July 29, 1629: “The Northern Lass, which was acted by the King’s Company on the 29th of July, 1629.” Moreover, for The Witts by Davenant we have confirmation of public performance before Court performance. Licensed on January 19, 1634, the King having rejected some of the severities of Herbert’s censoring on the 9th, Mildmay saw it acted at Blackfriars only three days later, on January 22nd. On the 28th it was given at Court.[20]

The type of theatrical presentation especially conceived and executed for a courtly audience was different in tone and character from that of the popular plays. Masques and entertainments, in their symbolic spectacles, learned allusions, and elaborate compliments delighted royalty through novelty and flattery. Interspersed with debate, music, and dance, these forms bore but a cousinly relationship to the drama. Professional writers such as Jonson, who wrote masques, had to alter their methods, for works commissioned for royal pleasure demanded that the poet practice his art with a difference. Sixty years later we find the same dichotomy occurring in the work of Molière.

Being commercial enterprises, the public theaters must have directed their energies to satisfying the customer who paid best. Some simple calculations will demonstrate that the players were dependent far more upon their public than their Court receipts. The involved estimates in determining the basis for the income of the various companies have been undertaken elsewhere and need not be repeated here. Briefly, we can adopt the results of various scholars.[21] From 1594 through 1596 the average number of playing days per year, according to Henslowe’s Diary, was 195⅔ (1594, 206; 1595, 211; 1596, 170). Consequently, about two hundred playing days a year in London may be regarded as average. Baldwin concluded that the return to the actors for a 300-performance year was £1260. On this basis the income for the minimum of 200 playing days a year would come to £840. Harbage concludes that the average daily attendance at the Rose was 1,250 persons. Since he divides the total capacity of 2,494 into 870 persons in the yard at one penny, 1,408 persons in the penny-gallery, and 216 in the two-penny gallery (at two- and three-penny admissions respectively), the average daily attendance in each section yields 436, 705, and 108 persons each by a simple proportionate equation. The average daily income would then be £9.0s.10d., the actors’ share being £7.2s.5d. Consequently, by multiplying this figure by 200 we have the average yearly income for the actors of £1,424.3s.4d. A final estimate, employing Harbage’s attendance figures of 1250 and John Cranford Adams’ arrangement of the Globe playhouse, yields an income to the actors of £8.12s.5d. daily, exclusive of the Lords’ rooms, or £1724.3s.4d. for 200 days. The Lords’ rooms brought them 37s.6d. additional each day, or £375 a year. In estimating income for the Globe company, we must remember that at least five of the sharers of the Chamberlain-King’s men were also housekeepers and derived income from the playhouse directly.

From Elizabeth, and later from James, the Chamberlain-King’s men received £873 between 1599 and 1609, of which amount £70 was for relief of the company during plague time, and £30 for reimbursement for expenses incurred during unusually lengthy travel to and from the Court. Thus the annual average for playing was £77.6s., with the court payments in the later years substantially greater than in the early ones. Grants from Elizabeth never totaled more than 5 per cent of the income the company earned at the Globe.[22] Under James the percentage rose to a high of about fifteen by 1609. The increase in Court support, evident in these figures, ultimately led the Globe company to appeal increasingly to an aristocratic audience. But throughout the decade we are considering, the actors depended on the pence of a large, heterogeneous public more than upon the bounty of their prince.

The players certainly tendered courtesy and respect to the Court, which after all was their main defense against puritanical suppression. No doubt, at the behest of the sovereign, each company eagerly fulfilled the service required of it. The players’ well-being in and about London as well as their prestige depended to a significant extent on their relationship with the prince. Yet the historical, literary, and economic evidence does not support the attempts to demonstrate that such plays as Macbeth, The Merry Wives of Windsor, or Twelfth Night were first presented at Court. For example, Leslie Hotson’s thesis that Twelfth Night was a tribute to the ambassador, Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano, has been challenged by Frances Keen who has reexamined the documents.[23] Except for Troilus and Cressida, it is not likely that any Shakespearean play of the Globe decade was given its premiere anywhere else than at the Globe.

I have dealt with the repertory system at length because insufficient attention has been paid to it. In reconstructing the staging of any company, the character of this system cannot be ignored. For the Globe company as well as for the other companies, the staging of plays was conditioned by the irregular alternation of plays, the large number of plays that had to be ready for performance at one time, the rapidity with which new ones were added to the repertory, the probability of revivals, and the reliance upon the public playhouse for theatrical well-being. Allowance for these conditions must be made in any discussion of the play, the stage, and the actor.

Chapter Two
THE DRAMATURGY

Shakespeare’s plays of the Globe years are the highest forms of drama to result from a century of evolution. The long-fought battle between popular and private taste was to go on, finally to the defeat of popular taste in the rise of the private theaters. But in the ten years of the Globe, before the King’s men saw their theatrical future in appealing to a Blackfriars trade, the artistic possibilities of the popular narrative drama were abundantly realized.

As the poet created the play, the actors rehearsed it—or very shortly thereafter. At the Globe playhouse the intimacy between Shakespeare and his colleagues gave unparalleled opportunity for artistic collaboration. Through changes in status and physical surroundings, they maintained warm personal and professional relations. From a common creative act arose the plays that Shakespeare penned and the productions that his friends presented. The record of this partnership is contained in the extant scripts, not merely in stage directions or in dialogue, but in the very substance of the dramatist’s craft, the structure of the incidents.

To know this structure of incidents is no simple matter. Little contemporary Elizabethan theory of the dramatist’s craft exists.[1] Of the few contemporary essays on poesy which treat the drama, Sidney’s The Defence of Poesie (c. 1583), is not only the best known but also the most thorough. In measuring pre-Shakespearean drama by neoclassic standards, Sidney concludes that the early plays lack order. Yet the characteristic that Sidney so roundly condemned is the very one which, as we shall see, was so skillfully mastered by the turn of the century: the narration of an extended history covering much time and many places. By then classicism was no longer a fixed standard. This is nowhere more evident than in the words of Ben Jonson. The most classical of all the Elizabethan playwrights, with the possible exception of Chapman, Jonson contains in his remarks on the drama contradictory tendencies not fully reconciled in theory.

The chorus to Every Man Out of His Humour, a Globe play, provides the clearest expression of his views on the drama. Citing the precedent of the Greek poets, Jonson asserts, through the choral figure of Cordatus, that he does not see why the English poets should not enjoy “the same licence, or free power, to illustrate and heighten our invention as [the Greeks] did; and not bee tyed to those strict and regular formes, which the nicenesse of a few (who are nothing but forme) would thrust upon us” (Chorus, 267-270). Earlier, obliged to explain the absence of the traditional forms of classical drama, Cordatus remarks that there is no necessity to observe them. Yet, in setting the play in England, Cordatus quibbles over the nature of unity of place. He finds it acceptable for the author to have “a whole Iland to run through” but scorns those authors who, in one play, by showing “so many seas, countries, and kingdomes, past over with such admirable dexteritie ... out-run the apprehension of their auditorie” (Chorus, 279-286). Later in the play, despite his previous deprecation of classical authority, Jonson justifies the almost tragic scene of Sordido’s attempted suicide (III, ii) by resorting to the authority of Plautus (III, viii, 88 ff.). At another point he cites Cicero’s definition of comedy to demolish the citadel of romantic comedy (III, vi, 202-207). Throughout, Jonson maintains a double standard, eluding adherence to classical prescription when it suits him to do so, citing classical authority when it supports his practice, but at all times aware that mere imitation is neither possible nor desirable. For, it is significant to note, Jonson does not oppose classical form to no form at all, but “strict and regular” form to personal invention.

Dramatic theory of the Elizabethan period is particularly deceptive because the little that exists is usually classical in vocabulary and orientation. Baldwin has attempted to equate the use of classical terms with the creation of the equivalent form. He cites Jonson’s use of the critical terms epitasis and catastrophe in Every Man Out of His Humour, together with similar evidence from The New Inn, as proof that “Jonson knows and observes ‘the Law of Comedy’ as it has been laid down by the sixteenth century commentators on Terence.” The epitasis is variously defined as “the intension or exaggeration of matters” or “the most busy part of a comedy” or “the progress of the turbations ... the knot of error.”[2] However, these generalizations have little to do with the way in which a play is shaped. For that we must go back to actual models. At once we see that the terms cannot be applied to both Terence and Jonson, and yet mean the same things. The interplay between Simo and Davus in The Woman of Andros, as they attempt to outwit each other, produces a tightly drawn comedy of situation. The display of foolery which infuriates Macilente results in an ambling satirical comedy. Comparison discloses that not only in tone and content but also in function and effect the epitasis or the “busie part of the subject” differs in each case. Clearly, in no substantial way did the Elizabethans derive their dramatic forms from classical tradition.

In the absence of such a tradition and with the lack of a generally accepted alternative, the theory has persisted that Elizabethan drama lacks structural form. “The events ... are produced without any art of connection or care of disposition,” wrote Samuel Johnson of Antony and Cleopatra. Substantially the same charge has been leveled against Shakespeare’s plays in particular and Elizabethan drama in general. The art of Elizabethan drama, it is said, must be sought in the characterization, in the poetic expression, in the myth-making patterns of ideas, but not in the structure of events. In a currently fashionable form, this view is stated quite straightforwardly by M. C. Bradbrook. “The essential structure of Elizabethan drama lies not in the narrative or the characters but in the words.... [The structure] was purely poetic.”[3]

It is true that Elizabethan dramatic structure appears to be irregular in form and haphazard in progression. Conditions of presentation, described in the [previous chapter], indicate that any conscious artistic purpose must have been difficult to pursue. The speed of composition, the prevalence of collaboration, and the absence of formal standards contributed to what might be called pragmatic dramatization. However, pragmatic dramatization did not necessarily prevent the appearance of distinctive dramatic forms. In fact, the winnowing process of the repertory system was evolutionary, ensuring the development of drama in response not to abstract theory but to the deeply ingrained artistic practices of the age.