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.