The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 2

by E. K. Chambers

Archaeological material was brought together by E. Malone in Variorum iii. 51, and J. P. Collier in H. E. D. P. iii. 140.

Modern investigation may be said to begin with the discovery of the Swan drawing in 1888. The principal dissertations up to 1916 are:

K. T. Gaedertz, Zur Kenntnis der altenglischen Bühne (1888); H. B. Wheatley, On a contemporary Drawing of the interior of the Swan Theatre, 1596 (1888, N. S. S. Trans. 1887–92, 215); W. Archer, A Sixteenth-Century Play-house (1888, Universal Review), The Stage of Shakespeare (10 Aug. 1907, Tribune), The Fortune Theatre, 1600 (12 Oct. 1907, Tribune, repr. Jahrbuch, xliv. 159), The Swan Drawing (11 Jan. 1908, Tribune), The Elizabethan Stage (1908, Quarterly Review, ccviii. 442), The Play-house (1916, Shakespeare’s England, ii. 283); R. Genée, Ueber die scenischen Formen Shakespeare’s in ihrem Verhältnisse zur Bühne seiner Zeit (1891, Jahrbuch, xxvi. 131); E. Kilian, Die scenischen Formen Shakespeares in ihrer Beziehung zu der Aufführung seiner Dramen auf der modernen Bühne (1893, Jahrbuch, xxviii. 90), Shakespeare auf der modernen Bühne (1900, Jahrbuch, xxxvi. 228); H. Logeman, Johannes de Witt’s Visit to the Swan Theatre (1897, Anglia, xix. 117); C. Grabau, Zur englischen Bühne um 1600 (1902, Jahrbuch, xxxviii. 232); W. J. Lawrence, Some Characteristics of the Elizabethan-Stuart Stage (1902, E. S. xxxii. 36), The Elizabethan Play-house (1912, 1913), Night Performances in the Elizabethan Theatres (1915, E. S. xlviii. 213), New Light on the Elizabethan Theatre (May 1916, Fortnightly Review), A Forgotten Play-house Custom of Shakespeare’s Day (1916, Book of Homage, 207), Horses on the Elizabethan Stage (T. L. S. 5 June 1919), He’s for a Jig or —— (T. L. S. 3 July 1919); K. Mantzius, History of Theatrical Art (1903–9); E. E. Hale, The Influence of Theatrical Conditions on Shakespeare (1904, M. P. i. 171); E. Koeppel, Die unkritische Behandlung dramaturgischer Angaben in den Shakespeare-Ausgaben (1904, E. S. xxxiv. 1); W. Bang, Zur Bühne Shakespeares (1904, Jahrbuch, xl. 223); W. Keller, Nochmals zur Bühne Shakespeares (1904, Jahrbuch, xl. 225); A. H. Tolman, Shakespeare’s Stage and Modern Adaptations (1904, Views about Hamlet, 115), Alternation in the Staging of Shakespeare’s Plays (1909, M. P. vi. 517); C. Brodmeier, Die Shakespeare-Bühne nach den alten Bühnenanweisungen (1904); R. Prölss, Von den ältesten Drucken der Dramen Shakespeares (1905); P. Monkemeyer, Prolegomena zu einer Darstellung der englischen Volksbühne (1905); G. P. Baker, Hamlet on an Elizabethan Stage (1905, Jahrbuch, xli. 296), Elizabethan Stage Theories (3 Nov. 1905, The Times Literary Supplement); C. H. Kaulfuss-Diesch, Die Inszenierung des deutschen Dramas an der Wende des 16 und 17 Jahrhunderts (1905); G. F. Reynolds, Some Principles of Elizabethan Staging (1905, M. P. i. 581, ii. 69), Trees on the Stage of Shakespeare (1907, M. P. v. 153), What we know of the Elizabethan Stage (1911, M. P. ix. 47), William Percy and his Plays (1914, M. P. xii. 109); J. Corbin, Shakespeare and the Plastic Stage (1906, Atlantic Monthly, xcvii. 369), Shakespeare his Own Stage Manager (1911, Century, lxxxiii. 260); R. Bridges, On the Influence of the Audience (1907, Stratford Town Shakespeare, x. 321); E. K. Chambers, On the Stage of the Globe (1907, Stratford Town Shakespeare, x. 351); C. C. Stopes, Elizabethan Stage Scenery (June 1907, Fortnightly Review); R. Wegener, Die Bühneneinrichtung des Shakespeareschen Theaters (1907); W. H. Godfrey, An Elizabethan Play-house (1908, Architectural Review, xxiii. 239; cf. xxxi. 53); C. W. Wallace, The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars (1908); F. Schelling, The Elizabethan Play-house (1908, Proc. of Philadelphia Num. and Antiq. Soc.); A. A. Helmholtz-Phelan, The Staging of Court Dramas before 1595 (1909, M. L. A. xxiv. 185); V. E. Albright, The Shaksperian Stage (1909), Percy’s Plays as Proof of the Elizabethan Stage (1913, M. P. xi. 237); A. R. Skemp, Some Characteristics of the English Stage before the Restoration (1909, Jahrbuch, xlv. 101); W. Creizenach, Bühnenwasen und Schauspielkunst (1909, Gesch. des neueren Dramas, iv. 401); B. Neuendorff, Die englische Volksbühne im Zeitalter Shakespeares nach den Bühnenanweisungen (1910); H. H. Child, The Elizabethan Theatre (1910, C. H. vi. 241); H. Conrad, Bemerkungen zu Lawrence’ Title and Locality Boards (1910, Jahrbuch, xlvi. 106); C. R. Baskervill, The Custom of Sitting on the Elizabethan Stage (1911, M. P. viii. 581); J. Q. Adams, The Four Pictorial Representations of the Elizabethan Stage (April 1911, J. G. P.); F. A. Foster, Dumb Show in Elizabethan Drama before 1620 (1911, E. S. xliv. 8); A. Forestier, The Fortune Theatre Reconstructed (12 Aug. 1911, Illustrated London News); M. B. Evans, An Early Type of Stage (1912, M. P. ix. 421); T. S. Graves, A Note on the Swan Theatre (1912, M. P. ix. 431), Night Scenes in the Elizabethan Theatres (1913, E. S. xlvii. 63), The Court and the London Theaters during the Reign of Elizabeth (1913), The Origin of the Custom of Sitting upon the Stage (1914, J. E. G. P. xiii. 104), The Act Time in Elizabethan Theatres (1915, Univ. of Carolina, Studies in Philology, xii. 3), The Ass as Actor (1916, S. Atlantic Quarterly, xv. 175); G. H. Cowling, Music on the Shakespearian Stage (1913); H. Bell, Contributions to the History of the English Play-house (1913, Architectural Record, 262, 359); W. G. Keith, The Designs for the first Movable Scenery on the English Stage (1914, Burlington Magazine, xxv. 29, 85); W. Poel, Shakespeare in the Theatre (1915), Some Notes on Shakespeare’s Stage and Plays (1916); J. Le G. Brereton, De Witt at the Swan (1916, Book of Homage, 204); A. H. Thorndike, Shakespeare’s Theater (1916); T. H. Dickinson, Some Principles of Shakespeare Staging (1916, Wisconsin Shakespeare Studies, 125). More recent papers are noted in the Bulletin of the English Association. R. C. Rhodes’ The Stagery of Shakespeare (1922) deserves consideration.

It remains to give some account of the iconographical material available. Of four representations of the interiors of play-houses, the only one of early date (c. 1596) is (a) Arend van Buchell’s copy of a drawing by Johannes de Witt of the Swan, published in 1888 by Gaedertz and in more accurate facsimile by Wheatley (vide supra). The other three are Caroline. (b) A small engraving in a compartment of the title-page of W. Alabaster, Roxana (1632), may be taken as representing a type of academic stage, as the play was at Trinity, Cambridge, c. 1592. (c) A very similar engraving in the title-page of N. Richards, Messallina (1640), if it represents a specific stage at all, is less likely to represent the second Fortune, as suggested by Skemp in his edition of the play, or the Red Bull, as suggested by Albright, 45, than Salisbury Court, where it is clear from Murray, i. 279, that most of the career of the Revels company, by whom it was produced, was spent. (d) An engraved frontispiece to Francis Kirkman’s editions (1672, 1673) of The Wits, or Sport upon Sport (originally published by Marsh, 1662) has been shown by Albright, 40, to have been erroneously regarded as a representation of the Red Bull, to which there is an incidental reference in the preface to Part II, and must be taken to show the type of stage on which the ‘drolls’ contained in the book were given ‘when the publique Theatres were shut up’.

A Court interlude, with performers and spectators, might be supposed to be represented in (e) a woodcut prefixed to Wilson’s Three Lords and Three Ladies of London (1590), but the subject is not that of the play, and the cut is shown by A. W. Pollard (English Miracle Plays, ed. 6, 1914) to be taken from S. Batman, The Travayled Pylgrime (1569), and ultimately from a fifteenth-century illustration to O. de la Marche’s Chevalier Délibéré.

Of the exteriors of theatres there are (f) a small engraving of Theatrum in a compartment of the title-page of Jonson’s Works (1616), which may be merely a bit of classical archaeology, but appears to have the characteristic Elizabethan hut, and (g) a series of representations, or perhaps only cartographical symbols, in the various maps detailed in the bibliographical note to ch. xvi. Doubtfully authentic is (h) a façade of the Blackfriars, reproduced by Baker, 78, from a print in the collection of Mr. Henry Gardiner, with a note (44) that the owner and various antiquarians ‘believe it genuine’; and almost certainly misnamed (i) a façade engraved as a relic of the second Fortune in R. Wilkinson, Londina Illustrata (1819), ii. 141, and elsewhere, which is plausibly assigned by W. J. Lawrence, Restoration Stage Nurseries, in Archiv (1914), 301, to a post-Restoration training-school for young actors.

A small ground-plan (k) of the Swan appears upon a manor map of Paris Garden in 1627, reproduced by W. Rendle in Harrison, ii, App. I.

A rough engraving (l) on the title-page of Cornucopia, Pasquils Nightcap (1612) shows a section of the orchestra of a classical play-house as seen from the stage, and throws no light on contemporary conditions; and (m) the design by Inigo Jones described in ch. vii is of uncertain date, and intended for the private Cockpit theatre at Whitehall.

I know of no representation of an English provincial stage, and unfortunately E. Mentzel, who describes (Gesch. der Schauspielkunst in Frankfurt am Main, 38) a woodcut of a play, with signboards, by English actors, probably at Frankfort, Nuremberg, or Cassel, in 1597, does not reproduce it. Some notion of the improvised stages used by travelling companies for out-of-door performances may be obtained from the continental engravings reproduced by Bapst, 153, by Rigal in Petit de Julleville, iii. 264, 296, and by M. B. Evans, An Early Type of Stage (M. P. ix. 421).

An engraving of the Restoration stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (built 1663), from Ariane, ou Le Mariage de Bacchus (1674), and another of the same house as altered in 1696, from Unhappy Kindness (1697), are reproduced by Lawrence, i. 169; ii. 140. Of the five engravings of the Duke’s Theatre, Dorset Garden (built 1671), in E. Settle, Empress of Morocco (1673), one is reproduced by Albright, 47, and another by Lawrence, ii. 160, and Thorndike, 110.