The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 2

by E. K. Chambers

The Tire-house doore and Tapistrie betweene,

Set all the multitude in such a laughter,

They could not hold for scarce an hour after.[1703]

The front of the tiring-house is the ‘scene’ in the Renaissance sense, and its characteristics will be of great concern in later chapters.[1704] The Fortune tire-house was to be within the frame of the theatre, and would not, therefore, unless it projected on to the stage, have more depth than about 12 ft. Mr. Brereton, in a careful analysis of the drawing, suggests that the Swan tire-house may not have extended the full width of the stage, but may have left room to come and go on either side of its front.[1705] If so, some projection is not improbable, but one cannot rely much upon the hazardous interpretation of bad draughtsmanship. The ground-plan of the Swan seems to show an annexe at one point, and of course additional depth could easily be obtained in this way. Moreover, there were at least three stories available. The spectators in the lord’s room would not take up the whole depth on the level of the middle gallery, and there must have been a corresponding space on that of the top gallery. Henslowe ceiled ‘the rome ouer the tyerhowsse’ in 1592, and an inventory of the Admiral’s men in 1598 includes effects ‘leaft above in the tier-house in the cheast’. No doubt a fair amount of accommodation was needed. The tire-house was not merely a dressing-room and a store-house. Here came the author, to rail at the murdering of his lines, and the gallants to gossip and patronize the players.[1706] Here were the book-holder, who prompted the speeches, surveyed the entrances and exits, and saw to the readiness of the properties;[1707] the tireman, who fitted the dresses and the beards, furnished stools, and in the private theatres took charge of the lights;[1708] the stage-keeper;[1709] the grooms and ‘necessary attendants’, waiting to draw curtains, to thrust out beds, and to carry benches and banquets on and off.[1710] Here, too, was the head-quarters of the music, although in the public theatres the music was largely incidental, and was often played on, or above, or even below the stage, as might seem most appropriate to any particular action.[1711] Music between the acts was not unknown, but we learn from the induction to the Malcontent that it was ‘not received’ by the audience at the Globe in 1604.[1712] There was also, of course, the final ‘jig’.[1713] For an overture, the public theatres seem to have employed nothing beyond three soundings of a trumpet, the last of which was the signal for the prologue to begin.[1714] Probably the musical element tended to increase. A special music-room perhaps existed already at the Swan in 1611, and, if so, may have been, as it was in the later theatres, in the upper part of the tire-house.[1715]

The Fortune tire-house was to have ‘convenient windowes and lightes glazed’. Some of these may have looked into the auditorium, and have been used for scenic purposes. But the maps show external windows here and there in the walls, and these would be necessary to light both the tire-house and the galleries. We have a picture of Burbadge leaning out of an upper window to greet with abuse the disturbers of his peace at the Theatre in 1590. The yard and the stage itself were, of course, lit, in the absence of a roof, from above. Performances were ordinarily by daylight; before the end of the sixteenth century the time for beginning had been fixed at 2 o’clock.[1716] The stage-directions point to a frequent enough use of lamps and tapers, but always to give the illusion of scenic darkness. Plays, however, lasted at least two hours, sometimes half an hour or even an hour longer, and there was the jig to follow.[1717] It must therefore be doubtful whether, in the depth of winter, daylight could have served quite to the end. Webster complains that the ill-success of The White Devil was due to its being given ‘in so dull a time of winter, and presented in so open and black a theatre’. Perhaps the shorter plays were chosen for the shorter days, or the jig was omitted. But it is also possible that some primitive illumination, in the form of cressets, or baskets of tarred and flaring rope, was introduced.[1718]

The actors themselves were not wholly without protection from the elements. De Witt depicts two heavy classical columns, which stand on square bases rather farther back than the middle of the stage and a little way from each side of it. These support a pent-house roof, which starts from the level of the eaves of the ‘tectum’ over the top gallery, and descends in a steep slope to a level opposite to the middle of the second gallery, where it slightly projects beyond the supporting columns. Behind and above it rises a kind of hut, conspicuous above the ‘tectum’ and forming a superstructure to the tire-house. Its front has less width than that of the tire-house, and its side is shown in clumsy perspective, which is apparently followed round by the pent-house below it. The pent-house is the only thing in the drawing, that can represent the ‘shadow’ or ‘heavens’, which several allusions point to as a regular feature in the public theatres, and which certainly existed at the Rose, the Fortune—and therefore presumably the Globe—and the Hope.[1719] But it must be admitted that this sharply sloping roof, coming down low and considerably impeding the vision of the spectators at any rate in the top gallery, does not agree very well with the notion of a heavens dominating the stage, elaborately decorated, and serving for the display of spectacular effects, which were surely meant to be visible to all. It is possible that De Witt’s halting draughtsmanship has failed him in the attempt to tackle the architectural perspective from a difficult angle in an upper gallery. My impression is that, by giving too much height to the bottom gallery, he has got the two other galleries out of line with the stories of the tire-house to which they correspond, and that the lower gallery should really be on the level of the stage, the middle gallery on that of the gallery ‘over the stage’, and the top gallery on that of the rather obscure story above. If so, the front of this story would have been visible, and may have contained some aperture of which account has not yet been taken in formulating theories of staging.[1720] And I think that the columns were really higher and the roof flatter than De Witt has drawn them. It is perhaps less easy to suggest that the columns stood farther forward than De Witt has placed them, but the roof may well have projected farther over them. They are solid enough to bear a much greater weight than the drawing indicates. However these things may have been at the Swan—I am not blind to the dangers of attempting to convert what De Witt has shown into something which he has not shown—one may, perhaps, infer that more extensive roofing than the pent-house of the drawing would afford was contemplated by the Fortune contract, which provides for ‘a shadowe or cover over the saide stadge’, and the Hope contract, which is even more precise in its specification of ‘the Heavens all over the saide stage’. In both cases there were to be gutters to carry away rain-water. The heavens at the Hope were ‘to be borne or carryed without any postes or supporters to be fixed or sett uppon the saide stage’, and it has been thought that other theatres of later date than the Swan may also have dispensed with posts. But there is little ground for this theory, other than the obvious obstruction which the posts would offer to vision.[1721] Howes seems to refer to the arrangement at the Hope as an innovation, and it can hardly be unrelated to the special need for a removable stage at that house. On the other hand the posts may very likely have been slighter than De Witt has shown them. At the Fortune they were, like other ‘princypall and maine postes’, square and carved ‘palasterwise’ with satyrs. The posts are worked into the action of several plays, and Kempe tells us that pickpockets were pilloried by being tied to them.[1722]

The hut has two windows in front, and a door in the visible side. It has been suggested that it may really have stood rather more forward than De Witt indicates, jutting out from the tire-house so as to be directly over a part of the heavens.[1723] An analogous superstructure is observable in most of the map-representations of theatres. That of the later Globe in Visscher’s map of 1616 seems to have two bays, one behind another, instead of the one bay of the Swan drawing, and would have required more space. The ‘Theatrum’ of Jonson’s 1616 Folio has an L-shaped superstructure. The object of a jut forward would be to facilitate the descents and ascents from and to the heavens, which formed popular features in many plays, and which must have been contrived by some kind of machinery from above.[1724] From the roof of this hut floats a flag, with the figure of a swan upon it, and at the door stands a man, apparently blowing a trumpet, from which depends a smaller flag also bearing a swan. There is abundant evidence that the play-houses flew flags when they were open for performances, and took them down when Lent or a plague rendered playing impossible.[1725] The trumpeter is no doubt giving one of the three ‘soundings’ which preluded the appearance of the prologue in his traditional long black velvet cloak.[1726] Nor did the flag and the trumpet exhaust the resources of the Elizabethan art of advertisement. The vexillatores of the miracle-play would perhaps have been out of keeping with London conditions.[1727] But it was customary to announce after the epilogue of each performance what the next was to be.[1728] And public notification was given by means of play-bills, of which we hear from as early a date as 1564, and which were set up on posts in conspicuous places up and down the city and probably also at the play-house doors.[1729] Copies seem also to have been available for circulation from hand to hand.[1730] On 30 October 1587 John Charlwood entered in the Stationers’ Register a licence for ‘the onely ympryntinge of all manner of billes for players’. This passed from him to James Roberts, and was transferred by Roberts to William Jaggard on 29 October 1615.[1731] No theatrical bill of the Elizabethan or Jacobean period is preserved, although a manuscript bill for the Bear Garden is amongst Alleyn’s papers at Dulwich.[1732] Four late seventeenth-century bills are at Claydon; they are brief announcements, which give the names of the plays, but not those of the authors or actors.[1733] There is no evidence of anything corresponding to the modern programme, with its cast and synopsis of scenes.[1734] The audience gathered early, as there were few, if any, reserved seats.[1735] The period of waiting was spent in consuming fruit or sweatmeats and liquid refreshment, and in expressing impatience if the actors failed to make an appearance in good time.[1736] Tobacco was freely used, especially by the gallants on the stage.[1737] Books were also hawked up and down, and a game of cards might beguile the tedium of waiting.[1738] The galleries were full of light women, who found them a profitable haunt, but whose presence did not altogether prevent that of ladies of position, probably in the private rooms, and possibly masked.[1739]

If the audience liked a play, the actors expected a Plaudite of hand-clapping; if otherwise, they took their chance of hissing and ‘mewing’, or of a pointed withdrawal of spectators from the stage.[1740] The device of a claque was not unknown.[1741] The applause was often invited in the closing speech or in a formal epilogue, on the same lines as the prologue, which it seems to have replaced in favour about the end of the sixteenth century.[1742] This might also lead up to or perhaps represent the prayer for the sovereign, of which there are traces up to a late date, and which was analogous to the modern use of ‘God Save the King’.[1743] The accompanying prayer for the ‘lord’ of the players, on the other hand, cannot be shown to have been adopted into the public theatres.[1744] Finally, the epilogue might indicate a coming dance.[1745] Of this a little more needs to be said. The players have amongst other elements in their ancestry the mediaeval mimes, and they inherit the familiar mimic tradition of multifarious entertainment. The ‘legitimate’ drama was not as yet on its pedestal. The companies of the ’eighties and even the early ’nineties were composed of men ready at need to eke out their plays by musical performances and even the ‘activities’ of acrobats. This is perhaps most obvious in the continental companies, which had to face the obstacles to a complete intelligence between stage and audience introduced at the tower of Babel. Such a cosmopolitan mingling of drama and ‘activities’ as we may suppose The Labours of Hercules to have been was a valuable resource.[1746] But at home also we find Strange’s and the Admiral’s men showing their ‘activities’ at court, and Symons the acrobat becoming a leader amongst the Queen’s, and even so late as 1601 Henslowe fitting out the Admiral’s boy Nick to tumble in the presence of royalty. The country tours of the Queen’s were for some time accompanied by a Turkish rope dancer.[1747] In the theatres themselves Italian players made their success and their scandal, with the help of tumbling women.[1748] Whether English players did the same we do not know. But we do know that the dance by way of afterpiece was a regular and enduring custom.[1749] It was known as the jig.[1750] At first, perhaps, nothing more than such dancing, with the help of a variety of foreign costumes, as was also an element in the early masks, it developed into a farcical dialogue, with a musical and Terpsichorean accompaniment, for which popular tunes, such as Fading, were utilized.[1751] This transformation was perhaps due to the initiative of Tarlton, to whom several jigs are attributed.[1752] But he was followed by Kempe and others, and in the last decade of the sixteenth century the jig may be inferred from the Stationers’ Register to have become almost a literary type.[1753] Nashe in 1596 threatens Gabriel Harvey with an interlude, and ‘a Jigge at the latter end in English Hexameters of O neighbour Gabriell, and his wooing of Kate Cotton’.[1754] In 1597 Henslowe bought two jigs from two young men for the Admiral’s at a cost of 6s. 8d.[1755] In 1598 ‘Kemps Jigge’ was being sung in the streets.[1756] The Middlesex justices made a special order against the lewd jigs, songs, and dances at the Fortune in 1612.[1757] Unfortunately few jigs have survived except from a late date or in German adaptations.[1758] Two or three, however, appear amongst collections of ballads to which they are cognate in metrical form, notably one ascribed to ‘M^r Attowel’, whom we should, I think, identify with the sixteenth-century George, rather than the seventeenth-century Hugh, of that name.[1759] Another, Rowland’s Godson, seems to be the surviving member of a well-known cycle.[1760]

Nor was the jig the only form of afterpiece which had its savour in an Elizabethan play-house. Tarlton again, and after Tarlton Wilson, won reputation in the handling of ‘themes’, which appear to have been improvisations in verse, strung together on some motive supplied by a member of the audience.[1761] It has been suggested that complete plays were also sometimes given by the method of improvised dialogue on a concerted plot which was followed in the Italian commedie dell’ arte.[1762] This must remain very doubtful. The Italian practice and the stock characters, pantaloon, zany, and harlequin, of the commedie dell’ arte were certainly known in England; but we have the clear evidence of The Case is Altered that by 1597 at any rate they had not been naturalized.[1763] If improvisation went beyond the gagging of a clown, it was probably only in some exceptional experiment or tour de force.[1764] As exceptional also we may regard Vennar’s spectacular Englands Joy of 1602 and the wager plays, in which actors or even amateurs challenged each other to compete in rendering some ‘part’ of traditional repute.[1765] One would like to know more about the play, apparently a monologue, ‘set out al by one virgin’, at the Theatre in 1583.[1766]

Many of the characteristics of the public theatres naturally repeated themselves at the Blackfriars, the Whitefriars, and Paul’s. The distinctive features of these, as already indicated, arose from the structure of the buildings, from the higher prices charged, and in the beginning at least from the employment of singing boys as actors. Some assimilation of ‘public’ and ‘private’ methods was bound to follow upon the acquisition of the Blackfriars by men actors in 1609, but the period during which this was the principal house of the King’s company lies outside the scope of this survey.