The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 4

by E. K. Chambers

Now for the difference betwixt our Theaters and those of former times, they were but plain and simple, with no other Scenes, nor Decorations of the Stage, but onely old Tapestry, and the Stage strew’d with Rushes (with their Habits accordingly) whereas ours now for cost and ornament are arriv’d at the heighth of Magnificence.... For Scenes and Machines they are no new invention, our Masks and some of our Playes in former times (though not so ordinary) having had as good or rather better then any we have now.

ii.

[Extracts from Historia Histrionica: an Historical Account of the English Stage, shewing the Ancient Use, Improvement, and Perfection of Dramatick Representations in this Nation. In a Dialogue of Plays and Players (1699). A facsimile reprint was issued by E. W. Ashbee in 1872. The text is also given in Dodsley⁴, xv. I use, with a correction, the modernized text of A. Lang, Social England Illustrated (1903, Arber, English Garner²), 422. The Historia Histrionica is ascribed to James Wright, an antiquary and play-collector (1643–1713), who can only have recorded what he learnt from others. He is, of course, writing primarily of the Caroline, rather than the Elizabethan or Jacobean period.]

Truman. I say, the actors that I have seen, before the Wars, Lowin, Taylor, Pollard, and some others, were almost as far beyond Hart and his company; as those were, beyond these now in being....

Lovewit. Pray, Sir, what master-parts can you remember the old ‘Blackfriars’ men to act, in Johnson’s, Shakespeare’s, and Fletcher’s plays?

Truman. What I can at present recollect I’ll tell you. Shakespeare (who, as I have heard, was a much better Poet than Player), Burbage, Hemmings, and others of the older sort, were dead before I knew the Town. But, in my time, before the Wars; Lowin used to act, with mighty applause, Falstaff; Morose; Vulpone; and Mammon in the Alchemist; Melancius in the Maid’s tragedy. And at the same time, Amyntor was played by Stephen Hammerton: who was, at first, a most noted and beautiful Woman-Actor; but afterwards he acted, with equal grace and applause, a young lover’s part.

Taylor acted Hamlet incomparably well; Jago; Truewit, in the Silent Woman; and Face, in the Alchemist.

Swanston used to play Othello.

Pollard and Robinson were Comedians. So was Shank; who used to act Sir Roger in the Scornful Lady. These were of the ‘Blackfriars’....

Truman. Before the Wars, there were in being, all these Play Houses at the same time.