Public performances of university-made imitations of Roman comedy were common during the reign of Edward the Sixth, and during the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) seventeen professional theatres were licensed for the exhibition of contemporary plays. In something like sixty years, the English drama and the English theatre had grown from crude beginnings to the highest point they have yet reached. And it was by professional companies of actors presenting dramas and not by the court or academic presentations, that the theatre was first given form. These companies, like the craftsmen bands of miracle and mystery players, acted wherever they could find a place or wherever they were bidden,—at court, in great halls, in the provinces, in the church or the moot hall or the inn, and in London, in the inn-yard or bear pit. It was the inn-yard that was most used and had the greatest influence on the form of the playhouse.
Figure 2—Plans of the theatre just completed in Berlin for the Berliner Volksbühne. The form of the auditorium is typical of the latest practice in continental and American theatre design (see [page 27]). The large amount of stage space, in proportion to the auditorium, however, is unfortunately not typical of American theatres. The second-floor plan is included to illustrate the general arrangement rather than to show the balcony form, which is neither typical nor particularly good.
The inns were usually built in the form of a hollow square. A small passage gave access to the inner court, which was surrounded by galleries. The stage would be erected at the end of the court opposite the entrance, and spectators stood on the level ground of the yard or found seats in the galleries. The bear pits or bull rings were usually circular buildings with several galleries similar to those of the inn-yards.
The earliest theatres, built about 1576, were round in shape, with these characteristic galleries. They seem to have been used interchangeably for theatrical performances and for bear-baiting. The centers were open to the sky, like the inn-yards, and only the galleries and part of the stage were roofed. The stages projected into the center, and could be viewed, both by spectators on the ground and by those in the galleries, from three sides. The only contemporary drawing of the Elizabethan stage is that of Johannes De Witt of the University of Utrecht, who visited London in 1596. His drawing of the Swan Theatre differs in many details from the specifications of the contract, but it gives a general idea of the form of auditorium and stage. With the building of these theatres,—The Theatre, The Curtain, The Hope, The Globe, Blackfriar’s, The Swan,—the use of the inn-yards did not cease, and the Queen’s men performed regularly at The Boar’s Head in Eastcheap as late as 1603.[3]
[3] Ashley H. Thorndike, Shakespeare’s Theatre, p. 42.
Contemporaneously, there were in England, as abroad, spectacular performances at court, richly costumed and decorated. They were performed in spacious palace halls, being acted on pageant wagons or on the main floor, and were viewed from benches and balconies around the sides. Eventually the pageant gave way to a stage temporarily erected at one end of the room, the dancers descending to the main floor for large ensembles and ballets. As early as 1607, scenery, curtains, and a proscenium arch had been used. The picture stage, with its scenery in painted perspective, was an importation from Italy, following a visit there of Inigo Jones, and under his hand reached a high degree of development during the third decade of the Seventeenth Century.
Figure 3—Above is the section of the Little Theatre, New York, showing clearly the relationship of the stage, auditorium and other portions of the building. The dressing-rooms are above the auditorium and are reached by both stairs and elevator. On the opposite page is the first-floor plan of the building. It is a notable example of the best contemporary American practice in auditorium arrangement. These drawings illustrate the building as originally constructed, without the recently added balcony and other changes. Harry Creighton Ingalls and F. B. Hoffman Jr., Associate Architects.
