On June 23, 1592, because of a riot in Southwark, the Privy Council closed all the playhouses in and about London.[204] Shortly after this the Lord Strange's Men, who were then occupying the Rose, petitioned the Council to be allowed to resume acting in their playhouse. The Council granted them instead permission to act three times a week at Newington Butts; but the players, not relishing this proposal, chose rather to travel in the provinces. Soon finding that they could not make their expenses in the country, they returned to London, and again appealed to the Privy Council to be allowed to perform at the Rose.[205] The warrant issued by the Council in reply to this second petition tells us for the first time something definite about the Newington Butts Theatre:
To the Justices, Bailiffs, Constables, and Others to Whom it Shall Appertain:
Whereas not long since, upon some considerations, we did restrain the Lord Strange his servants from playing at the Rose on the Bankside, and enjoyned them to play three days [206]
From this warrant we learn that so early as 1592 the Newington house was almost deserted, and that "of long time" plays had been given there only occasionally.
Two years later, on June 3, 1594, Henslowe sent the Admiral's and the Chamberlain's Men to play temporarily at the half-deserted old playhouse, probably in order to give opportunity for needed repairs at the Rose.[207] The section of his Diary, under the heading, "In the name of god Amen begininge at newington my Lord Admeralle men & my Lord Chamberlen men As followethe 1594," constitutes the fullest and clearest—and, one may add, the most illustrious—chapter in the history of this obscure building; for although it extends over only ten days, it tells us that Edward Alleyn, Richard Burbage, and William Shakespeare then trod the Newington stage, and it records the performance there of such plays as The Jew of Malta, Andronicus, The Taming of a Shrew, and Hamlet.
We next hear of the building near the end of the century: in 1599, says Mr. Wallace, it was "only a memory, as shown by a contemporary record to be published later."[208]
Two other references close the history. In A Woman is a Weathercock, iii, iii, printed in 1612, but written earlier, one of the actors exclaims of an insufferable pun: "O Newington Conceit!" The fact that this sneer is the only reference to the Newington Playhouse found in contemporary literature is a commentary on the low esteem in which the building was held by the Elizabethans, and its relative unimportance for the history of the drama.
The last notice is in Howe's continuation of Stow's Annals (1631).[209] After enumerating all the theatres built in London and the suburbs "within the space of three-score years," he adds vaguely, "besides one in former time at Newington Butts."