both to the east and the south, than the point indicated by Halliwell-Phillipps.[1]
The Burbadges claimed that James was the first builder of play-houses, but the Curtain must have followed very soon after the Theatre. It is not mentioned by name with its predecessor in the Privy Council order of 1 August 1577, but is in Northbrooke's treatise of the following December. Up to 1597 its history is little more than a pendant to that of the Theatre, with which it is generally coupled in the Puritan attacks and in the occasional interferences of authority. From 1585 to 1592, indeed, it was used as an 'easer' to the Theatre, and the profits of the two houses were pooled under an arrangement between Henry Lanman and the Burbadges.[2] The companies who occupied the Curtain can for the most part only be guessed at.[3] At the time of the inhibition of 14 June 1584 it was probably occupied by Lord Arundel's men. Tarlton appeared at it, but not necessarily after the formation of the Queen's company.[4] Prizes of the School of Defence were occasionally played at it from 1579 to 1583.[5] Unlike the Theatre, the Curtain was certainly reopened after the inhibition of 1597. It is likely that the Chamberlain's men repaired to it in October of that year, and remained at it until the Globe was ready in 1599. The same satirist, who tells us that the Theatre was closed in 1598, tells us that the Rose, which was continuously occupied by the Admiral's men, and the Curtain were open;[6] and
- ↑ Reproduced in Baker, 36, 135, with a photographic enlargement of the building, wrongly identified with the Theatre. It is shown as a round or hexagonal structure, with a large flag, standing in the middle of a square paled plot; but too much stress must not be laid on what is probably only a cartographic symbol. Immediately south of it is Bedlam. Kiechel tells us that the house had three galleries, and de Witt that it was an 'amphitheatrum' (cf. pp. 358, 362). In the epilogue to Three English Brothers (1607) it is a 'round circumference'.
- ↑ Cf. p. 393.
- ↑ Fleay, 40, 88, 145, 201, 300, assigns it as follows: Sussex's (1576-83), Arundel's and Oxford's (1584), Howard's and Hunsdon's (1585), Oxford's (1586-8), Pembroke's (1589-97), Chamberlain's (1597-9), Derby's (1599-1600), uncertain company (1601), Queen Anne's (1604-9), Duke of York's (1610-23). But, of course, this is guessing.
- ↑ Tarlton, 16. If Tarlton's Jig of a Horse Load of Fools, taken from a manuscript of Collier's (Tarlton, xx), is genuine, that also was given at the Curtain.
- ↑ Sloane MS. 2530, ff. 4, 12, 43, 44, 46.
- ↑ Guilpin, Skialetheia (S. R. 8 Sept. 1598), Sat. v:
if my dispose
Perswade me to a play, I'le to the Rose,
Or Curtaine, one of Plautus comedies,
Or the patheticke Spaniards tragedies;and in the Preludium, of a 'Cittizen . . . comming from the Curtaine'.
