went beyond the gagging of a clown, it was probably only in some exceptional experiment or tour de force.[1] 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.[2] One would like to know more about the play, apparently a monologue, 'set out al by one virgin', at the Theatre in 1583.[3]
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.
The exact location of Paul's is obscure, but we know that its auditorium was round and its stage small.[4] Whitefriars and both the earlier and the later Blackfriars were in rooms which had formed part of mediaeval conventual buildings, rectangular, roofed, and more analogous to courtly halls than to popular rings. No room at Farrant's disposal would have given him a stage of a greater width than 27 ft. Burbadge's theatre was 66 ft. from north to south, and 46 ft. from east to west. It was on the second story of his purchase that he could have best constructed it. The stage, which stood on a paved floor, was probably towards the south end, and as the whole space available was something
- [Footnote: to French and Italian practice, and so too, presumably, A. C. v. ii. 216,
'The quick comedians Extemporally will stage us'. The interpretation of Hamlet, II. ii. 420, 'For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men', is open, but Falstaff says in 1 Hen. IV, II. iv. 309, 'Shall we have a play extempore?']
- ↑ Hamlet, III. ii. 42; cf. John a Kent and John a Cumber, iii, ad fin., 'One of us Johns must play beside the book'.
- ↑ In K. B. P., ind. 94, where Ralph 'should have playd Jeronimo with a Shooemaker for a wager'; Ratseis Ghost (1605, Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 326), 'I durst venture all the mony in my purse on thy head to play Hamlet with him for a wager'; Dekker, Jests to Make You Merrie (1607, Works, ii. 282), 'A paire of players, growing into an emulous contention of one anothers worth, refusde to put themselves to a day of hearing (as any Players would haue done) but stood onely vpon their good parts'; cf. ch. xvi (Fortune), ch. xv (Alleyn).
- ↑ Cf. ch. xi, p. 371.
- ↑ 2 Ant. Mellida, prol., 'within this round . . . this ring'; cf. p. 536. Fawn (1604-6), prol., has 'this fair-filled room', but the play was transferred to Paul's from Blackfriars.
