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A Thousand Years of British Theatre History (Part 2)The Sixteenth CenturyThe sixteenth century was the great watershed of British theatre. At the beginning of the century we had Drama: by the end we had Theatre. At the beginning religious drama, although declining, was still dominant: by the end, at least ten of Shakespeare's plays had been produced, including A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Richard III and parts 1 and 2 of Henry IV. One of the most significant new developments was the rise of the professional actor. In the liturgical dramas of the preceeding centuries - for instance Katherine de Sutton's Easter ceremony at Barking (see Part 1) - monks, nuns and priests were the performers. The development of the Mystery plays then led to the involvement of the laity, but in every case the performers were what we would now describe as amateurs. Only by going back to the bards and minstrels do we find professional performers. What paved the way for the development of professional theatre was the love of the Tudor monarchs for display. Royal progresses, "disguisings", tournaments and other such spectacles - usually with the king at the centre - had to be organised and presented in a thoroughly professional manner to avoid attracting the king's wrath, and there is no doubt that the very first generation of professional performers sprang from those who organised, took part in or simply watched these spectacular events. We do know that Henry VIII - not a man to let down! - had his own troupe of actors - four men and a boy - who were skilled in quick costume changes and playing a number of parts. Political and religious troubles (Henry VIII again!) led to the death of the Mystery plays. In 1548 the Feast of Corpus Christi was suppressed, a warning sign of the waning of religious drama. Performances continued in the north and midlands (remote from the centre of power in London) until around 1580, but by then the secular drama had grown in importance. As early as the first half of the century, secular plays were being performed for a limited audience. Strongly influenced by the Roman comedy of Plautus and Terence, the earliest successsful English comedy Ralph Roister Doister was written some time between 1534 and 1552 by Nicholas Udall and performed by the schoolboys of Eton (or, possibly, Westminster). Gammer Gurton's Needle, also probably performed by schoolboys, followed some time between 1552 and 1563. Tragedy was a later development, the first we know of being Gorboduc, written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville for performance before the Queen at the Inner Temple in 1562. It, too, was based on the Roman rather than the Greek model, Norton and Sackville very consciously following the pattern of the work of Seneca. The Theatres It was, however, the development of the actual theatre building which was to change the whole course of British theatre. By the last quarter of the century, theatre companies had begun to be formed, usually under the patronage of aristocrats. These were made up of professional actors and played in two totally distinct kinds of venue: the homes of their patrons, where they played to the aristocracy, and inn yards, where they played to the populace. They were paid in two distinct ways, by their patron for their work for him and by collections among the inn yards audiences, the latter not being a very sure way of covering costs, let alone making a profit! In 1574 the law changed to allow performances on weekdays and this led directly to the building of the very first theatre. The first was simply called The Theatre and was built by master carpenter James Burbage, who had professional acting experience himself as a member of the Earl of Leicester's Men. It was built outside the City of London in Shoreditch because, although the aristocracy and the common people were ardent supporters, the Burgesses of the City of London were less enthusiastic and Burbage wanted to be free of their possible interference. It seems likely that Burbage was motivated more by financial than artistic considerations, for his theatre had a dual purpose: the stage was not a permanent feature, but could be removed to mount another popular entertainment of the time, cock-fights. And, of course, charging one penny admittance was a far surer method of covering costs and making a profit than passing the hat round in an inn yard! Other theatres followed remarkably quickly: The Curtain (1577) was followed in less than ten years by the Rose and, in less than twenty, by the Swan. The Plays So the playhouses were built, but there were no plays! Or, at least, the repertoire was very small indeed. And then, suddenly, there was an explosion of new writing, as if the building of the Curtain opened the floodgates of creativity. The greatest of these pre-Shakespearean writers was undoubtedly Christopher Marlowe whose hugely influential Tamburlane was written around 1587, three years before Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost which modern critics believe to be the first of his plays. Private Theatres Although the building of theatres like the Theatre and the Rose was a turning point in the history of theatre in the British Isles, it is not to be supposed that other strands of theatre simply stopped. On the contrary, 1576 also saw another significant development - the indoor theatre. The great Elizabethan playhouses were, of course, open to the elements. There was a roof over the stage and those who sat in the seats had roofs over their heads, but the groundlings, those who stood in the open well in front of the stage, had no such protection. The indoor theatres, however, were private theatres, in some ways similar to the performances given in aristocratic mansions, but built for the purpose. In 1576 Richard Ferrant, Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, converted rooms in what had been the Blackfriars monastery into an indoor playhouse, where his pupils performed. Not to be outdone, Sebastian Westcott, Master of the Boys of St Pauls, set up a rival company, and these "boys' companies" achieved a great deal of success, particularly among the aristocracy. Chief among the playwrights who wrote for these companies was John Lyly, whose first plays were performed at Blackfriars in 1584. These companies had a short life, however, for by 1608 tastes had changed to such an extent that the companies more or less disappeared. It has to be said that their disappearance was hastened by some political mistakes made by those who controlled them, including Lyly. So by the end of the sixteenth century we have a mature and exciting theatre world which was in essence very similar to what we have today, with purpose-built theatres, professional actors and a stock of writing talent which was unsurpassed until the twentieth century. What a change from the world of liturgical drama, Mystery and Morality plays, and mummers, which was the picture less than a hundred years previously! Links
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