THE LITERARY AND EARLY STAGE HISTORYof Elizabethan period plays is a fascinating field. Among the reasons are the huge challenges identifying, sorting and making sense of the evidence. There is so much we want to know, yet the evidence is so sparse. Scholars in recent years have added considerably to our knowledge using two principal approaches. Some, like Tiffany Stern, have intensively reexamined documents that were already available, finding evidence there that previously has been overlooked. Others, like David Kathman, Alan Nelson and Eva Griffith, have found in the archives previously overlooked documents.
But a third source of new evidence has also become available to us in recent years. Archeologists have been excavating the foundations of Elizabethan period theaters and other relevant sites. Here we are looking at actual physical artifacts from the time itself. They surely have something to tell us. Let’s look here at three examples, the Rose, the Curtain, and New Place.
As evidence, these artifacts are subject to the same limitations as all other potential sources of evidence. Do we properly understand what they are? Are they in fact evidence or just noise? If they are evidence, how do they fit into the matrix of what we already know, or think we know? Then we need to consider what the archeological evidence tells us. Physical facts are immutable. How we interpret those facts is subject to our malleable imaginations. Caution is, as always, required.
The Rose
The most extensive relevant archeological dig, and by far the most thoroughly documented, is at Henslowe’s Rose theater. That’s a convenient fact for us, as the Rose is also extensively reflected in contemporary documents, especially in Henslowe’s records. We can compare the evidence revealed by the archeology with that reflected in the records. The Diary, for example, thoroughly documents Henslowe’s expenses for the theater’s expansion in 1592. The archeology confirms what the Diary says, and in a more tangible way, laying out exactly how, in physical terms, the theater was expanded.
The Rose’s archeology has much to tell us about the literary and early stage history of the plays that were performed there. Let’s focus here on one topic, the physical topography of the Rose’s post-expansion stage. The foundations reveal a regular trapezoid, except that the long line in the back was a concave curve, bending outward, following the round shape of the theater itself. The trapezoid was thrust out into the auditorium, its front there narrower than its curved back. There were two posts inside the stage, near the front corners. They presumably held up the roof and hut above the stage depicted in the panoramic engraving of London, prepared by John Norden and published in 1600.
The stage’s dimensions are of particular interest. As mentioned, the stage’s back side curves away, but measured as a straight line it was about 35 feet, or 11 meters, long. The front of the stage measured about 26 feet, or 8 meters. The depth of the stage varied, because the back side curved away. At its deepest point, in the center, the stage was about 19 feet, or less than 6 meters. At its narrowest points, at both ends, the stage was about 14 feet, or little more than 4 meters, deep. Even that depth was foreshortened by the presence of the posts near the front corners of the stage.
Let’s pause here for references. The Rose’s dimensions are discussed in Julian Bowsher, Shakespeare’s London Theatreland (2012), Peter Thomson, Shakespeare’s Theatre (2d ed., 1992) and Wickham, Berry and Ingram, English Professional Theatre (2000), among other works. The most extensive publication, with archeological maps and conjectured architectural drawings is Elizabeth Gurr, The Rose (2009). For my own dimensions I rely primarily on the archeological maps at 19 in Gurr and 421 in Wickham, Berry and Ingram. All contemporary drawings of period theaters are usefully collected in R.A. Foakes, Illustrations of the English Stage (1985).
Something about the Rose stage’s topography will surprise almost everyone: its small size. The stage’s average depth, considering both the presence of the posts and that there were two ends and only one center, was about 15 feet, well short of 5 meters. Modern theater stages, in contrast, vary considerably but typically are almost twice that deep, maybe 28 feet. The front of the Rose stage was also surprisingly short at about 28 feet, especially considering that the posts located near the corners effectively foreshortened that length too. Modern stages vary again, but usually are around 35 feet.
When we juxtapose the small size of the Rose stage with the props that we know were used on that stage, we have some serious figuring-out to do. The expanded Rose was used through most of the 1590s by the Lord Admiral’s Company. They performed Marlowe’s Tamburlaine there many times, as we know from Henslowe’s Diary. In Part Two, Tamburlaine enters “drawn in his chariot” by two defeated kings. Now, how in heaven’s name did the Lord Admiral’s accomplish that feat on so narrow a stage? You have to suppose that the chariot was constructed to scaled-down dimensions. Tamburlaine himself was performed by Edward Alleyn, who, as Susan Cerasano has shown, was unusually tall for the time. In a scaled-down chariot, Alleyn as Tamburlaine must have seemed especially imposing.
Tamburlaine’s chariot is not the only prop that will cause us to recalibrate. Any number are contained on Henslowe’s list of Lord Admiral’s properties that he stored at the expanded Rose. I examine this list, its provenance and probable 1599 date in my RES article concerning Peele’s Battle of Alcazar. There we find such props as a “great horse with his leages [legs].” That presumably was a prop used in the lost play “Troy,” production of which is reflected in the Diary. How did the Lord Admiral’s get that on the stage? In order to perform its function, the great horse must have been big enough to hold at least two boy actors.
We could go on with the list. I’ll mention a couple personal favorites. There’s a “Hell mought [mouth].” That, I assume, was used, probably over a trap door, at the end of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. There, the good Doctor is dragged into Hell by the devils. He cries out “Ugly Hell, gape not!” That would have been an impressive property on so small a stage, especially because it was big enough to accommodate Edward Alleyn, who played Faustus. Then again, there’s a “payer of stayers for Fayeton,” which would be a pair of stairs for “Phaeton,” a lost play performed by the Lord Admiral’s early in 1598. Phaeton was the son of Helios. He drove Helios’s chariot across the skies erratically, thus dooming himself. And again, a pair of stairs, presumably into the heavens, must have been a striking sight on so small a stage.
Like its stage the Rose’s auditorium was also surprisingly small, even in its expanded version. Its width at its widest point was about 27 meters. The auditorium’s depth from center stage to the back of the furthest gallery was only about 19 meters. Yet London’s theaters could attract very large crowds, in the range of 2,000 to 3,000. People were somewhat smaller then, but it also seems apparent that they expected less personal space than we do at theatrical events.
The Curtain
There’s much more to be done integrating the Rose’s archeology into our understanding of literary and stage history. But let’s leave that for future scholars and turn to a related subject. When might archeological evidence not be evidence at all? In the case of the Rose, the archeology correlates with the written records. What if it hadn’t?
That question leads us to the subject of the Curtain theater. We have learned from the archeologists in the last few years that the Curtain was a rectangular theater. That discovery has caused a major stir among theater historians. And the archeologists have indeed discovered a rectangular edifice. You can see that by looking at the foundations. But was that rectangular edifice the Curtain? The written records seem to show that the Curtain was a polygonal building, sufficiently polygonal to be described as round.
There are no fewer than four independent records touching upon the point. Let’s begin with what apparently is the only actual depiction of the Curtain. The depiction is contained within an undated panoramic engraving, The View of the Cittye of London from the North towards the South. Two copies survive. The engraving is undated but includes representations of two people, probably King James and Queen Anne, who are wearing costumes from well into the Jacobean period. It’s based on a preceding drawing. Herbert Berry minutely examines the engraving in Shakespeare Survey. He shows, beyond reasonable doubt, that the drawing was made sometime between 1600 and 1613. The View portrays a building in Shoreditch which clearly is a theater. Within the timeframe Berry identifies, that theater can only be the Curtain. The other theater in Shoreditch, the Theater, had been dismantled at the end of 1598.
Before Berry’s article, some scholars argued that the drawing or engraving had been made earlier, and that the building portrayed is the Theater. Another building shown next to the theater building, they argued, was the Curtain. They based this argument on the fact that the engraving seems to show a flag flying above the other building. But Berry points out that many buildings besides theaters flew flags. When you look at the other building, moreover, it sure doesn’t look like a theater. It’s small even compared to the ordinary buildings around it, and far smaller than the obvious theater building. It’s shorter than many of the ordinary buildings, and half the height of the theater building. Its flag is barely visible. Its façade is mostly covered by bushes.
The building that is thus apparently the Curtain isn’t depicted in the engraving with complete clarity. The engraver probably did not realize that this small part of his engraving would be so closely scrutinized by scholars 400 years later. Nevertheless, the engraver’s depiction is sufficiently clear to allow reasonable conclusions. He shows us a three-story building with three front-facing facets. The top line of the middle facet is horizontal, and the top lines of the two flanking facets descend from that horizontal. Hatchmarks drawn on the two flanking facets similarly descend from the center facet.
Considering geometry and perspective, these lines and marks can only represent a three-dimensional object in the shape of an octagon. The octagon could of course merely be representative of some polygon with more sides than eight. But the drawing cannot reasonably be interpreted to represent a rectangle. The engraver draws many rectangular buildings in the surrounding area. Those buildings show two facets conjoined at single lines, just as perspective and geometry require for rectangular buildings.
Indeed, the engraver depicts such a rectangular structure sitting atop our theater building. That presumably was an above-sage hut. The contrast in its shape and that of the building itself indicates that the engraver’s depiction of a polygonal shape for the building itself was altogether intentional. The engraver also shows two structures protruding from the sides of the theater building. Those presumably were housings for external staircases.
Whether the Curtain was octagonal or perhaps more multi-polygonal, it was sufficiently round to be described as such by several writers. Johannes de Witt, a Dutch visitor to London around 1596, reports in Latin that there are four beautiful London “amphitheatra.” The two more surpassing of these are the Rose and the Swan, across the Thames. The other two can be reached by passing through Bishopsgate. Those two were, almost certainly, the Theater and the Curtain.
“Amphitheatra” meant in Latin approximately what “amphitheaters” means in English today. They were round or ovular theaters with stages at their centers. A single Roman theater, a “theatrum,” was either a semicircle or half an oval. An “amphitheatrum” was a double theater. That is, a theater consisting of two conjoined semicircular or half-ovular theaters, making a full round.
De Witt knew what “amphitheatra” meant. His Latin is fully competent. We have it on irrefutable evidence that the Rose and the Swan were in fact round or polygonal, and on good evidence that the Theater was. De Witt himself left us a now famous drawing depicting the interior of the Swan, and it shows a round auditorium. Thus, it follows from de Witt’s choice of terms that—like the Rose, the Swan and the Theater—the Curtain was a round or polygonal building.
The same conclusion follows from the text of a play from around 1606 by Day, Rowley and Wilkins, The Travels of The Three English Brothers. The play was entered into the Stationers’ Company Register in June 1607, “as yt was played at the Curten.” “As it was played at the Curtain” is about as solid evidence as we may expect to find regarding where our period’s plays were performed. In the play’s epilogue the figure of Fame summarizes the destinies of the three brothers. But then she suggests that some in the audience may know more. Those folks in the audience are “some that fill up this round circumference.” The Curtain’s auditorium is, thus, a “round circumference.”
And that conclusion follows again from one of the most well-known plays performed, apparently, at the Curtain. Shakespeare finished Henry V, the evidence suggests, around May 1599. The Chorus to Act Five describes a victory parade for the king. It predicts that “the General of our gracious Empress” will, by “a high-loving likelihood,” soon be greeted by a similar parade, when he is “from Ireland coming, bringing rebellion broached on his sword.” The Empress is of course Elizabeth, the General, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. Essex had departed for Ireland at the head of a large army, amidst great fanfare, on March 27, 1599. His mission was to defeat the Irish rebellion.
But Essex’s mission did not go well, from its very beginning. And by the end June, it was obvious that Essex would not be returning amidst any triumphal parade. He had marched his army south from Dublin, away from the main rebel force led by the Earl of Tyrone. The march produced little but misery and ignominious military defeats. By the time the army limped back to Dublin at the end of June, its strength had been significantly reduced by disease, desertion and casualties. And it still had not confronted Tyrone. So the chorus to Act Five probably was written soon after March 27. Almost certainly, before the end of June, 1599.
Another token correspondingly suggests that Henry V must have been in performance by the summer of 1599. Henslowe loaned the Lord Admiral’s £10 to pay Munday, Drayton, Wilson and Hathaway for the first part of Sir John Oldcastle, plus an advance for a second part, on October 16, 1599. The sum is substantial. It would not have been paid in the company’s ordinary practice unless the first part of the play had been completed.
The first part of our journeyman playwrights’ play borrows several incidents and phrases from Henry V. The incidents and phrases were identified by C.F. Tucker Brooke in 1918, and the incidents are listed in J.H. Walter’s edition of Shakespeare’s play. Thus the journeyman playwrights saw Shakespeare’s play performed and wrote their own play before the middle of October. Allowing them, say, eight weeks to outline, propose, and write their play, they must have seen Henry V in performance by the middle of August.
Within these date limits, Henry V probably was first performed in the Curtain theater. And was written with performance there in mind. The Theater, in which the Lord Chamberlain’s Company previously had performed, had been dismantled at the end of 1598. The company had already been performing in the Curtain for some time. The company’s next theater, the Globe, probably was not finished and ready until late August 1599. The contract for construction of the Fortune contemplates 28 weeks for the job. If the Globe could have been finished in the same amount of time after the Theater was dismantled, it would have been completed in the middle of July. But I can tell you, from many years of litigating construction contracts, that major projects rarely are finished on time.
The Globe was finished and ready for performances in September. Thomas Platter saw Julius Caesar performed there on September 21. By that time Henry V had already been performed. If Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar to open the new theater, he must have finished his prior play, Henry V, around April or May.
At the beginning of Henry V, the Chorus questions the actors’ ability to perform such great events on so small a stage. How, the Chorus asks, “may we cram within this wooden ‘O’ the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?” The chorus’s reference to “this wooden ‘O’” tells us once again that the Curtain was a round or polygonal structure.
Now, may we be certain here? Of course not. Certainty is rarely possible in matters Elizabethan. But the balance of the probabilities, by a wide margin, says that the Curtain was round or polygonal. We have no fewer than four independent written records which tell us so. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that there is a 40% chance that in each of the four cases the facts which have led us to our conclusion actually are explained by some other circumstance. The chance that all four of our conclusions are wrong, in that case, by the rules of statistics, would be about 2.5%. Possible? Yes. But exceedingly improbable.
By the balance of the probabilities a rectangular foundation cannot be the foundation of the Curtain theater.
But what of the “fragments of ceramic money boxes” that were found on the site, vessels which, it is said, were used to collect entrance fees, then smashed in a “box office” to count the money? I’m no expert on the objects used in everyday Elizabethan life. So I have no idea what these fragments represent. But until someone produces an intact vessel, I’m skeptical that these are fragments of vessels used for the asserted purpose. If the “boxes” had to be smashed in order to count the collected pennies, the pennies necessarily were inserted into a slot, not thrown into an open pot. Any such vessel would have been vulnerable to fraud. Elizabethans were adept at deceptive practices. Greene’s books on conny-catching make that clear. In the hubbub of a theater entrance, anyone could show a penny, then palm it. The collectors couldn’t know whether the penny actually went into a closed, slotted, vessel. To make the system work, the collectors needed to see the penny go into the pot. Necessarily an open pot.
New Place
We’ve now considered two different cases concerning archeology and its relationship with literary and stage history. In the first case, the Rose, we need to integrate the archeology into our understanding of the history. In the second, the Curtain, we need to evaluate whether the archeology actually provides relevant evidence. Let’s take a brief look at a case that lies somewhere in between.
The recent excavations of Shakespeare’s New Place home in Stratford have yielded many interesting results. New Place was indeed an imposing house, “mansion” would be the better term. It had ten fireplaces and perhaps 20 rooms. It probably was the largest residence in Stratford, and its operation required a staff of servants. It occupied a large lot at the very center of Stratford. Shakespeare bought the property in 1597. Soon thereafter, apparently, New Place was substantially remodeled. As originally configured when it was built around 1483, its main street front housed a row of shops. The shops were eliminated in the renovation, replaced by a large hall for the house.
Assuming that the archeologists have the timing right, these excavations reveal some significant things about Shakespeare. Most importantly, he had become quite wealthy. He could afford to buy his own mansion, to have it renovated, and to pay the servants needed to maintain it. He could forego rents paid by the shopkeepers who formerly had occupied part of the building. Shakespeare had made business investments in London, and they no doubt yielded him additional income. But we may reasonably conclude that sharerships in the Lord Chamberlain’s Company were exceedingly remunerative.
On the other hand, there are some things that the archeology does not reveal. We can see what Shakespeare did. We can’t know why he did it. There has long been a school of thought saying that Shakespeare bought New Place with the idea that he would one day abandon the wicked metropolis and retire to his beloved Stratford. I suppose that the archeology will encourage such romantic reveries. But the written records show that even after he basically stopped writing plays, Shakespeare never fully retired to Stratford. He remained in London at least some of the time, attending to business and legal matters.
There’s another explanation for Shakespeare’s purchase and renovation of New Place. Call it the Seagull Effect. Seagulls standing in a line at the shore arrange themselves according to size, largest to smallest. When a new seagull flies down and joins the line, it inserts itself into its proper place, and the smaller birds move down a space. When a new seagull larger than all the rest joins the group, it doesn’t just add a place at the top of the line. No, it takes the place of the previous largest bird, and all the birds that were in the line move down a space. As the archeologists have noted, New Place declared its new owner’s “wealth and status.”
Several stories survive concerning Shakespeare’s humiliating adolescence in Stratford. They were collected some hundred years later. Rowe tells us, for example, that Shakespeare was removed from the town’s school on account of his father’s reduced circumstances. Whether these stories are true or not, the contemporary records clearly show that Shakespeare’s father had been a prosperous and successful merchant, one of the town’s most important citizens. About the time Shakespeare reached age 12, however, his father fell into serious financial difficulties. Little imagination is required here. A proud and precocious boy was, at the very moment when children become most self-conscious, humbled, demoted from his former high status, humiliated by his fellows.
So perhaps Shakespeare’s purchase and renovation of New Place, and his probable eviction of its shopkeepers, represented something other than a sentimental attachment to Stratford. Perhaps he wanted to show the people of Stratford just who was the town’s most successful son.