PLAYHOUSE. The most ancient English playhouses were the Curtain in Shoreditch, and the Theatre. In the time of Shakspeare, who commenced dramatic writer in 1592, there were no less than ten theatres open. Four of these were private houses, namely, that in Blackfriars, the Cockpit or Phoenix in Drury-Lane, a theatre in Whitefriars, and one in Salisbury Court. The other six were called public theatres, namely, the Globe, the Swan, the Rose, and the Hope, on the Bank-side; the Red Bull, at the upper end of St John’s Street; and the Fortune in White-Cross Street. The two last were chiefly frequented by citizens. Mr Malone gives a pretty copious account of these playhouses, in a supplement to his last edition of Shakspeare, which account we shall here insert.

“Most, if not all,” says he, “of Shakspeare’s plays were. performed either at the Globe, or at the Theatre in Blackfriars. It appears that they both belonged to the same company of comedians, viz. his majesty’s servants, which title they assumed, after a license had been granted to them by King James in 1603, having before that time been called the servants of the lord chamberlain.

“The theatre in Blackfriars was a private house; but the peculiar and distinguishing marks of a private playhouse it is not easy to ascertain. It was very small, and plays were there usually represented by candle-light. The Globe, situated on the southern side of the river Thames, was a hexagonal building, partly open to the weather, partly covered with reeds. It was a public theatre, and of considerable size, and there they always acted by daylight. On the roof of the Globe, and the other public theatres, a pole was erected, to which a flag was affixed. These flags were probably displayed only during the hours of exhibition; and it should seem, from a passage in one of the old comedies, that they were taken down during Lent, in which season no plays were presented. The Globe, though hexagonal at the outside, was probably a rotunda within, and perhaps had its name from its circular form. It might, however, have been denominated only from its sign, which was a figure of Hercules supporting the Globe. This theatre was burnt down in 1613, but it was rebuilt in the following year, and decorated with more ornament than had been originally bestowed upon it. The exhibitions at the Globe seem to have been calculated chiefly for the lower class of people; those at Blackfriars for a more select and judicious audience.

“A writer informs us, that one of these theatres was a winter and the other a summer house. As the Globe was partly exposed to the weather, and they acted there usually by daylight, it was probably the summer theatre. The exhibitions here seem to have been more frequent than at Blackfriars, at least till the year 1604 or 1605, when the Bank-side appears to have become less fashionable and less frequented than it formerly had been. Many of our ancient dramatic pieces were performed in the yards of carriers’ inns; in which, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the comedians, who then first united themselves in companies, erected an occasional stage. The form of these temporary playhouses seems to be preserved in our modem theatre. The galleries arc in both ranged over each other on three sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest of these galleries answer to our present boxes; and it is observable that these, even in theatres which were built in a subsequent period expressly for dramatic exhibitions, still retained their old name, and are frequently called rooms by our ancient writers. The yard bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit as at present in use. we may suppose the stage to have been raised in this area, on the fourth side, with its back to the gate-way of the inn, at which the money for admission was taken. Hence, in the middle of the Globe, and I suppose of the other public theatres, in the time of Shakspeare, there was an open yard or area, where the common people stood to see the exhibition; from which circumstance they are called by our author groundlings, and by Ben Johnson ‘ the understanding gentlemen of the ground.’

“In the ancient playhouses there appears to have been a private box, of which it is not easy to ascertain the situation. It seems to have been placed at the side of the stage, towards the rear, and to have been at a lower price; in this some people sat, either from economy or singularity. The galleries, or scaffolds as they are sometimes called, and that part of the house which in private theatres was named the pit, seem to have been at the same price; and probably in houses of reputation, such as the Globe, and that in Blackfriars, the price of admission into those parts of the theatres was sixpence, while in some meaner playhouses it was only one penny, in others only twopence. The price of admission into the best rooms or boxes was, I believe, in our author’s time, one shilling; though afterwards it appears to have risen to two shillings and half-a-crown.

“From several passages in our old plays, we learn, that spectators were admitted on the stage, and that the critics and wits of the time usually sat there. Some were placed on the ground; others sat on stools, of which the price was either sixpence or one shilling, according, I suppose, to the commodiousness of the situation; and they were attended by pages, who furnished them with pipes and tobacco, which was smoked here as well as in other parts of the house; yet it should seem that persons were suffered to sit on the stage [7:18:50]only in the private playhouses, such as Blackfriars, &c. where the audience was more select, and of a higher class; and that in the Globe and other public theatres no such license was permitted.

“The stage was strewed with rushes, which, as we learn from Hentzncr and Caius de Ephemera, was, in the time of Shakspeare, the usual covering of floors in England. The curtain which hangs in the front of the present stage, drawn up by lines and pulleys, though not a modern invention, for it was used by Inigo Jones in the masks at court, was yet an apparatus to which the simple mechanism of our ancient theatres had not arrived, for in them the curtains opened in the middle, and were drawn backwards and forwards on an iron rod. In some playhouses they were woollen, in others made of silk. Towards the rear of the stage there appears to have been a balcony, the platform of which was probably eight or ten feet from the ground. I suppose it to have been supported by pillars. From hence, in many of our old plays, part of the dialogue was spoken; and in the front of this balcony curtains likewise were hung.

“A doubt has been entertained whether, in our ancient theatres, there were side and other scenes. The question is involved in so much obscurity, that it is very difficult to form any decided opinion upon it. It is certain, that in the year 1695 Inigo Jones exhibited an entertainment at Oxford, in which moveable scenes were used; but he appears to have introduced several pieces of machinery in the masks at court, with which undoubtedly the public theatres were unacquainted. A passage which has been produced from one of the old comedies proves, it must be owned, that even these were furnished with some pieces of machinery, which were used when it was requisite to exhibit the descent of some god or saint; but, from all the contemporary accounts, I am inclined to believe that the mechanism of our ancient stage seldom went beyond a painted chair or a trap-door, and that few, if any of them, had any moveable scenes. When King Henry VIII. is to be discovered by the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, reading in his study, the scenical direction in the first folio, 1623, which was printed apparently from playhouse copies, is ‘the king draws the curtain (i. e. draws it open), and sits reading pensively ;’ for, besides the principal curtains that hung in the front of the stage, they used others as substitutes for scenes. If a bedchamber is to be exhibited, no change of scene is mentioned; but the property-man is simply ordered to thrust forth a bed. , When the fable requires the Roman capitol to be exhibited, we find two officers enter, ‘ to lay cushions, as it were, in the capitol,’ &c. On the whole, it appears, that onr ancient theatres in general were only furnished with curtains, and a single scene composed of tapestry, which were sometimes, perhaps, ornamented with pictures; and some passages in our old dramas incline one to think, that when tragedies were performed the stage was hung with black.

“In the early part, at least, of our author’s (Shakspeare’s) acquaintance with the theatre, the want of scenery seems to have been supplied by the simple expedient of writing the names of the different places where the scene was laid in the progress of the play, which were disposed in such a manner as to be visible to the audience. The invention of trap-doors, however, appears not to be modern; for in an old Morality, entitled All for Money, we find a marginal direction which implies that they were very early in use. The covering or internal roof of the stage was anciently termed the heavens. It was probably painted of a sky-blue colour, or perhaps pieces of drapery tinged with blue were suspended across the stage to represent the heavens.

“It is probable that the stage was formerly lighted by two large branches, of a form similar to those now hung in churches. They gave place in a subsequent period to small circular wooden frames, furnished with candles, eight of which were hung on the stage, four at either side; and these within a few years were wholly removed by Mr Garrick, who, on his return from France, first introduced the present commodious method of illuminating the stage by lights not visible to the audience. Many of the companies of players were formerly so thin, that one person played two or three parts; and a battle on which the fate of an empire was supposed to depend was decided by half a dozen combatants. It appears to have been a common practice in their mock engagements to discharge small pieces of ordnance on the stage. Before the exhibition began, three flourishes or pieces of music were played, or, in the ancient language, there were three soundings. Music was likewise played between the acts. The instruments chiefly used were trumpets, cornets, and hautboys. The band, which did not consist of more than five or six performers, sat in an upper balcony, over what is now called the stagebox.

“The person who spoke the prologue was ushered in by trumpets, and usually wore a long black velvet cloak, which, I suppose, was considered as best suited to a supplicatory address. Of this custom, whatever might have been its origin, some traces remained till very lately, a black coat having been, if I mistake not, within these few years the constant stage habiliment of our modern prologue speakers. The dress of the ancient prologue speaker is still retained in the play that is exhibited in Hamlet before the king and court of Denmark. The performers of male characters generally wore periwigs, which in the age of Shakspeare were not in common use. It appears from a passage in Puttenham’s Art of English Poesy, 1589, that vizards were on some occasions used by the actors of those days; and it may be inferred, from a scene in one of our author’s comedies, that they were sometimes worn in his time by those who performed female characters; but this I imagine was very rare. Some of the female part of the audience likewise appeared in masks. The stage-dresses, it is reasonable to suppose, were much more costly at some theatres than at others; yet the wardrobe of even the king’s servants at the Globe and Blackfriars was, we find, but scantily furnished; and our author’s dramas derived very little aid from the splendour of exhibition.

“It is well known, that in the time of Shakspeare, and for many years afterwards, female characters were represented by boys or young men. Sir William d’A venant, in imitation of the foreign theatres, first introduced females in the scene, and Mrs Betterton is said to have been the first woman that appeared on the English stage. Andrew Pen-nycuike played the part of Matilda in a tragedy of Davenport’s, in 1655; and Mr Kynaston acted several female parts after the Restoration. Downes, a contemporary of his, assures us, ‘ that being then very young, he made a complete stage beauty, performing his parts so well, particularly Arthiope and Aglaura, that it has since been disputable among the judicious whether any woman that succeeded him touched the audience so sensibly as he.’

“Both the prompter, or book-holder as he was sometimes called, and the property-man, appear to have been regular appendages of our ancient theatres. No writer that I have met with intimates, that in the time of Shakspeare it was customary to exhibit more than a single dramatic piece in one day. The Yorkshire tragedy, or All’s One, indeed, appears to have been one of four pieces that were represented on the same day; and Fletcher has also a piece called Four Plays in One; but probably these were either exhibited on some particular occasion, or were ineffectual efforts to introduce a new species of amusement; for we do not find any other instances of the same kind. Had any shorter pieces been exhibited after the principal performance, some of them probably would have been printed; but there are none extant of an earlier date than the time of [7:18:51]the Restoration. The practice, therefore, of exhibiting two dramas successively in the same evening, we may be assured was not established before that period. But though the audiences in the time of our author were not gratified by the representation of more than one drama in the same day, the entertainment was diversified, and the populace diverted, by vaulting, tumbling, slight of hand, and morrisdancing, a mixture not much more heterogeneous than that with which we are daily presented, a tragedy and a farce.

“The amusements of our ancestors, before the commencement of the play, were of various kinds, such as reading, playing cards, drinking ale, or smoking tobacco. It was a common practice to carry table-books to the theatre, and, either from curiosity or enmity to the author, or some other motive, to write down passages of the play that was represented; and there is reason to believe that the imperfect and mutilated copies of some of Shakspeare’s dramas, which are yet extant, were taken down in short-hand during the exhibition. At the end of the piece, the actors, in noblemen’s houses and in taverns, where plays were frequently performed, prayed for the health and prosperity of their patrons; and in the public theatres for the king and queen. This prayer sometimes made part of the epilogue. Hence, probably, as Mr Steevens has observed, the addition of Vivant rex ct regina to the modern play-bills.

“Plays, in the time of our author, began at one o’clock in the afternoon; and the exhibition was usually finished in two hours. Even in 1667 they commenced at three. When Gosson wrote his School of Abuse, in 1579, it seems the dramatic entertainments were usually exhibited on Sundays. Afterwards they were performed on that and other days indiscriminately. It appears from a contemporary writer, that exhibiting plays on Sunday had not been abolished in the third year of King Charles I.

“The modes of conveyance to the theatre, anciently as at present, seem to have been various; some going in coaches, others on horseback, and many by water. To the Globe playhouse the company probably were conveyed by water; to that in Blackfriars the gentry went either in coaches or on horseback, and the common people on foot. In an epigram to Sir John Davis, the practice of riding to the theatre is ridiculed as a piece of affectation or vanity, and therefore we may presume it was not very general.

“The long and whimsical titles that are prefixed to the quarto copies of our author’s plays, I suppose to have been transcribed from the play-bills of the time. A contemporary writer has preserved something like a play-bill of those days, which seems to corroborate this observation; for if it were divested of rhime, it would bear no very distant resemblance to the title-pages that stand before some of our author’s dramas:

Prithee, what’s the play?

(The first I visited this twelvemonth day) They say, “A new invented play of Purle, That jeoparded his neck to steal a girl of twelve; and lying fast impounded for’t, Has hither sent his beard to act his part; Against all those in open malice bent, That would not freely to the theft consent: Feigns all to’s wish, and in the epilogue Goes out applauded for a famous rogue” — Now hang me if I did not look at first For some such stuff, by the fond people’s thrust.

“It is uncertain at what time the usage of giving authors a benefit on the third day of the exhibition of their pieces commenced. Mr Oldys, in one of his manuscripts, intimates that dramatic poets had anciently their benefit on the first day that â new play was represented; a regulation which would have been very favourable to some of the ephemeral productions of modern times. But for this there is not, I believe, any sufficient authority. From D’A venant, indeed, we learn, that in the latter part of the reign of Qμeen Elizabeth the poet had his benefit on the second day. As it was a general practice in the time of Shakspeare to sell the copy of the play to the theatre, I imagine in such cases an author derived no other advantage from his piece than what arose from the sale of it. Sometimes, however, he found it more beneficial to retain the copyright in his own hands; and when he did so. I suppose he had a benefit. It is certain that the giving authors the profit of the third exhibition of their play, which seems to have been the usual mode during almost the whole of the last century, was an established custom in the year 1612; for Decker, in the prologue to one of his comedies printed in that year, speaks of the poet’s third day. The unfortunate Otway had no more than one benefit on the production of a new play; and this, too, it seems, he was sometimes forced to mortgage before the piece was acted. Southerne was the first dramatic writer who obtained the emoluments arising from two representations; and to Farquhar, in the year 1700, the benefit of a third was granted. When an author sold his piece to the sharers or proprietors of a theatre, it remained for several years unpublished; but when that was not the case, he printed it for sale, to which many seem to have been induced, from an apprehension that an imperfect copy might be issued from the press without their consent. The customary price of the copy of a play in the time of Shakspeare appears to have been twenty nobles, or six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence. The play when printed was sold for sixpence; and the usual present from a patron in return for a dedication was forty shillings. On the first day of exhibiting a new play, the prices of admission appear to have been raised; and this seems to have been occasionally practised on the benefit-nights of authors to the end of the last century. The custom of passing a final censure on plays at their first exhibition is as ancient as the time of our author, for no less than three plays of his rival Ben Jonson appear to have been damned; and Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess, and the Knights of the Burning Pestle, written by him and Beaumont, underwent the same fate.

“It is not easy to ascertain what were the emoluments of a successful actor in the time of Shakspeare. They had not then annual benefits, as at present. The performers at each theatre seem to have shared the profits arising either from each day’s exhibition, or from the whole season, among them. From Ben Jonson’s Poetaster we learn, that one of either die performers or proprietors had seven shares and a half; but of what integral sum is not mentioned. From the prices of admission into our ancient theatres, which have been already mentioned, I imagine the utmost that the shares of the Globe playhouse could have received on any one day was about L 35. So lately as the year 1685, Shadwell received by his third day, on the representation of the Squire of Alsatia, L.130; which, Downes the prompter says, was the greatest receipt that had been ever taken at Drury-Lane playhouse at single prices. It appears from the manuscripts of Lord Stanhope, treasurer of the chambers to King James I. that the customary sum paid to John Heminge and his company for the performance of a play at court was twenty nobles, or six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence. And Edward Alleyn mentions in his Diary, that he once had so slender an audience in his theatre called the Fortune, that the whole receipts of the house amounted to no more than three pounds and some odd shillings.

“Thus scanty and meagre were the apparatus and accommodations of our ancient theatres, on which those dramas were first exhibited that have since engaged the attention of so many learned men, and delighted so many* thousand spectators. Yet even then, we are told by a writer of that age, ‘ that dramatic poesy was so lively expressed and represented on the public stages and theatres of this city, as Rome in the age of her pomp and glory never saw [7:18:52]it better performed; in respect of the action and art, not of the cost and sumptuousness.’”