Chapter One

THE REPERTORY

The magnificent dramas of Shakespeare that assumed flesh and motion upon the Globe stage in its golden decade shared the boards with hack plays, near cousins to the present-day soap operas and grade-B westerns. It is easy to forget that the company which produced _Hamlet_ also presented _The London Prodigal_, and that the same Burbage who shook the super-flux as Lear may well have portrayed the ranting, melodramatic husband of _A Yorkshire Tragedy_, a model indeed of a figure tearing a passion to tatters. Masterpieces and minor pieces followed one another in rapid succession in the same playhouse, and the customs of their production were the result of a single repertory system.

Among the various contending works on Shakespearean stage production the one subject that is invariably neglected is this repertory system. And yet, an understanding of how a theatrical company goes about the business of presenting its plays is a necessary step in working out a theory of staging. Who sees the show and who pays the bill more often determine the possibilities of production than other high-minded considerations. To know what the Elizabethan repertory system was and how it operated requires the answers to certain basic questions: How many performances was a play likely to receive? In what sequence were these performances given? How long did a play remain in repertory? How long were the rehearsal periods for new plays? How many roles did an actor have to command at one time? Where were new plays first presented? In essence, all these questions can be contained in one all-embracing question: How did an acting company market its wares? for let us remember that in the Elizabethan theater we find one of the earliest examples of theater as a commercial enterprise.

The pattern of performing which I call the repertory system came into being with the appearance of the first permanent playhouses. Their erection in London was a sign that the actors had discovered the means as well as the possibility of gaining the patronage of the large city populace for long periods of time. No longer did the players have to be nomads. No longer was it necessary for a handful of sharers with their apprentices and hired men to trudge from village to village in order to find paying audiences. After 1570 the nomadic troupes that played London for short engagements matured into resident companies that toured occasionally. Though even the most illustrious of the companies continued to travel in the provinces when conditions demanded, their welfare and status were tied to the fortunes of the public playhouses. Touring was an act of desperation. That way lay poverty. Well-being depended upon permanence and permanence depended upon the effective exploitation of the potential audience.

Naturally not every Londoner was a playgoer. The average play might have been witnessed by 30,000 people over a period of a year and a half. The assumption here is that the play performed to a capacity audience, each member of which saw the play once. More likely, however, not more than 15,000 to 20,000 people saw the average play. To calculate the size of the usual theater-going populace in London is difficult. One conclusion is evident, however. Given the capacity of the public playhouse, somewhat between two and three thousand persons, the companies had to change their bills frequently if they were to attract sufficient spectators. Their practices in doing so are the bases of the repertory system.

By 1599, the year in which the Globe playhouse was constructed, these practices were well established. A five-year period of growth in the theater preceded the construction of the Globe. A decade of relative stability in theatrical affairs followed. During those years it may not have appeared to the professional players that the time was settled, for a serious plague in 1603 severely curtailed playing schedules and lively competition from the children’s companies drew customers to the private theaters after 1600. But a retrospective survey of the years from 1599 to 1609 makes it evident that the decade was one of peak prosperity for the public theaters.

From 1597 to 1602 the Lord Chamberlain’s men and the Lord Admiral’s men shared a virtual monopoly of public stage presentation. In 1597 the production of _The Isle of Dogs_ by Pembroke’s men had aroused the ire of the Privy Council, for what offense it is not now clear. One of the authors, Nashe, fled; Ben Jonson, either as part-author or as actor, together with two other actors, was imprisoned for some months. On July 28 all plays were prohibited. Disastrous as this event was for the Pembroke’s men, it served to strengthen the Lord Admiral’s and Lord Chamberlain’s men, for in a minute of the Privy Council, dated February 19, 1598, they alone of the men’s companies were permitted to play in London. Not until 1602 was the monopoly successfully challenged. In that year Worcester’s men received permission to perform in London, and in actuality became a party to a new tripartite monopoly. Final confirmation of their privileges came in 1603-1604 when the Stuart family, drawing the theater under its patronage, dispensed royal patents to each of them.

A fourth company to receive a patent was the Children of the Queen’s Revels. The patent is proof that the competition of the private theaters was a serious matter. For several years between 1600 and 1605 the boys and their literary foster fathers had achieved a fashionable popularity. But by 1606 the most successful of these troupes, the Children of the Queen’s Revels, seems to have forfeited the protection of Her Majesty. Whatever may have been the reasons, the children’s companies never were able to maintain the continuity of the men’s companies.

From time to time throughout the decade minor adult companies drifted into London, played several performances, and departed. An Earl of Derby’s company appeared at Court for three performances in 1600 and 1601, thereafter passing into the provinces whence they had come. Henslowe records two performances by Pembroke’s men on October 28-30, 1600. No further word is heard of them. One performance at Court, on January 6, 1603, is noted for Hertford’s men, otherwise a provincial company. But no professional group successfully challenged the supremacy of these three leading companies which, in the course of the decade, became entrenched in their grand playhouses: the Chamberlain-King’s men at the Globe, the Admiral-Prince’s men at the Fortune in 1600, and the Worcester-Queen’s men at the Red Bull about 1605.

Concerning two of these companies, the Lord Admiral’s and Worcester’s, there is substantial evidence of the ways in which they functioned. The evidence appears in the diary of Philip Henslowe, wherein he noted dealings with both companies. The bulk of the records pertains to the Admiral’s company, for which we have performance lists from 1592 to 1597 and debit accounts from 1597 to 1603. Records of Worcester’s men appear for a shorter time in Henslowe’s _Diary_, but the material, debit accounts from 1602-1603, reveals that both companies operated in essentially the same ways.

For the third of these companies, the Lord Chamberlain’s men, no similar body of evidence exists. The law cases involving Heminges with Witter and Thomasina Ostler reveal the presence of a unique financial arrangement in this company, yet one which continued alongside the traditional theatrical organization. Like the other public companies, the Lord Chamberlain’s men were organized into a partnership of sharers who managed and maintained the group. As sharers they purchased plays, bought costumes, hired actors, tiremen, and bookkeepers, paid licensing fees, rented a theater, shared profits and expenses, and carried on the manifold duties of a theatrical enterprise. The novelty of the arrangement was that the company rented the theater from some of its own members. Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillips, John Heminges, Thomas Pope, in varying proportions, owned profitable shares in the Globe playhouse. This overlapping of proprietary interests may tend to obscure the actual similarity of the Chamberlain’s theatrical organization to that of its rivals, for though the financing of the companies differed, the system of management was the same.

Evidence pertaining to actual performances by the Lord Chamberlain’s men is rare. What clues we have take the form partly of letters or notes discovered among nontheatrical documents and concerned only secondarily with the stage and partly of records of Court performances or title pages of texts that provide us with occasional information about what was appearing on the boards of the Globe. Alone, these items bear little weight. Their principal value lies in their agreement with the conditions reflected in Henslowe’s _Diary_, and it is to this source that we must turn to secure a picture of how plays were produced in the Elizabethan age.[1]

The theatrical periods for which Henslowe kept records cannot be considered seasons in the modern sense. During the severe plague of 1592-1594, playing all but ceased. After the abatement of the disease and a false start at Newington Butts, the Lord Admiral’s men commenced regular performances at the Rose on June 17, 1594. Playing continued without unusual interruption until the following March 14, 1595. After the Lenten season, the company recommenced playing on Easter Monday, April 21st, and played through June 26th. During the summer season the tour in the provinces was brief, for the company reopened on August 25th and again played without exceptional interruption through February 28, 1596. Performances resumed on April 12th, again after Lent, and continued through July 18, 1596. Here occurred an unusually long summer break which lasted until October 27th, during which time the company traveled in the provinces. Save for a curious suspension from November 16th through the 24th, the company played at the Rose from October 27th until February 12, 1597. A brief Lenten observance followed, and performances began again on March 3rd and continued until July 19th. The presentation of _The Isle of Dogs_ halted general theatrical activity on July 20th,[2] and although the Rose opened on July 27th and 28th, the Privy Council order of the latter date suspended all playing until “Alhallontide next.”

In the preceding schedule we may discern a more or less regular pattern of playing. A Lenten suspension is almost invariably observed, though the duration of the observance varies. A less regular summer break, usually from mid-July to October, intervenes, the length of time depending upon the severity of the plague. Finally, during the Christmas holidays performances are given about half the days of the month. During each December from 1594 through 1596 this interruption occurs, and is presumably the result of the company’s activity at and about the Court.

The day by day program of the Lord Admiral’s men follows the same sort of irregularity, as a glance at two weeks of performances will show.

Let us choose a time from an ordinary, uneventful season. On Monday afternoon of November 10, 1595,[3] if we had crossed the Thames to the Rose on the Bankside, we should have seen _Longshank_, a reasonably new play. Already it had had four performances, having opened for the first time on the previous August 28th. However, we might have discovered that this was an old play newly revived, Peele’s _Edward I_. On Tuesday, the 11th, the company presented _The Disguises_, an even newer play, having opened on the previous 2nd of October. It had already been played five times and oddly enough this day’s performance, the sixth, would be its last. On Wednesday and Thursday, we could have seen the first and second parts of _Tamberlaine_. Both plays had been doing brisk business,