The theatre has played many parts throughout the centuries, like a character in changing scenes. In this second part of our look at the history of the theatre, we pick up in Shakespearean times and look at the developments of more recent years. So, the scene is set, and the principal characters (the theatres!) play on. A blog by Special Collections Information Assistant Anne Marie McHarg.
Memoirs of the life of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol I by Thomas Moore 1825 Frontispiece showing Sheridan [Ref. PR3683]
During the Tudor period bands of actors were still strolling the countryside and towns and performing in the great halls of noblemen’s houses. Towards the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, in 1576, the first theatre was built, and it was simply called “the theatre” by the well-known actor of the day, James Burbage. This was a permanent stage for the London acting group the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company that William Shakespeare wrote for and part owned. We think that the first play Shakespeare wrote for the original Globe was Julius Caesar in spring 1599. It was one of the first permanent theatres to be built in London since the time of the Romans. Shakespeare referred the Globe as the Wooden “O”.
The wooden “O”, the Globe, was not in fact round but had the shape of the old threepenny bit with several straight sides. The stage had a roof over it that hung out into the open yard in which the “groundlings”, the spectators, were stood watching the play, having paid the princely sum of a penny for the privilege. If you paid a bit more money one could sit in one of the three tiers of covered galleries. Wealthy patrons who could afford the most expensive seats had special rooms next to the stage or stools on the stage.
Another of William Shakespeare’s playhouses was the Swan Theatre. This theatre had a wall and two doors and a gallery above. There were stage props of painted scenes which were lowered when required by a machine. The second Globe Theatre was built in 1614 and had more elaborate scenery and backdrops with an inner curtain stage behind an ordinary one.
In our rare book collection, we hold a collection of books formerly owned by Sir Sidney Lee, a renowned Shakespeare scholar and Professor of English Language and Literature at East London College.
While James Burbage and William Shakespeare were busy building the Globe in London, the architect Andrea Palladio designed the “Teatro Olimpico” in 1580 in the town of Vicenza. He built it in the style of a Roman Theatre, the only difference being it had a roof and was contained in a rectangular building. Artists had discovered a new form of painting using perspective. This helped to give the impression of distance and space in a picture. So, the stagehands were able to paint a whole stage scene in a small space or on a flat canvas. It did not take long for stage designers to realise that the scenery could be interchanged by sliding one wing of the canvas in front of another or cutting the background panel into two pieces so that they could be pulled to either side revealing another scene behind.
The next development in theatre history was the machinery invented so that the people playing gods and goddesses could make their entrances flying down from the clouds. In working the machinery, it was decided to use a frame to cover the sides and top of the stage to hide the stagehands working the scenes backstage. The frame may have been part of the scenery and it soon became a permanent fixture of the main hall in the theatre at the Farnese Palace, Parma in 1618. This was the beginning of the modern picture frame, or proscenium arch, stages.
The Puritans disapproved of many things in Elizabethan society, and the most hated was the theatre. Their main complaint was that entertainments distracted people away from worshipping God. So much so that the Puritans closed all theatres during their reign.
It was only when King Charles II regained the throne of England that new theatres were designed in the style of the Italian theatres taking on board the changeable scenery which had already come into use for court entertainment before the civil war.
The first theatre was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early 1660s and became one of the most important English playhouses the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Initially known as "Theatre Royal in Bridges Street", it was a rectangular building with a large space inside that was divided between the stage and scenery and an auditorium with its own entrances and stairs. There was another stage for the proscenium, which took up about one third of the auditorium. The audience would sit on benches in a sloping “pit” in front of the stage; these were called the “pit stalls”. Otherwise, they might sit in the tiers facing the stage, or boxes in the side stalls. Some of the best seats were on the stage, as they had been in Shakespeare’s time. Both stage and auditorium were lit by candles.
As the theatres began to open, new plays were written and performed. John Dryden wrote many witty comedies that became very popular. Under the reign of King Charles II, the first female actresses were permitted to join theatre companies; previously all female roles had been played by boys. The most famous actress of this time was Nell Gwyn.
In 1672, the Theatre Royal caught fire and Killigrew built a larger theatre on the same plot, renaming it the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane; it opened in 1674. Under the leadership of Colley Cibber, David Garrick and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, this new building lasted 120 years. The Theatre Royal Drury Lane has been rebuilt three times and the building that stands there today opened in 1812.
Across the pond in the New World a new type of theatre was evolving. This was American Vaudeville. It was light-hearted entertainment which became very popular in America towards end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twenty centuries. It was affordable to the general public and unlike in Europe where operas and plays were performed, the Americans could watch dance, comedy, singing, magic, sketches, acrobats, and animal acts.
By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne the industrial revolution was just beginning. The technological advances this brought about gave a new lease of life to the theatres, including electric lighting and the use of machinery to create visual and audio spectacles. The theatres attracted the new middle classes and with improved transport links more people were able to stay out late and travel more safely later at night.
As more people started to go to the theatre the new audiences meant new theatres needed to be built in both the metropolitan and provincial areas; between 1860 to 1870 the old theatres were given a new lease of life by being remodelled and redesigned, for example Charing Cross Theatre. During 1870 to 1880 The Court, and the Opera Comique were built. Gradually over Queen Victoria’s reign many more theatres were built. During this time of theatre building around the four compass points of London it was noted that in the south Crystal Palace stood, the north had Alexandra Palace, and the west had theatre land in the heart of the west end, while the east had nothing.
In the Spring of 1887 Queen Victoria opened the Queen’s Hall and laid the foundation stone of the People’s Palace Technical Schools. This was funded by charitable donations to the Beaumont Trust. The new enterprise was to benefit the local inhabitants of East London by affording them intellectual improvement and a library as well as rational recreation and amusement. It was a far cry from the distraction from the gin-palaces of the day. Entertainment included everything from donkey and art shows, to dances and large-scale concerts and plays.
With a newfound freedom of expression playwrights began to produce new shows such as pantomime, Vaudeville, melodramas and light operas, known as operettas, such as those composed by Gilbert and Sullivan. Social Dramas which were known as ‘cup and saucer dramas’, set in the characters’ living rooms, also became popular. The dramatists George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde were widely respected. Oscar Wilde had an easy-going wit, and his plays were a great success with Lady Windermere's Fan, Salome, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest being among his finest. The Royal Albert Hall was opened in 1871 in honour of Queen Victoria’s husband where audiences could listen to composers’ latest works.
From the earliest Greek plays to reinventing itself throughout the centuries, the theatre has had an enormous impact on the human psyche. It has been there to shock, teach and entertain an audience. From New York’s Broadway for those who have the money to spend on big budget musicals, the cast treading the boards with feet dancing in step all the way to the box office, back to London’s West End productions and amateur dramatics, bringing to life Shakespeare plays to teach children about English literature and amateur productions, such as those at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival showcasing the next playwright or thespian to hit the stage.
During the last couple of years of the pandemic, theatres were closed, but now are open again, once more allowing audiences to experience the art of acting and the spectacle of all that the theatre can offer.
A blog by Special Collections' librarian Anne-Marie Mcharg.