Part 3 (1/2)

When Shakespeare beca at The Theatre, the playhouse in Shoreditch which Jae, had constructed in 1576; it abutted on the Finsbury Fields, and stood outside the City's boundaries The only other London playhouse then in existence--the Curtain in Moorfields--was near at hand; its name survives in Curtain Road, Shoreditch But at an early date in his acting career Shakespeare's coht and found new quarters While known as Lord Strange's men, they opened on February 19, 1592, a third London theatre, called the Rose, which Philip Henslowe, the speculative theatrical er, had erected on the Bankside, Southwark At the date of the inauguration of the Rose Theatre Shakespeare's company was temporarily allied with another coreat actor Edward Alleyn a them Alleyn for a few amated companies, but they quickly parted, and no further opportunity was offered Shakespeare of enjoying professional relations with Alleyn The Rose Theatre was doubtless the earliest scene of Shakespeare's pronounced successes alike as actor and dramatist

Subsequently for a short tie of another new theatre at Newington butts, and between 1595 and 1599 the older stages of the Curtain and of The Theatre in Shoreditch The Curtain reue after 1600 was eclipsed by that of younger rivals In 1599 Richard Burbage and his brother Cuthbert de of The Theatre and built, mainly out of the materials of the dismantled fabric, the faonal in shape, and built of wood, and doubtless Shakespeare described it (rather than the Curtain) as 'this wooden O' in the opening chorus of 'Henry V' (1 13) After 1599 the Globe was mainly occupied by Shakespeare's company, and in its profits he acquired an iuration until the poet's retire London theatres--seems to have been the sole playhouse hich Shakespeare was professionally associated The equally familiar Blackfriars Theatre, which was created out of a dwelling-house by Jae, the actor's father, at the end of 1596, was for many years afterwards leased out to the company of boy-actors known as 'the Queen's Children of the Chapel;' it was not occupied by Shakespeare's co days were nearing their end {38a}

Place of residence in London

In London Shakespeare resided near the theatres According to a ed in 1596 near 'the Bear Garden in Southwark' In 1598 one William Shakespeare, as assessed by the collectors of a subsidy in the suoods valued at 5 pounds, was a resident in St Helen's parish, Bishopsgate, but it is not certain that this taxpayer was the draed travels In Scotland

The chief differences between the methods of theatrical representation in Shakespeare's day and our own lay in the fact that neither scenery nor scenic costue All female _roles_ were, until the Restoration in 1660, assumed in the public theatres by men or boys {38c} Consequently the skill needed to rouse in the audience the requisite illusions was far greater then than at later periods But the professional customs of Elizabethan actors approximated in other respects more closely to those of their nised The practice of touring in the provinces was folloith even greater regularity then than no co the summer or early autumn, and every country toith two thousand or more inhabitants could reckon on at least one visit fro actors between May and October A rapid examination of the extant archives of some seventy municipalities selected at random shows that Shakespeare's company between 1594 and 1614 frequently performed in such towns as Barnstaple, Bath, Bristol, Coventry, Dover, Favershah, New Romney, Oxford, Rye in Sussex, Saffron Walden, and Shrewsbury {40a} Shakespeareall his professional functions, and some of the references to travel in his sonnets were doubtless reed, moreover, that Shakespeare's company visited Scotland, and that he ith it {40b} In Novelish actors arrived in Scotland under the leadershi+p of Lawrence Fletcher and one Martin, and elcoue of Shakespeare in 1603, but is not known to have been one earlier Shakespeare's company never included an actor named Martin Fletcher repeated the visit in October 1601 {41b} There is nothing to indicate that any of his coed to Shakespeare's company In like manner, Shakespeare's accurate reference in 'Macbeth'

to the 'nimble' but 'sweet' climate of Inverness, {41c} and the vivid ihland heaths, have been judged to be the certain fruits of a personal experience; but the passages in question, into which a nificance has possibly been read than Shakespeare intended, can be satisfactorily accounted for by his inevitable intercourse with Scotsmen in London and the theatres after Jalish actors in Shakespeare's day occasionally con lands, where Court society invariably gave them a hospitable reception In Denmark, Germany, Austria, Holland, and France, iven before royal audiences by English actors between 1580 and 1630 {42a} That Shakespeare joined any of these expeditions is highly improbable Actors of small account at home mainly took part in them, and Shakespeare's name appears in no extant list of those who paid professional visits abroad It is, in fact, unlikely that Shakespeare ever set foot on the continent of Europe in either a private or professional capacity He repeatedly ridicules the craze for foreign travel {42b} To Italy, it is true, and especially to cities of Northern Italy, like Venice, Padua, Verona, Mantua, and Milan, he makes frequent and familiar reference, and he supplied many a realistic portrayal of Italian life and sentiment But the fact that he represents Valentine in the 'Two Gentle from Verona to Milan by sea, and Prospero in 'The Teates of Milan (I ii 129-44), renders it ale of Northern Italy from personal observation {43a} He doubtless owed all to the verbal reports of travelled friends or to books, the contents of which he had a rare power of assi

Shakespeare's roles

The publisher Chettle wrote in 1592 that Shakespeare was 'exelent in the qualitie {43b} he professes,' and the old actor William Beeston asserted in the next century that Shakespeare 'did act exceedingly well' {43c} But the _roles_ in which he distinguished hi documents refer directly to performances by him

At Christmas 1594 he joined the popular actors Williae, the greatest tragic actor, in 'two several comedies or interludes' which were acted on St Stephen's Day and on Innocents' Day (December 27 and 28) at Greenwich Palace before the Queen The players received 'xiii_li_ vj_s_ viii_d_ and by waye of her Majesties rewarde vi_li_ xiii_s_ iiij_d_, in all xx_li_ {44a} Neither plays nor parts are named Shakespeare's nainal performances of Ben Jonson's 'Every Man in his Huinal edition of Jonson's 'Sejanus' (1603) the actors' naed in two colu parallel with Burbage's, which heads the first But here again the character allotted to each actor is not stated Rowe identified only one of Shakespeare's parts, 'the Ghost in his own ”Hamlet,”' and Rowe asserted his assumption of that character to be 'the top of his performance' John Davies of Hereford noted that he 'played soer brothers, presuer days to see his brother act in his own plays; and in his old age, when his , he recalled his brother's performance of Adam in 'As you like it' In the 1623 folio edition of Shakespeare's 'Works' his name heads the prefatory list 'of the principall actors in all these playes'

Alleged scorn of an actor's calling

That Shakespeare chafed under so is commonly inferred fro 'aprovided for his livelihood nothing better than 'public means that public manners breed,' whence his name received a brand (cxi 4-5)

If such self-pity is to be literally interpreted, it only reflected an evanescent mood His interest in all that touched the efficiency of his profession was permanently active He was a keen critic of actors'

elocution, and in 'Has, but clearly and hopefully pointed out the road to ihest a, and at an early period of his theatrical career he undertook, with triuht But he pursued the profession of an actor loyally and uninterruptedly until he resigned all connection with the theatre within a few years of his death

V--EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS

Dramatic work