APPENDIX I
RESTORATION TESTIMONY
i.
[Extracts from A Short Discourse of the English Stage. To his Excellency, the Lord Marquess of Newcastle, attached to Richard Flecknoe’s Love’s Kingdom (1664), and reprinted in Hazlitt, E. D. S. 275. Flecknoe, who died c. 1678, was old enough to travel abroad in 1640.]
They Acted nothing here but Playes of the holy Scripture, or Saints’ Lives; and that without any certain Theaters or set Companies, till, about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s Reign, they began here first to assemble into Companies, and set up Theaters, first in the City, (as in the Inn-yards of the Cross-Keyes, and Bull in Grace and Bishops-Gate Street at this day is to be seen) till that Fanatick Spirit which then began with the Stage, and after ended with the Throne, banisht them thence into the Suburbs, as after they did the Kingdom, in the beginning of our Civil Wars. In which time, Playes were so little incompatible with Religion, and the Theater with the Church, as on Week-dayes after Vespers, both the Children of the Chappel and St. Pauls Acted Playes, the one in White-Friers, the other behinde the Convocation-house in Pauls, till people growing more precise, and Playes more licentious, the Theatre of Pauls was quite supprest, and that of the Children of the Chappel converted to the use of the Children of the Revels....
It was the happiness of the Actors of those times to have such Poets as these to instruct them, and write for them; and no less of those Poets to have such docile and excellent Actors to Act their Playes, as a Field and Burbidge; of whom we may say, that he was a delightful Proteus, so wholly transforming himself into his Part, and putting off himself with his Cloathes, as he never (not so much as in the Tyring-house) assum’d himself again until the Play was done: there being as much difference between him and one of our common Actors, as between a Ballad-singer who onely mouths it, and an excellent singer, who knows all his Graces, and can artfully vary and modulate his Voice, even to know how much breath he is to give to every syllable. He had all the parts of an excellent Orator (animating his words with speaking, and Speech with Action) his Auditors being never more delighted then when he spoke, nor more sorry then when he held his peace; yet even then, he was an excellent Actor still, never falling in his Part when he had done speaking; but with his looks and gesture, maintaining it still unto the heighth, he imagining Age quod agis, onely spoke to him: so as those who call him a Player do him wrong, no man being less idle then he, whose whole life is nothing else but action; with only this difference from other mens, that as what is but a Play to them, is his Business: so their business is but a play to him.
Now for the difference betwixt our Theaters and those of former times, they were but plain and simple, with no other Scenes, nor Decorations of the Stage, but onely old Tapestry, and the Stage strew’d with Rushes (with their Habits accordingly) whereas ours now for cost and ornament are arriv’d at the heighth of Magnificence.... For Scenes and Machines they are no new invention, our Masks and some of our Playes in former times (though not so ordinary) having had as good or rather better then any we have now.
ii.
[Extracts from Historia Histrionica: an Historical Account of the English Stage, shewing the Ancient Use, Improvement, and Perfection of Dramatick Representations in this Nation. In a Dialogue of Plays and Players (1699). A facsimile reprint was issued by E. W. Ashbee in 1872. The text is also given in Dodsley4, xv. I use, with a correction, the modernized text of A. Lang, Social England Illustrated (1903, Arber, English Garner2), 422. The Historia Histrionica is ascribed to James Wright, an antiquary and play-collector (1643–1713), who can only have recorded what he learnt from others. He is, of course, writing primarily of the Caroline, rather than the Elizabethan or Jacobean period.]
Truman. I say, the actors that I have seen, before the Wars, Lowin, Taylor, Pollard, and some others, were almost as far beyond Hart and his company; as those were, beyond these now in being....
Lovewit. Pray, Sir, what master-parts can you remember the old ‘Blackfriars’ men to act, in Johnson’s, Shakespeare’s, and Fletcher’s plays?
Truman. What I can at present recollect I’ll tell you. Shakespeare (who, as I have heard, was a much better Poet than Player), Burbage, Hemmings, and others of the older sort, were dead before I knew the Town. But, in my time, before the Wars; Lowin used to act, with mighty applause, Falstaff; Morose; Vulpone; and Mammon in the Alchemist; Melancius in the Maid’s tragedy. And at the same time, Amyntor was played by Stephen Hammerton: who was, at first, a most noted and beautiful Woman-Actor; but afterwards he acted, with equal grace and applause, a young lover’s part.
Taylor acted Hamlet incomparably well; Jago; Truewit, in the Silent Woman; and Face, in the Alchemist.
Swanston used to play Othello.
Pollard and Robinson were Comedians. So was Shank; who used to act Sir Roger in the Scornful Lady. These were of the ‘Blackfriars’....
Truman. Before the Wars, there were in being, all these Play Houses at the same time.
The ‘Blackfriars’ and ‘Globe’ on the Bankside. A winter, and summer house belonging to the same Company; called ‘The King’s Servants’.
The ‘Cockpit’ or ‘Phoenix’ in Drury Lane; called ‘The Queen’s Servants’.
The Private House in Salisbury Court; called ‘The Prince’s Servants’.
The ‘Fortune’ near White Cross Street: and the ‘Red Bull’ at the upper end of St. John’s Street. The two last were mostly frequented by citizens, and the meaner sort of people.
All these Companies got money, and lived in reputation: especially those of the ‘Blackfriars’, who were men of grave and sober behaviour.
Lovewit. Which I much admire at. That the Town, much less than at present, could then maintain Five Companies; and yet now Two can hardly subsist.
Truman. Do not wonder, but consider! That though the Town was then, perhaps, not much more than half so populous as now; yet then the prices were small (there being no scenes), and better order kept among the company that came: which made very good people think a play an innocent diversion for an idle hour or two; the plays being then, for the most part, more instructive and moral.... It is an argument of the worth of the Plays and Actors of the last Age, and easily inferred that they were much beyond ours in this, to consider that they could support themselves merely from their own merit, the weight of the matter, and goodness of the action; without scenes and machines....
Lovewit. I have read of one Edward Alleyn.... Was he one of the ‘Blackfriars’?
Truman. Never, as I have heard; for he was dead before my time. He was Master of a Company of his own; for whom he built the ‘Fortune’ playhouse from the ground: a large round brick building....
Lovewit. What kind of Playhouses had they before the Wars?
Truman. The ‘Blackfriars’, ‘Cockpit’, and ‘Salisbury Court’ were called Private Houses; and were very small to what we see now. The ‘Cockpit’ was standing since the Restoration; and Rhodes’s Company acted there for some time.
Lovewit. I have seen that.
Truman. Then you have seen the other two, in effect; for they were all three built almost exactly alike, for form and bigness. Here they had ‘Pits’ for the gentry, and acted by candlelight.
The ‘Globe’, ‘Fortune’, and ‘Bull’ were large houses, and lay partly open to the weather: and there they always acted by daylight....
Truman. Plays were frequently acted by Choristers and Singing Boys; and several of our old Comedies have printed in the title-page, Acted by the Children of Paul’s (not the School, but the Church); others, By the Children of Her Majesty’s Chapel. In particular, Cynthia’s Revels and the Poetaster were played by them; who were, at that time, famous for good action.... Some of the Chapel Boys, when they grew men, became Actors at the ‘Blackfriars’. Such were Nathan Field and John Underwood.
iii.
[Extracts from John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, or, an Historical Review of the Stage (1708), reprinted by Joseph Knight (1886). An earlier reprint is in F. G. Waldron, Literary Museum (1792). Downes became prompter to the Duke of York’s men under Sir William Davenant at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1662.]
In the Reign of King Charles the First, there were Six Play Houses allow’d in Town: The Black-Fryars Company, His Majesty’s Servants; The Bull in St. John’s-street; another in Salisbury Court; another call’d the Fortune; another at the Globe; and the Sixth at the Cock-Pit in Drury-Lane; all which continu’d Acting till the beginning of the said Civil Wars. The scattered Remnant of several of these Houses, upon King Charles’s Restoration, Fram’d a Company who Acted again at the Bull, and Built them a New House in Gibbon’s Tennis Court in Clare-Market; in which Two Places they continu’d Acting all 1660, 1661, 1662 and part of 1663. In this time they Built them a New Theatre in Drury Lane....
Sir William [Davenant] in order to prepare Plays to Open his Theatre, it being then a Building in Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, His Company Rehearsed the First and Second Part of the Siege of Rhodes; and the Wits at Pothecaries-Hall: And in Spring 1662, Open’d his House with the said Plays, having new Scenes and Decorations, being the first that e’re were Introduc’d in England.