a clue to the actors at it is given by Marston's reference to 'Curtain plaudities' in the closest connexion with Romeo and Juliet.[1] In 1600 Robert Armin, of the Chamberlain's men, published his Fool upon Fool, in which he called himself 'Clonnico de Curtanio Snuffe'. In the 1605 edition he changed the name to 'Clonnico del Mondo Snuffe'. The direct connexion of the Chamberlain's men with the Curtain probably ended on the opening of the Globe. But a share in it belonged to Thomas Pope, when he made his will on 22 July 1603, and another to John Underwood, when he made his on 4 October 1624. Both were of the Chamberlain's men, although Underwood cannot have joined them until about 1608.
The Curtain did not go entirely out of use when the Chamberlain's left it. It must have been the theatre near Bishopsgate at which Thomas Platter saw a play in September or October 1599.[2] It is possible that Kempe (q.v.) was then playing there. In March 1600 one William Hawkins, barber, of St. Giles's without Cripplegate was charged at the Middlesex Sessions with taking a purse and £1 6s. 6d. at the Curtain, and Richard Fletcher, pewterer, of Norwich, was bound over to give evidence.[3]
On 22 June 1600, when the Privy Council gave authority for the opening of the Fortune, they were given to understand by the Master of the Revels that it would replace the Curtain, which was therefore to be 'ruinated or applied to some other good use'. This arrangement seems to suggest that the Curtain was in some way under the control of Alleyn or Henslowe. It was, however, departed from, and apparently with the tacit consent of the Council, as although they had occasion on 10 May 1601 to instruct the Middlesex justices to suppress a libellous play produced at 'the Curtaine in Moorefeilds', they did not take, as they might have done, the point that no play ought to have been produced there at all. On 31 December they were again insisting on the limitation of the theatres in use to two; and on 31 March 1602 they again
- ↑ Scourge of Villainy (1598), xi. 37 (Works, iii. 372):
Luscus, what's play'd to-day? Faith now I know
I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow
Naught but pure Juliet and Romeo.
Say who acts best? Drusus or Roscio?
Now I have him, that ne'er of ought did speak
But when of plays or players he did treat—
Hath made a common-place book out of plays,
And speaks in print: at least what e'er he says
Is warranted by Curtain plaudities. - ↑ Cf. p. 365.
- ↑ Jeaffreson, i. 259.
