XX
STAGING IN THE THEATRES: SIXTEENTH CENTURY
[For Bibliographical Note, vide ch. xviii.]
In dealing with the groups of plays brought under review
in the last chapter, the main problem considered has been that
of their adaptability to the conditions of a Court stage. In
the present chapter the point of view must be shifted to that
of the common theatres. Obviously no hard and fast line
is to be drawn. There had been regular public performances
in London since the beginning of Elizabeth's reign or earlier,
and there is no reason to suppose that the adult companies
at least did not draw upon the same repertory both for
popular and for private representation. But there is not
much profit in attempting to investigate the methods of
staging in the inns, of which we know nothing more than
that quasi-permanent structures of carpenter's work came
in time to supplement the doors, windows, and galleries
which surrounded the yards; and so far as the published
plays go, it is fairly apparent that, up to the date of the
suppression of Paul's, the Court, or at any rate the private,
interest was the dominating one. A turning-point may be
discerned in 1576, at the establishment, on the one hand of
the Theatre and the Curtain, and on the other of Farrant's
house in the Blackfriars. It is not likely that the Blackfriars
did more than reproduce the conditions of a courtly hall.
But the investment of capital in the Theatre and the Curtain
was an incident in the history of the companies, the economic
importance of which has already been emphasized in an earlier
discussion.[1] It was followed by the formation of strong
theatrical organizations in the Queen's men, the Admiral's,
Strange's, the Chamberlain's. For a time the economic
changes are masked by the continued vogue of the boy
companies; but when these dropped out at the beginning of
the 'nineties, it is clear that the English stage had become
a public stage, and that the eyes of its controllers were fixed
primarily upon the pence gathered by the box-holders, and
- ↑ Cf. ch. xi.
