Want
to learn something about our author?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
STRATFORD
On Sunday the 23rd of April 1564, in Henley Street Stratford On Avon, John and Mary Shakespeare had their first son, William. They had lost two infant daughters prior to his birth, so imagine their delight when presented with a son and heir! John was approximately 34 years old and Mary 24. They had been married for eight years, not long after the death of Mary's father, Richard Arden. She must have been a considerable young woman, as she was made executor of her father’s will, in spite of being illiterate and the youngest of eight sisters .
She bought with her as dowry a considerable amount of money and 60 acres of land. By the standards of the day she was considered quite a catch. John was no less remarkable in his way. He had left his father's farm, and become an apprentice leather worker rising to the highly skilled trade of a glove maker. John also dabbled in property speculation, butchery, money lending and wool dealing. It was obviously a profitable career, as by the age of 22 he owned his own house, and by 24 he had expanded his property holdings considerably. By marrying Mary, he had also married the boss’s daughter - his father had tenant-farmed land owned by Richard Arden.
The Shakespeare's were to have five other children: Gilbert within two years of Will and who went on to become a haberdasher in London before retiring home to Stratford. Three years later came Joan, named after her posthumous elder sister. She outlived Will by 30 years. Then two years later came Anne, who was born when Will was seven years old. She died seven years later at a time when the Shakespeare fortunes were definitely on the wane. The evidence we have suggests that she was deeply loved. Her funeral was a rich one at a time that the family could not afford it. Perhaps this poem by Ben Jonson might give us an idea of their feelings:
Here lies, to each her parents' ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth;
Yet all heaven's gifts being heaven's due,
It makes the father less to rue.
At six months' end she parted hence
With safety of her innocence;
Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears,
In comfort of her mother's tears,
Hath placed amongst her virgin-train:
Where, while that severed doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth;
Which cover lightly, gentle earth!
Before this sad loss they had another son, Richard, when Will was ten. When he was 16 the baby of the family, Edmund, was born. He grew up to become an actor in London.
John's career blossomed, and by the age of 40 he was appointed to the office of Bailiff - the equivalent of Lord Mayor and in that same year , 1570, he applied for a coat of arms and elevation to the rank of Gentleman. This application was not pursued.
The next twenty years paint a picture of a downward spiral. By 1590, John simply stopped attending his official, religious and legal obligations, had been dismissed from all council posts , fined extensively for not turning up to court cases in which he was being sued and at church (for fear of being arrested as a debtor). He had lost or mortgaged all his property except for the Henley Street house.
What went wrong? We don't know. Some suggest that it was alcoholism - maybe he was the inspiration for the Falstaff and Hal scenes in Henry IV 1 & 2 (Fal staff/ Shake speare?). Others claim that he was a secret Catholic - his recently discovered will was written in the standard Catholic format. It remains pure speculation.
When John ceased being an alderman in 1577, then the perks that went with the job also disappeared. One of these was free schooling for his sons. It is a not unreasonable assumption that Will was taken out of school either then or soon after. He would have been 13 years old. This might make sense of Ben Jonson's opinion of Shakespeare's erudition. He said that " he (Shakespeare) had small Latin and less Greek." Presumably, on leaving school, Will would then have been apprenticed to his father.
The young Shakespeare would have had extensive access to plays and players even in his home town. Stratford was in the centre of one of the main trade roads from London to Edinburgh, Coventry and the whole of the north of England. Players stopped there regularly, performing in the Guild Hall. At 16 years of age he would have been old enough to have seen the performance of the last of the great Mystery Plays at nearby Coventry.
The next years of his life are referred to as "the lost years". He disappeared from all records. Some theories about what he may have been doing include: he was a tutor to the sons of The Earl of Berkley, that he enlisted with The Earl of Leicester to fight in the Low Countries. Local legend has it that he was a poacher. A probable explanation is that he was an articled clerk to a solicitor. The use of complex legal words, images and arguments that run throughout his plays was certainly beyond common knowledge. But this is pure speculation.
1582 was a big year for Will. He got married at 18 years of age to the 26 year old Anne Hathaway, who was three months pregnant at the time. In May of the next year she gave birth to their first daughter Susanna and two years later, in 1585, to twins Judith and Hamnet.
Will disappears from public view until 1592. There are no surviving examples of his early attempts at poetry. Professor Gary Taylor claims that the following poem is his earliest surviving work. It is called A Song or Shall I Die? Here is the first stanza:
1.
Shall I die? Shall I fly
Lovers baits and deceits,
sorrow breeding?
Shall I tend? Shall I send?
Shall I sue, and not rue
my proceeding?
In all duty her beauty
Binds me her servant for ever.
If she scorn, I mourn,
I retire to despair, joining never.
In order for Will to become the polished and skilful playwright that he was to be by 1592, he must have served some kind of theatrical apprenticeship. In 1587, two years after the birth of the twins, five different acting companies toured through Stratford. He could have joined one of these companies as a "hired man". This was an actor who played smaller roles. He had at least "some Latin" and this would've set him apart from his fellow actors. His schooling, by the standards of the day, although lacking the imprimatur of a University, was superior to the majority. Perhaps he began to doctor existing scripts, writing interludes or quickly adapting from existing stories. It is tempting to imagine that he began work on The Comedy of Errors. After all it was a play about twins from a new father of twins.
The London theatre scene at this time was dominated by the flamboyant Christopher Marlowe. He was the same age as Shakespeare, but had been educated at Cambridge where he awarded an M.A. He was a professed atheist and flagrant homosexual who was reported to have said that " all those who love not boys and tobacco are fools". He was also a secret agent, spying for the English Secret Service against the Catholics.
Marlowe had triumphed on the London stage particularly with Tamburlaine,
championing and refining the new blank verse. Many believe that if he
had lived longer he could have rivaled Shakespeare as a poet. The following
poem gives an idea of his ability:
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Come
live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And
we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A
gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A
belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs :
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The
shepherds' swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
Some believe that he co-wrote parts of Henry VI with Shakespeare. His end was as theatrical as his life. In 1593 he was stabbed through the eye during a brawl in a private house in Deptford.
The first "notice" of a Shakespeare play was on Friday the 3rd of March, 1592 at The Rose Theatre in Southwark, London. The play was "Harry the sixth". The theatre manager and general entrepreneur Phillip Henslowe (an Elizabethan precursor to the Kray brothers!) kept meticulous account books and from these we know it was the most profitable play in the season.
A sure sign of its popularity with the audiences was that three sequels were written: Henry VI parts 2 & 3 and Richard III. One line from the plays struck a particular chord. In Henry VI part 3 Queen Margaret has just murdered the Duke of York’s son. He says of her:
O, tigers heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide.
This popularity was not universal - as a a rival playwright was soon to show.
Robert Greene had been educated at both Cambridge and Oxford universities.
He had made a respectable living as a playwright and pamphleteer. His
play Friar Bungay and Friar Bacon had also been in that
year's season at the Rose. He was dying at the time and wrote a warning
to the other professional, university-educated playwrights about the
unbelievable arrogance of an actor, Shakespeare, who dared to write
plays:
" Yet trust them not: for there is an upstart crow, beautified with or feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the only shake-scene in the country".
The dating of Shakespeare's plays is always fraught with difficulties. There are passionate and well argued adherents for all kinds of dates for the plays. I suggest that around the period 1589 - 92 Shakespeare had composed Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, Henry VI 1, 2 &3 and King John. If we accept these plays in this date range then Shakespeare was a prolific writer - six plays in three years.
1592 was an important year for Will, both professionally and personally. At 28 years he had broken into one of the most lucrative new trades in London. He was a member of the prestigious theatre company, Lord Strange's Men, at the Rose theatre. The future must have seemed bright. This was not to last.
On the afternoon of June 11th, while acting in the play " A Knack To Know A Knave" a riot broke out amongst the audience of apprentices. The Marshall's Men were brought in to quell it and a pitched battle ensued. So violent was this riot that the City Council ordered all theatres to be closed until September of that year. At one stroke Shakespeare's livelihood was removed. This must have hurt him even more, because of his father’s financial hardships. John was fined for non attendance at church (or recusancy) that year.
Strange's Men weathered this storm by going on a summer provincial tour. Will remained behind, just in time for an outbreak of the bubonic plague. This was a particularly revolting disease and was to rage through London until the winter of 1593, killing ,it is estimated, over a third of the population of London. It was carried by fleas who bread on rats and then bit humans. It attacked the lymphatic system, causing large swellings, or buboes, to appear usually on the victims neck or in their groin. These buboes filled up with a black puss, which eventually burst. Early symptoms included sneezing, fever, aches, vomiting, diarrhea and eventually delirium. There was no known cure or reason for the disease. This contemporary poem, by Thomas Nashe, gives us an idea of what it must have been like.
Adieu,
farewell, earth's bliss;
This world uncertain is:
Fond are life's lustful joys;
Death proves them all but toys;
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us
Rich
men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade.
All things to end are made,
The plague full swift goes by;
I am sick, I must die
Lord, have mercy on us
Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air.
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen s eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Strength
stoops unto the grave,
Worms feed on Hector brave;
Swords may not fight with fate,
Earth still holds ope her gate.
"Come, come!" the bells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death's bitterness;
Hell's executioner
Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Haste, therefore, each degree.
To welcome destiny;
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage;
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us.
THE MASTER-MISTRESS OF MY PASSION.
It is thought that while the theatres were closed and his company on
tour (a situation that was to remain until the end of 1593) Will found
a personal patron in the 16th Earl of Southampton and Baron of Titchfield,
Henry Wriothesley (pronounced Rizely). Shakespeare began to expand his
poetic range by attempting his first un dramatic poem - Venus and
Adonis. It bore the following dedication:
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD
Right
Honourable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished
lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing
so strong a prop to support so weak a burden. Only, if your honour seem
but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage
of all idle hours till I have honoured you with some graver labour.
But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry
it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land for
fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable
survey, and your honour to your heart’s content, which I wish may
always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful expectation.
Your
honour’s in all duty,
William Shakespeare.
Obviously this "first heir" did please as, within a year, Will had published a second poem, The Rape of Lucrece, again dedicated to Southampton. It is interesting to note the very different tone of his second dedication:
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD
The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end, whereof this pamphlet
without beginning is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of
your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes
it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to
do is yours, being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth
greater my duty would show greater, meantime, as it is, it is bound
to your lordship, to whom I wish long life still lengthened with all
happiness.
Your
lordship’s in all duty,
William
Shakespeare
Apparently the relationship had gone from that of poet and patron to something more intimate. Just how intimate has been the subject of endless debate.
Southampton was 10 years younger than Will and a strikingly beautiful young man. He was the ward of Lord Burghley the Lord High Treasurer. Burghley wanted Southampton to marry his grand daughter Lady Elizabeth Vere. Southampton refused the match. We think that at this time Will began writing his famous sonnets. There is no evidence to suggest that they were autobiographical. However it was traditional for sonnets to be so and it is certainly hard to believe that they weren't based on actual events. Most authorities today accept that they are painfully personal and give us the greatest insight into what Will was thinking and feeling at this time.
There are 154 sonnets in the sequence, and if we take them in the order they are written, and autobiographically, a story of a menage a trois emerges. The first 126 sonnets are written to a man - it is commonly believed to have been Southampton. The remaining 28 to a woman, known as "The Dark Lady Of The Sonnets" - now thought to be Emilia Lanier, a poet and courtier of the time. The first 17 sonnets are urging a young man to marry and have children. It is thought that Southampton's mother The Dowager Lady Mary initially commissioned Shakespeare to write them. Will, in sonnet 3, says:
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in
thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
The relationship develops and Will tells his "love" in sonnet 20:
A woman’s face with nature’s own hand
painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false women’s
fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in
rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s
souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women’s
pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their
treasure.
The line " By adding one thing to my purpose nothing." seems to indicate that the men were not lovers. Many disagree.
And then a woman seems to intrude between these two men. His male love has seduced Will's mistress in sonnet 40:
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
But, by the end of this sonnet:
I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known
injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.
A rival poet emerges to come between the two men in sonnet 79:
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
And my sick muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.
By
sonnet 129 there is a disgust with lust, the "Dark Lady" has
emerged:
Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of
blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows
well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
By
number 144 the complications have increased:
Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still.
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride;
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in
doubt
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
This sequence of events is supposition on my part. The fact is, no one
knows for certain just what was happening. The sonnets are included
for you to make up your own mind. Whatever the reality was, there was
certainly some tumultuous emotions in the air!
Whatever else happened between Will and Southampton, by 1597 he had enough money to become a "sharer" in a new company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, formed by Richard Burbage. It is thought that Southampton gave him £1,000.
Southampton’s other influence would have been to give Will the insight into the aristocratic "demi monde" that figured so much in his plays. His ancestral home, Titchfield house, was also a centre of Italian culture and it is through this that Will could have gained the necessary insights to write the highly fashionable Italian ate plays - The Merchant of Venice, Romeo & Juliet and The Taming of The Shrew - which all date from this period.
The Lord Chamberlains Men was formed as a company in 1597. The previous
year had been a hard one. Will’s son, Hamnet, had died back in
Stratford aged 11. Some scholars place the play King John at
this time, seeing a reflection of the writer’s personal grief in
the lines spoken by the grieving Constance on hearing of her son's death:
I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
My name is Constance; I was Geoffrey’s
wife;
Young Arthur is my son; and he is lost.
I am not mad; I would to God I were,
For then ’tis like I should forget myself.
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
And thou shalt be canonized, Cardinal.
For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be delivered of these woes,
And teaches me to kill or hang myself.
If I were mad I should forget my son,
Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.
The next year seemed to heal this grief. This was the time of what is often called the "summer" period of Shakespeare's writing: Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Henry IV 1 & 2, & A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was also the beginning of Will's prosperity. He had bought land in Stratford and was even approached for a loan by his countryman Richard Quiney. He wrote to Shakespeare and the letter, found among Quiney's papers, says:
" Loving countryman, I am bold of you, as of a friend, craving your help with £30... You shall friend me much in helping me out of all the debts I owe in London."
Will was certainly not neglecting his home town. By 1597 he had been granted a coat of arms. The family motto was Non Sans Droict or Not without right (viciously parodied by Ben Jonson as " Not Without Mustard".) In the meantime his father had been restored financially and resumed his place as an alderman in the town council shortly before his death in 1601. It is tempting to speculate whether his father's death influenced the writing of Hamlet, which was thought to have been written at around this time and is a play dominated by fathers and sons.
RE-ENTER THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.
Somewhere between 1595 - 7 Will had written one of his most politically dangerous plays, Richard II. This was the only history play to show the deposition of a King. So sensitive was this that when the play was published, the deposition scene was omitted. The play goes even further, showing a group of nobly intentioned conspirators actually having the King killed for patriotic reasons. This was to have a close resemblance to the events of 1601.
Queen Elizabeth, now in her seventies, had still not named an heir to the throne. She had sent her current favourite, The Earl of Essex, to Ireland to fight rebels. Southampton was his lieutenant. Far from defeating the rebels, Essex had concluded a treaty with them, inferring that England was soon to have a new ruler. Elizabeth responded by ordering Essex home and then stripping him of his main source of income, the tax on sweet wine (a hugely lucrative income.)
Essex, aided by Southampton and various other members of his faction,
began to plan a coup d'etat. What was needed to launch it was an adroit
piece of propaganda, to inspire the London populace to revolt against
the Queen.
On Friday the 6th of February, a member of Essex's faction approached The Lord Chamberlain's Men, requesting them to stage Richard II the next day with the deposition scene included. They promised to pay the company 40 shillings over their door takings. On Saturday the play was staged and on the following morning the coup began. It was swiftly and ruthlessly crushed by the Queen (who had probably been advised by a mole within the Essex camp.) Essex and Southampton were both arrested, sent to the tower and sentenced to death on the 25th of February.
On the night of the 24th of February the Lord Chamberlain's Men gave
a court performance in front of the Queen. It is thought that the play
selected by the Queen, at her blackly ironic best, was Richard II.
In August of that year we have a recorded conversation between her and
her record keeper at the tower of London, William Lambard. Upon coming
to a mention of Richard II, Elizabeth said:
"I
am Richard the second, know ye not that?
Lambard:
Such a wicked imagination was determined and attempted by most unkind
Gent, the most adorned creature that ever your Majesty made.
Elizabeth: He that will forget God will also forget his benefactors. This tragedy
was played forty times in open streets and houses."
It was to be a long time before Shakespeare attempted another history play and by then the old Queen was safely in her grave.
In 1603 Elizabeth died and was succeeded by King James 1st. He promptly became patron of Shakespeare's company who were then known as The King's Men. Both Burbage and Shakespeare were made Grooms of The Bed Chamber.
This new Jacobean era gave rise to some of Will's darkest plays. This was the time of Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Measure For Measure, Troilius and Cressida, Macbeth, All’s Well That End’s Well, Othello, Antony & Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Pericles and King Lear.
The company prospered under James. In the court records for 1604 - 5 we know that seven of Will's plays were performed at court and by 1608 the company had begun using its second venue, an indoor theatre called The Blackfriars. This had been purchased by Richard Burbage in 1597 but his aristocratic neighbours had protested against its use for anything so vulgar as plays and so Burbage had leased it out to the "Boy Actor" companies. By 1608 the lease had expired and The Kings men were able to use it for the winter months instead of going on provincial tour. It was meant for a more posh audience than the outdoor Globe - seats sold for as much as twelve pennies (entry to the Globe began at one penny) - and it had no standing area or pit and it was lit by candles. Will's later plays were thought to have been written specifically for the Blackfriars .
In 1604 King James had commanded a new translation of the Bible into English, which is now known (and by many loved as the greatest edition of the Bible) as The King James Bible. In 1610 the project was nearing completion and it is thought by some that Shakespeare was part of the committee responsible for its "translation", particularly the book of Psalms. In particular they use the 46th Psalm. This was translated in Will's 46th year. The 46th word from the beginning is shake and the 46th word from its end (omitting the Selah's) is spear. It is worth reading in its entirety:
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
There
is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the cities of God, the
holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
God
is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved:
God shall help her, and that right early.
The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the
earth melted.
The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
Come,
behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth.
He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow,
and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen,
I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
By1610 Will is believed to have retired from the theatre. Some believe
he returned to Stratford, to enjoy a life of wealthy ease.
It is during this "retirement" that he wrote, what we now
call, the Romances - Cymbeline, Pericles, The Winters Tale and
The Tempest. Many view the character of Prospero, from the Tempest,
as Will saying his farewell to the theatre:
Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
During this time he also collaborated on a series of plays with the playwright John Fletcher - The Two Noble Kinsmen, Cardenio (now lost) and Henry VIII or All Is True. By 1612, at 50 years of age, we know he was back in Stratford. He bought New Place, one of the best properties in town and presided over a growing family and property. We know he had frequent visits from another Warwickshire poet, Michael Drayton (in fact Will's son in law, the local doctor, had treated Drayton for a "tertian fever".) Drayton was a playwright and poet a year older than Will. He is best remembered for one of the loveliest sonnets of the age:
Since there' s No Help
Since
there's no help, come let us kiss and part;
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart
That thus so cleanly I myself can free;
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him
over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.
Both of Will’s daughters were now married: Susanna to a local Doctor, John Hall ; and Judith to the disreputable Thomas Quiney. Judith had married at an unusually old age, 31 years, for women in this time. This marriage must have caused Shakespeare considerable unhappiness. The two were excommunicated for marrying during Lent without a special licence. Within a month of the wedding Quiney was tried for the crime of Fornication - he had got another woman pregnant and she had died during child birth.
Not long after these events, William Shakespeare died apocryphally on his birth day. Contemporary writers record that he had a "merrie meeting" with Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton and after an over indulgence in pickled herrings and Rhenish wine he caught a fever which led to his death. In his will he left to his wife his "second best bed".
It is difficult to establish what kind of man he was. Certainly the sonnets give us some insight. There are two anecdotes from contemporaries that are worth including:
On
Ben Jonson
Master Ben Jonson and Master William Shakespeare being merry at a tavern,
Master Jonson having begun this for his epitaph:
Here lies Ben Jonson
That was once one,
he
gives it to Master Shakespeare to make up who presently writes:
Who while he lived was a slow thing,
And now, being dead, is nothing.
There is another piece of gossip recorded by a young student at the Inns of Court in 1602:
Upon a time when Burbage played Richard III there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of Richard the Third. Shakespeare, overhearing their conclusion, went before, was entertained, and at his game ere Burbage came. Then, message being brought that Richard the Third was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third.
Caroline Spurgeon in her wonderful book Shakespeare's Imagery gives us many clues based on consistent usage of images in the plays. Among some of these deductions: that Shakespeare was susceptible to blushing, that he had an acute sense of smell which caused him to particularly loathe bad smells and that he had a love of animals. Anyone who has read his plays can attest that they were written by a country boy who gloried in nature. The phrase "the darling buds of May ", alone gives us proof of this.
Politically, he was a compassionate conservative. In his plays order is always championed, the susceptibility of the mob to passionate oratory shown as a danger to order. Yet there is a strong feeling for the common citizen and common sense is preferred to high idealism.
I believe that his life was mirrored in his plays and that he wrote always from the heart, tempered by a bitter and joyful experience of life. The final words on his life should go to one who knew him as well as any. Ben Jonson in the introduction to the First Folio says :
To the memory of my beloved,
The AUTHOR MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
AND what he hath left us.
I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise. I will not lodge thee
by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further to make thee a room.
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
...
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time,
2.
SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRE
There is no doubt that Will Shakespeare has profoundly influenced the
English language and culture in a way that is almost unique. As my English
teacher said, rather aptly, "if England had done nothing else but
produce Shakespeare, it would've justified its own existence ten times
over."
One of the questions we ask when meeting genius, is how could anyone create something so perfect all by themselves? Part of the answer is that nothing exists in isolation, but is part of its time and is, therefore, affected by that time. By evoking some of the features and attitudes of that time, maybe we can come to see genius in its context and understand it a bit better.
Shakespeare had an estimated working vocabulary of over 30,000 words - almost double that of an educated person today. We have traced over 60 words that are unique to him , including, assassination and obscene. He has contributed more cliches to the language than anyone else including:
What light through yonder window breaks?
Once more unto the breach
The course of true love never did run smooth
The quality of mercy is not strained
Neither a borrower nor a lender be etc.
He revolutionised the style and content of the Elizabethan Theatre as completely as the Beatles changed modern pop music.
Prior to Shakespeare playwrights were governed by laws of plot construction laid down in the third century by Aristotle in his book The Poetics. These were known as the Unities. They stipulated that a play must have: unity of time - the time used within the plot must be the same as the literal time the play ran; unity of location - the play could only take place in one location; and unity of action - the play must not mix comedy with tragedy. We can see a clear evolution in Shakespeare's writing from the early plays such as The Comedy of Errors (where he observed these rules in a classical style) through to a play such as Henry V, where he actually wrote an apology for his breaking of the style:
| Chorus: | O
for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention: A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene. Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels, Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all, The flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object. Can this cock-pit hold The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O pardon: since a crookèd figure may Attest in little place a million, And let us, ciphers to this great account, On your imaginary forces work. Suppose within the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high uprearèd and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder. Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts: Into a thousand parts divide one man, And make imaginary puissance. Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them, Printing their proud hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth; For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times, Turning th’ accomplishment of many years Into an hourglass-for the which supply, Admit me Chorus to this history, Who Prologue-like your humble patience pray Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. |
For all his genius, he was still born in the right place and time and many things shaped the style and content of his plays. Let's examine some of these.
When the Norman's invaded England in 1066, they brought with them a language and culture that were predominantly French. Many of the Plantagenet kings could not even speak in English! All official documents and proclamations were written in Latin, and poetry and literature were written in French. English was regarded as a barbarous tongue. It was Geoffrey Chaucer who began the renaissance of English with his publication of The Canterbury Tales somewhere between the dates of 1370 - 91. This was popular, entertaining poetry written in contemporary English. King Henry V took this to the next stage when he began to publish all official decrees in English (he even wrote his will in English) in 1422.
The next major step was in 1476 when William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began translating some of the great literature of the day into English. However it was King Henry VIII who really cut the knot with Europe and set England on its own cultural path. In 1532 he broke with the Catholic church and formed the Church of England, appointing himself as its head. Increasingly the English began to look to themselves for their own culture, just as the Americans did when they split from England. English was regarded as a perfectly legitimate language. The feeling could be best summed up by this quote from a guild in 1413 stating that in future they would write " Englishe matter in the Englishe tongue". By the Elizabethan age, English was exploding with new words, grammar and writers. It was to be the turning point in the evolution of our language - a time that many believe has never been surpassed. This was the language that Shakespeare inherited.
THE PROFESSIONAL THEATRE, OR THE BIRTH OF "THE QUALITY".
The Elizabethan Actors name for their profession was to be a member of "The Quality". Prior to the reign of Elizabeth 1st the English theatre had comprised largely of Morality plays - religious pieces performed on festival days, and guild plays - each profession had a guild, such as carpenters, tailors etc. These guilds had an annual feast day and guild members would create a play for these occasions - again usually on a religious theme. There were also strolling players who toured the country, bringing a combination of minstrelsy and clowning. This was the limit of theatrical entertainment as the church felt acting to be a sin.
With the break from the Catholic church there was a liberalisation of attitude towards the popular theatre. This coupled with the increase in population of London - fewer than 100,000 in the 1550's up to 220,000 by 1604 - a population that had leisure time, led to an explosion of commercial theatre.
As early as 1567 the grocer, John Brayne had constructed " A skaffolde or stage for enterludes or playes" at The Red Lion, a converted farm house in Whitechapel. By the time Shakespeare retired (approximately 1608-11) there were between 18 - 22 professional theatres in London. These companies played 6 days a week, in the afternoons, with a new production every day (not necessarily a new play, as they often revived old plays from their repertoire). In 1594 The Admiral's Men staged 38 plays, 21 of which were premieres. To put this popularity in some kind of context: today we have five to six professional companies in Sydney which service a population of 3 million people, staging on average six to eight productions each a year.
Today we often make a rather arbitrary division in the theatre between "art" and "entertainment". The Elizabethan theatre companies could not be so picky - their productions had to satisfy both tastes. We see this reflected within Shakespeare's plays, where no matter how deep and tragic the theme there is always a lighter or more comic scene, for the "groundlings" (more of this term later) and the opposite is also true. For every Bottom there is an Oberon and for every Macbeth, there is a Porter. To really see the theatre of his time in its context the best analogy to use would be the birth of Television. While high principles of art informed the theatre it was also mass entertainment.
The theatre that Shakespeare joined as a fledgling actor and playwright was in the midst of a boom that has never been surpassed. It was a kind of tin pan alley where a writer could make huge, if not artistically valid, profits. There was such a demand for new plays that scripts were often written by a team of writers under the direction of a "Part Master" who would assign sections of the script to different writers.
The going rate for a finished script was approximately £5. The average wage for a working man was 6 shillings a week. The Globe had a seating capacity (we think) of 2,000 people. Based on full houses, their weekly income could exceed £ 41. A court performance of a play could earn as much as £10.
The theatre had its enemies also. Chief amongst these were the Puritans, a kind of Anglican fundamentalist sect. The Puritans were a growing force in England. They controlled the London City Council, and passed an ordinance forbidding the performance of plays within the city walls of London. The actors responded by moving their theatres outside the city walls, many of them to the Liberty of Southwark or the Liberty of Shoreditch on the south bank of the Thames river. This was only a short ferry ride across the Thames, or a walk across London Bridge. It was the heart of the red light district, with infamous brothels like:the Castle and the Nunnery and the bear-baiting and cock-fighting pits. It became a kind of bohemian suburb of London, with the local church even known as "The Players Church". In 1592 the Puritan Lord Mayor of London wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury
" ...by the daily and disorderly exercise of a number of players and playing houses erected within this city, the youth thereof is greatly corrupted and their manners infected with many evil and ungodly qualities, by reason of the wanton and profane devices represented on the stages by the said players... to which places also do usually resort great numbers of light and lewd disposed persons, as harlots, cutpurses, cozeners (con men), pilferers and such like ..."
Coupled with this huge popularity, the very language of the theatre had found a new way of expressing itself - blank verse. In 1557 The Earl of Surrey had used this poetic metre when translating from Ovid. It was an un-rhymed form of poetry that approximated the way people actually spoke. It freed the Elizabethan dramatist to be much more naturalistic in his writing. An imperfect analogy might be the introduction of rock'n'roll in the 1950's - all of a sudden music found a rhythm that suited its times perfectly, a rhythm that affected the lyrics and style of its day.
The craft of the playwright was not considered artistically valid. It was really a sordid way of prostituting talent for money, but it attracted the young men down from university in their droves. It was regarded in a similar way to our own "selling out to Hollywood". Shakespeare was unique in that he was not a university trained writer, but an actor who had finished his formal schooling at the age of 13 or 14.
This is a subject fraught with controversy as there are many pieces of conflicting evidence. The following is an approximation.
The Globe theatre was built in Southwark in 1599. It was a polygonal structure (the Elizabethans did not have the technology to construct a round building) three storeys high. At the west end it had a tower which extended four storeys. At the top of this building there was a flag which had the companies emblem - a picture of Hercules carrying the world on his shoulders and the motto " Totus mundus agit histrionem" or "All The world's a stage". (Incidentally, it is thought that the play which opened the theatre was " As You Like It). The flag was raised at the commencement of a performance, and gradually lowered as the play continued. It is thought that admission prices went down as the flag descended so that late-comers could see the play at a lesser price.
The roof was made of thatch - ironically this was to be the theatre's death, as the roof caught fire when a cannon was ignited during the performance of the last of Shakespeare's plays Henry VIII in 1613.
The stage was made up of boards put on top of trestles that stood approximately five feet high and was fenced by a small balustrade. It was approximately 40 ft. deep by 27 ft. wide. It had a trapdoor centre stage which was used for various special effects such as the vanishing of the witches in Macbeth or the Ghost in Hamlet (where the stage direction reads " beneath"). It could also be used for Ophelia's grave in Hamlet. It led to the " Hell " or understage.
Directly over the stage there was a canopy, which was known as "The Heavens". The primary function of this was to keep rain off the actors while they were performing. Its secondary purpose was to conceal the stage machinery used to fly in various characters on a winch. The appearance of Hymen at the end of As You Like It was one instance. Witches could be seen to "fly", Kings could descend on their thrones as could various Gods and Goddesses. The under side of this canopy was painted with designs of stars and comets. It lends a new understanding to Hamlet's speech :
This most excellent canopy the air,
look you, this brave o’erhanging
firmament,
this
majestical roof fretted with golden fire.
The canopy was supported by two pillars down stage left and right. It is thought that these pillars were dispensed with in later theatres. These pillars while providing considerable sight line obstacles, could also be used as a down stage concealment for characters. Romeo over hearing Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet or Malvolio's "letter" scene in Twelfth Night.
The hut over the stage housed the sound effects department. Within this hut they could reproduce a storm by rolling a cannon ball over a sheet of metal, or by letting off fire crackers.
Upstage left and right were two doors which opened outwards onto the stage for entrances and exits. Between these doors was a small "inner stage" covered with a curtain. This space was used for the more intimate scenes. Desdemona’s death in Othello is an excellent example. When it was not used the curtain could be drawn.
The tower that backed the stage was used as a back stage area and for dressing rooms or Tire Houses as they were then called. It also served as a spectacle in its own right. In a city where "high rise" consisted of one or two storeys, a four storey tower was a rarity and so quite amazing to behold. There is a scene in Henry VI part one, which is constructed around various entrances from a tower. It is interesting to note that The Rose (the theatre where Henry was thought to have premiered) had only recently constructed a tower.
Directly above the stage was the "gallery". This had three rooms all covered with curtains. The centre room was used for musicians, with the left and right rooms being used for scenes that called for an entrance " above" - Juliet's balcony scene is an obvious example. If there were no such scene then they could be used to seat lords.
The audience entered through the "porticulum" and paid a penny to the "gatherer" to stand in "the pit". This was the home of the "groundlings" mentioned earlier. Payment of a further penny would lead you to the first gallery, where you could sit on one of three tiers safe from the skies. A further penny would lead you to the second level gallery, and a final penny to the third level where the seats had cushions! A shilling gained you a "Lord's room" which was a private box, adjacent to the stage where you could be seen. ( There are still private boxes at some of our older theatres. Interestingly this custom is making something of a come back in modern sports arenas with corporate boxes for sale or lease.)
Audience behaviour was hard to tie down specifically. Eyewitness reports indicate that they could be rather unruly. In Hamlet we get Shakespeare's own attitude: "O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise."
There were even reports of riots during performances. For the "groundlings" ale, chestnuts, apples, oranges and garlic sausage were on sale during the entire performance (a further source of revenue for the actors) and it would not stretch the truth too far to imagine that these could be convenient missiles if "the play pleased not the multitude". The "orange girls" moved amongst the crowd, selling these tasty snacks and prostitutes plied their wares for a stand up bonk in the Porticulum.
The "Lordlings" or gentlemen went to the theatre not only to be entertained but also to meet others on business and display their own finery and erudition. It was common practice to sit on, or adjacent to the stage and chat with actors not involved in a scene. If a particular line tickled their fancy they would write it down on a wax tablet. Hamlet's line gains a vicious irony:
My tables,
My tables-meet it is I set it down
That one may smile and smile and be a
villain.
At least I’m sure it may be so in
Denmark.
(He writes)
Shakespeare's company was unique among Elizabethan actors in that they owned their own theatre and had their own resident playwright who also acted in the company. All the evidence points to a singularly warm and happy collaboration between the members of the company. The wills of the actors nearly always bequeath substantial amounts of money or property to other members, and with one major exception they had no change of personnel for ten years, with some of the associations pre-dating the Globe by a further 10 or 15 years.
Parliament published "An Acte for the punishement of vagabondes and for releif of the poore and impotent" in 1572. "All common players ... and minstrels not belonging to any baron of this realm, or to any other honourable personage of greater degree .... shall be ... deemed rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars." Company’s of players were required, by law, to have a licence to perform and the protection of a peer, otherwise they were classed as beggars. The prescribed punishment for beggary was " when one shall be taken, he shall be stripped naked from his middle upwards and shall be openly whipped until his or her body be bloody, and forthwith be sent from parish to parish the next, straightaway to the parish where he was born". Shakespeare's company was patronised by The Lord Chamberlain and was known as The Chamberlains Men. After 1603 they became The King's Men.
The exact relationship of a patron to a company is hard to determine. We do not think that the patron contributed financially to the company (it could have been the other way around). Often they would donate hand-me-downs of their cast-off finery to be used as costume. (Elizabethan plays were not costumed "in period" but in contemporary clothing. The main aim of costuming was to make the actor look as beautiful as possible, thereby adding to the spectacle of the performance and also helping to delineate the status of the character.)
The actors worked in London in the summer months and in winter went on provincial tour. They were also forbidden from performing if more than 40 people in any week died of the plague - all theatres were then automatically closed. They could not perform on the Sabbath.
The company was owned and run by " Sharers". With the Chamberlain's Men, there were initially seven to eight sharers who floated the company (12 by Shakespeare's death) - of which Shakespeare was one. We think it cost £ 50 to buy in (this was a huge sum of money - remember the average wage was approximately 6 shillings a week!)
These "sharers" literally shared the costs and profits amongst themselves. As noted above, the profits could be huge, but the expenses were high as well. Certainly Shakespeare made a good living. Professor Gurr, in his excellent book The Shakespearian Stage, estimated his income at £ 150 per year.
The all male company of The Lord Chamberlain's Men has been estimated at between 12 - 16 actors, with most of the cast doubling roles. While we know "the Sharers" played the principal roles, let us look at the rest of the company.
Apprentices were "boy actors". They were apprenticed to an
older actor at six or seven years of age (until their voices broke) 
under whom they served. The master actor would teach the apprentice
the basis of his craft - dance, music, singing, mime, personation and
rhetoric. They often lodged with their masters and were paid with their
room and board plus some small amount of pocket money. They acted the
women's parts. It is hard to imagine that Shakespeare wrote his plays
with an " ideal" cast in mind, hoping they could fulfil his
artistic ambitions. The reality was he wrote the plays with specific
actors in mind, knowing full well what they were capable of. The boy
who played Juliet must have been quite an actor! There are a number
of the comedies where the
female character dresses up as a boy - these are known as "breeches parts". While this would have aided the credibility of the audience in believing in their "heroines", it could also have added sex appeal to the performances. It would have been unthinkable for a woman to show her legs, but a boy, dressed as a girl, dressed as a boy - that would've been quite a different matter!
The "hired men" were bought in as needed, or sometimes hired for a complete season. They played the secondary roles and were paid between five to ten shillings a week.
The average rehearsal period was 12 mornings for a new play, with the companies performing a new production every afternoon. The starting time is hard to determine, although there is some evidence to suggest 3pm. There were no scripts - the cost of printing and the lack of effective copyright laws made a script among a company’s most valuable assets - rather, the plays were broken down into "Parts". These were all a character's lines in a play and the cue lines. The upkeep of the scripts and their distribution to the players was the responsibility of "the book keeper".
It is not clear whether the book keeper also doubled as the "prompter". Certainly this was a vital job with such a heavy production schedule. The prompter stood (we think )in the stage left corner and not only "prompted" actors with their lines, but also supervised their entrances and exits, the getting on and off of what few settings they did use and the pre setting of props. As Shakespeare said :
As an unperfect actor on the stage
Who
with his fear is put besides his part.
He had "stage keepers" to help him, who could also be used as extras in crowd scenes.
In rehearsal there was no formal director. Presumably the blocking and stage business was orchestrated by either the book keeper or prompter. The author could supervise rehearsals - indeed Ben Jonson was infamous for his attention to the detail of the staging of his plays. We have no evidence to suggest that Shakespeare "directed" his own plays. We are fairly sure that he acted in many of them - Adam in As You Like It and The Player King/Ghost in Hamlet and the title role in Richard II are among the roles he is thought to have played. Common sense would suggest that with a heavy writing commitment to fulfil, his acting in the company would have diminished .
A best guess is that the staging was supervised by the prompter after an initial read through of the script, with the author in attendance and in consultation (if he was in London). The lead actor, Richard Burbage, might deal with the "personation" or characterisation, although there would not have been a lot of time to spend on this aspect of production.
The evidence suggests that ,certainly, lead actors were type cast and had a repertoire of types (with appropriate costumes to match). Possibly these professionals were so in tune with the style of Shakespeare's writing and the expectations of their audiences that they did not need much character direction. Hamlet gives us a clue of this type casting when he discusses the acting company who are about to visit Elsinore.
He that plays the King shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me. The adventurous Knight shall use his foil and target, the Lover shall not sigh gratis, the Humorous Man shall end his part in peace, the Clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o’ th’ sear, and the Lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for ’t.
If we accept this type casting then we see a possible casting pattern
emerge. Richard Burbage for the leads - Othello, Hamlet, Lear, etc.
Thomas Pope the more dignified secondary roles - Duncan, Julius Caesar
(although Pope was also noted for his comic versatility, he is thought
to have played Malvolio). Augustine Phillips for the more chilling roles
- Iago etc. The clowns were played by Will Kempe
(who had a major falling
out with The Chamberlain's Men and, we think was sacked for his improvisation
away from the script) or by Robert Armin. Presumably there were other
actors who specialised in juvenile romantic leads - Fenton in The Merry
Wives, Cassio in Othello.
Professor Gurr suggests that, as producing a new play was an expensive risk it was only roughly staged in the 12 morning rehearsals. Once it had been road tested in front of an audience (if they liked it) it was then subsequently polished up for inclusion in the repertoire. Plays were often revived - and sometimes with great rapidity, Richard II was revived with 24hrs notice after a lengthy absence from the repertoire.
We have no evidence of the usual running time of a Shakespearian production at the Globe, but we do know that they were a long afternoon’s entertainment. While the plays were not written in formal acts
(these were appended by the editors of the First Folio) they do correspond neatly to an act structure. It is believed that there were added entertainments between the acts, with singing, tumbling, music, stand up clowning and fencing demonstrations. The audience demand was for not only quality of entertainment, but quantity. For many of the audience regular play-going would not have been financially feasible. So they wanted their money’s worth - one show could be a week or months ration of entertainment. The actors were also expected to be accomplished musicians, dancers, singers and fencers (with acrobatics thrown in for good measure.) The plays, particularly the tragedies, would often end with a "Jig" a kind of short burlesque with sing along's for the audience so that the punters left in high spirits.
Shakespeare had firm ideas about what constituted good acting. He has Hamlet ( and perhaps this is a self portrait of Will the "director") say:
| Hamlet | Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you-trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town- crier had spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it. |
| A Player |
I warrant your honour. |
| Hamlet | Be not too tame, neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance: that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor no man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity |
| A Player | I
hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir. |
| Hamlet | O,
reform it altogether. And let those that play
your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;
for there be of them that will themselves laugh to set
on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too,
though in the mean time some necessary question of
the play be then to be considered. That’s villainous,
and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses
it. Go make you ready. |
As
was mentioned earlier, Will wrote his plays to order. He wrote Hamlet,
knowing that he had an actor in Burbage capable of playing Hamlet. Burbage
must have been a remarkable actor, considering the range of roles Shakespeare
wrote with him in mind. The final word on the acting of Shakespeare's
theatre should go to an eye witness, Richard Flecknoe, who spoke of
seeing Burbage 
" ... 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 ... 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 than when he held his peace; yet, even then, he was an excellent actor still, never failing in his part when he had done speaking; but with his looks and gesture, maintaining it still unto the heigth...
Oft I have seen him leap into the grave,
Suiting the person which he seemed to have
Of a sad lover with so true an eye,
That there I would have sworn he meant to die.
Oft have I seen him play this part in jest,
So lively, that spectators and the rest Of his sad crew, whilst he but seemed to bleed,
Amazed, thought even then he died in deed.
3. Let's learn about the original cast of Shakespeare's plays
In the First Folio of Shakespeare in 1624, the editors, Heminges and Condell, give us the following list. They entitle it:
THE NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN ALL THESE PLAYS
William Shakespeare |
Samuel Gilburn |
|---|---|
Richard Burbage |
Robert Armin |
John Heminges |
William Ostler |
Augustine Phillips |
Nathan Field |
William Kempe |
John Underwood |
Thomas Pope |
Nicholas Tooley |
George Bryan |
William Ecclestone |
Henry Condell |
Joseph Taylor |
William Sly |
Robert Benfield |
Richard Cowley |
Robert Gough |
John Lowin |
Richard Robinson |
Samuel Cross |
John Shank |
Alexander Cook |
John Rice |
Often these men are overlooked when we think of Shakespeare's plays, yet they were the men who made them come alive for their original audiences - it is widely believed that many of them were the models for the roles they played. Let's get to know something about them.
Robert Armin
He began his career as an apprentice goldsmith and was mentored by the great Tarlton who said he would:
enjoy my clownes sute after me
He originally came to note as a writer – writing a preface to A Brief Resolution Of The Right Religeon in 1590. He had three children . His earliest appearance as an actor that we know of is with Lord Chandos’ Men. It is believed he joined the Chamberlain’s Men in 1599. He disappears from view in 1611. He was also an author and wrote several books including Quips Upon Question.
Robert Benfield
(1583 – 1649) First comes to note in 1613 in the cast lists of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays. It is supposed he joined the King’s men in 1614 upon the death of William Ostler – whom he succeeded in the role of Antonio in The Duchess of Malfi. He remained with the company until at least 1647 as he signed a dedication of the Beaumont & Fletcher folio.
George Bryan
He visited Helsingor in Denmark and Dresden in Germany during 1586-7. He is one of the three actors distinguished as “Mr.” in the plot of Tarlton’s The Seven Deadly Sins circa 1590-1. He is named in the Privy Council warrant for the traveling of Strange’s Men in 1593. He is also listed as a payee in Chamberlain’s Men in 1596. He was not in the cast list of Ben Jonson’s Every Man In His Humour (1598) and he disappears after this date. He had a son, George, in 1600. He re-appears in 1603 as a Groom of the Chamber a post he still held in 1613.
Richard Burbage
Believed to have been born in 1568 and it is thought he began his career at age 16. He was master of the apprentice actor Nicholas Tooley in 1623. He lived near his brother Cuthbert in Halliwell Street, Shoreditch – where he was burgled in 1615. He had eight children. He married Winnifred in 1601. In 1590 there was a fight over the moiety of the profits of the Theatre. In a deposition John Alleyn said:
found the foresaid Ry. Burbage the yongest sone of the said James Burbage there, wt a broome staff in his hand, of
whom when this deponente asked what sturre was there, he answered in laughing phrase hew they come for a
moytie. But quod he (holding vppe the said broomes staff) I haue, I think, deliured him a moytie with this and sent
He died on the 20th May, 1619.
Henry Condell
(1576 – 1627) It is thought he may have begun his career in The Seven Deadly Sins in 1590-1 with Strange’s Men or The Admiral’s men. His first verifiable appearance is in the cast list of Ben Jonson’s Every Man In His Humour (in 1598) with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. He is mentioned in all company lists up until 1625. He was co-editor with John Heminges of the Complete Works 1st Folio. He was married in 1599 to Elizabeth and lived in St. Mary Aldermanbury. He had eight children and became a joint sharer in the Globe, with Heminges in 1612. He died in 1627. One of his most famous roles was as Mosca to Burbage’s Volpone in Ben Jonson’s play of the same name.
Alexander Cooke
He is believed (by Malone) to have been the principal female character in all Shakespeare’s plays, and in the Jonson plays Sejanus, Volpone, The Alchemist, Cataline and The Captain his name always appears at the bottom of the credits – a practice that was common for the female roles. He refers to "... my master Hemings" in his will. He was married and had 4 children. He died in 1614.
Richard Cowley
(1568-1619) First mentioned as a member of Strange’s men in 1590/1 and was probably a founding member of the Chamberlain’s Men in 1594. He played the role of Verges in Much Ado About Nothing (he is identified in the stage directions in Quarto). He lived in Shoreditch and his wife was called Elizabeth, they had 4 children. She had an affair with Simon Forman, the Astrologer. He was a sharer in the company and he died in 1619.
Samuel Cross
No mention of him in The Chamberlain’s Men or King’s –it is possible he was in the pre-Globe company of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
William Ecclestone
(1591 – 1623)He first emerges as a King’s Man in 1610/11 in the casts of Jonson’s The Alchemist and Cataline. He joined Lady Elizabeth’s Men in 1611 but had rejoined the King’s Men by 1613 and remains on record until 1622. Nicholas Tooley also let him off a debt in his will in 1623. He is not mentioned in the royal patent of 1625.
Nathan Field
(1587 – 1620.) He was the son of a puritan preacher and baptized in October 1587. His nickname was Nat or Nid. He went to St. Paul’s Grammar school. In, approximately, 1600 he was kidnapped by Nathaniel Giles and made a member of the boy actor company The Children of The Chapel. He was described by Cuthbert Burbage as " one of the boys growing up to be men." Jonson said that, "... Nid Field was his schollar, and he had read to him the Satyres of Horace, and some Epigraimes of Marshall". From 1600 – 1613 he stayed as a member of this company when it became The Queen’s Revels and is complimented by Jonson in Bartholomew Fair. His company thought Henslowe, who bailed him out financially on several occasions, was bribing him. He joined the King’s Men in approximately, 1615. He seems to have left in 1621. There was a scandal attached to him – it is thought he got the noble Lady Anne Argyll pregnant in 1619. He wrote plays as well and collaborated with Massinger on The Fatal Dowry.
Samuel Gilburn
(1594-1620) Augustine Phillips calls him his" late apprentice" in his 1605 will.
Robert Gough
It is believed he started with Admiral’s /Strange’s Men in 1590/1 and he was in The Seven Deadly Sins. He is a beneficiary in Pope’s will of 1603 and with the will of Augustine Phillips he is listed as a witness in 1605. (We think he was married to Phillip’s sister, Elizabeth.) He had four children – and his son also became an actor. In the 1611 script The Second Maids Tragedy he is referred to as “Mr. Gough” –this could be seen as evidence of him becoming a sharer He died in 1624.
John Heminges
(1566 – 1630) Married his wife, Rebecca in 1588 (she was the widow of an actor from the Queen’s Men). He was apprenticed as a grocer and lived in Aldermanbury. He is thought to have begun his career with the Queen’s company. Joined Strange’s Men in 1593 and passed with them into the Chamberlain’s men in 1594 and stayed with them (through the King’s Men) until 1629. He acted as their payee for court performances from 1596. It is thought that he acted as a kind of business manager due to his recurrence in law suits and business transactions. It is believed that he acted until 1611 with his final performance being in Cataline.. He had an apprentice, John Rice, whom he rented to the Merchant Taylor’s company in 1607. Some think him the original Falstaff. He had 12 children. He died in 1630. In his will he describes himself as, " citizen and grocer of London."
He held numerous posts within his parish church. His daughter Thomasine married the actor William Ostler of the King’s Men.
William Kempe
He may have been a member of Leicester’s Men on their tour of the Low Countries in 1585-6. He was well known in London by 1590 – he was mentioned in the dedication of An Almond For A Parrat by Thomas Nashe:
To that most Comicall and conceited Caualiere Monsieur Du Kempe, jest-monger and Vice-gerent
generall to the Ghost of Dickie Tarlton
Renowned for his dancing – he was well regarded as a musician, also. He joined the Chamberlain’s men in 1594/5. In the quarto version of Romeo & Juliet he is named as Peter and in Much Ado he is named as playing Dogberry. He sold his share in the Globe in 1599 and danced to Norwich. The last we hear of him is that he had a loan from Henslowe and was one of Worcester’s Men.
John Lowin
(1576- 1653) We think he was born in 1576. He was apprenticed to a Goldsmith when he was 17 and first appears in 1603 as a member of Worcester’s Men (he borrowed money from Henslowe to go on tour with them.) Best estimates suggest that he joined the King’s Men in 1603 and remained with them for the rest of his career. He married a widow, Joan, in 1607. He became a sharer in the Globe and the Blackfriars in 1630. He is thought by Nungezer to have played the role of Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi. Wright in Historia Histrionica attributes the role of Falstaff to him – certainly he was a large man as contemporary descriptions and his own portrait will attest. He seemed to become the company’’s business manager on Heminge’s death. It was thought he ended his days running a pub, The Three Pigeon’s, in Brentford and died in either 1659 or 1669.
William Ostler
(1585-1614) Started as a boy actor in the Chapel Company. He first appears in the King’s Men in 1610 in Cataline. He married John Heminges daughter, Thomasine, in 1611 - they had one son. He became a sharer in the Blackfriars in 1611 and in the Globe the next year. John Davies writes of him in his 1611 work Scourge of Folly:
To the Roscius of these Times , Mr. W. Ostler.
Ostler, thou took’st a knock thou would’st have giv’n’
Neere sent thee to thy latest home: but O!
Where was thine action, when thy crown was riv’n,
Sole King of Actors! Then wast idle? No:
Thou hadst it for thou wouldst bee doing? Thus
Good actors deeds are oft most dangerous;
But if thou plaist thy dying part as well
As thy stage parts, thou hast no part in hell.
Augustine Phillips
He began his career in Strange’s or the Admiral’s Men in 1590/1 and it is thought he was a founding member of The Chamberlain’s men in 1594. He was a sharer in the Globe in 1599. He was married with four children. He owned a house in Mortlake, Surrey. He died in 1605.
Thomas Pope
He was on the low country tour to Denmark in 1586/7 and is listed as a member of Lord Strange’s Men in 1593. Thought to be a founding member of the Chamberlain’s Men in 1594 and was joint payee with Heminges in 1596/7. Samuel Rowlands talks of him in The Letting of Humour’s Blood in the Head Vein, sat iv:
And Pope, the clowne, to speak so boorish, when
They counterfaite the clownes upon the Stage?
It is thought he retired in 1603, as he is not mentioned in any company lists after that date. He may have died by 1604. He lived in Southwark. He was also a sharer in the playhouse, The Curtain.
John Rice
(1593 ? - ) He was John Heminges “boy” (or apprentice) in 1607 and remained with the King’s Men until 1610 when he played with Burbage in the water pageant of that year. In 1611 he joined Queen Elizabeth’s men and rejoined the King’s in 1619. He disappears from records of the stage in 1625. Chambers thinks it a possibility he joined the church - he is described in John Heminges 1625 will as a “Clerk of St. Saviours in Southwark” - this indicates he may have become a priest.
Richard Robinson
(1595? – 1648) Makes his first appearance in Cataline with the King’s men in 1611. He is also described as playing a “lady” in The Second Maiden’s Tragedy in that year. He remained a member of the King’s MEn until 1647 There is a possibility he may have married Burbage’s widow in 1635. He owed Tooley £29.13s in his will of 1623. Wright also calls him a “comedian”. We think he died in 1648.
John Shank
He first appears as an actor in Pembroke’s men - (he actually described himself to Lord Pembroke, who was the then Lord Chamberlain, in 1635 as:
being an old man in this quality, who in his youth first served your noble father, and after that the late Queene Elizabeth, then King James, and now his royall
Majestye.
He also describes himself as " citizen and Weaver of London. " He had the following apprentices (he called them “boyes”); Thomas Pollard, John Thompson (he paid £40 for him), John Honiman and Thomas Holcombe. He had two sons and a daughter . Once Heminges had died he spent £506 to buy shares in the Globe and Blackfriars. He died in 1636. He was described by a contemporary as a “comedian” and in Turner’s Dish of Stuff, or a Gallim