Читать книгу The Court and the London Theatres during the Reign of Elizabeth - Thornton Shirley Graves - Страница 4

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Years ago George Steevens in his endeavor to prove the use of scenes in Elizabethan theatres ended his argument with the following words:

“To conclude, the richest and most expensive scenes had been introduced to dress up those spurious children of the Muse called Masques: nor have we sufficient reason for believing that Tragedy, her legitimate offspring, continued to be exposed in rags, while appendages more suitable to her dignity were known to be within the reach of our ancient Managers. Shakespeare, Burbage, and Condell must have had frequent opportunities of being acquainted with the mode in which both Masques, Tragedies, and Comedies were represented in the inns of court, the halls of noblemen, and in the palace itself.”[1]

This, it seems to me, is a thoroughly sane point of view from which to approach the Elizabethan stage. Owing, however, to Steevens’s unsuccessful encounter with Malone on the subject of modern scenes, and to certain unduly emphasized statements by such personages as Ben Jonson and Sir Philip Sidney, scholarship has until recently insisted on considering the Elizabethan regular and court stages as things apart and unrelated, the one arising from an humble inn-yard original and contenting itself with pleasing an uncultivated inn-yard taste, the other springing from a more aristocratic prototype and holding itself rigidly aloof from its less pretentious contemporary.[2]

And even now when the blanket and bare platform which once satisfied students as a background for Shakespeare’s poetry have been generally discarded, there is still a tendency on the part of some to exclude court influence altogether, or to admit it only late in the reign of James I, implying that the regular theatres during the Elizabethan era proper progressed but little in equipment and efficiency of presentation beyond the pageant-wagons which two centuries earlier had rolled about the streets of England.

But an explanation of the equipment and practices of the Shakesperian Theatre is not to be sought for in mystery plays. Nor are they to be accounted for by accepting satire at its face value while ignoring or explaining away statements of a contrary nature; or by maintaining that the early London playhouse was exclusively popular in origin and method, a folk institution, as it were, where noise and buffoonery, sword-play and oratory, were the only essentials for a successful two hours’ traffic of the stage.

Such a view is not only eminently unfair to the professional actors and the Elizabethan audiences, but is out of keeping with the whole spirit of the age. It fails to take into proper consideration the prominence in theatrical matters of a court which from the time of Henry VIII had been accustomed to entertainments as elaborate and impressive as sixteenth century England could devise; and it neglects to recognize the various opportunities for court influence upon the London stages long before the reign of James, the numerous incentives for such an influence, the open-mindedness of Elizabethans, and the business sense possessed by such managers as Burbage and Henslowe.

The object of this study, therefore, is to approach the London theatres from an entirely different point of view, the court, and to point out the probability of influence prior to 1603. Features of similarity and possible court influence are, I believe, to be found in the general stage structure of the earlier theatres, in certain principles and practices of staging, in various theatrical devices employed for realistic and spectacular effects, and in the general nature of the properties and costumes employed in public performances during the reign of Elizabeth.

Such a study, like all studies of the Elizabethan stage, is beset with difficulties and uncertainties. In most respects conclusive results are as yet impossible; theories are incapable of demonstration to the satisfaction of all. Students of the stage are at most dealing with probabilities. Owing, however, to the labors especially of Feuillerat and Reyher, we are able to stand on comparatively firm ground in our discussion of the methods employed at court performances; and at court, it must always be remembered, Shakespeare and his fellows acted dramas which were also presented at the public theatres. It is hoped, then, that a study from this point of view, unsatisfactory as it necessarily is, may contribute toward the solution of certain problems which at present confront the students of the Elizabethan theatre.

In undertaking such a study, it has seemed advisable to divide the discussion into four parts. The first is devoted to a discussion of the structural elements of the Elizabethan theatre with especial reference to the recent theory advanced by Neuendorff in so far as it conflicts with the theory of the present writer; the second concerns itself with the inn-yard and its relationship to the first London playhouses; the third attempts to establish the probability of court influence in general stage structure at the early public theatres; and the fourth deals in a more general way with the indications of court influence in the methods of presenting dramas at the regular playhouses during the reign of Elizabeth.