Culture

Shakespeare, Shoreditch and showbiz

New excavations of Shakespeare’s earliest venue show what a dodgy business theatre was in Tudor London

May 24, 2016
Archaeologists work on the exposed remains as the site of Shakespeare's Curtain Theatre is excavated in Shoreditch in London, 17th May 2016 ©Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP/Press Association Images
Archaeologists work on the exposed remains as the site of Shakespeare's Curtain Theatre is excavated in Shoreditch in London, 17th May 2016 ©Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP/Press Association Images
Read more: How rich was Shakespeare?

The Curtain theatre in Shoreditch, and the grander The Theatre nearby (the only one in England when it was built in 1576, so no need for a recherché name) were almost more fun than the later entertainment complex on Bankside—Shakespeare's famous Globe. Almost everyone in on these 16th century Shoreditch enterprises—each of which probably hosted some of Shakespeare's plays—was dodgy. The fact that there were no written contracts led to snarling legal action, and lessees and landlords got in each other’s faces. One thing the movie Shakespeare In Love really did get right was the iffiness of these early showbiz entrepreneurs.

So the latest archaeological discovery on the site of the Curtain of substantial straight walls—though it was thought by many to be circular, given the famous "wooden O" prologue to Henry V which is thought to have first played there—is total Shoreditch. This week's findings reveal that it wasn’t purpose-built like The Theatre. Impresario James Burbage, in partnership with his brother-in-law, had put that up for a pricey £700. The Theatre was the first polygon-shaped, quasi-circular auditorium, the Elizabethan playhouse as we know it. Burbage was trained as a joiner (the craftsman who constructed wooden building frames), and perhaps his knowledge of what could be done in timber, with economy and an eye for recycling, physically shaped the era’s drama.

But the Curtain was just a conversion from a brick-based, rectangular tenement, a multi-occupation rental property. Its stage thrust out into a sloped yard for groundlings, with problematic corners and a gravelled floor where The Theatre was cobbled. The place was owned by Henry Lanman, “ a gentleman,” and opened just months after, and 200 yards from The Theatre. The implication is that it was a copy-cat cash-in, eventually formalised when Lanman did a deal with Burbage in 1585 for the Curtain to serve as The Theatre’s “easer.” Between them the premises could hold 5,000 and they shared profits for seven years. Londoners would stream out of the gated City, where theatres were illegal, across open fields, past brothels and illicit booze shacks, to see a show.

But which show, where? We don’t know what being a “easer” entailed. The Theatre hosted the big licensed companies: Howard’s Men; Leicester’s Men (as in Earl of); Oxford’s Players; Berkeley’s Players; Queen’s Men; the Admiral’s Men in that difficult patch in their London engagements before they contracted to Philip Henslowe’s Rose; and—in the early Shakespeare era—the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, led by James Burbage’s star son Richard. Each company would played a repertoire to which it had rights, commissioning new scripts and retaining successful productions, updated or sequelled.

We don’t have comparable info for the Curtain. Was it for the first 20 years the London gig venue for lesser companies otherwise on tour in the provinces and abroad? Did it host acrobat troupes, professional sword-fights, cudgel matches and “jigs”—short, crude knockabout comedies that elsewhere played after the main attraction? Did it do the equivalent of transfers, with successes moved over from The Theatre to keep the rep churning? (There were no long runs anywhere, even a smash hit never went above 15 performances a season.) Admission prices were standard, so either the Curtain was an overflow venue, or it was a down-market alternative. Or both.

Except during 1597-9, after James Burbage’s 21-year lease on The Theatre’s site ran out. His landlord wanted the ground back, plus everything that had been built on it. Burbage Snr, and, after his death, sons Richard and Cuthbert, went to law, but their company was stageless, so they decamped to the Curtain. Romeo and Juliet, which probably premiered at The Theatre, also played to “Curtain plaudits.” Henry V likely opened there early in 1599, but the Chorus’s “wooden O” line must have referred back to the rounded Theatre, or looked forward: for during that winter’s Christmas holidays, the company and their friends had dismantled The Theatre’s timber frame and hauled it to a Thames-side warehouse. It was ferried across the river in spring and became the core of the first Globe, which opened in the summer of 1599. (Burbage Snr the joiner would have so approved.)

The Curtain then reverted to being a nice little earner out in the sticks, attracting moderate companies staging proper plays, and paying profit shares to some of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and later investors past 1610. But it was stranded away from newer pleasure zones, with suburbs infilling all around, and about 1627 quietly exited the records, reconverted to cheap rented accommodation. A very London story.