London’s Theatres
Just a few of the key playhouses in the Elizabethan era
Schafer. “Prostitutes knew that they had lots of opportunities there and pickpockets knew that they had lots of opportunities there. Some of the cliches of this crowd of people are true.”
In fact, when The Swan theatre was being planned the Lord Mayor of London protested its construction, stating it would attract, “thieves, horse-stealers, whoremongers, cozeners, connycatching persons, practicers of treason, and such other like.” However, some of the proprietors of the playhouses, like Philip Henslowe, looked to take advantage of these interests too. With the help of celebrated actor and step-son-in-law Edward Alleyn he not only opened The Rose theatre, but also the brothels that sat around it. In fact, the name The Rose itself may have been paying homage to a seedy hotel in the area.
However, the players and playwrights weren’t quite so lucky financially. Unlike today where a play might be performed over and over again, multiple times a day for weeks and perhaps months on end, many plays would be lucky to get more than one showing. Audiences demanded new stories each time they attended and playwrights were churning out plays at an incredible rate. What’s more, they only got paid for a play once, with nothing for repeat performances.
“Once they had handed a play to the theatre, it wasn’t their property any longer so they couldn’t really keep making money in the way that the royalty system operates today,” Schafer explains. “One of the best sources on this is Philip Henslowe’s accounts of what was on at his theatre. Shakespeare was involved in
Philip Henslowe’s company some of the time and what he records is an awful lot of loans to impoverished playwrights. Very, very few playwrights came out of this well financially. Players possibly earned a living, but I think it was really quite a ramshackle way of earning money because you were always likely to be closed down because of a riot or the plague. If the playhouse is closed you’ve got no income.”
Still, Shakespeare did end up making some money, but it wasn’t because he was both a player and a playwright – it was because he was an investor. “He made his money because he was a shareholder,” explains Schafer. “That was where the money was, that’s where the respectability is and that’s where you’ve got the basis for going home and buying property in Stratford-upon-avon and getting a coat of arms, and doing all those bourgeois things that he was wanting to do.”
Most playwrights and players lived somewhere in between these two worlds, scraping a living from their work while occasionally being invited into the homes of the rich and powerful to perform. They got to pretend to be wealthy themselves, but rarely enjoyed such luxuries off stage. Many would have turned to crime or other side hustles to get by. One famous example is Christopher Marlowe, who did a bit of espionage on the side.
“Francis Walsingham had set up a very effective spy system through the period, not just under Elizabeth I, but also under James VI and I,” says Schafer. “It was a very effective system of observing people, particularly potential Catholics. Marlowe seems to have become a double agent and he’s off in France at some
stage, and then he behaves erratically.” Marlowe’s reputation for reckless behaviour and provocative speech has continued to this day. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be Christopher Marlowe’s handler. I’m not sure that they really recruited the ideal person,” says Schafer. “I’m sure he was very brilliant, very inventive, probably had excellent ideas, but I don’t think he was reliable. I think spies might do better if they were a bit more reliable.”
Most of his rebellious spirit was displayed through his work, however, often challenging traditional views on religion in works like Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus, but there was outright violence too. He was connected with the killing of an innkeeper named William Bradley after he had argued with him over a bill. Marlowe’s friend Thomas Watson stepped in and stabbed Bradley with his sword in the scuffle. Ultimately Marlowe was accused of being an atheist, sold out by another playwiright named Thomas Kyd (possibly under torture or threat of torture), and killed while under investigation in something of a bar brawl in Deptford. The circumstances of that fight, involving three other spies, remain mysterious and while it was said to be over a bill, theories continue around it being an assassination or even Marlowe faking his death to avoid punishment for his alleged crimes.
Perhaps even more dangerous to know was Ben Jonson, another writer and contemporary of Shakespeare and Marlowe who also claimed to have been a mercenary employed to fight against the Spanish in Flanders. “Ben Jonson was a very abrasive character, so he got into trouble where other people probably wouldn’t have gotten into trouble,”
Schafer explains. “He only got away with murder by being branded instead of being executed because he could recite his neck verse.” This incident came after Jonson killed a player named Gabriel Spenser in a duel, when duelling was prohibited and punishable by death. Jonson narrowly avoided the noose for his crime by claiming the Benefit of the Clergy, an old law that stated that if a man can recite a passage from the Bible he should be considered a priest and handed to the bishop for punishment. He was ultimately branded on his thumb for his crime as a marker to show he could not appeal for clemency in such a way again. That same year, however, his play Every Man In His Humour was performed by the Lord Chamberlain’s theatrical company, establishing his reputation as a playwright.
That being said, murder and manslaughter weren’t the only ways a playwright could find themselves on the wrong side of the law – their writing could do that just as easily.
“The plays had to be passed by the Lord Chamberlain, who acted as the approval board for new plays,” Schafer explains. “There were a whole load of things that you could not write about and still hope to get approval from the Lord Chamberlain. If you somehow circumvented that you risked prison and you risked being branded. Ben Jonson was also in trouble for his contributions to Eastward Ho, which was satirical and was making very rude jokes about people from Scotland when they’ve only just got a new king from Scotland.”
Even Shakespeare got in trouble for putting on plays that were deemed to be inflammatory. “Shakespeare’s company got into a lot of trouble for playing Richard II just before the Earl of Essex’s rebellion, because there was this idea, which was probably true, that they were trying to rev people up,” Schafer reveals. And
Shakespeare’s company got into a lot of trouble for playing Richard II just before the Earl of Essex’s rebellion
perhaps the most popular play of the era was actually an illegal one.
“The biggest play of the entire period was Thomas Middleton’s A Game At Chess, which you could never stage now because it would be meaningless to anyone,” Schafer explains. “It was a great cause celebre and it ran for nine days, at a time when no play ever ran for nine days. It only stopped because the king, who was in Oxford, heard what was happening and sent in the heavies and closed it. That was a play that was totally illegal, had not been passed by the Lord Chamberlain and the censor, and was making fun of the king and the royal family and the royal family of Spain and the Spanish ambassador. So it was very shocking, very political, very illegal and that’s why it was popular.”
So this was the real world of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, writing and performing alongside bear baiting pits, pushing the boundaries of acceptability, engaging in reckless and often drunken behaviour. They were rascals and vagabonds, but they ultimately left behind a legacy of incredible works, a legacy which represents only a small fraction of the material that they produced in their time.