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CONDEMNATION OF THE ELIZABETHAN
THEATER |
WE
come again to a period when the influence of the Church was arrayed
against the theater; and this time its efforts towards its suppression
were markedly successful. It is perhaps unnecessary to recall
to the reader that the London Corporation, during the greater
part of the sixteenth century, had been in a chronic state of
resentment on account of play-actors and playhouses. The reasons
for their complaints were, for the most part, sound enough: opportunities
for lawlessness and violence, congestion of traffic, encouragement
of disreputable taverns, and danger of the spread of the plague.
As time went on, other arguments, somewhat less reasonable, came
to light. Some people contended that it was sacrilegious for
men to dress up in clothes belonging to the other sex. (No women
were as yet on the English stage. Women's parts were taken by
boys.) One clergyman, not a Puritan but a Churchman, issued a
pamphlet in which he stated that the stage was the cause of the
visitations of the plague: when it was not present the ungodliness
of the plays brought it on as a curse from heaven; and when it
was present, the gathering in the playhouse caused it to spread.
About the time Shakespeare
arrived in London there was an outbreak against the theater which
was especially violent. An earthquake had occurred in 1580, and
in the following year there was a recurrence of the plague. At
a bear-baiting show, given on a Sunday, a wooden scaffolding
had given way, killing several people and injuring others. A
few years later, a brawl outside the theater caused serious disturbance.
To many of the good people of London, all these things were signs
of the wrath of heaven against the play-acting profession, and
arguments for its extermination. When it was recognized that
play-acting, not long before, had been utilized as a means of
teaching the lessons of the Church, the argument against it was
that it was popish. At the very time when England was making
the greatest single contribution that any modern nation has ever
made to the literature of the stage, preachers both Puritan and
Anglican, pamphleteers, and politicians were loud in their denunciations.
ROYAL PROTECTION
Fortunately, the stage had a powerful friend
in Queen Elizabeth. Since companies of actors "belonged"
to the queen and were under the protection of the highest nobles
of the land, the fight over the theaters resolved itself mainly
into a struggle on the part of the queen's agents, or counsel,
to outwit the decrees of the city Corporation. One method was
to regard the giving of a play as a "rehearsal" for
a royal production. Of course these "rehearsals" could
be as numerous as the manager wished; and the public could be,
and was, admitted. This practice brought on a bitter quarrel
in which professors of Oxford and Cambridge were involved. One
wise man at Oxford condemned the public plays, but defended those
of the universities. "As an occasional recreation for learned
gentlemen, acting received its highest praise; as a regular means
of livelihood, it was regarded with scorn." [1]
In all this contention, however, the astute Elizabeth managed
to have her own way. The stage and its players were kept alive.
After the death of Elizabeth the condition
of playing companies was changed. The privilege of licensing
and protecting them was gradually withdrawn from the nobles and
taken over by the king. The London theater was thereby strengthened,
but dramatic activity in general received a blow. It became more
fashionable to attend public performances; and the court
masques brought brought to the city many people of talent
-- painters, musicians, designers, actors and playwrights. Plays
became more polished, less coarse, but often more indecent. Protected
by the play-loving monarchs, actors were less apprehensive of
the law, and did not scruple to ridicule their enemies. As the
seventeenth century wore on, no doubt politics had as much to
do with the feeling against the theaters as religion; for playwrights
and actors inevitably were classed among the supporters of the
crown. The scandal was increased by the licentiousness of the
court, where so many attractive theater people found protection,
and by the extravagances connected with the masques. Actors grew
bold and began to insult the pious-minded, especially the Puritans.
As the difficulties between the crown and
Parliament increased, there were circulated numerous pamphlets
and petitions in which the stage was attacked for its immorality,
indecency and extravagance. All the old arguments, which had
preceded the building of the playhouses in the sixteenth century,
were revived. The annual attacks of the plague in the years following
1630 were exceptionally violent. In 1642 Parliament issued an
ordinance suppressing all stage plays; and five years later even
a stricter law was passed. Finally, in 1648 all playhouses were
ordered to be pulled down, all players to be seized and whipped,
and every one caught attending a play to be fined five shillings.
Of course, no such ordinance, in such a city as London, could
be completely enforced; but the playhouses, in effect, were practically
closed from 1642 until the Restoration
in 1660.
This article was originally
published in A Short History of the Drama. Martha Fletcher
Bellinger. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1927. pp. 246-8.
1
Cambridge History of English Literature. |