Before James Burbage secured the lease on The Theatre, live plays were performed in the front yards of any given London hotel, in courtyards, in the houses of noblemen, and in some cases on the streets of the city. This was a twenty-one year lease that allowed Burbage to eventually build the permanent house for The Theatre. Oddly enough, despite the success and the popularity of live theatre, the man who owned the land and the building, Giles Allen, was not himself a fan. In fact, he despised live theatre to an extent that led him to raise the price of the rent once the twenty-one year lease had run out. This was for all intents and purposes, a community theatre company, and they could not meet the outrageous increase in the rent, so they left to find a new home at the Curtain.
During this time, Burbage found a clause in the lease, which allowed the company access to the structural components of the building, the timber, the planks, the curtains, and all other materials. They saved the materials of the theatre from Allen's petty plan to destroy them, and moved the lumber to a new location. They built their own theatre, The Globe. During the years of 1597 and 1598, the architect Peter Smith, together with his highly skilled craftsman, took the remains from Allen's building, and turned those remains into the most spectacular theatre ever seen in London, a theatre in which the audience capacity numbered in the thousands. This hand-built house of drama was an incredible success and the plays produced there were big, very big. New shows were in demand. This led to alternative versions of the works of the young playwright, William Shakespeare. Those versions are now referred to as the Quarto Texts.
The success of the Globe Theatre in the years following, fell to an ordinance put in motion by the English Parliament, an ordinance that was based on Puritan religious ideologies. Numerous social activities which included many of those in various schools of the art world, were affected. Once Oliver Cromwell became involved in the English Civil War, the Globe Theatre and many other artistic institutions were done away with. It is amazing and beautiful and fitting, that now, a few hundred years later, evidence exists that proves that the arts could not be stopped.
Today, "Billy Elliot" is on stage at the Victoria Palace Theatre, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is on stage at the Haymarket Theatre. London is one of the cities in the world, where people go to see and to experience live theatre at its finest, plus a myriad of other productions. And, coming from a theatre background, I myself attest to the fact that should one walk into any green room, or dressing room, and should they mention the Globe Theatre, more often than not, it will be one of the reasons the players continue to play, and the writers continue to write. It's theatre, it's life, and the show must go on, and on, and on. |
