The Blackfriars Theater

 By Clare Von Rueden

Most people are familiar with the appeal of Shakespeare and are familiar with the Globe theater where Shakespeare and his troupe performed for many years. However, Shakespeare had to develop his plays based upon the interests and the responses of the audience and to adapt to the situation of his atmosphere. What is not commonly known is that in 1610 Shakespeare and the King’s Men began to perform at Blackfriars theater as well as the Globe.  In fact, Blackfriars became the dominant theater of the company which successfully ran and performed for both theaters for forty-three years.

         Meet the Author!

  Clare Von Rueden, a member of our troupe, is an accomplished actress and violinist.  She currently attends Mary Baldwin College, where she is pursuing a Masters degree in Shakespeare and Performance.

Dr. Paul Baxa was her advisor and instructor for this essay.

       It is important to consider the Blackfriars theater because it had an enormous effect on the career of Shakespeare. Before such a subject can be discussed, the acquisition of the theater, the reasons for its importance, and an understanding of the theater itself must be established.  

 

Getting to Blackfriars Theater

 

It was a long journey to get to the Blackfriars theater. It was not until 1597 that the first regularly used theater was built in England. Previously, the actors were wandering troupes which traveled from one town to another.  However, after Elizabeth’s decree in 1572, that all acting companies must be under the protection and patronage of a noble, there was a demand for a more professional and permanent establishment. This also called for a much larger and changing set of material: “The pattern of performing which [is called] the repertory system came into being with the first permanent playhouses.”[1] The first playhouse which was used by Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was the Newington Butts theater which they occupied for ten days along with their greatest rivals, the Lord Admiral’s Men.[2] It is likely that Titus Andromicus and Taming of the Shrew were performed there before both troupes left.  The Lord Chamberlain’s Men moved to the Theater for the next four years, and the Lord Admiral’s Men to the Rose.[3]

            The Theater had been built by James Burbage, the father of Richard Burbage who was the principle actor of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.  James Burbage owned and managed the Theater while it was occupied by Shakespeare and his company, and it was “there Shakespeare acted, and there the company introduced his plays of the 1594-1597 period.”[4] However, the lease on the land for the Theater was running out, and the Landlord was refusing to renew the lease, so on February 4th, 1596, James Burbage purchased Blackfriars:  “The elder Burbage had planned it for their use in the first place, and in its designing he had probably consulted – if not the group as a whole, its industrious and versatile nucleus at least...Three years later, the same company had built the Globe, and in the designing of the stage, they had inevitably been influenced by their experience in designing the stage at Blackfriars.”[5]

            Unfortunately, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men encountered too many government restrictions to act in their playhouse immediately, and so Richard Burbage rented the Blackfriars theater to Henry Evans who ran a Boy’s Company, and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men built and moved into the Globe.  But after James I took the throne and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men became the King’s Men, things began to change.  Blackfriars was reclaimed in August of 1608 after the boy-actors get expelled for their presentation in politics and imprudence.[6] However it was not until 1610 that they were able to open Blackfriars since the theater needed repairs and was temporarily closed for the plague.

            The opening of the Blackfriars theater was a major event; it is the first private playhouse to be opened by a professional, adult acting troupe and it offered a unique opportunity to Shakespeare and his men. As Irwin Smith states, “Burbage knew that a playhouse in the Blackfriars precinct would give the company unrivaled advantages in prestige.  For the first time, a company of adult actors would have a playhouse within the city walls; for the first time, adult actors would play regularly in a 'private' playhouse, with high entrance fees to exclude the rabble and a roof to exclude the rain ... Under such conditions it would invite the attendance of the nobility and gentry, and perhaps even of royalty itself; and with all its other advantages; it would be exempt from the jurisdiction of the city authorities. James Burbage had built England's first indoor playhouse for adult actors.” [7]  Despite this amazing opportunity, Shakespeare and his company still had to struggle for their position: the neighbors of the city tried to have the King’s Men evicted due to the large, destructive crowds and the mobs which filled the street surrounding the theater every afternoon.[8] 

          The repertoire was able to be slightly relaxed as well.  Previously the company had about eleven performances of ten different plays every two weeks[9] and the frequency of doubled plays varied based on the audience response. Shakespeare and the Kings Men played at both Blackfriars and the Globe whenever it was warm enough each (usually into November) and each playhouse had about seventy-five plays per year.[10] New plays or revived plays doubled admission price and would fade out of the repertory after about a year.[11] At Blackfriars less new plays were needed: “The discrepancy between the six new plays of 1623-1624 and the estimated seventeen of 1594-1603 is not a mark of conflict in the evidence...The King's Men needed only a third of the new plays they had produced earlier years.  The use of a private theater largely accounts for this change, for the seats at Blackfriars could be filled four or five times over by the audience from a single performance at the Globe.”[12] It is not an exaggeration to think that Shakespeare would have written his last plays for Blackfriars playhouse, for “Shakespeare was thus attached to, and wrote plays for, four different playhouses, the Theatre, the Curtain, the Globe, and the Blackfriars”[13] and had to respond to the different atmospheres in each situation.  

 

Image from: http://hudsonshakespeare.org/Shakespeare%20Library/blackfriars.htm 


Blackfriars Takes Precedence

 

 There are few plays which scholars believe to be written specifically for Blackfriars; however “Shakespeare began writing in 1590 or 1591 and by the time that the second Blackfriars opened he had written a third of all his plays.”[14] Even so, it is extremely important to consider the fact that some of his plays would have been fashioned for the audience and setting of Blackfriars. It must have been self-evident to the King's Men that once they had taken possession “William Shakespeare should write henceforth with the Blackfriars in mind and not the Globe.”[15] It was imperative that he did so because the Globe could take care of itself, but Blackfriars could not: “it was the Blackfriars audience which showed the greater avidity for new plays; the public theatre audiences were much more faithful to old favorites.”[16] It is also true that many of the Blackfriars plays were written by Ben Jonson who more commonly moved about the society of the nobility, who had written for some of the boy’s companies, and who became famous for writing many of the masques which were popular during the reign of James I.

            Blackfriars had an extremely different setting from that of the public theater, and presented a very unique opportunity. No adult company in London had ever before preformed regularly in a private theater.  For thirty years the private theaters with their superior audiences, their concerts, their comfortable accommodations, their traffic in sophisticated drama and the latest literary fads, had been the exclusive homes of the boy companies, the pets of society. Now for the first time a troupe of those vagabonds, the common players, had the temerity to present themselves to the sophisticated of London in a repertory at the towns, most exclusive theater. [17] Because of this major shift, it was a great risk to open a new private theater and “every precaution against failure needed to be taken. One such precaution would be the devotion of Shakespeare's full-time energies to the Blackfirars instead of the Globe,”[18] especially because no one knew the capabilities of the actors of the King’s Men better than Shakespeare.

            While the physical shift from outdoor to indoor was significant, and the prestige of the two theaters was debated, the plays of Shakespeare continued to write, and he as an individual artist worked to develop his own craftsmanship and artistry: “The long fought battle between popular and private taste was to go on, finally to defeat the popular taste in the rise of the private theaters. But in the ten years of the Globe, before the King's Men saw their theatrical future appealing to a Blackfriars trade, the artistic possibilities of the popular narrative drama were abundantly realized.”[19]

          Shakespeare was not simply trying to cater to his audience, but to write well and to write on subjects and in ways that he enjoyed, but this did not mean that he did not take into account the best interests of his troupe: “The King's men say that the real future of theatrical prosperity in London lay with the court and the court party in private theaters...There is no doubt that in the next few years after 1608 the Blackfriars did become the principal theatre of the company.”[20] This is evident not only by the fact that the theater was well attended, but Shakespeare himself recognized the importance, making the theater much more of an investment, and this was not unrewarded: “Though his stock at the in the Globe varied from 1/8th to 1/12th of the whole, at Blackfriars it never fell below 1/7th.  He and his fellows did well by their investment, getting 'more in one winter...by a thousand pounds than they were used to get on the Bankside. I.e.,they nearly doubled their take.”[21]

            As a result, Blackfriars was the focus of the troupe. It is unclear which of the plays of the King's Men were played at Blackfriars, but, “both with respect to revenue and with respect to prestige, Blackfriars quickly become the company's leading playhouse, and the Globe slipped into second place. The company therefore purchased or commissioned plays primarily with a view to their performance at Blackfriars; it did not buy them for presentation at the Globe alone.”[22] Some scholars, such as Irwin Smith, claim that the only evidence for the production of Shakespeare’s plays being performed at Blackfriars is the fact that they were property of the King’s Men (except for The Two Noble Kinsmen which is documented to have played there).[23] However, there is a definite shift in the content of the writing which would suggest that Shakespeare was affected by the position of Blackfriars as a leading theater and that his plays were written for that audience.  It is certain  that the last three plays of Shakespeare, and the last two that he wrote with Fletcher, had their first performances in a setting other than a public playhouse.[24] Blackfriars took precedence over the actions of the troupe, including the writings of Shakespeare himself.

 

The Construction of the Stage

 

 Very little is concrete fact when approaching the physical construct of the stage, especially because neither the Globe nor Blackfriars theater survived.  The history of theater is continually shifting between areas of patronage and support and areas in which it is condemned and almost eradicated as a affront to religion.  During one of the latter periods in England, Elizabethan theaters were torn down and so “one can regard very few assertions about the Elizabethan stage as permanently established.”[25] Nonetheless, with regard to writing, the stage itself did not have much bearing upon the result.  Plays had to be ready to be performed anywhere, especially as troupes would be called to put on productions in court, and the troupes would also be forced to return to their migrant status during times of the plague. Therefore, playwrights wrote in ways that could be readily fitted to any stage, and “Shakespeare's is pre-eminently a drama calling for a liberal imaginative collaboration for the audience.”[26]

          That said, there were certain basic elements which every playwright could assume would be available.  There are four specific conditions which were assumed: “1. A tight, enclosing auditorium. 2. A projecting platform almost as deep as it was wide. 3. Two upstage entrances on the platform. 4. At least one balcony.”[27] There were also three elements which were taken as a given property for any stage, a raised platform for the stage, a wall which makes the background and backstage and separates the two, and a tiring house which contained doors with stage access.[28] The stage was fairly simple, and there were few props and stage settings.  There was more call for imagination because the intimate proximity with audience gained quicker response and placed the attention on action, content, and acting rather than setting.[29] 

Actress Rebekah Sauls

          The stage itself was a large platform which had to be large enough for processions, dances, etc. and even (in the case of the Blackfriars theater) seating. The basic model for the theaters was the Shoreditch theater. It was polygonal in shape, had a three tiered audience gallery, circular unroofed yard, stage raised from a yard about five feet, with a tiring house at the back with 2 doors (or 2 balcony levels for music, audience seating, or acting), a trapdoor on the stage floor, and pulleys beneath stage roof: “The audience to which these public theaters catered represented a cross section of London society; it included men and women from apprentices and trades people to the gentry and nobility”[30] and included the groundlings who paid a penny to stand in the yard of the theater and have become famous for their heckling tendencies.

          The Globe theater is the theater which directly preceded Blackfriars and is the theater which was longest occupied by Shakepeare and his company.  The stage at the Globe theater was approximately forty-three feet wide and twenty-seven and a half feet deep[31]  which is only slightly larger than Blackfirars. Both theaters had a thrust stage, or a stage which was surrounded by the audience on three sides allowing more interaction with the audience rather than being barred from them by the Proscenium arch.  Thus, the actor “would be playing to an audience in close communion with him, one which would at times revive the medieval sense of physical involvement in a ritual performance.”[32] While the audience members were involved in both theaters, the private theaters, having higher prices, also had a “more socially homogeneous body of spectators.”[33] The Blackfriars building was a long room with a stage at one end, benches for seating main floor, galleries on side walls, and was candlelit.[34]  

          Theaters were banned in London itself, so they were built in the suburbs or in the city on property exempt from municipal control.  Blackfriars had exemption as Church property because it was originally a Dominican monastery. When it changed hands, the building retained the exemption even though when the first Blackfriars was built there were major alterations to the building. However, “Blackfriars was not seriously altered from its experience rebuilding by Shakespeare's company in 1596, and its occupancy by the same company in 1609, it is closing in 1642.”[35] The great hall of Blackfriars was sixty-six feet long and forty-six feet wide and it is likely that the platform was twenty-two feet deep and forty-six feet across; however, there were stools on either side for the audience in 2 rows of seven or eight seats which left the main acting area to be about twenty-two by thirty-four feet.[36] Other known elements of the Blackfriars stage include a trapdoor in the middle of the platform, at least 2 stage doors connected to the tiring house which were at least eight feet high and five feet wide, wickets (windows) to the doors, and rushes for the floors.[37]

          While the hall was very different from the polygonal Globe, seating was fairly similar. Apart from the section for the groundlings, “the Blackfriars playhouse provided accommodations for its patrons in the pit, in boxes, in two upper galleries, and on the stage itself.  It did not, as did the public playhouses, make provision for standees.”[38]  There were galleries on each wall of two or three tiers; the first gallery was twelve feet above the ground, and the second gallery, twenty-three feet above the ground.  These galleries were seven and a half feet deep for 3 rows of gallery seats, and the galleries probably extended over the sides of the stage.[39]  The pit, or the rest of the floor area of the hall covered in benches, was the same area occupied by the groundlings at the Globe, except for the fact that they were seated and did not extend along the sides of the stage.  With the approximation that each person had about an area of about two by two and a half feet (which was particularly important for the bulkier clothing of the nobility), Irwin Smith estimates that the theater held about five hundred and sixteen people.  The Pit had about one hundred thirty, the lowest gallery (which contained boxes which could be reserved by the lords) held one hundred twenty-six, the middle gallery, one hundred and twelve, the top one hundred and twenty, and the “stage-sitters” on the gallant stools held twenty-eight audience members.[40] With this set-up, it was a smaller and more intimate setting, calling not only for a more subtle form of acting from the troupe, but also demanding that Shakespeare recognize and respond to the more evident tastes of the audience.

 

The Construction of the Play

 

 There are a few things which it is important to take into account when considering the basic structure of any play written by Shakespeare or any of his contemporaries. The stage was considered a very neutral area, and the locality of the stage was to be easily shifted or indicated by the dialogue of the characters, rather than the settings changing. Occasionally a “split scene” would take place in which two places would be indicated by the opening of a curtain which would reveal an inner stage.[41] But for the most part, staging was not a great concern for playwrights who even added delocalized soliloquies to the play.

            The stage did not in any way confine the playwrights as far as the physical constructs were concerned because “pragmatic dramatization did not necessarily prevent the appearance of distinctive dramatic forms. In fact, the winnowing process of the repertory system was evolutionary, ensuring the development of drama in response not to abstract theory, but to the deeply ingrained artistic practices of the age.”[42] So the crafting of the writing came from the acting, the fellow playwrights and the artistic development and response of the time. 

            Also, most playwrights were aware of the five-act system which was used in Roman classical theater, and had a vague idea of where it would be divided, but did not place much emphasis on it previous to Blackfriars, especially because they would not have intermissions at other theaters, and so writers developed habits of never having the same character exit and then enter again directly from one scene or act to another.  No one knows how Shakespeare determined where to divide acts because  “unlocalized drama allowed Shakespeare to indulge in loose flowing construction, episodic plots, and complex action.”[43] Plays had very loose basic structures, and the playwright could develop them as he would.

 

Stage Effects and Operations

 

 Since the Elizabethan stage was neutral, and had no specific locality, it was very flexible and spectacle was more important than scenery.  It is likely that the special effects became more elaborate towards the end of Shakespeare’s career,[44] especially when performing for an audience accustomed to more affluent surroundings. Playwrights did not much concern themselves with stage effects: “The fact is, any close study of Elizabethan and Jacobean stage directions should convince the student that dramatists of those days never thought of their stage as rigid, but as supremely plastic, and calmly planned for whatever they desired, trusting to skilled carpenters and mother wit to create what they had planned.”[45]  This was accentuated by the fact that props were minimal, but the costumes were elaborate (some were gifts from the nobility and others purchased by the acting troupe).[46]  

            The Elizabethans were able to use curtains to create more entrances and exits and it is reported: “In the use of traps and mechanical devices it was both ingenious and prolific.”[47] However, Shakespeare was not much concerned with the use of stage devices. Shakespeare called for few stage contraptions. While there are more deus ex machina situations and more dances after the switch to Blackfriars, it is his early plays which show some interest in stage mechanics: “There are many trivial mechanical devices that Shakespeare uses, particularly in his hisories and comedies. It was, for instance, a source of pleasure to his audience to be reminded in the play of the conditions of the playhouse. Dramatic spectacle was a novelty, and they liked their own position as spectators to be dramatized.”[48] 

          On the whole, “Shakespeare during the greater part of his career as a dramatist could use practically four divisions on his stage: front, inner, backs, and upper stage with three curtains, one in the balcony, another under the balcony, and a third somewhere in front”[49] but never limited himself in what he wrote.   But despite all the mechanics and since the spectators surrounded three sides of the stage, the “London stage was presentational rather than illusionistic in how it addressed the audience”[50] and the setting is more verbally descriptive than stage properties.

          Shakespeare focuses very little on the stage for he “wrote a drama of persons, not a drama of places.”[51] But, when he did write, Shakespeare’s “knowledge of what devices were invariable successful and what ones did not quite come off was based not upon an intense observation of occasional performances, but upon daily rehearsals and regular performances in which [he himself] took part.”[52]  

 

Shakespeare in Relation to His Atmosphere

 

It is more likely for aspects of acting to affect Shakespeare’s writings than his any of his contemporaries because he was part of an acting troup: “The poet himself spent all his creative life as a member of such an acting troupe, and he was one of its directors and principal policy makers; however other conditions might change, the general character of the dramatic company for which the plays were prepared did not change.  The company is a constant influence in all the comedies and histories and tragedies.”[53] Shakespeare especially was “so fully wrapped up in the theatre as playwright, actor sharer, and theatre owner, we should expect him to be more familiar with these customs and conventions and more expert in manipulating them than were amateurs like Thomas Lodge or semi-professionals like Ben Jonson.”[54] 

          Shakespeare is not only one of the most prolific writers , but also one of the figures involved in most areas of an acting troupe:  “He had more kinds of connections with the company than any other man: he was actor, shareholder, patented member, principal playwright, and one of the housekeepers of the Globe; even Burbage did not serve so many functions in the company.  Few men in theatrical history have been so completely and inextricably bound up with the affairs in an acting troupe.”[55]


"Shakespeare is not only one of the most 

prolific writers of history, but also one of 

the figures involved in most areas of an 

acting troupe." 

        

            Some critics try to approach the content of the plays from the point of the biography and psychology of Shakespeare, or by studying his literary influences, but it his life as a member of an acting troupe which would concern him the  most, and changes such as the shift from a public theater to a private theater with audiences who would react to things differently and respond to the theater as a whole differently cannot fail to have had a major impact on his writings.  As Gerald Bentley puts it, "A dozen or more unquestioned documents show that Shakespeare's daily concern was the enterprise of the Lord Chamberlain-King's company.  Shakespeare had obviously read Ovid and Holinished and Lord North's and Lord North's Plutarch; surely he must have mourned for the untimely death of his only son; but none of these can have occupied his mind for so long as his daily association with the enterprise of the Lord Chamberlain-King's Men.  Of the factors in his life and development which we can now identify, this was surely the most important."

          The atmosphere from one theater to another was extremely different in terms of acting and presentation, the use of voice and noise, the acoustics, the subtleties required, and the interests of the audience. The content of the plays in this new atmosphere drew different audience responses, and Shakespeare’s job and one of his closest concerns would be to take that into account.

            Even from the beginning of his career, Shakespeare could see what his audience liked and how to develop his writings according to those interests. Plays such as Julius Caesar and As You Like It began using strong characters (as opposed to even earlier plays such as Midsummer Night’s Dream) and to emphasize character, which had a greater appeal to theater goers who were settled around the city and looking more regularly to the theater for entertainment[56].  

            In addition, Shakespeare had to concern himself with the strengths of his troupe and what they did well, and not just what the audience liked: “He was never free to begin with just any idea or situation which he might hope to develop; he must always begin with the actors…there must be roles for all of them – or nearly all of them – in every play, and he could never create any role for which there was not already a suitable actor.”[57] His actors very quickly adapted to the new theater; in fact they had probably been considering how they would transition for years since it was bought and intended for them long before they were able to possess it. Some critics argue that “Shakespeare as an individual dramatist responded to the Blackfriars innovations less readily than the King's men and their dramatists as a group seem to have done.”[58]  Others concur that Shakespeare used the strong foundation of what he already knew and experienced at the Globe but added new innovations for the new theater. He retained old habits, and built new innovations upon them (for example he continued not to have the same character end one scene and begin the next after an act division).  These old habits may have remained, but his writing was not unchanged. 

            It also may seem that there is less of a distinction of the shift in his writing because the process may have begun sooner than most scholars think. Many scholars look at 1610 as the beginning of the influence of Blackfriars because that is when the troupe began to perform there. However “we should note first the time at which the Blackfriars would have begun influence the company and the writing of Shakespeare.  All the dramatic histories  say that the King's men took over the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608, and this is true in a legal scene, for on 9 August 1608.”[59]  The atmosphere for the entire troupe changed as they worked in the theater and prepared for the opening, and it is atmosphere which has one of the biggest impacts on Shakespeare’s plays.

 

Shakespeare Targeting his Audience

 

 As it has been mentioned before, Elizabeth I passed a law in 1572 “decreeing that itinerant actors and entertainers be arrested and punished as vagabonds if they could not demonstrate that they belong to a household of a nobleman.  The law underscored the socially marginal world that performers inhabited.”[60]  This means that the audience around the time that Shakespeare started writing was beginning to expect more.  The legitimized company by means of aristocratic patronage demanded work of a higher caliber, and the fact that these companies were more settled meant that the audience was more accustomed to their plays and their methods, could identify mistakes and weaknesses more easily, and would be less forgiving of these mistakes because the company was more readily accessible: “Court performances entertained only the favored few...Nor did the court offer plays everyday...But London's public playing places provided daily dramatic fare to all with a taste for plays.”[61] So the technique of adapting material by watching and responding to the audience was very necessary.

            Shakespeare needed to write in a way that would please his patron and his audience, and he had to work with their interests in order to stay in business.  As a result, “everything he wrote derived from tradition, [which is] not the same as calling him a traditional writer. His patriotic genre took  materials, assumed to be true, from national chronicles.”[62] His subject matter was carefully chosen, but so was his style.

            Also about this same time Quintillian’s works and the study of rhetoric resurfaced and its popularity in study and in practice called for the presence of the theater in universities and revitalized an interest in drama itself.[63]  This also meant that the audience expected sophisticated rhetoric, puns, and ambiguities[64] and Shakespeare was only too happy to oblige. Shakespeare also realized that wordplay was well employed for emphasis, and not necessarily always for comedy.[65]

        Shakespeare also realized that his audience were responding to specific elements of the play.  For example, he began to place less of an emphasis on the plot because “there was in the audience an increasing proportion of people who found the cross-talk of Beatrice and Benedick more interesting than the actual plot.”[66] He took the banter from Much Ado About Nothing and began to center on dialogue and character in his works.  According to Holmes’ analysis of Shakespeare’s work: “If the spectators liked the character and dialogue better than plot, then characters and dialogue they should have… the characters and their conversations were enough to provide the necessary entertainment.”[67]

            It was not just banter that Shakespeare used to attract his audience.  He displays considerable skill in observing his audience and writing for their interests and concerns which is why so many think he must have shared these concerns.  He is not trying merely to remove his audience from their lives, but to play to their interests:  “The play is written for an audience that has come to the theater not so much to be exiled as to be interested, for it depicts a fairly small field of human action but an infinitely greater proportion of human nature.”[69] Shakespeare was a master at understanding and writing to his audience.

            Some scholars claim that the audience was not much of an influence upon Shakespeare.  Bradbrook states: “It has long been the fashion to blame Shakespeare’s audience for all that change of social standards makes unpalatable in his plays, without much attempt to distinguish between the occasions when Shakespeare was in agreement with his audience and those when he was not.”[70] However, even if we knew little about his audience, and even if we cannot see the response of the audience, it is undeniable that the troupe enjoyed great success and that Shakespeare would have acted in the best interest of his own profit and that of the company, especially when he had so many personal and financial concerns connected to the company.

 

Shakespeare Targeting the Aristocracy

 

Actress Vanessa Tompkins

 Shakespeare had lots of opportunities to watch the audience from the stage as an actor and from backstage; he could easily feel the audience response to the plays and feed off them as an artist in the acting and authorial fields, and “Blackfriars, recently fashionable, attracted upper-class residents.”[71] The area even attracted middle class residents in order to set up their businesses which would appeal to the upper class. Critics such as Fraser go so far as to claim that Shakespeare’s content appeals “less to intellect than class”[72] and the upper class had distinctive tastes.   Even if it is arguable whether or not there was a change in style, “in the basic character of the plays he does seem to have tried to conform to the expectations of Blackfriars audiences; in consequence, his last plays show a change in general tenor that all scholars recognize, whether they call them his romances, his tragic-comedies, or merely the plays of his final period.  Now for the first time, he is writing for a courtly and sophisticated audience in a private playhouse.” [73] The theater was intended for such an audience.

          Even though Shakespeare knew that his plays would be performed at both theaters, the audiences at the Globe would want to see Shakespeare’s new pieces.  As Holmes states: "Bankside was still a good deal simpler than Blackfriars in is tastes and still liked a good story with plenty of passionate declamation and something for the Clown and Pantaloon to do.  At the same time, now that the players had achieved the distinction of regularly playing before the Quality in their 'private house,' their old patrons at the Globe would be eager to see something of the special features associated with such productions and in the fourth act the author has taken care to provide them ... The audience on the South Bank could feel that it was enjoying the same fare that was served up on season to high society in Blackfriars."[74] It is possible that certain jokes and statements would still cater to the Globe audience, but Shakespeare did not lay such stress upon those members as he would have done previously.

            It was not unusual for Shakespeare to target an upper class audience, especially when in 1603 his company was made the King’s Men and “performances at court were more frequent, and plays and players would adapt themselves increasingly to the tastes of a well-bred, well-educated audience hitherto associated only with isolated 'special occasions.'””[75] In general, his audience was one of a “genial, leisured society, not too intensely intellectual or too aggressively witty, but well skilled in the art of pleasantly inane conversation that had too much variety to become boring.  That is the kind of society that was now growing up with this new residential London that was coming into being.”[76]

            Some critics claim that the audience at Blackfriars would not affect Shakespeare because even at the Globe it was primarily the privileged who attended the plays.  Cook states that “the privileged had long fostered the drama as schoolboys as patrons, and even as playwrights themselves. They enjoyed exclusive performances at Court and in their own mansions.  Always regarded as the chief clientèle of the small private theaters, the privileged probably dominated the huge public theater audiences as well.”[78] However, most critics agree that there were many students, idlers, and theater attendees who did not belong to the aristocracy, and that none of the aristocracy would comprise the significant number of groundlings who attended the plays at the Globe, and Cook herself admits: “It was true enough that the public theaters offered a large number of places at the cheaper prices and thus probably attracted more commoners than the private theaters.”[79] It is also true that the quality of the plays and players was much the same.  As Herbert Berry indicates, indoor theaters “existed side by side with the public ones throughout the period, housing players and plays which were in many cases the same as those of public theaters and otherwise were scarcely inferior.”[80] It is certain that Shakespeare would have always taken aristocratic concerns in to consideration when writing plays, but Blackfriars was the first time that his audience was guaranteed to be aristocratic.

            The aristocratic audience had a more specific taste and a more opinionated demand: “Neither heavy satire nor the disgruntled Jonson's complaints should be accepted as unbiased testimony.  Nevertheless, the privileged audience was undoubtedly hard to please.  Sophisticated, educated, opinionated, [and] habituated to playgoing”[81]  they could not be ignored when Shakespeare took pen in hand. According to Cook, “the dramatist variously flattered, cajoled, begged, and berated their fickle patrons.”[82]

            The opinionated audience was not only reason that Shakespeare would have targeted the Blackfriars theater. Bentley states that:  "Another reason for the transfer of Shakespeare's efforts was the fact that the Globe could be left to take care of itself with an old repertory as the Blackfriars could not. For one thing, there was not an old repertory for the Blackfriars, since the departing boys appear to have held on to their old plays. For another thing, it was the Blackfriars audience which showed the greater avidity for new plays."[83]  It was not just for new plays that the aristocracy was searching but for a new focus in entertainment as well.  The age of masques and music was begun in the aristocratic world.

Music

           Music was taking a primary status in entertainment and it was particularly useful at court and in the upper class. One illustration of this practice comes from the content of Shakespeare’s plays themselves. When the King's Men began to play at the Blackfriars as well as the Globe, from about 1609, jigs were not standard, as in the public theatres, but music per se, and musical elements in plays, became even more conspicuous.  The Blackfriars was renowned for its musicians, who entertained audiences while the candles were trimmed between the acts as well as supplying an increasingly prominent place in Shakespeare's later plays.[85] Much of this emphasis developed from the tastes of King James, but it does not show much impact on Shakespeare’s plays until he and his troupe moved to Blackfriars.

            King James was a major part of the new area of interest in the court and “an emphasis on music, dance and spectacle becomes even more marked in English performance following the accession of King James in 1603 due mainly to growing prestige of court masque under the patronage of James's queen, Anne.”[86] But for the King’s Men it is the change to a new venue which makes the emphasis on music important.  It is in part because the audience who had been attending the private theaters expected more music to be performed in the private theaters: “With the boy players in their 'private house' and evening's entertainment customarily included a good deal of playing and singing, and consequently less dialogue in the actual play...Shakespeare has put an unusual amount of music into Cymbeline to suit this requirement on the part of the audience.”[87] Music as a whole was much more common in all his last plays.

            The other musical element which was becoming popular and which was more commonly used in Shakespeare’s last plays was more dances, and even more prominent was the presence of the masque.  The work which best shows all these interests for the sake of the audience is The Tempest for “while all Shakespeare's late romances show development of masque-based element, The Tempest in particular shows tableau, dance and song making extended pauses in the narrative to the point where they are evidently intended to be at least as central to the experience of spectatorship as any engagement with narrative.”[89] The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s greatest final works because it is able to combine all the elements of public and private theater audiences so seamlessly.

           Dances as a whole were much more prominent.  In fact, of the thirty-three plays written before 1608, only four of them had dances.  However, of the five plays associated with Blackfriars, each one has a dance.[90]  It has been argued that other people may have added most of these dances later, but it is certain that Shakespeare added more music to his later plays, even to the extent that songs were cut for the sake of the performances at the Globe.[91] Previously music was limited to comedy, but after the move to Blackfriars it was also used for emphasis. These changes made to suit aristocratic tastes were not the only changes made by Shakespeare for the new theater.

 

Definite Changes Made by Shakespeare at the Blackfriars Theater


 Shakespeare was beginning the last years of his career as he entered Blackfriars, and while some think it one of his most brilliant periods, others feel he was less exacting in his art.  In either case, it is significant to note that Shakespeare was looking towards his audience, his actors, and his situation before he started writing. Bradbrook claims: “In the romances Shakespeare was writing for a different stage, the Blackfriars’ or the court; his attitude to the stage alternates between boredom and experiment.”[92] Others say that Shakespeare devoted more time to becoming an artist and a poet in his romances.  No matter which theory one chooses, it is indisputable that Shakespeare’s works were so different that critics created a new genre for the plays he wrote after the troupe moved to Blackfriars, for example Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest specifically are the plays “which have been universally accepted as part of the Shakespeare canon, [and] have commonly been discussed as a distinct genre.”[93] Shakespeare’s romances relate to the Blackfriars years.

            The new theater set a specific standard and expected a specific type of theatrical production.  As players who had been considering a move to such a theater for years, “the King's men, we may be sure, were  well aware of the Blackfriars and the type of performance it required, or specialized in, long before they came to lease the theatre.”[94]  They would know what the theater required and play content and presentation both would have been considered by the entire group: “We can be perfectly sure, then, that from the day of the first proposal that the King's Men take over the Blackfriars they would do with it and had discussed what kinds of plays they would have to have written to exploit it.”[95] It seems likely that the conscious decision to write for the Blackfriars theater took place when Richard Burbage (leading actor of the King’s Men and owner of the Blackfriars theater) received confirmation that the boy actors were to cancel their lease on the theater: “We know that the leases were formally executed on 9 August 1608 therefore discussions in June and July or even April and May are likely enough”[96] for the active response of the King’s Men to take the theater.

            According to Bentley, the best evidence that Shakespeare planning for Blackfriars is found in the plays themselves.  He states that “the evidence . . . is to be seen in Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and probably it was to be seen also in the lost play Cardenio.”[97] Even Holmes states that the plays and their makeup changed for the Blackfriars theater and its audience, and he says of the end of Winter’s Tale that “in the last scene, Shakespeare has managed to supply a sufficiently complicated series of revelations to satisfy the needs of the Blackfriars playgoer without letting his characters lose their individuality.”[98] Holmes indicates here that Shakespeare prepared a type which would be sought by his audience and which he did not previously use, but at the same time remaining faithful to his old dedications and artistic developments.

            There are specific customs and adaptations which could not be avoided and which the King’s Men adopted for every performance. These conventions included the use of gallant stools: “the Blackfriars Playhouse permitted gallants to sit upon the stage during performances, in spite of the actors' and the dramatists' dislike of the practice. The Globe did not.”[99] This meant that the audience would occasionally walk about the stage and was even closer to some of the action than the groundlings which surrounded the thrust stage.  This also meant that special effects were even more difficult to employ successfully.

            Another convention of the Blackfriars stage which was different from the Globe, but which was now indispensible was the use of Intermissions. Though these were much disliked by Shakespeare and his men, they were necessary: “The splitting up of a play into five parts was an unmitigated nuisance in actual performance; it robbed the plot of continuity.”[100]  It was frustrating to playwright and actor to have the energy and the ambiance broken and to have a critical audience loudly critiquing the play and sharing ideas which would be shouted at them during the next act, but at each of the four intermissions, the chandeliers were lowered and the candles were replaced so that they would not burn out during the performance.

            In this way, the system of a five act play was vaguely followed, and the timeline of the play as it would follow according to this formant was employed as a structure adapted from Roman plays, but there was no strict adherence to the rule.  Other theaters continued to ignore act divisions: “Plays were still not divided into acts in performance at the Globe and other public playhouses. There the action was continuous; such act divisions were indicated in the texts of their printed plays did not represent actual practice in the theatre, but were a literary convention merely...constructed in accordance with the classical five-act form.”[101] This was not the case for Blackfriars.

            Though still largely forgotten in the script, the structure was very important for Shakespeare to remember because the reaction of the audience would be different after having conversations with neighbors while waiting for the candles to change: “Even in the printing house the divisions were often ignored, as evidenced by their absence in all of Shakespeare's plays as published during his lifetime.  At the Blackfriars, on the other hand, acts were units of theoretical presentation, with intermissions between; and this difference, as will presently be seen, led to differences both in the structure of plays and in the techniques of production.”[102]  The intermissions did offer Shakespeare the opportunity to have the same character exit from one scene and re-enter immediately in the next; however, he did not break his old habit, which would be important when the plays were performed at the Globe.

            The structure of the play itself was different because of the intermissions and because of the selective audience which Shakespeare sought to please.  The act divisions themselves began to conform much more to the division of time, place, and plot development; the pre-Blackfriars plays (which probably had act divisions inserted by the editor) had no correlation between the division of action and the division of acts.

            Other major conventions of the theater included the additional use of music (including music between acts), the use of masques, and a new and more subtle style of acting which would have been needed in a smaller and more intimate area.

            Though it is beyond the scope of this paper to be able to look at the details of specific changes in individual plays, it is certain that the theater and its concerns changed for Shakespeare, and so did his writing.  Gerald Bentley claims that Shakespeare “turned from his old and tested methods and produced a new kind of play for the new theatre and audience. Somewhat unsurely at first he wrote Cymbeline for them, then, with greater dexterity in his new medium, The Winter's Tale, and finally, triumphant in his old mastery, The Tempest.”[103] It is quite certain that atmosphere had an influence on Shakespeare, which is in part because he allowed it to influence him. As Bentley states: "My basic conception is that Shakespeare was, before all else, a man of the theatre and a devoted member of the King's company. One of the most important events in the history of that company was its acquisition of the Blackfriars Playhouse in 1608 and its subsequent brilliantly successful exploitation of its stage and audience.  The company was experience and theatre-wise; the most elementary theatrical foresight demanded that in 1608 they prepare new and different plays for a new and different theatre and audience.  Shakespeare was their loved and trusted fellow."[104]

         Conclusion


The Blackfriars playhouse is a great example of the importance of historical context for understanding Shakespeare's art. It is a reminder, too, that the audience's reception of the plays shapes the dramatic art form itself.  Theater especially is a very interactive art.  The audience provides an extra element to each play, and the intimate setting establishes an understanding between the artists and the viewer so that the two almost enter into a dialogue.  

 Actress Clare Von Rueden

Clare blogs about her adventures in graduate school at As Celia Enters Arden.


 Endnotes

[1] Bernard Beckerman. Shakespeare At The Globe (London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd.,1963) 2.

[2] Irwin Smith. Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Playhouse (New York: New York University Press,1964) 160.

[3] Ibid., 161.

[4] Ibid., 161.

[5] Ibid., 249.

[6] Russell Fraser. Shakespeare: The Later Years (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992) 207.

[7] Smith, 161-162.

[8] Fraser, 207.

[9] Beckerman, 7.

[10] Fraser, 207.

[11] Beckerman, 8.

[12] Ibid., 14.

[13] Gerald Eades Bentley. Shakespeare And His Theatre (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964) 50.

[14] Smith, 160.

[15] Bentley, Shakespeare And His Theatre, 88.

[16] Ibid., 90.

[17] Ibid., 69-70.

[18] Ibid., 89.

[19] Beckerman, 24.

[20] Bentley, Shakespeare And His Theatre, 92.

[21] Fraser, 207.

[22] Smith, 212.

[23] Ibid., 213.

[24] Ibid., 210.

[25] Hebert Berry. “The Stage and Boxes at Backfriars” Studies in Philology, Vol. 63, No. 2 pg163-186 (University of North Carolina Press, April 1966) 163.

[26] J.L. Styan. Shakespeare’s Stagecraft (London: Cambridge University Press, 1967) 8.

[27] Styan, 12.

[28] Smith, 137-138.

[29] Pearce Baker.  The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (London: MacMillan & Co.1923) 96.

[30] Ellen Gainor. Stanton Garner Jr., Martin Puchner. Editors.  “A Short History of Theater: English Theater, 1578-1642” In The Norton Anthology of Drama. pg 37-42. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2009) 40.

[31] Styan, 9.

[32] Ibid., 16.

[33]Gainor, Garner, Puchner, 42.

[34] Ibid., 42.

[35] Berry, 164.

[36] Smith, 165.

[37] Ibid., 322.

[38] Ibid., 290.

[39] Ibid., 297.

[40] Ibid., 297.

[41] M.C. Bradbrook. Elizabethan Stage Conditions (London: Cambridge University Press, 1968) 32.

[42] Beckerman, 27.

[43] Bradbrook, 34.

[44]Ibid., 30.

[45] Baker, 82.

[46] Gainor, Garner, Puchner, 40.

[47] Baker, 83.

[48] Bradbrook, 70-71.

[49] Baker, 96.

[50] Gainor, Garner, Puchner, 40.

[51] Bentley, Shakespeare And His Theatre, 57.

[52] Ibid., 48.

[53] Ibid., 39.

[54] Ibid., 30.

[55] Gerald Eades Bently. “Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre” Shakespeare Survey Online,  Vol. 1 Ed. Allardyce Nicoll, pg38-50  (Cambridge University Press, 1948) 42.

[56] Martin Holmes. Shakespeare’s Public (John Murray Publishers, 1960) 105-106.

[57] Bentley, Shakespeare And His Theatre, 40.

[58] Smith, 239.

[59] Gerald Eades Bently. “Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre,” 41.

[60] Gainor, Garner, Puchner, 40.

[61] Ann Jennalie Cook. The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare’s London 1576-1642 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981) 124.

[62] Fraser, 41.

[63] Jean Benedetti.  “Shakespeare and His Contemporaries” 31-36 The Art of the Actor: The Essential History of Acting, from Classical Times to the Present Day (New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2007) 31. 

[64] Ibid., 31-32.

[65] Ibid., 32.

[66] Holmes, 111.

[67] Ibid., 111-112.

[68] Anthony Holden. William Shakespeare: The Man behind the Genius, A Biography (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1999) 41-48.

[69] Holmes, 106-107.

[70] Bradbrook, 58.

[71] Fraser, 206.

[72] Ibid., 207.

[73] Smith, 239.

[74] Holmes, 213-215.

[75]Ibid., 115.

[76] Ibid., 112.

[77] Benedetti, 31.

[78] Cook, 7.

[79] Ibid., 266.

[80] Berry, 163.

[81] Cook, 164.

[82] Ibid., 166.

[83]Gerald Eades Bently. “Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre,” 46.

[84] Janette Dillon. “Shakespeare and English Performance Style: The European Context” Shakespeare Survey Online, Vol.54 pg191-200 (Cambridge University Press, 2001) 196.

[85] Ibid., 198.

[86] Ibid., 196-197.

[87] Holmes, 209.

[88] Smith, 231-232.

[89] Dillon, 198.

[90] Smith, 236.

[91] Ibid., 236.

[92] Bradbrook, 51.

[93] Gerald Eades Bently. “Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre ,” 47.

[94] Bentley, Shakespeare And His Theatre, 73.

[95] Ibid., 75-76.

[96] Gerald Eades Bently. “Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre,” 42.

[97] Ibid., 47.

[98] Holmes, 211.

[99] Smith, 220.

[100]  Ibid., 229.

[101] Ibid., 223.

[102] Ibid.,223.

[103] Gerald Eades Bently. “Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre,” 49.

[104] Ibid., 49.


Bibliography

 

Baker, Pearce.  The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist. London: MacMillan & Co.  1923.

 

Beckerman, Bernard. Shakespeare At The Globe. London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd., 1963.

 

Benedetti, Jean.  “Shakespeare and His Contemporaries” The Art of the Actor: The Essential History of Acting, from Classical Times to the Present Day. 31-36. New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2007. 

 

Bentley, Gerald Eades. Shakespeare And His Theatre. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1964.

 

Bentley, Gerald Eades. “Shakespeare and the Blackfriars Theatre” Shakespeare Survey Online, Vol. 1: Shakespeare and his Stage, (1948) Ed. Allardyce Nicoll, Cambridge University Press. Pg 38-50.

 

Berry, Herbert. “The Stage and Boxes at Backfriars” Studies in Philology, Vol. 63, No. 2 (Apr., 1966). University of North Carolina Press, pg. 163-186. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4173528

 

Bradbrook, M.C. Elizabethan Stage Conditions. London: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

 

Cook, Ann Jennalie. The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare’s London 1576-1642. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981.

 

Dillon, Janette. “Shakespeare and English Performance Style: The European Context”

Shakespeare Survey Online, Vol.54 (2001). Cambridge University Press, pg191-200.

 

Faas, Ekbert. Shakespeare’s Poetics. London: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

 

Fraser, Russell. Shakespeare: The Later Years. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.

 

Gainor, Ellen. Garner, Stanton Jr. Puchner, Martin. Editors.  “A Short History of Theater: English Theater, 1578-1642” In The Norton Anthology of Drama. pg 37-42. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2009.

 

Holden, Anthony. William Shakespeare: The Man behind the Genius, A Biography. Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1999.

 

Holmes, Martin. Shakespeare’s Public. John Murray Publishers, 1960.

 

Smith, Irwin. Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Playhouse. New York: New York University Press,

1964.

 

Styan, J.L. Shakespeare’s Stagecraft. London: Cambridge University Press, 1967.


Blackfriars Time line

 

1531: James Burbage is born (actor, manager, builder, theatrical entrepreneur)

1564: Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are born

1566: Thomas Gresham and John Brayne build the Red Lion playhouse in order to attract people to the Royal Exchange

1572:  Elizabeth I decrees that itinerant actors and entertainers would be arrested be arrested as vagabonds unless the troupe can show proof of patronage of a noble family. This act placing theater in a professional sphere, the Corpus Christi cycle of plays ended.

1575: John Brayned and James Burbage build the Shoreditch theater for Leicester's Men

1576-1584: The first Blackfriars theater is occupied by the Chapel Revels Children 

1581: Master of Revels is give the power to license and censor plays (punishable by arrest or even torture)

1583-1592: Queen's Men were the Principle Acting group

1584: The first Blackfriars closes

1587: The Rose is built

1591: The Swan is built

1593: Christopher Marlowe dies

1594: Lord Chamberlain's men and Lord Admiral's men was occupy Newington Butts theater for 10 days together (it is the first theater for both of them) After which Lord Chamberlain's men move into The Theater and Lord Admiral's men move into The Rose

1594: Lord Chamberlain's Men move into The Theater

1596: Blackfirars is converted into a “theater”               

1596: James Burbage buys land in Blackfriars precinct for a new playhouse since his    landlord    isn't renewing the lease for ground of The Theater (takes possession February 4th)

1596: Shakespeare achieves the status of gentleman

1597: The Second Blackfriars opens

1597: James Burbage dies

1579: July, Privy Council bans all theaters in the city and in autumn the theaters with       dispensations are again opened

1598: Privy Council Limits London companies to Lord Chamberlain's Men and Admiral's Men

1599: The boy companies begin performing again in the Blackfriars theater as the “Little   Eyases”

1599: The Globe opens with the Lord Chamberlain's Men

1603: James I takes throne 

1603: The Lord Chamberlain's Men become the King's Men

1606: the term “private theater” is used for the first time

1607: The King's Men stay at the Blackfirars theater for a short time during an exceptionally harsh winter

1608:  9 August lease formally executed giving Richard Burbage and the King's Men possession of Blackfriars

1609: Jonson introduces the anti-masque

1610: King's Men start performing at Blackfriars (repairs and the plague prevented it earlier)

1612: It is believed that Will retired in Stratford away from the theaters and audiences

1613: June 29 The first Globe theater is burned to the ground from a cannon misfire during a performance

1614: June 20 the second Globe opens

1616: April 23 William Shakespeare dies

1616: Ben Jonson published his plays in The Works of Benjamin Jonson

1623: First Folio of William Shakespeare is published

1642: Blackfriars Theater is closed

1644: Globe torn down (other theaters follow) theater becomes restricted to private performances in private homes

© C3 2012