Shakespeare's Ear
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Copyright © 2017 by Tim Rayborn
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Rain Saukas
Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1957-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1958-3
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Introduction: The Grim and the Unusual in the History of Western Theater
Act I: The Strange Lives and Odd Fates of Playwrights, Actors, Theater Companies, and More
1. The Ancient World
Ancient Mesopotamian dramatic rituals
Ancient Egyptian dramatic rituals
The Hittites and the Anatolian Greeks
2. Ancient Greece and Rome
Comedy and tragedy
Aeschylus (525/524–ca. 456/455 BCE)
Sophocles (ca. 497/96–406/05 BCE)
Euripides (ca. 480–ca. 406 BC)
Philemon (ca. 362 BCE–ca. 262 BCE)
Seneca the Younger (ca. 4 BCE–65 CE)
Atellan farces and Roman mimes (ca. 391 BCE–third century CE and later)
3. The Middle Ages and Renaissance
Jacopone da Todi (ca. 1230–1306)
The fabliaux: scandalous minidramas (ca. 1200–ca. 1340)
Elaborate and ridiculous medieval stage sets (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries)
Arnoul Gréban (ca. 1420–1473/86) and Simon Gréban (mid-fifteenth century)
Onstage agony: accidents and otherwise (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries)
Pietro Aretino (1492–1556)
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616)
4. The Tudor and Stuart Ages: A Golden Age of English Theater
Tudor and Jacobean playhouses: dens of iniquity
Traveling players: liars, vagabonds, and ne’er-do-wells
Thomas Kyd (1558–1594)
Robert Greene (1558–1592)
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
Moll Cutpurse (ca. 1584–1659)
The fiery end of the Globe Theatre (June 29, 1613)
Richard Burbage’s very brief epitaph (1567–1619)
5. The Seventeenth Century
Lope de Vega (1562–1635)
William Davenant (1606–1668)
Thomas Killigrew (1612–1683)
Molière (1622–1673)
The spectacle of English female actors during the Restoration (1660 onward)
Charles Rivière Dufresny (1648–1724)
Nathaniel Lee (ca. 1645/53–1692)
Jeremy Collier (1650–1726)
Anne Bracegirdle (ca. 1671–1748)
6. The Eighteenth Century
Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
Charles Macklin (1690/99–1797)
Voltaire (1694–1778)
Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793)
Pierre Beaumarchais (1732–1799)
The obnoxious Licensing Act of 1737
Philippe Fabre d’Églantine (1750–1794)
7. The Nineteenth Century
August von Kotzebue (1761–1819)
Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811)
Alexander Griboyedov (1795–1829)
Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837)
The Old Price riots (1809)
Vampires onstage: a nineteenth-century obsession
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Alfred Jarry (1873–1907)
8. The Modern Age
Pedro Muñoz Seca (1879–1936)
John Barrymore (1882–1942)
Michel de Ghelderode (1898–1962)
The Derby disaster at the London Coliseum (1905)
Ödön von Horváth (1901–1938)
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)
Albert Camus (1913–1960)
Intermission
Act II: A Dark and Weird Theatrical Miscellany
1. The Shakespeare You May Not Know
Was Shakespeare a secret Catholic?
The utterly awful Titus Andronicus
The bloodiest moments in Shakespeare’s plays
The authorship controversy—did Shakespeare write Shakespeare?
Shakespeare’s ear and the golden earring
Where is Shakespeare’s head?
William Henry Ireland: the great Shakespeare forger
Yorick’s skull, like, for real
2. The Commedia dell’Arte
The cast of characters:
That old devil, Arlecchino (Harlequin)
The deceitful and cruel Brighella
The zany zanni
The foolish and miserly Pantalone
The quack Doctor
The bombastic Capitano (Captain)
The innocent Innamorati (the Lovers)
The coarse and volatile Pulcinella
The youthful servant Pedrolino
The scenarios
The slapstick and physical comedy
Punch and Judy—violent and comical Commedia puppet shows
3. The Bloody Theater
Fake carnage for the stage: animal-blood bladders, red rags, and many body parts
The horrors of the Grand Guignol in Paris and London
Actors who gave their all for their final performances
4. An Abundance of Superstitions, Curses, and Bad Luck
Never whistle backstage
Never wish anyone “good luck”
The mysterious ghost light
Peacock feathers are forbidden
Unlucky colors
Deadly flowers
The curse of “the Scottish Play”
The curse of Ophelia?
And the list goes on and on …
5. Haunted Theaters
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
The Adelphi Theatre, the Strand, London
St. James Theatre, Wellington, New Zealand
The Palace Theatre, New York
New Amsterdam Theatre, New York
The Duke of York Theatre, London
6. An Encore of Theatrical Oddities
David Garrick and the wigs both scary and silly
Joseph Grimaldi’s awful discovery
Sol Smith and the theater of bones
Henry Miller and the Great Divide with his audience
Hedda Gabbler’s overly noisy suicide
The madness of the King in Yellow
The game show guest who saw it all
Exit Stage Left
Suggestions for Further Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Photos
Introduction
The Grim and the Unusual in the History of Western Theater
We love to be shocked, and the darker the subject, the better. Let’s be honest, that’s the reason why so many people are fascinated by television news reports, Internet updates on various social media platforms, and any other ways of finding out about some gruesome story a
s it happens. Many have the same desire for the grotesque in their fiction, and theater is potentially even more enticing, being a live spectacle. Reading is lovely and the screen provides amazing escapes, but to see the morbid, the grotesque, the strange, and the violent happen in front of you? That is something truly unique that only drama can provide.
“To be or not to be, that is the question.” Yes, indeed, that is the question that has sent shivers of horror down the backs of countless high school students in the English-speaking world and left untold numbers of theatergoers—who want to appear sophisticated and educated—totally baffled because they’re still not quite sure what that whole speech is really about; who actually speaks “Shakespeare,” anyway?
Drama is one of those areas that exists in a sort of side world at the edge of many people’s awareness. Nearly everyone remembers having to endure the trauma of performing in school plays as children; this was followed by reading plays for their own good when they were in high school. Afterward, though, most people don’t give much thought to these theatrical excursions, rather like long division and frog dissection, and that’s a terrible shame—about drama, that is, not long division or frog dissection, unless you’re really into those. Plays are just another of those general-education topics that are absorbed and then get stored away in the file cabinet of our brains, never to be accessed again, because far more important things take their place. Those who use Western technologies (and that would be most of us) are bombarded with movies, television programs, web series, online videos, and countless other diversions. But alongside these nonstop, 24/7 entertainments, there still exists the world of live stage shows that has demonstrated a surprising tenacity and will to survive, even in our age of endless stimulation overload.
But why? What could possibly be appealing about watching a dozen actors pretend to fight a huge war in a Shakespeare play, when you could see a CGI effects fest with a budget of $200 million exploding all over the gigantic movie screen in bloody 3-D? The thing is, countless people still prefer (or at least still go to see) the former on a regular basis. There is something highly appealing about any live performance, as music aficionados will readily tell you. You just can’t beat that live sound, and for many, the thrill of seeing living actors on a stage doing what they do best can’t be duplicated on a big or a small screen. There is an immediacy, a danger, and a sense of connection that only a play can provide.
So this book is an attempt to combine two of our loves: the closeness of a live performance and our endless fascination with the grotesque, the grim, the bloody, and the bleak; they blend together surprisingly well. Another surprise is how much goes on behind the scenes—in fact, the skulduggery offstage has frequently been greater than that onstage.
The book is divided into two parts, or more appropriately, acts. Act I is a historical tour, taking you back to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, where violent proto-dramas enacted the stories of the gods, and then continuing through the Greeks to the Middle Ages, on to the glorious Tudor and Stuart ages, and beyond into the “modern” world (whatever that means). Act II is a miscellany of topics, including some things that you really should know about Shakespeare, the zany Commedia dell’Arte, the methods for portraying blood and gore onstage throughout history (a very important topic!), and essential information on dramatic ghosts and the seemingly endless theater superstitions, as well as some miscellaneous theatrical oddities.
So who might some of our odd cast of characters be? Well, you’re certainly familiar with Shakespeare, or his name, at any rate. Maybe you know a bit about Christopher Marlowe—though you may not know about his horrible (and, some say, alleged) death. You’ve probably heard of Sophocles and/or some of the other ancient Greek playwrights, whose tragedies were early models of over-the-top grimness. You may also recall Molière, the French writer of farces, even if you’ve never read or watched any of his work.
Others will likely be less familiar to you. What about Thomas Kyd or Moll Cutpurse? Or the actor William Davenant, who implied that he was Shakespeare’s illegitimate son? Read on and find out.
Beyond playwrights and actors, theatrical history is bursting with odd stories. Just what exactly is a slapstick? (Hint: it’s actually pretty close to what the name suggests.) What was the stomach-turning Grand Guignol in Paris and why was it so popular? Why does “the Scottish Play” have so many superstitions associated with it? And for that matter, why are there so many bizarre theatrical superstitions in general? Did people really riot over theater shows? How did a live horse end up flying off a London stage into an orchestra pit? And why do so many of the dead seem to come back to theaters to give eternal encores?
This book is a veritable auditorium of the abhorrent, a green room of the grotesque, and a curtain call of the creepy. Herein you will find all sorts of stories about playwrights, actors, theaters, companies, and audiences engaged in activities ranging from the horrible to the hilarious to the hideous, and sometimes all at the same time. You don’t need any previous knowledge of theater history—or of plays in general—to enjoy this unsettling excursion. You can dip into it anywhere you like, though you might get a bit more out of it by reading it from cover to cover—but that’s really just my way of trying to entice you into devouring it all! Pick a story, dive in, and prepare to be shocked and fascinated.
These days, many view the theater as a bastion of the elite, a highbrow indulgence that is expensive, out of touch, and irrelevant to most people, but for many centuries, it was the most popular entertainment around. In Elizabethan England, for example, admittance to a playhouse was extremely cheap (one penny, the price of a large tankard of ale), and in Georgian England, there were mass protests when one London manager tried to raise admission prices to cover the costs of building a new theater after a fire; he was forced to back down. Audiences forgave him and returned soon enough. They’ve been flocking to theaters ever since, not just in England but all over the world.
The sustained devotion of theatergoers throughout history suggests that plays are endlessly fascinating and speak to us in unique ways. Learning about the astonishing and often violent antics that happened behind the scenes of great dramas makes the whole genre even more fun. So, settle in and let the lights go down and the curtain rise. The play’s the thing, but the rest of the theatrical world is pretty wild, too!
Act I
The Strange Lives and Odd Fates of Playwrights, Actors, Theater Companies, and More
1
The Ancient World
The origins of drama are as mysterious as the origins of music, art, and other creative outputs. The idea of taking on a role to represent someone or something else almost certainly had an important place in ancient religions and rituals. Of course, that is a convenient catch-all explanation. Whenever we don’t understand something about the past, whether it be a statue, a stone circle, a burial plot, or anything else, we (rather smugly, it seems) label it as having been used for “ritual purposes,” as if that really tells us anything. One wonders how many hilariously wrong attributions are out there: perhaps that little stone “idol” was actually used to grind wheat, or maybe it was set out to let others know that the primitive toilet was occupied. Or maybe it was some kind of “marital aid.”
Still, it doesn’t stretch credibility to suggest that some kind of primitive drama may have arisen in prehistory to enact myths, or to teach the young how to hunt, or gather, or perform any other duties essential for a group’s survival. By the time that recognizable civilizations developed in the ancient Near East, they were certainly using dramatic representations in religious ceremonies. Whether they also did so for secular entertainment is another question. It does seem that, at least in the case of the Greeks, ideas about comedy and tragedy came from rituals for the wine god Dionysus, which is quite appropriate, given most entertainers’ love of alcohol; we’ll investigate those stories in the next chapter. For now, here is a small selection of violent ritual dramas that were played out for religious edi
fication and possibly entertainment in some very old cultures. These don’t seem to have evolved into separate performances with their own dedicated theaters, but they were an important early example of the idea of a story portrayed with costumes, masks, and declamation, if not dialogue. They may well have been early plays, but since we have little evidence about how they may have been performed, we will focus more on the stories they depicted.
Ancient Mesopotamian dramatic rituals
Sacred marriages and divine retribution
The Fertile Crescent in the Near East hosted the rise of some of the earliest civilizations over six thousand years ago. These societies became adept at everything that we tend to associate with, well, civilization: agriculture, cities, governments, taxes, hierarchical structures, temples and organized religion, and most importantly, beer production.
The Sumero-Babylonian mythologies were rich in epic content and would have made splendid tales to relay orally, or in rituals at certain times of the year. Among the most important of these was the sacred marriage between the goddess Inanna/Ishtar and her lover Dumuzi, known as Tammuz in later Babylonian myth, originally a king said to have ruled for thirty-six thousand years—talk about needing term limits! This marriage was “performed” by the current king (who was presumably much more mortal) and the high priestess of the goddess at the New Year celebration ceremony. In addition to reciting dialogue derived from the myth, the presentation probably included the whole shebang as far as marriage was concerned, including the wedding night whoopee in front of the faithful.
Despite this unusual live performance, a night’s fun was not meant to signify the beginning of wedded bliss. The myths offer an unpleasant account about what happened later on. Some of these events were probably also acted out in the rituals, giving a more dramatic presentation of beliefs that helped define humanity’s role in the world. In this story, Ishtar descends into the underworld, to visit her sister Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld and the dead. Ereshkigal is mourning the loss of her husband, Gugalanna, who was killed by the famous heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu; Ishtar had sent Gugalanna to fight Gilgamesh for resisting her sexual advances—which is something you just don’t do to a goddess—and Gilgamesh bested him. Ereshkigal, in her anger and grief, was determined to humiliate her sister (who she felt was responsible for the whole thing), forcing her to remove an article of clothing at each of the seven gates to her dark realm. When Ishtar finally arrives, she is naked and enraged with Ereshkigal. Thereafter, Ishtar is imprisoned and all sex ceases on earth. Well, that’s no fun!