On entering, my first time ever inside a theater, I saw a stage of a rectangular shape, approximately five feet in height, which jutted out halfway into the yard where those who stood for the performance would surround it. Along the wall were two circular galleries with seats for those with the means to pay for them, where they were protected from the elements under a thick thatched roof. I could smell the straw covering the floor, the scent of sweat and beer and something I did not yet recognize but grew to know as the makeup of the actors, still lingering from the last performances before the theater had been shut down.
The stage itself was also covered by a thatched gable and an attached roof made of oak. There was a beautiful ceiling rightly called “the heavens,” painted a bold midnight blue, divided into sections adorned with stars, the sun, the moon and all the signs of the zodiac. Above the balcony where the musicians would play were images of the ancient gods Mercury and Apollo, as well as the muses of comedy and tragedy.
While Master Heminges and Alexander talked with two of the other players, I clambered up on the stage to get a closer look at all the glory painted above, then turned around to face where the audience would be. As I stood, imagining what it might be like to receive the approval of the crowd and feeling my heart begin to race at the prospect, I heard a friendly voice behind me.
“So, John Heminges … is this your new boy?”
It was Master William Shakespeare, the King’s Men’s leading playwright, and one whose faith and trust in my limited talent allowed me the opportunity to perform the finest roles of my time in the theater.
Chapter Five
In which I perform for Master
Shakespeare, he offers me
advice on acting, and my
lessons begin
He was a man then approaching forty, still hale and healthy, dressed in clothing suiting his station in life. His shirt was of a good quality, although not the best material; the doublet covering it was new and showed his worthiness to be under the employ of His Majesty, James I. But I must add, the hose that covered him from his waist down and the lace ruff around his neck both seemed to have been chosen carelessly or haphazardly, since they displayed signs of wear not evident in his other garments. His hair appeared to be hastily combed, although his beard was well groomed. His fingers and the cuffs of his shirt were, as befitted a writer, stained with splotches of ink.
As I saw when I turned to the rear of the stage, his face appeared kindly, with a look of amusement at what he must have seen as my eagerness to accept my first applause.
“He impresses me as being a likely one,” he told Heminges, “but does his voice match his outward appearance?”
And so began my first testing by Master Shakespeare. He asked first to hear me sing and so I did, nervously recalling the lyrics to “Greensleeves,” a song my mother often sang to me and my brothers and sisters:
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously.
And I have loved you oh so long,
Delighting in your company.
Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold.
And who but my lady greensleeves.
As I sang, I espied the two gentlemen exchanging apparent looks of approval, which gave me the confidence, after Shakespeare asked to hear another, to sing for them the madrigal “Flow My Tears,” composed by John Dowland. It was a song that never failed to move me deeply, whether I heard it sung by another or when, feeling sorry for myself, I sang it softly to myself alone.
Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.
Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their last fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.
Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days, my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.
I confess singing those lyrics brought me nearly to tears as I recalled the feelings of loneliness I had often felt in the house of my parents, as well as the deep pain that still lingered from the loss of my mother. And so when I looked to see the reaction of Masters Shakespeare and Heminges and saw what appeared to be tears welling in the eyes of both honorable gentlemen, I felt a sudden and unexpected rush of pride that my song had had such an impact.
The two once again exchanged glances of whose meaning I could not quite grasp. Shakespeare then looked through his doublet until he found the paper he was seeking and then gave it over to me.
“This,” he told me, “is from my play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. In this scene, the young girl Juliet is standing on a balcony outside her bedroom. Earlier that evening, she has met and immediately fallen in love with a young man named Romeo, and she is now proclaiming her love for him. Please, if you will, read this over once, ask of me any questions you might have, and then read it as if you were, as you stand here, a young girl in love for the first time.”
I was now at a loss. I had never been in love. I had, most obviously, never been a young girl in love. How was I to know how she would say it? But as I read over the short scene, I envisioned myself as a young girl standing on the balcony, looking down at Romeo who had, in but a moment, stirred within me my first feelings of love. And then when Shakespeare called over Alexander to read Romeo’s lines in response to mine, who Juliet was and what she felt became clear and understandable.
I started, stuttered, heard Shakespeare ask me encouragingly to begin again, and read:
JULIET
Good night, good night; as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast.
ROMEO
O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
JULIET
What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?
ROMEO
The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.
JULIET
I gave thee mine before thou didst request it,
And yet I would it were to give again.
ROMEO
Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?
JULIET
But to be frank, and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
I was breathless as we ended the scene. I had for a moment, for just a brief moment, in an odd way become Juliet as I declared to Alexander that “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, / My love as deep; the more I give to thee, / The more I have, for both are infinite.” For his part, Alexander was looking at me with a strange expression I had never seen him wear before.
To my pleasure, the man who had written the words simply told me, “Well done, John,” and then added, “I must take your leave now, but you are in good hands with Heminges here. There is little he and the others cannot teach you about the art of acting. I do though want to give you the following advice. When reading, speak the speech trippingly on the tongue, but do not saw the air too much your hand, rather use it gently. Suit the action to the words you are speaking, and the words to the action. Your task, as I see it, young John, is to hold the mirror up to nature herself. And with those words, I leave you. Think upon them, and listen to all that your master has to say. I shall see you anon.”
With that, Master Shakespeare left the theater, leaving me to work with the rest of the players, all of whom were preparing for their first performance at the Globe since t
he theaters had been reopened. The play, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, had been a success the previous year and was viewed as likely to fill the company coffers quickly before winter set in and the theater would once again be forced to close its doors.
I watched silently, dining on the bread and ale Mistress Heminges had packed for Alexander and myself, while the bookkeeper assigned each of the players their roles. As was generally the case, Richard Burbage, a fine-looking gentleman with a high forehead and a sad, haunted look in his eyes, was given the leading role. Alexander was given the primary female role, and the remaining roles were given to the other players depending on their type. Two to three parts were given to each of the actors with minor roles, making it possible for our small company to present plays with casts of characters far exceeding our usual ten permanent players.
As it was late afternoon and the theater was already darkening, the other players left and returned to their homes. There would be a quick rehearsal the next morning, finishing in time for the actors to get into costumes and makeup and prepare for the afternoon performance heralded by the tolling of the bells from nearby Southwark Cathedral.
Before leaving to return home, Alexander took me about the theater and described to me the skills I would of necessity have to learn in order to perform as a woman: I would need to be able to dance skillfully, to sing like a nightingale, to speak my lines truthfully and eloquently, and to learn to memorize a great number of lines in an exceedingly short period of time. Perhaps most essential, I would need to learn to walk, to sit, to use hand gestures, and indeed my entire body, with such grace as to become a convincing woman on stage.
I would, he told me, have to learn to display to the audience a certain softness. I would have to perform with an air of feminine sweetness in my every moment on the stage, remembering always that while men and women do share some common qualities, a woman should not resemble a man when it came to her manners, words, gestures and bearing. And that while it was altogether fitting that a man should display a robust and sturdy air of manliness (and here he gave me an odd little smile), a woman, whether in real life or as portrayed on stage, should always have a certain delicate tenderness.
When I enquired to him as to whether these skills were difficult to learn, he assured me that they were not. And that just as he had learned them from the actor he later replaced, so I would from him, as well as with assistance from the other King’s Men.
As we left to walk through the crowds of Southwark, he told me that I was not to worry, that my reading with him of Juliet had demonstrated that I could speak the lines as well as anyone could possibly hope for, and that he would do everything he could to teach me all that was necessary to become a woman on stage. And so as we walked through the crowded streets, his arm around my shoulders, both to protect me from the crowd as well as to show me his feelings of warmth and friendship, I felt utterly safe and assured that I would be able to do all that was asked of me.
Chapter Six
In which I describe
my training
It would still be several months before I was to appear on stage. Indeed, it would be several months until the King’s Men were able to perform onstage at all, since the news we had received that the theaters had been allowed to reopen to the public, based on letters that had circulated among the city’s various theatrical groups saying that all the companies could “safely home to their theaters and to their own homes,” proved to be false.
During this time, the majority of the King’s Men retreated to the nearby suburb of Mortlake, returning when they could to perform at the homes of various members of the gentry and aristocracy in and around the city, although using few actors due to the smaller stage spaces available. But despite the monies earned for those performances, until the commencement of the Christmas-Candlemas season (those forty days in which we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ) our financial well-being would be dependent on the goodwill of our royal patron. In his generosity, he sent Master Burbage a payment (or so I was informed) of thirty pounds for the maintenance and preservation of the company, since the still-too-high number of cases of the plague forced the theaters in London to remain closed.
And so it was during the month of November and the first half of December that I was given the opportunity to take lessons with the members of the troupe — to learn how to walk properly, to sit and to use hand gestures in the way that a gentlewoman would do so.
Gestures were taught to me by Alexander and other actors. I learned that the hand speaks all languages in a manner that is generally understood by all, even when spoken languages differ one to the other. I practiced and practiced and practiced, attempting to add to the gesture by thinking hard about the feelings and emotion behind it, trying to personate the emotion in question, whether it be happiness, sadness or despair.
Not only was it required that I learn how to use my hands and to move my body as a woman would, I also had to learn how to use a sword and to sing, which was a talent that seemed to be a part of my very nature. But there was also dancing, which I found the most difficult skill of all to master.
I was taken to a dancing school to learn the two basic forms of dance: basse dance, or the measure, in which case my feet were not to ever leave the ground, and the haute dance, which did require my feet to leave the ground through a combination of hopping, leaping and high jumps. I did well enough on the measure, but my strength and coordination faltered when it came to the haute dance. Many a time I would falter, slip and fall to the ground to the obvious dismay of the dancing master, who would lose his temper, strike me and demand that I repeat the movement. Eventually, through hours of practice tempered with a strong fear of being struck again, I learned the steps well enough, if not approaching the level of grace Master Heminges and I would have preferred me to have.
I was so eager to learn all that I could about theater and drama and acting that I spent a portion of the small allowance granted to me by Master Heminges to go to the bookstalls hidden away in the churchyard of St. Paul’s Cathedral. There I purchased inexpensive cheaply printed copies of some of the works of Masters Shakespeare and Ben Jonson that had earlier been staged at the Theatre and at the Globe, along with others that caught my eye and interest. I would read them hungrily, imagining myself performing in them, and even sometimes, I admit shamefacedly, reading the lines of the woman’s part aloud while gesturing wildly, often without my realizing I was doing so.
On one such occasion, I recall, I was reading aloud the lines said by Beatrice in Master Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing in which, ironically enough given my lack of natural talent for the art, the character speaks about the styles of dance and how they would be learned:
The fault will be with the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time. If the prince be too important, tell him there is a measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero, wooing, wedding and repenting is a Scotch jig, a measure, and cinque pace. The first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding mannerly modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; And then comes Repentance, and with his bad legs falls into the cinque pace faster and faster till he sinks in his grave …
I was reading these lines with what I thought were the appropriate movements and gestures, and just as I was sinking into my grave, I heard a cough — it was Master Shakespeare himself!
“Steady yourself, young John,” he told me with the slightest of twinkles in his eyes. “I’ve heard that you are learning rapidly, and that is fine,” he said. “You’re not quite ready yet for a role such as Beatrice though … but not to worry, I know you will be. And very soon at that.” And then, he left me, standing red-faced and yet hopeful that the time would come. And very soon.
The more time I spent with Alexander and the more he told me about his career on stage, about the attention paid to him, about the feeling one gets at the end of a performan
ce receiving the approval of the crowd, the more I wanted it for myself. I felt within me the stirring of a strong desire for approval — from Alexander, from the King’s Men, from Master Heminges and Master Shakespeare, and finally, from an audience. I had yet to step onto a stage and perform, but to my astonishment, my ambitions were growing by leaps and bounds.
And as our friendship grew, so too did Alexander’s encouragement of my ambitions. He seemed to take a special interest in me, not only as someone who was responsible, at least in part, to provide me with the training necessary to assume his role as an actor of women’s parts, but also in other ways — ways in which I did not, during that period, quite understand.
He would tell me stories about the other writers he had met, including Kit Marlowe, whose death in a tavern fight several years earlier still inspired whispered rumors, and whose scandalous reputation had besmirched his name as a poet and playwright known for the beauty of his verse. One day, Alexander shyly presented me for the first time with a gift — a copy of Marlowe’s poem “Hero and Leander.” The poem retells the mythical love story of Hero, a priestess dedicated to the goddess of love, Venus, and the beautiful boy named Leander.
What I found shocking while at the same time exciting was Marlowe’s portrait of Leander’s male beauty:
How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly,
And whose immortal fingers did imprint
I Was Cleopatra Page 3