I Was Cleopatra

by Dennis Abrams

  Chapter Nineteen

  In which I attempt to explain

  my reasons for visiting King

  James in the royal chambers,

  Ben Jonson comes to ask my

  forgiveness, and I become, to

  my regret, dissatisfied with the

  King’s Men

  I confess that the occasions of my nighttime visits to the king’s bedchambers are now among the greatest regrets of my life. It was a mistake to go — a mistake caused, at least in part, by a growing anxiety about losing my beauty along with a need to prove myself Alexander’s equal. I had a mad belief that by doing so, I would be placing myself under the personal protection of the king who could then take an interest in me and lend me assistance if necessary.

  The king, however, thought differently about the matter. After our third evening and his final gift, I was never asked to return. I later heard through others that his eye had settled on a new courtier, followed by the next one and then, yes, the next one.

  The result being that I felt sullied by my visits to the royal bedchamber and by my acceptance of gifts from the king for so doing. I had become, using the words I myself had said on stage, a “squeaking Cleopatra … I’ th’ posture of a whore.”

  And even though I understood that Alexander had made the same arrangement with His Highness, I felt that he would look at me differently, that I had somehow made dirty what we had between us.

  For now though, it was still my good fortune to play the finest women’s roles available. No new plays by Master Shakespeare entered our repertory during that year. I suspect that having written Macbeth, King Lear as well as Antony and Cleopatra all within a period of a little more than a year, his pen had run, at least temporarily, dry.

  I did play Katherine in a revival of his early comedy The Taming of the Shrew, which I must say was not a performance I was especially proud of. Broadly played farce of that sort was not, despite Master Heminges’s insistence that I should take on the part, particularly suited to my temperament and stage demeanor. And while I acquitted myself without shame, it was not a role that I should have taken on. I knew myself, and whatever gifts I may have had on the stage did not include comic roles such as the shrew Katherine, as Master Shakespeare had told me years before.

  My partial failure as Katherine aside, both Masters Heminges and Shakespeare, whose approval was all that mattered to me, seemed pleased with my work. But in addition to that, I received words of praise from a most unexpected source — Ben Jonson.

  I had not spoken with and had, in fact, shied away from him ever since the day his cruel words had driven me off the stage in tears. But on this occasion, he came to me, searching me out as I was getting fitted for a costume, and, asking the tire man to leave us alone for a moment, he said, “I erred in my judgment of you, John, for which I humbly beg your pardon. I was wrong. You have proved yourself to be a player of much excellent skill and refinement, and I ask if you would do me the honor of performing in a small masque I have written for the Merchant Taylors’ Company.”

  It was an odd and unexpected moment of triumph. Jonson had come to me to ask my forgiveness, and further for me to perform in a specially commissioned masque he had just composed. It was a moment of, dare I say, vindication?

  And so it came to be that on the 16th of July 1607, I played a role of great prominence when the Merchant Taylors’ Company, known as the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, entertained His Majesty King James I at its guildhall in the City of London. Given that this was not a performance of the King’s Men but a masque, it entailed elaborate sets and stage props and costumes, including a ship that was lowered from the rafters with three musicians on board dressed as mariners, who sang three songs written by Jonson.

  For my role in the masque, I had the rare good fortune to wear an elaborate and beautiful costume befitting my appearance as an angel of light, carrying a taper of frankincense in a hand that no longer trembled while performing. Before the ship was lowered, I read a short but, I must allow, well-written speech of a mere eighteen lines — in all truth, a simple matter to learn when compared to what I had recently undertaken. The verse was composed especially for the occasion by Jonson. The audience seemed to well appreciate both the costumes and poetry, and Jonson himself told me afterwards that I had read his lines beautifully.

  For our efforts, the Taylors’ Company made record, later shared with Jonson and my Master Heminges, discussing the terms of payment:

  To Mr. Heminges for his direction of his boy that made the speech to His Majesty, forty shillings, and five shillings given to John Rice, the speaker.

  This might be a good point in my narrative to note that several years later, I, along with Burbage, was asked to perform at a riverside pageant in honor of the investiture of the Prince of Wales in a drama written by Anthony Munday entitled London’s Love to Prince Henry. Burbage appeared as the water king, Amphion, while I was his queen, Corinea.

  Again, some time later, I was allowed to view the state disbursement records for the occasion:

  It is ordered that Mr. Chamberlain shall pay unto Mr. Burbage and John Rice, the players that rode upon the two fishes at the meeting of the high and mighty prince, the Prince of Wales, upon the River of Thames on Thursday last, seventeen pounds, ten shillings and six pence, by them disbursed for robes and other furniture for adorning themselves at the same meeting. And that they shall retain to their own use, in lieu of their pains there taken, such taffeta, silk and other necessities as were provided for that purpose, without any further allowance.

  It was later revealed to me that a spectator had said this about the performance, in words that somehow made their way to myself and Burbage, kindly referring to us as

  … two absolute actors, even the very best our instant time can yield … Richard Burbage the Father of Harmony or Music … a grave and judicious prophetlike personate, attired in his apt habits every answerable to his state and profession, with his wreath of sea shells on his head and his harp hanging in fair twine before him … and John Rice was a very fair and beautiful nymph representing the genius of old Corineus’ queen and the province of Cornwall’s, suited in her watery habit yet rich and costly, with a coronet of pearls and cockle shells on her head.

  In the course of the next several years, the roles I was given at the Globe slowly began to change. I was growing beyond the age when I could believably play a young woman, and the roles I was assigned changed accordingly.

  In Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Coriolanus, a drama with, it must be said, fairly limited roles for women, I portrayed Volumnia, the mother of the tragic hero Caius Martius Coriolanus. In a manner very much like Lady Macbeth, she pushes and bends the ambitions of her son entirely to her own end, and with equally tragic results. Even more bloodthirsty, if possible, than the lady, she takes unseemly delight at the thought of pain, blood and honorable death. It was a role I very much enjoyed testing myself and my abilities with, though I was, perhaps, still too young to take on the role given that Burbage was portraying my son, Coriolanus. But as it was a relatively small role, that minor flaw in casting did not, I think, detract from the power of the play nor, I daresay, my performance.

  I appeared in other plays as well — works by Shakespeare and others, including at last those of Jonson — but it seemed as though after portraying Lady Macbeth, Lucrezia Borgia, Cordelia, the Fool and Cleopatra in such a brief period of time, something was missing. I knew not whether it was in me and my realization of what time and age do, or whether is was Alexander’s increasing absence from my life and bed as his family grew and his time for our friendship became more precious. Or indeed, perhaps it was the changing focus of Master Shakespeare’s plays, from the roles in which I had achieved some level of renown to the roles in his new plays, which instead of focusing on powerful women focused on relationships lost and renewed between fathers and daughters in plays such as The Winter’s Tale
and Cymbeline.

  These more elaborately produced dramas were performed at our new indoor theater, Blackfriars, which, in addition to the Globe, allowed us to perform year round. And while they involved roles I played to the best of my abilities and received much praise for, I still felt myself at a distance from them. I was no longer Rosalind or Cleopatra. I was, instead, John Rice playing those roles, a difference that the audience might not have been aware of but I was, as was, I suspect, Shakespeare himself.

  There was another occurrence during this period that affected me deeply, one that I knew was inevitable but that I dreaded nonetheless. Heminges took on a new apprentice, a beautiful boy with the name of George Birche.

  Young George was slender and blond, with long curls that set off his high-cheekboned innocence. I sensed his nervousness and excitement, which reminded me of my own when I first arrived in London in what seemed like a lifetime past. Master Heminges pulled me aside to ask if I would watch over him, and so, as Alexander had done with me, I became his protector, helping him adjust to his new life in London as an apprenticed boy actor, sharing my bed with him, and in time, as we became good friends, holding him tight at night.

  It was an odd yet comforting feeling, one that helped to bring me closer to understanding Alexander and his experience when I first came to London. I knew, as Alexander did, that the beautiful boy sharing my bed, now actually sharing my life, would all too soon be my replacement on stage. He would be given the kinds of roles it had been my privilege to play but that I was rapidly, all too rapidly, outgrowing. And yet because of my love and appreciation for Alexander’s ungrudging generosity and love towards me, I found it impossible to resent George. His beauty and innocence did not allow for that, and at night in bed, talking before sleep overcame us and feeling his warm body pressed tightly against mine, I knew that I would do for him and give to him all that Alexander had done for and given to me.

  George was with us when, in 1610, the King’s Men traveled to Oxford to perform an earlier work by Master Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Othello, in which Burbage portrayed the African military hero himself. I had the chance to personate a role I had long wanted to attempt, that of Desdemona, the willful Venetian girl who loves Othello but is murdered by him in their wedding bed when he is driven mad with jealousy by the lies of his supposed friend Iago.

  The performance had nearly reached its conclusion when Othello, believing the worst of his beloved Desdemona, informs her that she is to die, that she must die. Pleading for her life, she desperately cries out, “O, banish me lord, but kill me not!”

  And it was then that the worst happened. My voice cracked, as all male voices must eventually do, signaling to all in attendance, including Burbage, whose face momentarily broke into an amused yet concerned look, that indeed my days as a boy actor were coming to an end.

  I was fortunate in that I was able to hide my shame, for four lines later Desdemona is smothered by her husband and lord with a pillow. The remainder of the scene was spent silently dead, which happily seemed to earn the praise of one member of the audience who, as I was later told, reported that “Although she always acted her whole part extremely well, yet when she was killed she was even more moving, for when she fell back on the bed she implored the pity of the spectators by her very face.”

  It was interesting, I thought, that even with the cracking of my voice, the audience member made mention of me as “she.”

  Even with that kind of praise, I knew the time had come for a change. The King’s Men had been good to me and had taught me my craft well, but if I remained I would forever be seen among my fellow actors and by the audience at the Globe as a boy actor gone beyond his years. So when my apprenticeship came to an end several months after Othello, I took a chance and opportunity to move on and work with actors who would, I hoped, see me in ways the King’s Men could not or perhaps would not.

  It was, as it turned out, an error most grievous.

  Chapter Twenty

  In which I leave the King’s

  Men but soon return, and

  receive sad news, both

  professional and personal

  As my seven-year apprenticeship came to an end, I received word from the newly forming Lady Elizabeth’s Men asking if I would be interested in joining them as one of the founding members. I spoke with Heminges, who advised me in his dual role as master and friend that I would do myself better service by remaining with the troupe, but he would also, if I so wished, give me blessing to leave if I thought it would be in my best interest. I would have spoken with Master Shakespeare regarding this matter as well, but he was now spending the majority of his time away from the Globe and London, at home in Stratford. He had been gaining weight, and, I had taken note, was starting to display signs of weariness and age.

  And so with Heminges’s reluctant blessing, I left the King’s Men, and while still taking lodging with him and sharing a bed with George, although now as a paying renter, I joined the Lady Elizabeth’s Men.

  The newly bonded company was made up largely of aging boy actors like myself, many from the once popular troupes such as the Children of the Chapel and the Children of Paul’s, both of which had lost much of their company to the plague.

  Problems befell us from the start, largely in regards to theater space, and so we spent much of our time those first two years touring the countryside. Finally, in 1612, we were in London and had been invited to perform before the court. The plays we presented, which included Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Honest Man’s Fortune and Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, were entertainments, but having been spoiled by my good fortune of acting in plays written by Master Shakespeare, they were not nearly as interesting or as challenging for me to perform. And I was certain they were not as entertaining or challenging for audiences either.

  Even with limited royal support, we continued to struggle, and so it was that in 1613 we combined with the Children of the Queen’s Revels, who performed at Whitefriars. Together we performed A Chaste Maid in Cheapside at the Swan in early 1613. We then combined with Prince Charles’s Men later that same year, but by then I had largely had enough.

  It felt like I had failed personally. I had struck out on my own, leaving the safety and security and camaraderie I had found with the King’s Men, and instead found loneliness, struggle and roles in plays that, even though I was no longer a boy actor as such, I felt were not worthy of my time or that of the audience. And also, I confess, during this time I stained the purity of my feelings for Alexander as well as for George by indulging myself physically and lustfully with my fellow boy actors and various barmaids and the like I encountered while touring. These encounters, while satisfying my lustful nature, left me ultimately alone with my sins.

  It was during this same time that the unthinkable happened — the Globe burned to the ground when a cannon fired at the beginning of Master Shakespeare’s All Is True sent sparks flying up to the heavens. The thatched roof of the theater quickly started an inferno that burned my theatrical home to the ground in less than an hour.

  There were, I am happy to note, no fatalities, thanks to the mercy of God. But as I was later told, there was one in the audience, whose name remains unknown, whose breeches caught on fire and would indeed have burned him alive, except for one quick-thinking gentleman, whose name also remains unknown, who emptied the contents of his bottle of ale on the hapless victim, putting out the flames.

  And then, as if God were punishing me both for my sins and for abandoning the King’s Men in search of greater personal glory, came — to my eternal and everlasting sorrow — the news that Alexander, my beloved friend and companion, died of fever in early 1614, leaving a wife and four children to mourn his memory.

  He was gone. I had not had the chance to see him to say goodbye, and the grief I felt was entirely my own and has been with me since that day and will, I am certain, remain with me until the day I die. He w
as my first true friend, my protector, my first — and here I must confess and say for the first time directly and altogether accurately — my first and perhaps only real love.

  With the loss of the Globe and of Alexander, I knew where it was I wanted to be — I needed to return home. I left Lady Elizabeth’s Men and rejoined the King’s Men, grateful to Heminges and the others that they would allow the prodigal son return.

  My career since then has been one of steady if not spectacular success. I have played roles in The Duchess of Malfi and in The Tragedy of Sir John van Olden Barnavelt, where I portrayed both a captain and a servant, as well as in The Spanish Viceroy, sometimes playing female parts, other times the male. These roles, as well written as they were, did not match the excitement of playing the roles created by Master Shakespeare, who, as I’ve grown to appreciate and did not quite do so at the time, was a writer whose work went well beyond any one of his contemporaries.

  That uniqueness became more readily apparent when word reached us in London that in April 1616, Master Shakespeare had died at home in Stratford, after, or so we were told, an evening spent drinking with Jonson and the poet Michael Drayton led to his contracting a fever from which he never recovered.

  Master Shakespeare, who I am certain will be seen as the finest poet of his day, was buried at his local church in Stratford. None of the actors who knew him, worked with him and, yes, loved him, were in attendance. We held a small private wake in his honor on the stage of the Globe, the rebuilding of which was nearing completion. Each was asked to read a speech or work by Shakespeare in his honor. I chose a speech from a play that I had not had the opportunity to act in, The Tempest, one that I found profoundly moving, not only for its meaning within the play itself, but because, as I remembered well, Shakespeare had begun to conceive of it at the wedding party of my beloved friend, Alexander: