Whitefriars Theatre
Introduction
One of the lesser known halls or private playhouses of Renaissance London, the
Whitefriars (so-called because of its
location in the Whitefriars neighbourhood), was
home to two different boy playing companies, each of which operated under
several different names. The boy playing companies often merged and split,
formed and reformed for legal and economic reasons. Run differently from the
adult companies, all the boy playing companies had managers instead of
shareholding actors, but the Whitefriars
collective was unique even among the boy companies. Whitefriars produced many famous boy actors, some of whom later went
on to greater fame in adult companies.
At the Whitefriars playhouse in 1607–1608, the
Children of the King’s Revels catered to a homogenous audience with a particular
taste for homoerotic puns and situations, which resulted in a small but
significant body of plays that are markedly different from those written for the
amphitheatres and even for other hall playhouses. Ben
Jonson’s Epicoene, written for the reopening
of the Whitefriars playhouse in December 1609
although not specifically for the Children of the King’s Revels (by then
defunct), displays many of the traits for which the earlier Whitefriars plays were notorious.
Theatre
Michael Drayton and Thomas Woodford brought the Whitefriars theatre into being ca. 1606, converting the refectory of
a former Carmelite monastery into a private playhouse (MacIntyre 3;
Theatre Sites). A small indoor playhouse, lit artificially by candles, the Whitefriars was 85’ by 35’ (Leech and Craik 112, 123; MacIntyre 3; Gurr 359).
Whitefriars cost more to attend than public
amphitheatre playhouses. Higher prices excluded some potential playgoers, and
for this reason hall playhouses are sometimes known as
privateplayhouses, although they were not private in the sense that one had to belong to a club to attend; in keeping with the same logic, amphitheatre playhouses are sometimes known as
publicplayhouses. Whitefriars was the first private playhouse to be built outside the city walls, west of Ludgate between the Fleet River and the Temple (Leech and Craik 112, 123). The theatre was
a disreputable venture, located in a notorious brothel district(Bly 2); we do not know if the theatre acquired its bad reputation because of its location, or if the location was selected because the venture was disreputable in itself.
The Whitefriars had a discovery space, two stage
exits on either side, and an above. The above could hold probably no more than
three actors comfortably, and took about a minute to reach after exiting the
stage (MacIntyre 9). The discovery
space was much wider than the exits on either side, and could hold such large
properties as a canopied bed or chairs (9,
13). The tiring house could be reached through the exits and possibly
the discovery space (21).
After the Children of the Queen’s Revels—also called the second Whitefriars company—left in 1614, the Whitefriars building continued to be used as a
theatre. The Prince Charles’ Men may have used the theatre after the boy
companies left. The theatre was torn down in 1629 and replaced by the Salisbury
Court Theatre (
Whitefriars Theatre). Unfortunately, the Salisbury Court Theatre did not survive the Great Fire of 1666, and there is no longer a theatre at that location. Today, a memorial plaque remains the only evidence of the site (
Theatre Sites).
Managers of the Children of the Queen’s Revels
Henry Evans created the Children of the Chapel (later the Children of the Queen’s
Revels). He leased the Blackfriars playhouse from
Richard and Cuthbert
Burbage in September 1600. Evans brought in Nathaniel Giles as a
choirmaster, and Giles delivered most of the boy actors (Gurr 347–48). Evans also brought in financiers:
Edward Kirkham, William Rastall, and Thomas Kendall. When Queen Anne became their patron in 1604, she assigned them their own
personal Revels Master, or censor, Samuel Daniel (350). Daniel lost his job in 1606 when he allowed
Philotas to be staged. The company then came under
the control of the Master of the Revels, Sir Edmund
Tilney, who already had authority over all of the adult playing
companies (353).
In 1606, the Children of the Queen’s Revels refocused their aim, and no longer
produced sharp political satires as they had before. They continued doing plays
that catered to sophisticated and educated tastes, like Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle. A new financier, Robert
Keysar (a former goldsmith), may have initiated this change. Keysar took a more
active role than the previous financiers (353). In 1608, Evans left the company and it fell mostly into
Keysar’s hand. The company then moved to the Whitefriars playhouse and merged with the remnants of the Children of
the King’s Revels. Court musician Philip Rosseter joined Keysar in managing
(MacIntyre 1). The managing team
of the merged Whitefriars and Blackfriars boys also included Robert Daborne, John
Tarbock, Richard Jones, and Robert Brown (Gurr 357). The new management of the Whitefriars company was different than the management of 1607–1608
when the Children of the King’s Revels played at Whitefriars, but seems to have been effective because Whitefriars remained the venue of boy playing
companies until 1613.
The Whitefriars Collective
The theatre company at Whitefriars was
organized in a radically different way from any other Renaissance theatre
company in that it operated as a collective. The structure of the playing
company was not the rigid hierarchy found in many adult playing companies;
rather all of the adults at Whitefriars
worked together in many different areas (Bly 121). Even the boys, as they began to grow into youths,
helped with some of the management and playwriting.
There are nine known writers for the Children of the King’s Revels. Only two
were professional playwrights: John Day and
Michael Drayton. One, Robert Armin, was an actor. The other six were amateur
playwrights: Lording Barry, Lewis Machin, Gervase Markham, John Mason,
Edward Sharpham, and John Cooke. Barry and Mason only wrote one play apiece.
The other amateur playwrights often had their very first plays produced at
Whitefriars, including Machin, Markham,
and Armin (3, 116–17). Whitefriars plays were probably written
collaboratively for the most part. There are certain plot devices, shared
puns, and phrases of speech that recur in many of the Children of the King’s
Revels (120). Some of the
playwrights functioned as editors for each other’s works, revising plays and
adding their own touches as they went (Cathcart 18).
The playwrights were often financially involved in the Whitefriars company. Barry, Drayton, and Mason
were all shareholders of the company. Many of the playwrights who were not
shareholders were still financially involved in the theatre, buying
properties for their plays and lending money when needed (Bly 116–17). Since most members of the Whitefriars collective were involved in more
than one capacity, it is not surprising that there is one significant gap in
our knowledge of the Whitefriars management:
who chose the plays to be performed. This decision was possibly made by the
group. With involvement of the playwrights, actors, managers, and financiers
of the Children of the King’s Revels, the collaborative nature of the Whitefriars Collective was unique among
playing companies and theatres of its time.
Boy Companies at Whitefriars
Company at Whitefriars
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1607 — Children of the King’s Revels (sometimes called the first Children of Whitefriars)
-
1609 — Children of Whitefriars (sometimes called the second Children of Whitefriars)
-
1610 — Children of the Queen’s Revels
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1613 — Lady Elizabeth’s Men
The Children of the King’s Revels played at the Whitefriars theatre from the spring of 1607 to the spring of 1608
(Bly 126). Some theatre historians
estimate that the Children of the King’s Revels had a production history of only
eight months, while others estimate closer to twelve months. The Children of the
King’s Revels were not actually licensed by the King to use his name. The
Children of the King’s Revels were alternately known as the Children of Whitefriars, which makes them the first Children
of Whitefriars company (2). It is probable that the remnants of the
Children of the King’s Revels joined the Children of the Queen’s Revels.
Boy companies often changed names and performed at different venues (including
both Whitefriars and Blackfriars). For instance, the Children of the Chapel
Royal in 1600 became the Children of the Queen’s Revels in 1604, when Queen Anne became their patron (Gurr 350). This same company was renamed the
Children of the Blackfriars in 1608, then the Children
of Whitefriars in 1609. In 1610, Phillip Rosseter
secured for them the name of the Children of the Queen’s Revels again (MacIntyre 1). This company played at
the Blackfriars Theatre from 1600 to 1608. On 11
August 1608, the Burbages reclaimed the Blackfriars lease, and the company reassembled at Whitefriars in 1609, for which reason the
historians call it the second Whitefriars company
(Bly 90, 130). This company merged
with an adult playing company ca. 1613, the Lady Elizabeth’s Men. They moved to
the Hope Theatre in 1614 (
Whitefriars Theatre).
Actors
The boy playing companies produced many renowned actors. As time passed, the boys
began to grow older. Some stayed with their companies and took on different
responsibilities, as assistant managers or playwrights, for example. Other boy
players joined adult companies as they grew up.
Nathan Field began as a boy player with the Children of the King’s Revels and
continued acting with the boy playing companies as they merged and changed
names. Field was still with the Children of the Queen’s Revels when he was 22
(Gurr 358), contributing to the
company in the capacities of actor and writer. He wrote two plays, A Woman is a Weathercock in 1609 and Amends for Ladies in 1612. Field stayed with the Children of the
Queen’s Revels when it joined with the Lady Elizabeth’s Men, and remained with
the company during the tenuous merger with the Prince Charles’ Men. In 1617,
Field became a principal actor for the King’s Men. One of Field’s leading roles
was that of Antonio in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. Field did not write another complete
play, although he did sometimes contribute to other plays, mostly collaborating
with Massinger, Beaumont, and Fletcher (MacIntyre 35).
William Barksted was a boy clown. He played the role of Morose in Epicoene. Barksted grew up with boy companies, and may
have helped to write some of the plays for the second Whitefriars Boys (Bly 121).
He was a fine actor who made the transition into adult playing companies
smoothly, joining the Lady Elizabeth’s men when the Whitefriars company folded (122).
William Ostler and John Underwood were actors for the Blackfriars boys. When the Blackfriars
boys moved to Whitefriars, Ostler and Underwood
did not move with them. Instead, Ostler and Underwood joined the King’s Men and
continued playing at their familiar venue, Blackfriars, in the winter and the
Globe amphitheatre in the summer (Gurr 358).
The Boys and their Plays
Blackfriars Boys’ Plays
The most notorious play of the boy playing companies is probably Eastward Ho!, which
satirized the influx of Scotsmen who followed the royal family southwardsin 1605 (Gurr 351). This play did not please King James, who ordered the playwrights -- Chapman, Jonson, and Marston -- imprisoned. This satire was followed by John Day’s The Isle of Gulls in 1606, which continued to mock the Scottish nobles, and did not please the King. Also in 1606, Philotas was performed, a play about the 1601 political scandal known as the Essex rebellion, when some nobility of the Essex faction tried to stage a coup. Some of the nobility had been forgiven and had reentered the court; they were not impressed by this play that hit too close to home. After Philotas, the King took more power over the Blackfriars Boys by putting it under the jurisdiction of the Revels Master1 (Gurr 353). The Blackfriars Boys continued to cater to a sophisticated audience, but no longer had the leeway to perform such pointed political comedies.
Whitefriars Boys’ Plays
The first Whitefriars Boys, the Children of
the King’s Revels, were known for staging comedies that pushed the envelope
of good taste. The plays were full of homoerotic puns, and attracted a
specific audience. The plays shared not only linguistic similarities, but
also similar character types, such as the bawdy virgin. These similarities
point towards collaborative playwriting on the part of the Whitefriars
collective. Capitalizing on the all-boy casts, the plays indulge
in two equally untenable suggestions: either they celebrate wanton, desirous women or they promote laughing, homoerotic boys(Bly 14). The patrons were often in the neighbourhood to go to the nearby brothels. Prostitutes would have frequented the theatres to meet clients. Early modern homosexuals (although this word was not coined until 1892) would have gone to Whitefriars: the homoerotic jokes were not to condemn them, but, according to Mary Bly, to engage them (20–21). Children of the King’s Revels produced only one tragedy that we know of, The Turke by John Mason (61). Although The Turke offers a change from the normal comedies played at Whitefriars, it too is rife with homoeroticism (4).
After the Children of the King’s Revels dissolved, the second Whitefriars Boys company, the Children of the
Queen’s Revels continued the tradition of staging sexually daring plays.
They performed plays like Jonson’s Epicoene, which
features a boy player playing a boy who is pretending to be a woman.
Plays Performed at the Whitefriars
AUTHOR▼ | PLAY▼ | DATE PERFORMED▼ | COMPANY2 ▼ |
Anonymous | Every Woman in Her Humour | 1607–1608 | uncertain |
Armin, Robert | Two Maids of Moreclacke | 1607–1608 | Children of the King’s Revels |
Barry, Lorden (and John Cooke?) | Ram-Alley or Merrie Tricks | 1607–1608 | Children of the King’s Revels |
Beaumont, Francis, and John Fletcher | The Coxcomb | ca. 1608–1610 | Children of the Queen’s Revels? |
Beaumont, Francis, and John Fletcher | Cupid’s Revenge | ca. 1611 | Children of the Queen’s Revels |
Beaumont, Francis, and John Fletcher | The Scornful Lady | ca. 1613–1616 3 (printed 1616) | Lady Elizabeth’s Men |
Chapman, George | The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois | ca. 1610 | Children of the Queen’s Revels? |
Day, John | Humour out of Breath | 1608 | Children of the King’s Revels |
Day, John | Law Tricks or Who Would Have Thought It | 1609 and later 4 | Children of the Queen’s Revels |
Field, Nathan | A Woman is a Weathercock | ca. 1609 | Children of the Queen’s Revels |
Field, Nathan | Amends for Ladies | ca. 1611 | Lady Elizabeth’s Men |
Jonson, Ben | Epicoene | 1609 | Children of the Queen’s Revels |
Marston, John, William Barkstead, and Lewis Machin | The Insatiate Countess | ca. 1610 | Children of the Queen’s Revels |
Mason, John | The Turke | 1607–1608 | Children of the King’s Revels |
Markham, Gervase, and Lewis Machin | The Dumb Knight | 1607–1608 | Children of the King’s Revels |
Middleton, Thomas and Thomas Dekker (and Lording Barry?) | The Family of Love | 1607? 5 | Children of the King’s Revels |
Shapman, Edward | Cupid’s Whirligig | 1607 | Children of the King’s Revels |
Epicoene
Epicoene epitomizes the themes and characteristics of
the plays written for the boy companies. The very title -- a grammatical term
for Greek and Latin nouns that
without changing their grammatical gender, may denote either sex(OED epicene, adj.1.) -- suggests the androgyny presented on stage when a boy played a woman. Epicoene has a
fascination with gender, a category of signification which, through stage conventions of crossdressing and the deployment of boy actors to play women’s parts was represented as protean and ambiguous(Comensoli and Russell 1).
Epicoene is overtly homoerotic: Morose marries
Epicoene, who turns out to be a young boy. Homoerotic relationships seem to be
natural in the world of the play. Clerimont has an
ingle at home(1.1.24): a boy kept for homosexual pleasure (OED ingle, n.2.). It is possible that Epicoene was Dauphine’s ingle. The wits (Truewit, Dauphine, and Clerimont), with whom playgoers are invited to identify, praise these relationships and see them as normal. Truewit lists Clerimont’s ingle as one of the distracting pleasures of a London life of leisure. Dauphine benefits from his relationship with Epicoene economically, and their relationship has a positive outcome whether or not it is sexual (DiGangi 73). Stepping back from the world of the play, we can say that all of the relationships are potentially homoerotic because the supposed women on stage are, in reality, boys.
Epicoene does not derogate homosexuality; rather, it is
foolishness that is disparaged. Morose, who foolishly thinks that he can have a
wife who will be silent, is humiliated by being forced to announce his
impotence. The gulls in the play, La Foole and Daw, are also punished for their
witlessness and cowardice. Truewit amuses himself by setting up a duel between
La Foole and Daw, to entertain himself, Clerimont, Dauphine, and the
Collegiates. Dauphine gives Daw’s backside six kicks and tweaks La Foole’s nose.
These are both emasculating gestures, but the real humiliation is having their
swords taken; the sword is almost inevitably a phallic signifier in Renaissance
drama. Morose, La Foole, and Daw are all emasculated by the loss of their
swords. This loss is similar to the
lackascribed to all women on stage: the idea that the
female body is by definition defective insofar as it is present at all,based on the Galenic
one-sexmodel that defines women as incomplete and imperfect men (Adelman 25). The gulls are therefore punished for their foolishness by being twinned with the imperfect bodies of women.
Epicoene was certainly written for the Whitefriars
playhouse. However, Jonson, unlike most
playwrights, edited his own plays for publication in his Works of 1616. Therefore, the text we have is not a wholly reliable
guide to Whitefriars staging practices. In 4.5,
the duel scene, Jonson places all of the
Collegiates in the above with Clerimont. This staging is probably wishful
thinking on Jonson’s part because the above could
realistically hold no more than three actors. Jonson probably added the stage direction when he was supervising
publication of his play (MacIntyre
10).
Epicoene is typical of Whitefriars plays because of its homoerotic connotations. Epicoene displays
one of the inherent features of the theatrical occasion [, which] is a ritualistic celebration -- however indirect -- of the spectators themselves(Shapiro 416). That Jonson was aware of his audience is evident in his Prologue, which addresses the
men and daughters of Whitefriars(Prol. 24). The
men [. . .] of Whitefriarsprobably refers to the playgoers of 1607–1608, and the
daughters of Whitefriarsto the prostitutes who worked the audience. Jonson’s Epicoene celebrates Whitefriars’ unique audience with clever use of boy players and witty language.
For information about the Whitefriars Theatre, a modern map marking the site where the it once stood, and a walking tour that will
take you to the site, visit the Shakespearean London Theatres (ShaLT) article on Whitefriars Theatre.
Notes
- See MoEML’s encyclopedia article on the Office of the Revels. (JT)↑
- The Children of the Queen’s Revels referred to here is the amalgamation of the Blackfriars Boys and the Children of the King’s Revels (the first Whitefriars Boys)↑
- Not certainly performed at Whitefriars↑
- Written for another theatre and played again at Whitefriars.↑
- Written for another theatre and played again at Whitefriars.↑
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