Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Kristýna Obermajerová

Richard Burbage: The Life, Career and Acting Qualities of an Elizabethan Player Bachelor’s Thesis Diploma

Supervisor: Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph. D.

2009

1

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author’s signature

2

I would like to thank Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph.D. for his immense dedication and valuable advice. I would also like to thank Ms. Karen Senior for her kind help in the search for the primary and secondary sources.

3 Table of Contents

1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………..…..5

2 Richard Burbage: the Son, Brother, Husband, Father and Grandfather…..……..….8

3 Richard Burbage: the Businessman …………………………………………….....15

3.1 Social Standing of Early Modern Players…………………..………………15

3.2 The Family Inheritance and Richard‘s Involvement in It…………...….….16

3.3 The New System of Housekeepers………………………………….……...19

3.4 Richard Burbage and His Financial Matters………………………….….…20

3.5 Richard Burbage: the Painter…………………………………………….…23

4 Acting in the Early Modern Period……………………….…………….…………26

4.1 Availability of Sources………………………………………….……….…26

4.2 Acting and Rhetorical Terminology…………………………….………….26

4.3 Influences of Rhetoric on Acting………………….……………….…...….28

4.4 Excellent Acting…………………………………………………….……...37

4.5 Popularity of Early Modern Players………...…………..…….……....……38

5 Richard Burbage: the Player…………………………………………………….…42

5.1 Richard Burbage and His Engagement in Acting Companies……...………42

5.2 Richard Burbage and His Roles…………………………………………….43

5.3 Richard Burbage and His Success and Fame………………………………46

6 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….…...54

7 Czech Resume……………………………………………………………….…….56

8 Works Cited and Consulted…………….…………………………………….……57

9 Appendices……………………………………………………………………..….63

4 1 Introduction

This thesis deals with Richard Burbage, one of the most famous and most reputable English players of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, and the performer of the leading parts in Shakespeare‘s tragedies. Although much has been written about the playwrights of the time, particularly about William Shakespeare and his contribution to the dramatic world, not so much has been written about the performers who were giving life to the words and characters on the paper. It is regrettable how little is known about the players of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, their personal lives, their careers, the roles they played and their styles of acting. The situation is still more unfortunate when it is realized that some of the documents concerning this kind of information are actually either ill-founded or even forged and thus they cannot be considered to be reliable sources of information. Therefore the aim of this thesis is to summarize the basic well-founded facts about the life and career of Richard Burbage and to refute some groundless theories concerning his life. Finally, the implication of this thesis should be for any reader to realize that without the knowledge of the players and their acting styles, one will never be able to fully understand the Elizabethan and Jacobean apprehension of the plays themselves.

There are many angles and perspectives from which the topic could be looked at: sociological, literalistic, comparative, economic, archeological, etc. For the aim of this thesis, the most suitable will be that approach in which I will keep to the records and I will avoid any speculation, deduction and evaluation unless indicated otherwise. And for maintenance of authenticity all the quotations will be adduced in the original spelling. As a reliable source of information and records I will consider any copy of an original letter, poem, document, judicial record and public notice, or any material referring to such a copy. The only exceptions will be the documents cited and referred

5 to in the works of John Payne Collier1, who was an English Shakespearean scholar but who is nowadays more famous – or rather infamous – for his forgery. And because some of Collier‘s documents concerning Richard Burbage have been discovered and seen only by Collier himself, I will not regard them as genuine unless some other author offers a reference to the same source as Collier. In all cases, however, these quotations taken from Collier‘s works will always be properly indicated.

The content of this thesis is divided into four chapters, each of which treats one particular sphere of Burbage‘s life and career. The chapters are ordered in a way which roughly corresponds to the chronological ordering. The chapter called ―Richard

Burbage: the Son, Brother, Husband, Father and Grandfather‖ focuses mainly on the numerous theories of date and place of Burbage‘s birth, his family relations and further on speculation about the date and cause of his death.

The chapter called ―Richard Burbage: the Businessman‖ provides an insight into

Burbage‘s economic situation, his social standing in comparison with the social standing of other players of his time; his sources of income; and the estimated value of his shares in the Globe and the Blackfriars. This chapter will also inquire into another profession for which Burbage was praised and which represented an additional source of earning money, i.e. painting.

―General Introduction to Early Modern Acting‖ is a chapter which aims to make the reader acquainted with the acting style of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Due to the lack of reliable documents and information concerning the acting style of the early modern era, the art of acting will be compared and contrasted to another performing art, the art of oratory, which will, however, reveal much about the acting style at the theatres. This choice is an intentional one since these two kinds of performing arts

1 John Payne Collier (1789-1883)

6 influenced each other very much. Moreover, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries oratory was a common practice at schools and it had a considerable effect on the style of acting and on theatre in general. Further on, the chapter will summarise the general image of what was considered to be excellent acting and primarily all qualities any successful player had to have in order to meet the requirements of that period. In the last part it will be shown how unstable the fame of actors was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and how the popular style developed until Richard Burbage achieved his greatest fame.

The last chapter consists of three subchapters dealing with the sphere of life for which Richard Burbage is most valued and praised, i.e. acting. The first of these subchapters summarises Burbage‘s engagement in various acting troupes. The second subchapter presents a complete summary of the roles Burbage played and it also provides some of the Alexander Leggatt‘s2 finding of the textual analysis of these roles, through which one can learn more about Burbage‘s style of acting. In the last subchapter, I will consider all materials written during or relatively shortly after

Burbage‘s death. These are valuable as sources of information which can reveal some new and amend the already ascertained facts about the acting qualities of Richard

Burbage as well as about his personal life, success and fame he enjoyed during his life.

They will thus provide a complex summary of the most important facts concerning

Richard Burbage and his career.

2 Alexander Leggatt (publishing since 1973)

7 2 Richard Burbage: the Son, Brother, Husband, Father and Grandfather

There are not many things about the personal life of Richard Burbage which are known with certainty. First of all, it is the date and place of his birth the historians are not sure of. And the inconsistency in spelling names makes any research even more complicated. It is not unusual to find the surname, Burbage, spelled in two different ways within one record, as in: ―1608. Juliet Burbege, the daughter of Richard Burbidge, was buryed the 12 of Spetember‖ (qtd. in Collier and Shakespeare Society 33).3 Collier mentions that in his research he came across these varieties: Burbage, Burbege,

Burbadge, Burbidge, Burbedge, and Burbadg (Collier and Shakespeare Society 2). The

National Archives mentions other, older, varieties of the place name ‗Burebage‘ too:

Burebach, Borebach, Buberge, and Burbach.

In history, there were many theories of when and where Richard Burbage was born and there were also numerous suggestions of how to ascertain these data. Some of them tried to state the date and place according to various vague hints in letters and documents from Burbage‘s life or the period immediately following his death. Others even tried to tell Richard‘s age by stating that Richard‘s characters must have been approximately at the same age as Burbage himself. This assumption is, however, based on a wrong presupposition that in the early modern era the theatre endeavored after realistic cast and theatre.4 As for the theories concerning the place of Burbage‘s birth, the suggested locations included such towns and cities as Stratford-upon-Avon and

Hertfordshire. None of the theories, however, led to a decisive conclusion. Relatively recently, a new discovery was made and it says that ―Cuthbert and Richard Burbage were baptized at St. Stephen Coleman Street [London] on 15 June 1565 and 7 July

3 Quoted form Malone‘s Shakespeare by Boswell, iii, 183. 4 More about the realistic theatre in chapter 4.2.

8 1568‖ (relatively) (Schoenbaum5, Elizabethan 31). These dates seem to confirm the assumptions made in the older theories. None the less it still cannot be concluded that this discovery makes the problem resolved once and for all. The main reason for the lack of certainty is the fact that the entries in the record ―sometimes appear as ‗Bridges,‘

‗Brigges,‘ and variants,‖ which was a name of a family living in the parish for quite a long time (Schoenbaum, Elizabethan 31). Some experts therefore claim that these

Bridges were not one family with the acting family of Burbages. Moreover, James

Burbage always signed as ‗Burbadge‘ and not as ‗Brigge,‘ as one of the records has it

(Schoenbaum, Elizabethan 31). As mentioned above, this thesis is not an interpretative one, and therefore I will avoid drawing any conclusions unless all but one theory are provably forged or fictive, which is not this case.

What is certain is the fact that Richard Burbage was a younger son of James

Burbage, the well known player of Leicester‘s Men, builder of the Theatre and, later on, the manager of the Chamberlain‘s Men. It was just his father who brought young

Richard to the theatre and who had the greatest influence on his designated career.

Richard had one older brother, Cuthbert, and three younger sisters, Alice (baptized in

March 1575), Joane (buried in August 1582) and Ellen (buried in December 1596), but not much is known about the girls (Stopes6 139; Mary). Hardly anything is known also about his mother. The only definite information is that concerning her name. Her first name was Ellen or Hellen (spelled differently in different documents) and her maiden name was Brayne, as she was a daughter of Margaret and John Brayne of London,

(Gurr7 116). This relationship with the Brayne family turned out to be extremely important to the Burbages. John Brayne was the builder of the Red Lion amphitheatre

5 Samuel Shoenbaum (1927-96) 6 Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (1841-1929) 7 Andrew John Gurr (1936-)

9 from 1567 and when James Burbage asked him for a loan for building the Theatre,

Brayne agreed and lent his brother-in-law 1,000marks (Stopes220).8

As to the place of living, it is recorded that in 1576 the Burbage family had already resided in Halliwell Street (spelled also as Holywell Street), Shoreditch, which was not in the most respectable parts of the city (Stopes 31). After the death of James

Burbage, Cuthbert inherited the bigger house after his father and Richard Burbage moved into a slightly smaller house in the same street (Stopes 151). Based on records from the register of St Leonard‘s, Shoreditch, proving that another famous player of that time, Richard Tarlton, lived in the Halliwell Street just like the Burbages, John Payne

Collier suggests that the famous comedian could have stood godfather to Richard

Burbage. Nevertheless, there are no proofs either acknowledging or disproving this suggestion and therefore it cannot be taken to be nothing else than a possible theory.

As far as the childhood of Richard Burbage is concerned, it was Martin Holmes9 in his Shakespeare and Burbage who offered the most detailed description of what his early life could have looked like. Richard Burbage had the advantage over other players that he was a son of the builder and owner of the first successful permanent playhouse, the Theatre, and that his father probably used little Richard as an odd-job-boy who would do anything necessary in the theatre, off the stage as well as on it. This seems to be even more probable since he was the younger of the two sons of James Burbage and

Cuthbert was more likely to be taught how to manage the theatre. While working in the theatre Richard became very likely acquainted with the players and it is possible that from certain age, he could occasionally play some girl-roles or bit parts and be taught by his colleagues how to play the roles properly (Holmes 5-7). Another theory concerning his childhood says that while working as the odd-job boy, Richard could

8 A more detailed account of this loan will be provided in the chap. 3.2. 9 Martin Rivington Holmes (1905-1997)

10 have had a share in painting and decorating the stage, and thus be able to learn or to be taught the basic use of work with colours and technique of painting, which would become so important in his future life.10

Another record concerning the private life of Richard Burbage dates back to 7

October 1601 when the name of ―Winfret burbidg‖ is mentioned in a casebook of doctor Simon Forman. This could be interpreted in the way that by this date she was already married to Richard (Schoenbaum, Elizabethan 31). The actual date of marriage of Richard and Winifred and actually anything relating to the origin of Winifred, her maiden name, social status, dwelling is not known. In 1602, their daughter Julia or

Juliet was born. She was either the first or the second out of eight children Richard had with his wife. This uncertainty arises from the lack of documentation concerning baptism of Richard Burbage, the first son of Richard Burbage. For lucid summary of the known dates of baptisms and burials of all Richard Burbage‘s children, I present a table based on findings of records at the St. Leonard‘s Register in Shoreditch. Some of these transcriptions, however, may not be in the exact form of the original transcription records of the St. Leonard‘s Registers.

Table 1

Dates of Baptisms and Burials of Children of Richard Burbage11

NAME DATE OF BAPTISM DATE OF BURIAL Richard Burbage ??? Richard Burbage, son of Richard, 16th Aug., 1607. Julia Burbage Julia Burbedge, daughter of 1608. Juliet Burbege, the Richard Burbedge, 2nd daughter of Richard Jan., 1602-3, Halliwell. Burbidge, was burryed the 12 of September. 12 Francis Burbage Frances Burbadge, Francis Burbedge, the daughter of Richard daughter of Richard Burbadge, 16th Sept., 1604. Burbadge, 19th Sept. 1604, Halliwell Street.

10 Richard Burbage‘s painting will be the content of the chap. 3.4. 11 If not stated otherwise, all data are taken from Stopes‘s Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage, p. 139-42. 12 Data taken from Collier‘s Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare (1846), p. 33.

11 Anne Burbage Anne Burbadge, daughter of Richard, 8th August, 1607, Halliwell Street. Julia Burbage Julia Burbadge, daughter of Julia Burbadge, daughter of Richard Burbadge, 27th Richard Burbadge, 15th Dec., 1614, Halliwell Aug., 1615, Halliwell Street. Street. Winifred Burbage Winifred Burbadge, Wynefryd Burbadge, daughter of Richard daughter of Richard Burbadge, 10th Oct., 1613, Burbadge, 14th Oct., 1616, Halliwell Street. Holywell Street. William Burbage William Burbadge, son of Richard Burbadge, 6th Nov., 1616 Sara Burbage Sara Burbedge, daughter of Sara Burbadge, 29th April, Winifred Burbadge, widow, 1625, Hallywell Street. 5th Aug., 1619, Halliwell Street.

Hence it is visible that the only two descendants of Richard Burbage who did not die in their childhood and who even outlived their parents, Richard and Winifred, were Anne and William. Interestingly enough, it is supposed that both the surviving children were named after Burbage‘s colleague and friend William Shakespeare and his wife Anne.

Naming William after the playwright seems to be still more probable because the baby boy was only born several months after William Shakespeare died. This name theory sounds very credibly, but it should not be forgotten that both Anne and William were rather usual names at the time. Even though not much is known about either of the children, it is assumed that neither of them was engaged with acting. Anne was a girl and thus she was disqualified from performing, and William, though he is documented to inherit a share of the Blackfriars, is not mentioned in any document as player.

Stopes claims that she had found some documents evidencing that certain

―William Burbidge‖ worked in Whitechapel, a London district, as a tailor (135). In addition to that, Stopes adds that a son of William Burbage was to be born in Barbados

12 (135). However, as she says herself, it is only a theory that these Burbages were actual descendants of Richard Burbage, the player.

The last known information relating to the personal life of Richard Burbage concerns the speculations about his death. Just as there is much uncertainty about date and place of his birth, there is also some uncertainty and many theories concerning the date and cause of his death. None the less, the most probable and at the same time the most widely acknowledged date of his burial is 16 March 1619. It is so because this date was mentioned in more than one source and, primarily, in the St. Leonard‘s register in

Shoreditch, which literally says: ―1618[13]. Richard Burbadge, player, was buried xvjth of March—Halliwell Street‖ (qtd. in Collier and Shakespeare Society 45).14 Moreover, there is one famous elegy which contains the date of Burbage‘s death even in its title,

―A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the famous Actor Richard Burbage who died on

Saturday in Lent the 13th March 1618[/9]‖ (Wickham, Berry, and Ingram 181).15 As visible, the title does not only disclose the precise date of his death but it also specifies that it was the third Saturday in Lent.

As for the cause of his death, there are two possible explanations. The first of them, advocated by George Chalmers16, says that Richard Burbage died of plague and the other says that he had a paralysis. The second theory, claiming that Burbage had a stroke, seems a great deal more credible because in the above mentioned ―A Funeral

Elegy on the Death of the famous Actor Richard Burbage who died on Saturday in Lent the 13th March 1618[/9]‖ the symptoms of paralysis are clearly described:

13 According to modern computation, the year 1618 would be seen as 1619. 14 Quoted from St. Leonard‘s register, Shoreditch. 15 In her Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage Stopes claims that there are five versions of the elegy but several of them seen and published only by Collier himself and therefore they should be taken with a pinch of salt. In order to guarantee reliability and authenticity of this thesis I use the version of the funeral elegy as it was quoted in Wickham, Berry and Ingram‘s English Professional Theatre,1530-1660, which documents the authenticity of the source of their version. For the whole poem see Appendix 1 16 George Chalmers (1742-1825)

13 Hadst thou but spoke to death, and us‘d thy power

Of thy enchanting tongue, at that first hour

Of his assault, he had let fall his dart

And been quite charm‘d by thy all-charming art.

This he well knew, and to prevent this wrong

He therefore first made seizure on his tongue;

Then on ye rest, 'twas easy, by degrees;

(37-43; qtd. in Wickham, Berry, and Ingram 182)

Richard Burbage was buried at the Saint Leonard‘s churchyard in Shoreditch, which is the same churchyard where his father, brother and some of his friends, predecessors and fellow-players are buried. Namely, it is William Somers, Richard

Tarlton, Gabriel Spencer, William Sly and Richard Cowley, all colleagues from the

Chamberlain‘s – King‘s Men, which shows how good relationships they had with each other (―Cuthbert‖).

It is recorded that after Burbage‘s death, Winifred, his wife, remarried and this time she married Richard‘s friend and colleague from the King‘s Men.

14 3 Richard Burbage, the Businessman

3.1 Social Standing of Early Modern Players

The vocation of a professional player was from its emergence a highly controversial and by no means is it easy to talk about the professional players in early modern England in its entirety. At the beginning of the era professional theatre, the players met with a huge obstacle from the side of the Puritans, who ―saw no difference between bear-baiting, fencing matches, playing and prostitution‖ and who thus condemned it as contemptible and immoral (Gurr 32). Talking about London, the centre of early modern theatre life, the players were banned from performing in local inns, the original venue of their performances. And also the playhouses which were meant to become playhouses had to be built outside the City jurisdiction (Gurr 32). Much dirt was thrown at the players and many restrictions were issued by the City Fathers. Even the Queen adopted some measures which were not particularly popular at the time of their issuing but which eventually granted protection and higher status for the best acting companies and thus raised the standard of professional English theatre. Although the players outside London had harsh lives and they were actually roughing it, the best theatre companies in London did really well and at the times of prosperity (i.e. at the time when the theatres were not closed due to plague or any other reason) the companies flourished (Chambers17, Elizabethan 1: 348). And together with the companies, the people working in the theatre business prospered as well. This applied mostly to the housekeepers and sharers, who ―growne so wealthy that they expected to be knighted‖ (Chambers, Elizabethan 2: 350). And even though not knighted it was in this elite society that Richard Burbage found his place with his company.

17 Edmund Kerchever Chambers (1866-1954)

15 It is no wonder that Burbage was quite rich because it has to be realised that he earned his money from more than one source. Naturally, he was primarily the housekeeper of two playhouses, the Blackfriars and the Globe; he was also a sharer in the Chamberlain‘s, later on the King‘s Men; in addition to this he was primarily a player and as such he earned some money too; and above all he eked out his salary with occasional painting.

3.2 The Family Inheritance and Richard’s Involvement in It

In 1576, James Burbage, the player of the Leicester‘s Men and father of Richard and Cuthbert, borrowed from his brother-in-law, John Brayne, a large amount of money to build the Theatre on the ground owned by Giles Allen, who hired him the plot for twenty-one years.18 Nevertheless, not everything went as it was supposed to and there is a preserved record of a lawsuit Mrs Brayne carried against James Burbage (Stopes 154-

58). 19 The dispute between the Burbages and the widow of John Brayne was a long and nasty one and it gave the whole Burbage family hard lives. Some of the members of the family were, however, involved in this dispute more than the others.

As for the involvement of Richard Burbage in this law-suit, his name was mentioned in the above mentioned document as a defendant along with his father,

James Burbage, and his siblings Cuthbert, Alice and Ellen. His name is noted in similar records of the trial between the family of Burbages and Mrs Brayne dating back to 21

May 1589, 4 November 1590, and 20 January 1591 (Stopes 160-61). Nevertheless, in most of the trial records which followed, Richard‘s name is either included in the term

―defendants‖ sharing thus the same rank with his sisters, or it is omitted completely so that only his father and his older brother would be named as the defending participants

18 In a judicial record of the dispute between Giles Allen and Peter Street, it is stated that the Theatre was worth £700 (Stopes 198). 19 The record bears only final number 8 as a date, which Stopes reads as 1588.

16 of the trial.20 Hence it is evident that Richard was not the leading defender of the family rights in the law-suit against Mrs Brayne. It does not mean, however, that he was as uninvolved as it may seem at the first sight. In a deposition from 6 February 1592 John

Alleyn, brother of Edward, referred to an event from November 1590, in which Richard

Burbage was said to defend the rights of his family against some supporters of Mrs.

Brayne‘s not only verbally but also physically with a broomstick in his hand

(Chambers, Elizabethan 2: 392). Despite this, from today‘s perspective, rather funny story with a broomstick, through official channels Richard was not significantly involved in the dispute over the Theatre because according to a record from 1589, John

Hide, the legal owner of the Theatre after John Brayne died, assigned the Theatre to

Cuthbert Burbage even though until his death, James still behaved as if the property was still his (Adams21 55; Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines 1: 358).22

But the unrelenting problems with Mrs. Brayne seemed still trivial in comparison with the serious problems the Burbages had with Giles Allen, the landowner of the plot on which the Theatre stood, who was refusing to extend the lease from 1576. Seeing these refusals on the part of Allen, James Burbage started to worry about the future of the Theatre and in 1596 he purchased from William More of Loseley

―seaven great upper Romes as they are now devided being all upon one flower‖ in the

Blackfriars precinct that would belong to him and ―his heirs‖ for ever (Stopes 170). As soon as he paid the promised £600 for his new property, he began to repair it and convert it into an indoor playhouse, which he finished by November (Halliwell-

20 For more detailed account of the documents see Stopes‘s Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage, p. 160-63. 21 Joseph Quincy Adams (1881-1946) 22 In 1589 John Hide, who after the death of John Brayne became the legal owner of the Theatre, declared that ―since he had forborne his money so long, he could do it no more, so as they that came first should have it of him‖ (qtd in Adams 55). And it was Cuthbert Burbage who brought the money first and became thus the actual owner of the Theatre.

17 Phillipps23, Outlines 1: 371; Edmond 105). As early as in November 1596, however, the inhabitants of the Blackfriars wrote a petition against the new playhouse ―which will grow to be a very great annoyance and trouble‖ (Stopes 174-75). The petition included also Lord Chamberlain, a Privy Councillor, and Lord Hunsdon, the patron of Burbage‘s company. 24 Oddly enough, as mentioned in a document from 21 January 1619, the petition was approved and plays were forbidden to be performed at the Blackfriars

(Stopes 176). Only a few months after finishing his reconstruction and only a few weeks before the expiration of the lease of the land on which the Theatre stood James Burbage died, being buried on 2 February 1597 (Stopes 139). His will, if he left any, is not recorded and therefore it is not known to whom he bequeathed the Blackfriars, whether to Cuthbert, to Richard or to both of them. Whoever inherited the Blackfriars, it must have felt extremely unfortunate because all the money invested in the purchase and reconstruction of the playhouse was actually blocked.25 The only possible solution how to earn at least some money was to let it for hire. Even though it is not documented who the heritor of the Blackfriars was, Chamber in his second volume of William

Shakespeare quotes the Bill of Robert Keysar which says that the person who let the

Blackfriars to Henry Evans in for £40 a year was Richard Burbage, without his brother

(Chambers, William 2: 64).

While his father was still alive, Richard‘s involvement in the whole state of affairs was not much significant except for the above mentioned participation in the law-suit with Mrs Brayne. But immediately after James‘s death, the situation changed radically. In 1597, when the lease of the ground on which the Theatre stood expired,

Cuthbert managed to have it for some time yet extended (Adams 61). On 28 December

23 James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-89) 24 Lord Chamberlain was Lord Cobham at the time. 25 J. Q. Adams in his Shakespearean Playhouses estimates that the investment in building the Theatre came up to £900 (198).

18 1598, however, Cuthbert with Peter Street, his brother Richard and some other people whom they entrusted secretly dismantled the Theatre and used the timber for construction of their new theatre, the Globe (Shapiro26 7). Richard Burbage was certainly present at this event because his name is mentioned in a report from 23

November 1601 (Stopes 220). In addition to this, he is also mentioned in other documents as one of the defenders in the subsequent disputes with Giles Allen over the consumed grass on the ground on which the Theatre stood (Stopes 220-23).

3.3 The New System of Housekeepers

After having experienced all this time full of uncertainty, the Burbages decided to reorganize the way of their investment of money in the playhouses. On 21 February

1599, Richard and Cuthbert had leased ground from Nicholas Brend upon which the

Globe was built later on and they divided between themselves one half of the stock and left the other half to be divided equally among other five housekeepers. (These were

―William Shakespeare, the said Augustine Phillipps, Thomas Pope, the said John

Heminges one of the defendants, and William Kempe‖ (Chambers, William 2: 53).) In return for maintaining the building and paying the annual fees, the housekeepers would receive one half of the money earned from the admission charges sitting at the galleries.

This system of housekeepers was at that time absolutely new and it turned out to be very successful. Its main advantage lay in the fact that the principal players were bound to the company and to the playhouse with their own money and thus everything they did was on behalf of the company. The system was so useful that it remained in exercise until Richard‘s death in 1619 and even afterwards. Even Edward Alleyn tried to

26 James S. Shapiro (1955-)

19 establish such a system in the Admiral‘s Men, but his try was not so successful

(Bentley27 15).

When on 10 August 1608 the Blackfriars returned from Henry Evans back in use to the Burbages, they immediately set up there the same system of housekeepers as was at the Globe (Chambers, William 2: 65). The leading sharers from the King‘s Men were brought in and made the housekeepers of the regained playhouse and each of them was given one seventh of the stock. (The housekeepers were concretely ―Ricardo Burbadge prefato Johanni Hemynges & quibusdam Willelmo Shakespeare, Cuthberto Burbadge,

Henrico Condell, Thome Evans‖ and ―Willelmo Slye‖ (Chambers, William 2: 63).)

Richard Burbage thus became a shareholder of two playhouses, the Globe and the Blackfriars, in one of which his share formed one fourth of the total stock and in the other it would be one seventh, later on one eighth (as the number of sharers was increased to eight some time later). In practice it meant that for the Blackfriars itself,

Richard and Cuthbert would pay together for the ground annually £7 5s., as the other five housekeepers would do (Chambers, William 2: 53).

3.4 Richard Burbage and His Financial Matters

To make the summary of Richard Burbage‘s business life complete and more specific, some data concerning his incomes and expenses should be mentioned here.

Despite the fact that no equivalent to Henslowe’s Diary was found, some rough estimates will be deduced and these will in consequence reveal more about the business life of the social status of Richard Burbage.

As mentioned above, shortly after the death of James Burbage‘s in 1597,

Richard Burbage was, with his brother, the inheritor of two playhouses. One of them was leased out for £40 a year and the other, being a property of his brother, was

27 Gerald Eades Bentley (1901-94)

20 demolished, transported and rebuilt at a high rate as a new playhouse, the Globe. The total price paid from the new housekeepers for the newly built Globe was £500 (Gurr

112). It, however, proved to be well-invested money because as the judicial record

Ostler v. Heminges from 1615 shows, one fourteenth of the Globe gave its housekeeper as much as £20 a year. For Richard Burbage it would thus be £70 a year only from the income of a housekeeper (Chambers, Elizabethan 1: 371).

When in 1608 the Burbages started using their new venue at the Blackfriars for the winter seasons, they decided on paying £40 a year, which was £5 14s. 4d for each sharer (Adams 225). The general expenses must have necessarily increased but the decision for keeping the playhouse for the King‘s Men was totally worth it because it is recorded that in 1635 ―the Blackfriars ‗house‘ was nearly twice as profitable as the

Globe‖ (Chambers, William 2: 69). Thus the estimated earnings of the housekeepers of the Blackfriars were about £90 a year (Chambers, William 2: 68).

As for the income of the actor-sharers28, it is not known how much the actor- sharers earned a year at the time when Richard was still alive. But if the calculations E.

K. Chambers made are correct, in 1635 the actor-sharers were to get annually on an average some £90 each (William 2: 69). This money was not any stable income and it should be taken with a pinch of salt because its actual amount depended heavily on various factors. The current income was counted rather awkwardly so that from the sum total of money gathered before the beginning of a performance as the entrance fee at the doors and at the galleries the money for the housekeepers (half of the takings from the galleries) was taken off. From this reduced sum all the outgoings were paid, i.e. money for the hired men, for ―purchase of playbooks from dramatists and the provision of properties and garments fro new productions,‖ etc. (Chambers, Elizabethan 1: 361). Yet

28 ‗Actor-sharer‘ is an established term and therefore it will be used the whole of the thesis, even though it would not correlate with the use of the term ‗player‘ in all other cases.

21 this very rest was divided among the actor-sharers (Chambers, William 2: 68). Their earnings thus varied according to the current attendance and depended also on all the expenses that were needed to be paid out. To make the list of the important sources of money complete, it must be noted that the King‘s Men would be also given some considerable amount of money for performances at the court.

The money matters, however, were not only about incomes. The expenses were immense and extremely diverse: ―the purchase of costumes and other playing materials, the wages of all their hirelings, and the various fees exacted by the Revels Office‖ (Gurr

69). As Gurr further mentions, ―it was also usual, at least in the early days, to show good-neighbourliness by making customary payments to the parish poor‖ (69).

The King‘s Men were, however, such a stable company that it had its own properties and it did not have to loan money. And even when it suffered from the lost of their home playhouse, the Globe, which by mere mischance caught fire during the performance of All is True on 29 June 1613, the housekeepers raised enough money to reconstruct the Globe, which cost them incredible £1400 (Adams 249). This shows how much the Burbage‘s system of housekeepers was stable and durable in comparison with the single-owner system, as was the case of the Admiral‘s Men with Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn at its head.

The financial success of the King‘s Men naturally affected the private life of

Richard Burbage. His high and relatively regular incomes thus explain the fact that to all appearance his house was richly equipped, as it is visible in a record on a burglary into the house of Richard Burbage from 21 February 1615 (Stopes 151). Nonetheless, the most conclusive document proving his financial provision and thus also his social status is his last will, which says that he left behind more than ―£300 land,‖ which, as

Collier explains, ―in the language of that time … meant £300 a year in land‖ (Collier

22 and Shakespeare Society 49). Even though Burbage‘s income was in no way insignificant, it was still markedly smaller than the income and provision of his much more commercially minded rival, Edward Alleyn (Gurr 91). The reason for this difference is easily traceable in the fact that, in contrast to Burbage, the policy of Alleyn and Henslowe could be denominated capitalistic (Chambers, Elizabethan 1: 360).

Moreover, Alleyn did not devote all his life to acting but for a part of his life he was only working as a manager and a businessman.

3.5 Richard Burbage: the Painter

Richard Burbage was a true Renaissance man; he was not only a player, a musician and a businessman, but, by all accounts, he was also a gifted painter, which even brought him some money. In the sixteenth century, it was not so uncommon for a player to be at the same time a painter but, according to Marguerite A. Tassi29, Richard

Burbage was the most famous of them (64).

Martin Holmes in his Shakespeare and Burbage surmised that Burbage acquired all presumptions for becoming a painter already in his childhood due to his ―early experiences in the joinery-and-decorating line‖ as a theatre-boy, to whom the decorating and painting of the colourful stage might have been left (9). And the fact that he actually did become a painter is manifested in several references to Burbage made by his friends and colleagues. To name just a few, Overbury‘s30 Characters contains a chapter called

―An Excellent Actor,‖ which was presumably written in honour of Richard Burbage.

Overbury mentions here that ―he [Burbage] is much affected to painting, and 'tis a question whether that make him an excellent player, or his playing an exquisite painter.‖

Another reference to Burbage as a painter is in ―A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the

29 Marguerite A. Tassi (1965-) 30 Sit Thomas Overbury (1581-1613)

23 famous Actor Richard Burbage who died on Saturday in Lent the 13th March 1618[/9],‖ which says that Burbage was no less a skilful limner than a sad tragedian (Wickham,

Berry, and Ingram 182). One further piece of evidence relating to Burbage as to a painter is to be found in Thomas Middleton‘s epitaph on the player, which is titled ―On the death of that great master in his art and quality, painting and playing: Richard

Burbage‖ (Middleton, Taylor and Lavagnino 1889).

Through years, a number of paintings were attributed to Richard Burbage; however, today there is not a single existing painting which could be adjudged to the player for certain. One of Burbage‘s purported paintings was the famous Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare, painted about the year 1610 (Taylor J.). Until recently, when the Cobbe portrait was uncovered by researches, the Chandos portrait was the only painting painted during the life of Shakespeare (Holey). Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether Burbage could have produced a portrait of such a quality and to paint no other such great paintings (―Portraits‖). It is therefore supposed that the original author of the most famous portrait of Shakespeare is Joseph Taylor, author of other four paintings, all held in the National Portrait Gallery. Another portrait whose author was said to be

Richard Burbage was the Felton portrait, surprisingly depicting Shakespeare again. The

Felton portrait bears an inscription ―Gul. Shakespear 1597 R.B.‖ which evokes the capitals of Richard Burbage (―Portraits‖). Some read the inscription ‗R. B.‘ rather than

‗R. N.,‘ which is, however, a wrong reading (―Portraits‖). The only, but serious, problem with the authenticity of the portrait as Burbage‘s work is that it was discovered only as late as in 1792, i.e. two years after the Droeshout print, with which it shares many similar features. On that account, the Felton is neither ascribed to Burbage, nor is it considered to be among the most probable genuine portraits of Shakespeare. Yet another painting, called Head of a Woman, was attributed to the famous player until

24 1987 when G. Ashton catalogued it as North Italian. Some people, however, believe that the portrait depicting Richard Burbage is actually a self portrait. However, this can be neither approved nor disapproved and in the Dulwich Gallery, where the painting is displayed, it is classified as being painted by an unknown artist (Wheatley31 236).

Thus, besides the above mentioned references made by his colleagues and admirers, the only genuine piece of evidence of his painting skills is mentioned in the

Accounts of the Steward of the Earl of Rutland. These accounts contain a record from

31 March 1613 in which Burbage is referred to as a ―talented amateur painter‖ and he is said to be awarded 44s. for ―paynting & making‖ an impresa for the Earl of Rutland

(Leary32). The same record mentions also a certain ―mr Shakspeare‖ who was to be paid in gold for the same impresa (Leary). It is generally accepted that the name ―mr

Shakspeare‖ denotes the playwright and Burbage‘s companion, William Shakespeare, but C. C. Stopes considers rather more probable that it refers to John Shakespeare, a bit- maker, who ―would seem to have been a cousin of the poet, which would explain the connection with Burbage‖ (Leary; Stopes 109). In her book, Stopes also mentions that three years after the older of the impresa for Earl of Rutland, Burbage was given another job order: ―25th Martii 1616, given to Richard Burbidge for my Lorde‘s shelde and for the embleance £4 I8/-‖ (qtd. in Stopes 109-10).33

It can be thus concluded that, even though Burbage was demonstrably a painter, he was either only a ―talented amateur painter,‖ as mentioned in Earl Rutland‘s

Accounts, or an extremely unlucky painter none of whose paintings survived till today

(Leary).

31 Henry Benjamin Wheatly (1837-1917) 32 Thomas ‗Penn‘ Leary (1921-2005) 33 Quoted from Stopes, ―Mr Shakespeare about My Lorde‘s Impresa,‖ Athenaeum (1908).

25 4 Acting in the Early Modern Period

4.1 Availability of Sources

Unfortunately, there are only a few writings describing or specifying either the theory or the practice of specific qualities exacted from players in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nevertheless, what survived till today are a few books and other writings on rhetoric and the art of orators, which can, however, be very useful in acquiring information about the popular manner and style of acting. A similar nature of these two arts subsists in the fact that both the orator and the player are people who stand on the stage in front of large audiences and only with help of words, gesture and body language, they try to hold the interest of the audience and to be to some degree more or less persuasive in presenting and personating their arguments and positions.

Therefore, the comparison of rhetoric and stage-playing is more than convenient here.

4.2 Acting and Rhetorical Terminology

In order to be able to successfully describe the acting styles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is necessary to explain at least some of the terms dealing with acting which either no longer exist in today‘s terminology or whose meaning over time shifted so much that they were understood differently in the sixteenth century than they are understood nowadays. One of the most basic words concerning theatre is the term

‗acting.‘ Originally, the term meant something quite different from today‘s understanding it as ―the job or skill of performing in plays and films‖ (Macmillan 15).

―In the sixteenth century the term ‗acting‘ was originally used to describe the ‗action‘ of the orator, his art of gesture‖ (Gurr 99). As far as the term ‗action‘ is concerned, it was related to the art of rhetoric and, according to B. L. Joseph34, it was used synonymously to the term ‗pronunciation.‘ In Thomas Wright‘s The Passion of the Mind, ‗action‘ was

34 Bertram L. Joseph (1915-1981)

26 described as being ―a naturall or artificiall moderation, qualification, modification, or composition of the voice, countenance, and gesture of the bodie proceeding from some passion, and apt to stir vp the like‖ (qtd. in Joseph 2).35 Similarly, Sir Thomas Wilson wrote in his The Art of Rhetorique from 1560 that ―Pronunciation standeth partly in fashioning the tongue, and partly in framing the iesture‖ (qtd. in Joseph 3).36

Interestingly enough, neither of the terms ‗action‘ and ‗acting‘ had originally been connected with actors and the theatre. In the sixteenth century the performers in the theatre were not called actors but ‗players.‘37 ―What the common stages offered was

‗playing‘‖ (Gurr 99). Andrew Gurr further explains that ―what the [professional] players were presenting on stage by the beginning of the century was distinctive enough to require a whole new term to describe it‖ (99). It was the term ‗personation‘ and it suggested that what the players did on the stage was something different from only showing the players‘ art of gesture and tongue. Nevertheless, although in the sixteenth century the terms ‗acting‘ and ‗playing‘ had not meant the same, over time their meanings shifted and the terms became partly synonymous. This shift of meanings was a natural consequence of the mutual influence which acting had on playing, or rather the influence rhetoric had on drama performance and vice versa.

There are two more terms which need to be explained: utterance and mouthing.

‗Utterance‘, according to Sir T. Wilson, is ―a framing of the voice, countenaunce, and gesture after a comely maner‖ (qtd. in Joseph 30n). The other term that needs an explanation is the term ‗mouthing‘, which in the eighteenth century referred to ―failure to preserve the different quality distinguishing syllables in metre‖ (qtd. in Joseph 80).38

35 Quoted from T. Wright, The Passion of the Mind (1604), p. 176. 36 Quoted from T. Wilson, The Art of Rhetorique (1560), p. 218. 37 Having explained the difference between the sixteenth-century understanding the terms ‗acting‘ and ‗playing‘, the terms ‗player‘ will be used instead of the terms ‗actor‘ and throughout the whole thesis. 38 Quoted from T. Sheridan, A Course of Lectures on Elocution (1787), p. 68-70.

27 Nevertheless, it is very likeable that this term was used in the same sense also in the

Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.

Out of these definitions and explanations of the basic acing and rhetoric terminology, it is obvious that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was not only a developed terminology which discloses the distinction between ‗acting‘ and

‗playing‘ in the original senses, but which also suggests that there must have been some specific requirements of what good orating and good playing were like in order to meet the ―comely maner‖ and not to fail to preserve the quality (Joseph 30n).

4.3 Influences of Rhetoric on Acting

As suggested above, rhetoric and stage-playing, no matter how different in terminology they might have originally been, have in the run of time influenced each other and became non-detachable, which was from their natures actually an inevitable act. The connection and cohesion of these two fields is traceable even as early as in the ancient Greece, which was a very much inspiring model for the players and orators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Joseph 21).

The first encounter with rhetoric took place at schools already, in which rhetoric was one of the most important subjects for pupils in the upper forms of grammar schools (Griffin39). The subject would today be most likely comparable with the subject of composition, pursuing orations as well as writings (Joseph 22). Sister Miriam Joseph

Rauh40 describes in her book Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language an average school day at a grammar school as follows: ―After supper, from six to seven, the pupils recited to their fellows what they had learned during the day. The lessons drilled on in the morning were regularly recited in the afternoon and all the work of the week was

39 Charles William Griffin (1925-) 40 Sister Miriam Joseph Rauh (1898-1982)

28 reviewed in recitation on Fridays and Saturdays‖ (qtd. in Griffin). Hence it is evident that rhetoric and memorising played a significant role in the schooling system of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To generalize a little, the whole schooling system of the early modern period was based on drilling the lessons and their subsequent reciting. The practice was that the students were led to understanding the methods and models in which the texts were written and mastering these themselves by the means of imitation. An apt quotation evidencing the actual requirements for rhetorical education lies in John Brinsley‘s educational work called Ludus Literarius: or, the Grammar

Schoole, first published in 1612: ―In this matter of versifying, as in all the former exercises, I take this Imitation of the most excellent patternes, to be the surest rule, both for phrase and whatsoever‖ (195). Very similarly, Thomas Wright in his The passion of

Mind ―advised the orator to watch men ‗appassionat‘, but told him also to notice ‗how they demeane themselues in passions, and obserue what and how they speak in mirth, sadnesse, ire, feare, hope, &c. what motions are stirring in the eye, hands, bodie, &c‖

(qtd. in Joseph 70).41

Rhetoric was important not only as a means of learning but it was no less important among lawyers; statesmen; public orators at official entries; participators in triumphs, pageants, and public shows; and preachers, primarily Jesuits (Joseph 16).

Teaching rhetoric at schools was, however, of special importance for the players and not only the academic players. This is well seen in Will Kempe‘s book Education of

Children, in which he asks that pupils at schools ―should be taught not only to recognize

‗euery trope, euery figure, as well of words as of sentences; but also the Rhetoricall pronunciation and gesture fit for euery word, sentence, and afflection‖ (Joseph 10). This request is absolutely understandable when it is realized that the art of rhetoric was very

41 Quoted from T. Wright, The Passion of the Mind (1604), p. 179.

29 convenient for the dramatists for two reasons. First, it educated the potential audience so that all students educated in rhetoric formed an intelligent audience which could better understand the introduced system of rules applying to any performing art and could thus better appreciate the real craft of the professional players (Joseph 15-16). And second, it is not known into what extent or how often this practice was common but there were several instances of bringing young gifted students from schools into a professional acting company, as it was in the case of Nathan Field.

Rhetoric and oratory were extremely important for drama and, especially, in those days when drama and the players were transforming from common players into professional ones and when they tried to transform a recital into an action which would be complementary with the text and which would be attractive to the audience as well

(Bradbrook42 119). Even in Apology for Actors, Heywood shows how important the rhetoric was to the theatre: ―It instructs him to fit his phrases to his action, and his action to his phrase, and his pronuntiation to them both‖ (qtd. in Nagler43 124) This shows how important and significant the proper pronunciation, gestures, and delivery of the text was for the formation of the full-valued acting and theatre. The influence of oratory had, however, most markedly affected the academic theatre, which was so similar in its features to rhetoric that it was often ridiculed by the professional players.

It has been sufficiently explained that oratory and rhetoric had a special effect on early modern acting and, especially, on academic acting, but now it is necessary to show what changes concretely were brought to the art of acting and what the acting style consequently looked like. One of the most conspicuous differences between the acting styles of the early modern era and the acting styles of the Middle Age was described by

M. C. Bradbrook as follows: ―the embodied action of the stage, when it ceased to be an

42 Muriel Clara Bradbrook (1909-93) 43 Alois Maria Nagler (1907- 1993)

30 offering, became the Mirror of Nature‖ (128). Nevertheless, it should not be thought that through the absorption of the art of rhetoric into acting the amateur player became overnight an unexceptionable performer of the naturalistic drama. Just the contrary was true. The idea that drama should be naturalistic and should imitate real life was first pioneered by an Italian philologist and literary critic, Lodovico Castelvetro, in his The

Poetics of Aristotle in the Vulgar Language in 1570 (qtd. in Joseph 113).44

Nevertheless, to act naturalistically in the sixteenth century was something entirely different from what is under it his term understood nowadays. Bertram Joseph compares the naturalistic acting in the sixteenth century to contemporary opera-singing or ballet- dancing, which is highly stylized, and has little in common with realism and naturalism as it is understood in the twentieth century (Joseph 51, 113, 149). This stems, besides others, also from the presence of several elements that are fundamentally different from the general modern practice, such as doubling of parts, men playing women‘s roles, and use of explanatory prologues, soliloquies and addresses to the audience. The use of these practices made it clear to the spectator that what they were watching and what they were listening to was neither reality nor any pursuit of capturing real life and it is clear enough that ―the contrast between appearance and reality would never be absent from the mind of the audience who saw this play acted in the Elizabethan manner‖

(Joseph 111). As a matter of fact, the main reasons for acting naturalistically (in the sixteenth and seventeenth-century meaning) were these: to adequately present the author‘s messages and thoughts to the audience; persuade and amuse the audience, and, consequently, to draw crowds and earn money. For reaching these goals, there must have been an accepted body of rules specifying what to do with one‘s voice, body and hands in order to make one‘s performance persuasive and absorbing.

44 Original title: Poetica d'Aristotele vulgarizzata e sposita

31 The voice is the most important tool for an orator and it is no less important for an early modern player. Voice was far more important than an average today‘s theatre- goer can imagine, as it was the only means through which the player could capture the attention of the lively audience. Moreover, it is easy to believe that the audience was accustomed to perceiving information by the ear than by the eye. The renaissance plays were also based on text and, as Ashley Thorndike45 mentions, they abounded ―in verbal displays of all kinds, quibbles, puns, repartee, stichomythia, descriptions, soliloquies, orations‖ (400). Therefore it was advisable that the early modern players should take an example from the orators, just as the players in the time of the Roman Empire did.46

And it was similarly agreed that the quality and art of voice was acquired by practicing and taking many exercises. It was very important to learn how to pronounce clearly, loudly and to adjust one‘s voice and pronunciation to the form, content and feeling of the text. Abraham Fraunce prompted the players and orators to avoid monotony and by the means of voice to make apparent all the tropes, figures and ornaments (qtd. in

Joseph 67).47 As a result the manner of speaking on the stage differed significantly from what was normally heard in the streets; in other words it was markedly affected and by no means natural. The artificiality of the manner of speaking was yet more highlighted by the use of blank verse as a metre.

In 1911 Percy Simpson proposed in his book Shakespearian Punctuation a theory in which he argued that ―punctuation in Elizabethan dramatic texts was guide not to syntax, but to pronunciation, [and] that it had a rhetorical rather than a grammatical basis‖ (qtd. in Vince48 104-05). Although this theory has been discredited it can never be definitely rejected and thus it is worth more detailed inspection. Here again the

45 Ashley Horace Thorndike (1871-1933) 46 This practice was advocated in the 1670s but at beginning of the 18th century it was completely abandoned (Joseph 37). 47 Quoted from Abraham Fraunce, The Arcadian Rhetorick, sig. H7r. 48 Ronald W. Vince (publishing since 1983)

32 theatre performance is related to the rhetorical action so that every manner of expressing oneself would be in accordance with the way the text was written. A plea for learning of how ―with iudgement to obserue his comma‘s, colons, & full points, his paranthesis, his breathing spaces, and distinctions‖ was expressed even by Thomas Heywood in his An

Apology for Actors of 1612 (qtd. in Joseph 76). A similar outlook was exercised by John

Bulwer: ―The Hand with a gentle percussion, now greater, now lesse; now flat, now sharpe, according to the diversitie of the affections, is fitted to distinguish the Comma‘s

& breathing parts of a sentence‖ (qtd. in Joseph 76).49 In some cases, the emphasis on the written text was so immense that for example Sir Richard Baker claimed that ―there is no essential difference between a play read and the same play performed in the theatre‖ (qtd. in Joseph 141).50 If this was true, it would mean that one of the most important skills of any player was to be able to pronounce any given text as precisely as possible, which would exclude much input of the player, who would be only a trained orator. This, however, might not be as devious since it might seem as the relationship between rhetoric and drama should never be neglected.

As suggested above, there are only few extant works from the sixteenth or seventeenth century that deal with acting styles of the early modern era. On the other hand, there are more works which inquire into the style of rhetoric and even allege some sound conventions and rules. Some of the most important books that advise the rhetoricians how to use their hands while delivering their speeches so that it would suitably text the speech and impress the audience are John Bulwer‘s Chirologia or

Natural Language of the Hand and Chironomia or, The Art of Manuall Rhetorique, which often appear together.51 At the beginning of his book, Bulwer devotes several

49 Quoted from JohnBulwer, Chironomia, p. 44. 50 Quoted from R. Baker, Theatrum Triumphans, p. 34-5. 51 It is questionable into what extent Bulwer is to be believed as all his illustrations are, according to Bulwer himself, grounded upon observation. What might be the reassurance of the veracity of his manual

33 pages for argumentation that the use of hand is extremely important for a rhetorician and that without studying the proper use of gestures, an orator will never be able to give a speech which would be fully and unambiguously understood by everyone. Bulwer maintains that gesture is inseparable from voice because the use of hand is natural and it supports and in some cases clears up the not only the meaning of the word or a sentence, but it also marks the emotion behind the text. ―For, the gesture of the Hand many times gives a hint of our intention, and speakes out a good part of our meaning, before our words, which accompany or follow it, can put themselves into a vocall posture to be understood‖ (Bulwer 4). This must have been particularly useful also in the drama of the sixteenth century since the drama texts were often quite complex, complicated in their content, abundant in neologisms, and thus not always easy to understand by the uneducated mobs. Since the 1590s, it was also a common practice to travel across the Channel and make performances in non-English speaking countries, and the use universally understandable gesture was the only chance for a non-English speaking audience to have a clue of what was going on in the play.

A proper use of gesture is inherently connected to the pantomimic action, which was by the turn of the century ―openly condemned as old-fashioned,‖ but according to

Bulwer‘s work from 1644 still widely and successfully used (Gurr 102). The art of mime is surely highly artificial and unnatural in the sense as it is understood today.

However, again: ―Bulwer actually uses ‗unnatural‘ to describe an action which is so completely natural as to have its awkwardness quite unredeemed by the refinement of art‖ (Joseph 51). To make this still a bit more complicated: mime, which is in today‘s sense considered to be an unrealistic art, was in the sixteenth and seventeenth century regarded to be quite natural and therefore in consonance with fashion and taste.

is that fact that all the sources he quotes and which he refers to offer a faithful record and that his theory has not been rejected.

34 However, to perfect nature so that anyone‘s performance would be in accordance with what was considered to be an art (and therefore become unnatural) needed some kind of a ―Manuall Rhetoricke‖ offering a list of conventional rules and advice (qtd. in Joseph

41-43).52 Therefore, Bulwer, later in his book, adduces several plates with illustrations of various gestures and their explanations and description of the situations in which they are used. Some of the advice Bulwer gives to the rhetoricians could be generalized into basic rules, such as: ―The Arme must be in contynuall mocion,‖ it must be neither too slow for it would look stupid and sluggish, nor too fast and active, for it would seem choleric and too affective, and it must begin with the left hand and end with the right one and simulate thus the progress of a written sentence (qtd. in Joseph 49).53

Bulwer‘s works were engaged only with the correct use of gesture but there were others who provided several rules pertained to the body language of the performer. For example, Abraham Fraunce, an English poet under the patronage of Sir Philip Sidney, alleges that ―to make often gesture with the head alone is forbidden‖ (qtd. in Joseph

38).54 In MS. Ashmole 768, it is mentioned that it is considered inappropriate if the rhetorician bends his brows. At the same time, however, it is the eyes which should be given especial attention because they show the intended emotions (qtd. in Joseph 38).55

Christopher Johnson, the master of the Winchester school in the 1550s, advised his pupils to retain ―the body decorous movement without prancing around‖ (qtd. in Joseph

14).56

It should be noted that in respect of the body movements, there were some differences in what was considered to be suitable for a rhetorician and for a player.

Actually, ―the manner in which the body was accommodated to voice and meaning

52 Quoted from John Bulwer, Chironomia, p. 16-17. 53 Quoted from MS. Ashmole 768, p. 541. 54 r Quoted from Fraunce, The Arcadian Rhetoric, sig. KI . 55 Quoted from MS. Ashmole 768, p. 541. 56 Quoted from Vide, T. W. Baldwin, William Shakespeare’s Latine and Lesse Greeke, i. 328.

35 constituted one of the greatest differences between the acting of oratory and that of the stage‖ (Joseph 54). Generally speaking, the players were allowed to act more freely with all their body parts than the orators, as it is evident in the earlier mentioned

Chironomia, in which Bulwer exhorts that ―the trembling Hand is scenicall, and belongs more to the theater, then the forum‖ (qtd. in Joseph 55-56). One of the reasons for this is that ―in the poorly lighted theater, the lifting of an eyebrow would scarcely have conveyed much emotion‖ as Ashley H. Thorndike aptly formulated in his

Shakespeare’s Theater (399-400). Strict oratory rules restraining free movement on the stage also affected the academic players, educated in the rhetoric. This is well demonstrated in one part of the academic The Parnassus Plays, concretely in the third part called The Return from Parnassus Or, The Scourge of Simony, created about the turn of the century, in which the characters of Richard Burbage and Will Kempe teach young students how to act. At the beginning of their parts, Burbage and Kempe talk about the acting qualities of the university scholars. But later on they make fun of their austere body movement.

Bur. Now, Will Kemp, if we can entertain these scholars at a low rate, it

will be well, they have oftentimes a good conceit in a part.

Kemp. It's true indeed, honest Dick, but the slaves are somewhat proud ;

and besides, it is a good sport in a part to see them never speak in

their walk, but at the end of the stage, just as though in walking with

a fellow we should never speak but at a stile, a gate, or a ditch, where

a man can go no further. I was once at a comedy in Cambridge, and

there I saw a parasite make faces and mouths of all sorts on this

fashion (Smeaton 77-78).

36 4.4 Excellent Acting

Much has been said about the particular elements of acting, such as the voice, the body movement and the gesture; much was also said about rhetoric, the older sister of acting, and about academic acting. What rests is to summarize some basic rules and standards of excellent professional acting according to the sixteenth and early seventeenth century fashion.

Naturally, the most basic prerequisites for a player to get onto the stage and to become successful was the ability to read a text, understand it, recognize its structure, to be able to remember it as quickly and as accurately as possible, and finally to perform it for the audience. None of these attributes might have lacked and all of them had to be mastered by all members of the acting society. Although this note may seem rather extra and unnecessary, if the acting company could not work as a team, the whole performance would become a failure.

The amount of text and the number of characters swarming over every player was so enormous that it was almost impossible to learn all the script word by word and moreover with proper intonation, stress, face and body expression. The situation was still more difficult because of the fact that the players did not learn the whole play but they memorized only their own parts with cues so that they did not know in advance when and to whom they were to say their speech. Therefore some conventions were unavoidable and actually quite useful for the players to disguise possible non- acquaintance with hastily learnt text and also for the fellow-players who could then catch up with their poorly memorized lines as well as for the audience to better understand the particular situation. Not only were the players supplied with quantum of text to learn but each character they played was a different person, of different social standing, nature, thinking, etc. and therefore each character had to be played differently,

37 which was not possible without a fair amount of versatility. The ability to change one‘s behaviour several times during the performance was one of the most highly-praised faculties of the sixteenth-century players. Most of this art was actually based on imitation, so boldly advised to the rhetoricians. Thomas Wright in his Passion of Mind alleged that ―they that imitate best, act best‖ (qtd. in Joseph 52).57 Therefore, players were, just like the orators, exhorted to watch people around them and imitate their manners and also to learn by watching the best players to be able to make their characters as unified in their speech, allocution and body language as possible. The discourse, however, should always be pronounced loudly enough to attract the audience, with accuracy to the written text, its metre and other rhetorical devices. The gesture should always be in accordance with the content of the text, it should be carried out smoothly and naturally, but still it should never demonstrate what is being said but only signify the message and emotion behind the elocution. Besides all these, it was essential for an early modern player to be also a good acrobat, minstrel and entertainer who could play several instruments, sing and possibly be also good at extemporizing.

To sum it up, the profession of a player was quite a demanding job which needed a versatile, quick to learn, charismatic and verbally skilled man, who was not always easy to find. He must have had in him part of an orator, a clown, a tragedian, a scholar, a peasant and an exhibitionist. Most of all, however, he had to be able to draw crowd and attract the audience. Simply said, he had to sell the play and thus assure that it could be repeated and that the audience would come again to see another play.

4.5 Popularity of Early Modern Players

The almost seventy-year-long period from the creation of the first successful professional playhouse in London, in the 1576, to the Reformation in the 1640s was not

57 Quoted from T. Wright, The Passion of the Mind (1604), p. 179.

38 an invariable time span. Conversely, during these decades there were various trends in the acting styles which were just in fashion among the audience. And therefore the characterization of an excellent player and the development of fame of individual players during the period are pertinent here.

Chronologically ordered, the first stars of the English professional theatre were the clowns and jesters. The focus on these players was natural because they developed from local minstrels, the original performers of the funny bits in medieval moralities.

They were jugglers, acrobats, singers, fiddlers, and above all improvisers and entertainers. The three most famous clowns of the early Elizabethan era were Richard

Tarlton, William Kemp and Robert Armin, and even these early players differed in their exhibitions from each other and one can tell the difference in their acting styles. Richard

Tarlton58 was mainly ―a banquet and tavern entertainer,‖ who was particularly good at elaborate jesting and anecdotal parts (Mann59 59). He was said to be so popular that at the very moment he showed his face, the audience started laughing immediately. His parts were often only semi-attached to the plot of the story and they were often based on direct addressing the audience. Tarlton‘s successor, William Kemp, was largely following his predecessor as he was extemporizing and he was very gifted with cracking jokes and jigs, which usually concluded the performances. It was his style to use malapropism, puns and grotesque language (Mann 57). Kemp was famous not only in

England but he was an internationally recognized player. This resulted mostly from his famous dancing the morris to Norwich and a subsequent similar dancing across the Alps to Italy (Mann 68). This fame was shown satirically also in the above mentioned play

The Return from Parnassus or, The Scourge of Simony. Robert Armin, the successor of

Will Kemp was already a different clown. Armin was not a soloist who would

58 Tarlton is the attributed author of the second part of the Seven Deadly Sins, a play erroneously labeled by Collier as an impromptu play. 59 David Mann (publishing since 1991)

39 extemporize and make many jigs. In contrast to his predecessors, Armin is documented to have participated in the rehearsals with his colleagues and thus it is supposed that he necessarily had a (at least partially) given text which he had to follow. His fools exceeded in miming that would foil the other stage players and manipulate the dimension somewhere between the world of the play and the real world. After Kemp‘s departure from the company in 1598-99, Armin became a member of the Lord

Chamberlain‘s Men – King‘s Men and Shakespeare used his talents and created his character of fools expressly for Armin.

By and by, history plays and tragedies became fashionable and the popularity of the jigging clowns was replaced by a growing admiration of emotional players who could declaim poetry and represent passion. Although clowns never fully disappeared from the early modern stage, their roles were changed, as it could be seen at the example of Robert Armin, and the centre of attention was shifted to the tragedians, the most famous and highly-praised were Edward Alleyn and Richard Burbage. Alleyn, this nearly seven feet [i.e. about 210 cm] tall man with big and audible voice, who had been

―bred for the stage,‖ became a member of Earle of Worcester‘s Men as early as in 1583, i.e. when he was only seventeen years old (Thorndike 383-84). The peak of his career is, however, inherently connected with the Admiral‘s Men, for whom he played the leading roles, and with Philip Henslowe, whose daughter Alleyn married in 1592.

Alleyn ―created the lead rôles in Marlowe‘s plays—Tamburlaine, Faustus, Barabas—as well as playing Hieronimo and Orlando‖ (Bradbrook 194-95). Furthermore, he was famous for his business abilities, which brought him enormous wealth and property.

The enumeration of all important properties and business activities could also include a mention about his foundation of the College of God‘s Gift in Dulwich and his partial ownership of the Rose, the Fortune and the bear-garden (Gurr 84). Nevertheless, so far

40 it will suffice to say that Edward Alleyn was the prime rival of Richard Burbage and that ―Baker‘s Chronicle (1674) celebrates ‗Richard Bourbidge and Edward Allen, two such Actors as no age must ever look to see the like‘‖ (qtd. in Gurr 91). 60 More of

Edward Alleyn will be discussed in the chapter 5.2.

Even after Alleyn definitely retired from the stage in 1604, Burbage was still the main star of the London theatre and only as late as ―in the second decade of the seventeenth century Nathan Field came to rival Burbage in fame‖ (Gurr 91). He was not, however, a tragedian who would take over all Burbage‘s roles, after he died. These were divided between Joseph Taylor and some other players. Nathan Field became famous not only on account of brilliant acting but he became a kind of celebrity also for his playwriting. This kind of people involved in the theatre enterprise became the superstars after the star of Richard Burbage died. They were not only players but they were at the same time also playwrights, such as Nathan Field or managers, such as

Beeston.

60 Nungezer, A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England before 1642 (1929), p. 11.

41 5 Richard Burbage: the Player

5.1 Richard Burbage and His Engagement in Acting Companies

What necessarily needs to be mentioned in the biography of Richard Burbage is the history and development of his profession as a player in various acting companies and the list of the roles he played. None the less, the summary of his participation in various acting societies will be surprisingly short.

In some publications, it is stated that Richard Burbage was originally a member of the Leicester‘s Men, just as his father was. This may seem true because when in 1576 the Theatre was built by James Burbage, at the time the manager of the Leicester‘s troupe, it would seem natural that James would employ his talented son Richard there.

For this, however, there is no evidence and the fact is that the first preserved record of

Richard acting dates to the year 1590-91 when his name is written next to two small roles or rather bit-parts, Gorboduc and Tereus, in the second part of Tarlton‘s Seven

Deadly Sins. What is specific about this play (staged in the Theatre) is the fact that the cast had a rather unusual constitution as it was performed by an amalgamation of the

Admiral‘s and Lord Strange‘s Men. In his first volume of William Shakespeare,

Chambers mentions that even though the two companies gave many performances together, they were still independent companies and he further adds that Richard

Burbage worked simultaneously for both companies and that he ―know[s] no other contemporary example of an actor playing concurrently for two companies‖ (51). In these companies Burbage met players such as Bryan, Pope, Cowley, Sly, Phillips, and

Sinkler – all the future member of the Chamberlain‘s Men (Gurr 40). Another play in which Burbage is said to perform as a young boy is The Dead Man’s Fortune which was, judging by the playlist, staged at about the same time. In this manuscript, only his name is mentioned and not the character he played, which is usually explained that he

42 was given only an unimportant bit-part. This was the only occasion Burbage was in the same acting company with his future rival, Edward Alleyn. Later, when they were the leading players of their own companies, they occasionally worked in the same playhouse ―either in combination or separately on allotted days, [such as] for Henslowe at Newington Butts‖ in June 1594 (Chambers, Elizabethan 2: 193). But there is no record of them acting in the same play.

It is quite possible that Burbage left the company in order to join the Pembroke‘s

Men, in which he might have met Shakespeare. For this theory, however, there are no other proofs than one letter written by Lord Pembroke after the death of Richard

Burbage, in which he call the later mentioned ―old acquaintance‖ (Stopes 117). What is certainly known, however, is the fact that in 1594 Richard Burbage became a sharer and the leading player of the Lord Chamberlain‘s Men. From that time on he was faithful to the company until his death, even though after having received a patronage from the king himself61 in 1603, however, the company changed its name and it started to be called the King‘s Men.

5.2 Richard Burbage and His Roles

Due to the fact that Richard Burbage was so faithful to his acting company, it does not seem so difficult to make a list of plays in which he might have possibly acted because this list would coincide with the list of plays performed by the Chamberlain‘s –

King‘s Men at the Theatre, the Globe and the Blackfriars in the period from 1594 to

Burbage‘s death in 1619. None the less, a list like this would not reveal what roles

Richard Burbage played and moreover it is known that he did not play in every single play. What might be helpful are the playlists and plots of particular plays, but these are not always preserved, which makes the search for specific roles played by Richard

61 To wit King James I.

43 Burbage very complicated. The most useful documents providing detailed information about casting the players are thus only ―the seventeenth-century collected editions of the plays by Jonson, Shakespeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher‖ (Bentley 213). Another source of knowledge of the roles Burbage played is the numerous elegies written on his death, every single of which sings the praise of his acting qualities. The most useful elegy enumerating his famous roles is the several times mentioned ―A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the famous Actor Richard Burbage who died on Saturday in Lent the 13th

March 1618[/9].‖ 62 All in all, it is certain that Richard performed in these plays (if known, the particular roles are stated as well): Romeo and Juliet: Romeo; Richard III :

Richard III; Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark: Hamlet; Othello, the Moor of Venice:

Othello; King Lear: King Lear; Every Man in His Humour; Every Man out of His

Humour; Sejanus; Volpone; Catiline; Alchemist; Captain; Valentinian; Bonduca; Queen of Corinth; Loyal Subject; Knight of Malta; and Mad Lover (Thorndike 385).

It is generally acknowledged that Burbage was the leading player of the

Chamberlain‘s – King‘s Men, but the truth is that he played also some secondary roles, and that in some plays he did not perform at all. And by analyzing the specifics of each of the roles assigned to Burbage, some scholars tried to estimate what other characters

Burbage probably played and what his acting qualities were like. As for the determining the specific roles, the most serious attempts were made by T. W. Baldwin63 and Martin

Holmes. The former tried to draft out a list of particular types of roles and the possible players who could play them. His theory of typecasting was, however, not fully justified and therefore it was rejected and therefore it will be also disregarded in this work.

Martin Holmes‘s Shakespeare and Burbage focuses on several plays written by

62 Another useful source of information concerning the roles which Richard Burbage played is ―An Elegy on Our Protean Roscius Richard Burbage,‖ which is one of the versions of the funeral elegy on Richard Burbage only discovered and published by J. P. Collier. Therefore, it will be disregarded in this work. 63 Thomas Whitfield Baldwin (1890-1984)

44 Shakespeare and it studies their characters. Some of his findings are very useful and extremely valuable, but even Holmes should not be fully trusted. He, for example, was an advocate of realistic typecasting, i.e. that impersonators should be as old as the characters which they played. Moreover, he rather unconvincingly denies the documents proving that Burbage played Romeo and suggests that instead of the lover, he played the characters of Mercutio and the Friar (see Holmes 93-111).

So far the most useful treatise on the analysis of roles played by Burbage is a chapter called ―Richard Burbage: A Dangerous Actor‖ written by Alexander Leggatt for the Extraordinary Actors: Essays on Popular Performers. In this chapter Leggatt avoids deduction of what roles Richard Burbage played; he rather keeps to the record and uses it to find out something about Burbage‘s style of acting and, surprisingly, his findings are very similar to Holmes‘s. Some of the findings are that: Richard Burbage did not have such a thunderous voice as Alleyn, but also due to this quality, he could have modulated it perfectly and add so a special effect to the quickly changing moods and emotions of particular scenes, which was so typical of the characters he played. Leggatt aptly described this quality as follows: ―His characters can turn on what used to be called a sixpence‖ and so he would often, with a slight amount of irony, sarcasm and dry humour, change the subject and fly off the handle, which would naturally shock the audience (15). Burbage was extremely versatile and, some even describe him

―chameleon-like,‖ being able to catch all the ambivalence within one character. It is well seen in Richard III, a two-faced character, which behaved differently anytime he was dealing with different people in order to deceive them and gain his point. In addition to these qualities, Holmes and Leggatt suggest that Burbage must have been a good swordsman of great physical activity. Leggatt also claims that necessarily must have been sexually attractive and he proves it with a funny story about an enthusiastic

45 admirer of Burbage who wanted to spend a night with him but not everything went as scheduled and William Shakespeare with words ―William the Conqueror was before

Richard the 3‖ substituted him (qtd in Leggatt 9).64 Whether this story is true or not is difficult and maybe even impossible to say, but it definitely shows how successful and popular Burbage was.

It might be still surprising how it was possible that in the 1590s there were simultaneously two acting stars, Richard Burbage and Edward Alleyn, who were not directly confronting with each other. The reason for this was that the players were diametrically different in their acting styles from each other. As mentioned above,

Burbage was ―a master of ‗lively‘ and life-like acting‖ while ―Alleyn was most remarked on for his characteristic ‗stalking and roaring‘ in his roles as Tamburlaine and

Orlando‖ and he was popular for his ―somewhat over-heavy‖ and ―an exaggerated style of acting‖ (Gurr 113; Armstrong) As Bradbrook concisely describes: ―Alleyn remained ever himself, and his career shows he was as remarkable and forceful off the stage as on it‖ (137). In addition to the reason of their dissimilitude in the styles of acting,

Thorndike says that ―If we look over the repertoires of two leading companies, headed by Burbage and Alleyn . . . we shall be convinced that actors have never had a more varied opportunity‖ (388). In effect they both played different roles, in different styles, and attracted thus different audiences, both at the same time.

5.3 Richard Burbage and His Success and Fame

Keeping Burbage in the company was like cooperating with a living legend.

Burbage was in the Chamberlain‘s Men since its emergence and worked there for other circa twenty-five years, all of which he stood at the top of the imaginary chart of the

64 Quoted from Manningham, Bruce, Tite and Camden Society, Diary of John Manningham, of the Middle Temple, and of Bradbourne, Kent, Barrister-at-law, 1602-1603, p. 39.

46 best players. This long, actually until his death lasting, fame was absolutely unique and exceptional. Other great players had their waves of popularity, but after the wave rolled over, they were usually substituted by some other type of players, as it is suggested in the chapter 4.5. Edward Alleyn, the rival of Burbage, was also popular for quite a long time, concretely for some twenty years. But Alleyn was not so faithfully devoted to the theatre and he had a three-year-long pause from acting between the years 1597 and

1600. And in 1604 he retired from acting for good in order to put his mind to other businesses, such as establishing the College of God‘s Gift. Burbage was thus the only player of such a long-lasting and strong popularity, who was acting even when younger talented players entered the company and whose popularity as a player died only after his death.

The playwrights were very helpful to Burbage when younger talented players like Field and Lowin entered the King‘s Men. Instead of substituting some of the younger players for Burbage, they created ―two long complex characters instead of one‖ in their new plays so that both Burbage and his younger colleagues had equal opportunities (Taylor G. 5). Burbage was the main star of his company no matter what new styles were just popular.

Much of what has been said about Burbage is, however, not only his merit. It is definitely also the merit of the authors who created the roles for him and his colleagues.

It was primarily William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and John Fletcher, who wrote most of their plays specifically for the Chamberlain‘s – King‘s Men, knowing the qualities of their players, and knowing the qualities of Richard Burbage. Nevertheless, it is questionable into what extent the authors were writing for the particular players and transforming the characters to suit the players and into what extent the players were led by the role itself and letting the author determine their style of acting. Although this

47 boundary is now impossible to determine, it does not change anything about the fact that the playwrights and players of the Chamberlain‘s – King‘s Men were well coordinated and that their cooperation was very prolific and moreover long-lasting. It is possible that without the cooperation of the players with the playwrights (and vice versa), Burbage would not become so successful. In fact, in the seventeenth century

Richard Burbage was even more famous and more popular than William Shakespeare.

The Chamberlain‘s – King‘s Men were often called Burbage‘s Company, in honour of the Burbages, and not Shakespeare‘s Company as it often referred to nowadays (Stopes

130). Holmes claims that ―In those days it was the characters, and in a lesser degree the interprets, who mattered, rather than the man who had invented them‖ (27-28). And

Stopes aptly summarizes that ―it was in the death of Burbage that to the world our

Shakespeare died‖ and not vice versa (116).

Burbage was considered to be a player second to none. His powers could not have been compared to any of his colleagues and therefore he did not take part in any of the many acting competitions, in which one player acted against another for wagers. In this not unusual custom, the players were playing the same character and some unbiased judges would tell the winner (Joseph 152). It is apparent that this practice had a lot in common with rhetoric and competitions of orators in which the contestants were to be as persuasive as possible in personating. Even Edward Alleyn took part in a competition, but none dared rival Richard Burbage unless it was written in the script of a play.

The success and fame of Richard Burbage is visible also in the numerous elegies and other poems and written after his death. Their number is enormous and the content of some of them is definitely worth analysing because it reveals a lot about the life and popularity of the player. Burbage was not the only one who earned such laud; many

48 poems were dedicated to the art of Edward Alleyn too. Naturally, there are some mentions of other players such as Lowin, Field and Taylor in the poems, but these are not so common because Lowin as well as Taylor died long after 1642 when the theatres were closed and so no funeral elegies were written on them praising their talents. If generalization will be pardoned here, the poems on Edward Alleyn mostly point out that no one before Alleyn could have been considered a better player as it is the case in Ben

Jonson‘s ―Epigram 89‖65:

That Alleyn, I should pause to publish thee?

Who both their graces in thy selfe hast more

Out-stript, than they did all that went before:

And present worth in all dost so contract,

As others speak, but only thou dost act. (8-12; qtd. in Miles 116)

Another extract is from Nashe‘s Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil:

Not Roscius nor Aesope, those admired tragedians that have lived ever

since before Christ was born, could ever perform more in action than

famous Ned Allen. . . . Tarlton, Ned Allen, Knell, Bentley, shall be made

known to France, Spain, and Italy; and not a part that they surmounted

in, more than other, but I will there note and set down, with the manner

of their habits and attire.

No actor was better before Alleyn, but then Burbage came and his quality of acting became so proverbial that his name was used as a synonym of the ―best Actor.‖

In later years only Nathan Field was compared to Richard Burbage in terms of quality of acting as it is expressed in Ben Jonson‘s play Bartholomew Fair:

Cok. I thank you for that, Master Little-wit, a good

65 For the whole Jonson‘s poem ―Epigram ‗89‖ see Appendix 2.

49 Jest! which is your Burbage now?

Lan. What mean you by that, Sir?

Cok. Your best Actor. Your Field? (5.3. 94-97)

Now, however, having seen the elegies written as tributes to his fellow-players, the difference between apprehension of Burbage and the other players will be even more tangible. These elegies will show not only how popular and famous Richard

Burbage was, but they will reveal many other parts of Burbage‘s life, career and acting skills too. And thus they will testify and complement some parts of what was said about this player throughout the whole of the thesis. For easy orientation, the extracts of the elegies will be arranged in the same order as are ordered the passages to which they relate, i.e. first, elegies relating to the personal life of Richard Burbage; subsequently those concerning his business life, his qualities as a rhetorician, and finally those referring to Burbage‘s roles, acting qualities and his success and fame.

Some of the poems, elegies and other documents are surprisingly useful in revealing the true facts about Burbage‘s life. A few of such poems and elegies have already been mentioned, just as the elegy called ―A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the famous Actor Richard Burbage who died on Saturday in Lent the 13th March 1618[/9]‖ has already been mentioned within the context of discussing the precise date and cause of Richard‘s death and therefore, they will not be repeated here again.

In comparison to the number of references to the private and business life of

Richard Burbage, there are far more poems and elegies which mention Burbage‘s skills as a talented player and orator. In Flecknoe‘s Proteus Burbage, Burbage is described not only as an excellent actor but also as an ―excellent orator‖:

He had all the parts of an excellent orator, animating his words with

speaking, and speech with action; his auditors being never more

50 delighted than when he spake, nor more sorry than when he held his

peace. Yet even then, he was an excellent actor still, never falling in his

part when he had done speaking, but with his looks and gesture

maintaining it still unto the heighth, he imagining ‗Age quod agis‘ only

spoke to him. . . . (qtd. in Nagler 128)

Judging by Flecknoe‘s poem ―The Praises of Burbage, or an Excellent Actor,‖ written more than fifty years after Burbage‘s death, Burbage was still praised for his great oratory and his ability to harmonize his verbal and body language:

Who knew, by rules of the Dramatic Art,

To fit his speech and action to his part,

And of an excellent orator had all

In voice and gesture which we charming call (5-8; qtd. in Stopes 122)66

As for the roles played by Richard Burbage, there is no further authentic account of his roles except for those mentioned in the chapter 5.2. Two elegies, however, demonstrate that tragedy was that kind of genre for which he won his recognition.

To quote at least one, ―An Epitaph upon Mr. Richard Burbage, the Player‖ says that:

The Play now ended, think his grave to be

The retiring house of his sad Tragedie,

Where to give his fame this, be not afraid,

Here lies the best Tragedian ever played. (5-8; qtd. in Stopes 118)67

A surprisingly high number of elegies and other poems correspond in their contents with the conclusions which Leggatt and Homes drew by analyses of the roles which Burbage was to play. Just as Leggatt and Holmes found out that Burbage must

66 Quoted from Flecknoe‘s Epigrams of All Sorts (1670). For the whole Flecknoe‘s poem ―The Praises of Burbage, or an Excellent Actor‖ see Appendix 3. 67 Quoted from Sloane MS., 1786. For the full version of ―An Epitaph upon Mr. Richard Burbage, the Player‖ see Appendix 4.

51 have been an extremely versatile player, the same discovery was made by Henry Austin

Dobson,68 the author of the poem ―When Burbage Played‖:

And yet, no less the audience there

Thrilled through all changes of Despair,

Hope, Anger, Fear, Delight and Doubt,

When Burbage played. (6-9; qtd. in Stopes 123)69

Absurd though Legatt‘s statement of Burbage‘s sexual attractiveness may sound, the above mentioned Flecknoe‘s poem ―The Praises of Burbage, or an Excellent Actor‖ seems to testify it:

Who a delightful Proteus was that could

Transform himself into what shape he would

And finally did on the stage appear

Beauty to th‘ Eye, and Musick to the Ear. (11-12; qtd. in Stopes 122)70

It was suggested that in contrast to Edward Alleyn, Burbage excelled at life-like acting.

And the chapter ―An Excellent Orator‖ of Overbury‘s Characters evidences that

Burbage really was a very persuasive player:

By his action he fortifies moral precepts with examples, for what we see

him personate we think truly done before us: a man of a deep thought

might apprehend the ghost of our ancient heroes walked again, and take

him at several times for many of them. (qtd. in Nagler 126)

Another notation is not an elegy but it is a record called Iter Boreale made by Bishop

Corbert in 1647, in which he describes a host telling a visitor about the Battle of

Bosworth:

68 Henry Austin Dobson [1840-1921] 69 Quoted from Austin Dobson’s Poems (1897), p. 473. For the whole Dobson‘s poem ―When Burbage Played‖ see Appendix 5. 70 Quoted from Flecknoe‘s Epigrams of All Sorts (1670).

52 Where he mistook a player for a king.

For when he would have said, ‗King Richard died

And called, ―A horse! A horse!‘‖ he ‗Burbage‘ cried. (qtd. in Leggatt 9)

Leggatt further nicely deduces that ―Burbage did not just play Richard III, for his generation he was Richard III‖ (Leggatt 9).

A great number of poems and elegies, however, make reference to Burbage‘s persisting and unrelenting success and fame . To name just a few, Flecknoe‘s ―The

Praises of Richard Burbage‖ says that:

He was the admir‘d example of the age,

And so observ‘d all your dramatic laws,

He ne‘er went off the stage but with applause. (2-4; qtd. in Stopes 122)71

Burbage was so successful that he was sometimes compared to Roscius.72 The elegy ―A

Funeral Elegy on the Death of the famous Actor Richard Burbage who died on Saturday in Lent the 13th March 1618[/9]‖ even says:

England's great Roscius, for what Roscius

Was unto Rome, that Burbage was to us.

(31-32; qtd. in Wickham, Berry, and Ingram 182)

The shortest, but in my opinion the most concise, text written in reaction to

Burbage‘s death is that inscribed in his tombstone at St Leonard‘s cemetery in

Shoreditch. It summarises Burbage‘s qualities so aptly that it does not need any further comment. It simply says: ―Exit Burbage.‖

71 For the whole Flecknoe‘s poem ―The Praises of Richard Burbage‖ see Appendix 6. 72 To wit the greatest Roman actor Quintus Roscius Gallus

53 6 Conclusion

The attempt of this thesis was to adduce well-founded facts about the most significant affairs and events of the personal and professional life of Richard Burbage and to present him as a persona which cannot be excluded from the history of early modern theatre. All the same, neither this thesis nor any other can ever capture the whole truth about this persona because human life can never be fully and objectively recorded in any book, no matter how long and rich in details. No publication can ever describe what exactly made a particular actor so popular. The truth is that, for any person to become famous, and concretely for any actor to become famous and popular, he must necessarily be a subject to the rules of the current fashion. At the same time, however, he has to bring in something special, personal and irreplaceable. It may be the voice, the appearance, the body language, or is it something as indefinable as the personal charisma. Likewise, it is impossible to detect from any documents what any person was like in terms of the interpersonal relations.

What any biography can provide at most, is to avoid any interpretation and to let the facts speak for themselves. Therefore what I will provide here instead of any final decisive evaluation will be a brief objective summary of facts known about the life and career of Richard Burbage.

Richard Burbage was a son of his famous and successful father, James, with whom he cooperated until the death of the later mentioned. With his older brother, Cuthbert, he established a unique system of housekeepers, which they applied to both playhouses they co-owned, the Blackfriars and the Globe. The system turned out to be so successful that it had a major share in the long-lasting stability of the Chamberlain‘s – King‘s Men, companies inherently connected with which Burbage‘s name. As a shareholder in one of the most successful companies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the

54 Chamberlain‘s – King‘s Men, he cooperated with such talented playwrights as William

Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and John Fletcher. Within the acting troupe he seemed to be on good terms with his fellow-players, since he gained their confidence and became the executor of several of last wills. Burbage earned enough money to become one of the few rich players of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, leaving his wife and two children a considerable inheritance. In addition to this, he was praised as a limner, but more than anything he was a dedicated versatile player who became an idol of his age and an epitome of such heroes as Richard III, Hamlet and Othello. He remained the hero of the theatre-goers for long thirty-five years during which he did not lose anything of his fame even though new styles and younger player desired to bundle him from his imaginary throne of the best player. For his generation and even for several generations after his death, he became the Player with capital P and the idol of Elizabethan and

Jacobean theatre.

55 7 Czech Resume

Tato bakalářská práce s názvem Richard Burbage: The Life, Career and Acting

Qualities of an Elizabethan Player si klade za cíl seznámit čtenáře s některými fakty ze osobního a profesního života Richard Burbage, hlavního tragéda Služebníků lorda komořího – později Králových služebníků.

V úvodu k celé práci je zdůrazněna zejména špatná zdrojová dostupnost primárních materiálů týkajících se životopisů jednotlivých herců alžbětinské doby, která je ještě ztížena neobjektivností a dokonce padělatelstvím některých dokumentů. Dále je v této kapitole nastíněno, jakým způsobem jsem se rozhodla k práci přistupovat, aby byla co nejobjektivnější a zároveň co nejpřehlednější.

Druhá kapitola si všímá osobního života Richarda Burbage od jeho narození až po spekulace týkajících se data a příčiny jeho smrti.

Ve třetí kapitole je na Richarda Burbage nahlíženo jako na dědice dvou divadel, spoluzakladatele nového systému vlastníků divadelních budov a jako na podnikatele, který si přivydělával jako příležitostný malíř a iluminátor.

Následující kapitola se snaží pomocí porovnání dvou druhů performativního umění, řečnictví a herectví, sestavit obraz vlastností a schopností, které každý alžbětinský musel mít a ovládat, aby se mohl stát úspěšný.

Poslední kapitola se zabývá hereckou historií Richarda Burbage a jeho působením v různých hereckých společnostech. Tato kapitola rovněž obsahuje seznam her a rolí, v nichž Burbage s jistotou hrál a nabízí i výsledky Leggattovy moderní analýzy těchto rolí, z nichž tento kanadský profesor odvozuje specifické herecké kvality

Richarda Burbage. Závěr této kapitoly tvoří ukázky z jednotlivých oslavných básní na tohoto herce, jež nejenže potvrzují některé v předchozích kapitolách zjištěné informace, ale jež zároveň dokazují, jak slavný, populární a významný Richard Burbage musel být.

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62 9 Appendices

Appendix 1

A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the famous Actor Richard Burbage who died on

Saturday in Lent the 13th March 1618[/9]

Some skilful limner help me; if not so,

Some sad tragedian help t‘ express my woe.

But O he's gone, that could both best; both limn

And act my grief, and ‗tis for only him

That I invoke this strange assistance to it,

And on the point invoke himself to do it;

For none but Tully, Tully's praise could tell,

And as he could, no man could act so well.

This part of sorrow for him nor man draw,

So truly to the life this map of woe,

This grief's true picture, which his loss hath bred.

He's gone, and with him what a world are dead,

Which he reviv‘d, to be revived so

No more: young Hamlet, old Hieronimo,

Kind Lear, the grieved Moore, and more beside,

That liv‘d in him, have now forever died.

Oft have I seen him leap into a grave,

Suiting ye person, which he seem‘d to have,

Of a sad lover, with so true an eye

That then I would have sworn he meant to die.

Oft have I seen him play his part in jest

63 So lively that spectators, and the rest

Of his sad crew, whilst he but seem‘d to bleed,

Amazed, thought even then he died in deed.

O let me be check‘d, and I shall swear

E‘en yet it is a false report I hear,

And think that he, that did so truly feign

Is still but dead in jest, to live again.

But now this part he acts, not plays: 'tis known

Other he play‘d, but acted hath his own.

England's great Roscius, for what Roscius

Was unto Rome, that Burbage was to us.

How did his speech become him, and his pace

Suit with his speech, and every action grace

Them both alike, whilst not a word did fall

Without just weight to ballast it withal.

Hadst thou but spoke to death, and us‘d thy power

Of thy enchanting tongue, at that first hour

Of his assault, he had let fall his dart

And been quite charm‘d by thy all-charming art.

This he well knew, and to prevent this wrong

He therefore first made seizure on his tongue;

Then on ye rest, 'twas easy, by degrees;

The slender ivy tops the smallest trees.

Poets whose glory whilom ‗twas to hear

Your lines so well express‘d: henceforth forbear

64 And write no more; or if you do, let ‗t be

In comic scenes, since tragic parts you see

Die all with him. Nay, rather sluice your eyes

And henceforth wrote nought else but tragedies,

Or dirges, or sad elegies or those

Mournful laments that not accord with prose.

Blur all your leaves with blots, that all you writ

May be but one sad black, and open it.

Draw marble lines that may outlast the sun

And stand like trophies when the world is done,

Turn all your ink to blood, your pens to spears,

To pierce and wound the hearers' hearts and ears.

Enrag‘d, write stabbing lines, that every word

May be as apt for murther as a sword,

That no man may survive after this fact

Of ruthless death, either to hear or act;

And you his sad companions, to whom Lent

Becomes more lenten by this accident,

Henceforth your waving flag no more hang out,

Play now no more at all, when round about

We look and miss the Atlas of ye sphere.

What comfort have we (think you) to be there.

And how can you delight in playing when

Such mourning so affecteth other men;

Or if you will still put ‗t out let it wear

65 No more light colours, but death livery there

Hang all your house with black that hue it bears,

With icicles of ever-melting tears,

And if you ever chance to play again,

May nought but tragedies afflict your scene.

And thou dear Earth that must enshrines that dust

By Heaven now committed to thy trust,

Keep it as precious as the richest mine

That lies entomb‘d in that rich womb of thine,

That after-times may know that much-lov‘d mould

From other dust, and cherish it as gold.

On it be laid some soft but lasting stone

With this short epitaph endors‘d thereon,

That every one may read, and reading weep:

‗Tis England's Roscius, Burbage, that I keep.

anonymous

66 Appendix 2

Epigram 89

If Rome so great, and in her wisest age,

Feared not to boast the glories of her stage,

As skilful Roscius and grave Aesop, men

Yet crowned with honours, as with riches then,

Who had no less a trumpet of their name

Than Cicero, whose every breath was fame:

How can so great example die in me,

That, Alleyn, I should pause to publish thee?

Who both their graces in thyself hast more

Outstripped, than they did all that went before;

And present worth in all dost so contract

As others speak, but only thou dost act.

Wear this renown. ‘Tis just that who did give

So many poets life, by one should live.

Ben Jonson (1616)

67 Appendix 3

The Praises of Burbage, or an Excellent Actor

Who, by the best and noblest of the age

Was held the chiefest ornament of the stage,

And Actor‘s clearest Light in no dark time

To shew them what to follow, what decline.

Who knew, by rules of the Dramatic Art,

To fit his speech and action to his part,

And of an excellent orator had all

In voice and gesture which we charming call ;

Who a delightful Proteus was that could

Transform himself into what shape he would

And finally did on the stage appear

Beauty to th‘ Eye, and Musick to the Ear.

Richard Flecknoe (1671)

68 Appendix 4

An Epitaph upon Mr. Richard Burbage, the Player

The Life‘s a play, sceaned out by Nature‘s Arte,

Where every man hath his allotted parte.

This man hath now (as many men can tell)

Ended his part, and he hath acted well

The Play now ended, think his grave to be

The retiring house of his sad Tragedie,

Where to give his fame this, be not afraid,

Here lies the best Tragedian ever played.

Here lies the best Tragedian ever played.

Sloane MS. (1786)

69 Apendix 5

When Burbage Played

When Burbage played, the stage was bare

Of fount and Temple, Towe and Stair,

Two backsword šled a battle out,

Two super made a rabble rout

The Throne of Denmark was a chair!

And yet, no less the audience there

Thrilled through all changes of Despair,

Hope, Anger, Fear, Delight and Doubt,

When Burbage played.

This is the Actor‘s gift, to share

All moods, all passions nor to care

One whit for scene, so he without

Can lead men‘s minds the roundabout,

Stirred as of old these hearers were

When Burbage played.

Austin Dobson (1897)

70 Appendix 6

The Praises of Richard Burbage

Who did appear so gracefully on the stage

He was the admir‘d example of the age,

And so observ‘d all your dramatic laws,

He ne‘er went off the stage but with applause.

Richard Flecknoe (1664)

71