Roman theatres and Amphitheatres as a Model for the London Playhouses

The idea that the theatrical architecture of Elizabethan and Jacobean London owed something to the example of the ancients is a suggestion we first find in the diary of Dutch traveller Johannes de Witt. Writing in 1596 and having visited The Swan playhouse, as well as three other theatres, he commented on its 'outstanding' appearance, its 'wooden pillars which, by their painted marble

colour, can deceive even the most acute observers' and suggested that 'its form seems to bear the appearance of a Roman work'. This seems to offer an important connection between the English Renaissance and the classical world.

Greece is commonly accepted as the originator of theatrical performance, a form of performance where human fate rather than religious ritual lay at the centre of the action, giving it what may be termed 'a humanist perspective'. Aristotle's analytical essay Poetics introduced the genre classification of tragedy and comedy which are still in use to this day and defined the unities of time, place and action as being the foundation of drama. The Greeks also endowed us with the words 'drama', meaning action and 'theatre', from the word to gaze or behold. Finally of course, they produced the first permanent, purpose built performance arenas, many of which survive in remarkably fine condition, testament in themselves to the importance that public performance played in their culture.

The Greek tradition entered the Roman world via Sicily and the former Greek colonies of Southern Italy. Liviticus Andronicus (c284-c204 BC) is generally regarded as the founder of the Roman epic tradition, other famous tragedians being Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius and Senecca whose rhetorical style was widely imitated by the early Elizabethan playwrights. For the early part of the Roman Empire plays were performed in temporary structures. The first permanent Roman theatre was built in 54 AD, and than 100 permanent theatre structures had been built by 450 AD. Many examples of the arenas they built survive to this day. Notable features of these theatres include:

The performance area is built on level ground with banked seating, often constructed on a hillside.

The wall at the back, known as the frons scenae, was a departure from Greek theatre design which had open land behind the players. The frons scenae would be decorated columns, niches, porticoes, and statues and provided a backdrop to action. Note the way it joins with the audience to form one architectural unit.

The area in front of the frons scenae is called the proskene (proscenium), and staged the action of the play. The stage was raised to five feet and was very large (20-40 feet deep and 100 feet long) and would often be roofed.

The half circle in front of the proscenium is the Orchestra, used for action in Greek drama, it was available for spectators in Roman times.

Every spectator in the seating area (the Cavea) would have an unimpeded view of the action. In hot weather, they would be covered by an awning (vela).

Famously, the Romans also developed a taste for more graphic entertainment, in the form of sporting events, especially fights. They were staged in huge round buildings, known as amphitheatres which were the centre of entertainment in Roman cities, where many remains of amphitheatres can be still found. The largest amphitheatre in the empire was the Coliseum in Rome which could seat up to 50,000 people -This structure was still attracting attention in the Renaissance.

Following the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, the Theatres closed in the 5th Century. Groups of itinerant circus performers, using combinations of trained animal acts (often featuring overt cruelty) survived alongside other entertainers such as jugglers and mime artists. Ironically, it was the church which provided the impetus for the revival of theatre on a major scale by commissioning a variety of plays dealing with religious themes which came to be known as Miracle and Mystery Plays, dealing with the lives of Saints and Bible Stories respectively. A third kind of religious drama, the Morality Play appeared around 1400 and is a dramatized allegory constructed to illustrate ethical issues bearing on conduct and salvation. This type of drama survived the Reformation and was instrumental in creating a space for a theatre directed towards entertainment. The early days of commercial theatre involved performances in public spaces such as town squares and inn-yards such as that of the White Hart in Southwark. In such a setting, a fee was charged to playgoers for entering the inn yard, and then an additional fee was added on if they wanted to go up to a balcony level. The finest surviving galleried inn in England is New Inn, Gloucester, itself a venue for both Elizabethan and modern performances. It was the commercial success of such productions that gave rise to the first purpose built theatre in London, appropriately called 'The Theatre' and built in Shoreditch in 1576.

The age of Early Modern theatre building in London is restricted to the period 1576-1614 and in this time a total of ten building existed. These were as follows:

1576: The Theatre, Finsbury Fields, Shoreditch

1576: Newington Butts, Southwark, Surrey

1577: The Curtain, Finsbury Fields, Shoreditch

1587: The Rose, Bankside, Surrey

1595: The Swan, Paris Garden, Surrey

1599: The Globe, Bankside, Surrey (re built 1613)

1600: The Fortune, Golding Lane, Clerkenwell

1600: The Boar's Head, Whitechapel

1604: The Red Bull, Clerkenwell

1614: The Hope (the Bear Garden), Bankside, Surrey

While very little of these theatres survive, there are several sources of information from which facts can be deduced about their appearance. Most common are the illustrated maps that were popular at the time and several of which survive in which theatre buildings can readily be identified. Some of these maps offer very little new information as they tend to be derived from earlier versions rather than new surveys, but the three referred to below, all from the Southwark area, are considered to include the most valuable information. There are also accounts of visits to the theatre taken from the diaries and writings of travellers, the contribution of Johannes de Witt being the most important as it also offers a visual record. Finally, the 1980s brought to light some physical remains of two of the Southwark theatres. There is also an extant copy of the contact for the building of the Fortune and Hope Theatres.

This engraving, Agas, is from the Civitas Londonium map printed in 1633 and associated with the name of Ralph Agas. It is believed to be based on a map produced by Braun and Hopenberg, probably produced in the period 1554-1572. The main features are the bull-bating and bear-bating arenas; these arenas put on spectacles of violence featuring animals which have much in common with those which took place in Roman times. Attendance at these shows was not confined to the lower orders - Queen Elizabeth attended a bull bating in 1575 and the Zoo at the Tower of London included a collection of bears for this purpose. The physical similarity of these arenas to the Roman amphitheatres is also apparent.

The bull-bating ring soon disappeared, but the bear-bating was to remain a feature of the area into the reign of Charles I and, indeed, still lingers in the contemporary street name 'Bear Gardens'.

This account, which dates from 1596-1598, is probably the single most important source of our knowledge of the internal layout of the London theatres. It consists of a diary note together with a sketch of the internal layout of the Swan Theatre.

FROM THE LONDON OBSERVATIONS OF JOHANNES DE WITT:

There are four amphitheatres in London so beautiful that they are worth a visit, which are given different names from their different signs. In these theatres, a different play is offered to the public every day. The two more excellent of these are situated on the other side of the Thames, towards the South, and they are called the Rose and the Swan from their signboards. There are two other theatres outside the city towards the North, on the road that leads through the Episcopal Gate called Bishopsgate in the vernacular. There is also a fifth, but of a different structure, intended for fights of animals, in which many bears, bulls, and dogs of stupendous size are held in different cages and behind fences, which are kept for the fight to provide a most pleasant spectacle to the people. The most outstanding of all the theatres, however, and the largest, is that whose sign is the swan (in the vernacular, the theatre of the swan), as it seats 3000 people. It is built out of flint stones stacked on top of each other (of which there is great store in Britain), supported by wooden pillars which, by their painted marble colour, can deceive even the most acute observers. As its form seems to bear the appearance of a Roman work, I have made a drawing of it. The drawing is of considerable importance as it gives us our only internal view of a London theatre but should be treated with caution as it is only a copy of the original. The following features are apparent:

Circular structure, with open courtyard, hence the frequently used designation of 'Amphitheatre'.

Seating in galleries around the vertical internal walls.

Large elevated stage, covered with an elaborate roof held up by elaborate classical pillars.

Decorations and paintwork imitating marble and creating spectacular effect.

The various sections are labeled with names from the Roman theatre.

Thomas Platter (born 1574) was a Swiss traveller who recorded his experience at the Globe in an account of his travels. A translation is set out below.

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