However, in the early years of the 17th Century, there were acting companies composed entirely of male children. It was a thing. They played not only the women’s roles, but the men’s roles, too. Not at the Globe, however. In fact, Shakespeare was so irritated by the practice that the First Folio edition of Hamlet, printed in 1623, includes an exchange in which even a Danish prince has opinions about a theatrical convention in England that had fallen out of favor years earlier.
Act II, Scene ii: Hamlet laments the fortunes which have befallen a beloved troupe of actors who have lost patronage and must travel to make their nut. The “late innovation” Rosencrantz alludes to are the companies of boy players.
HAMLETWhat players are they?
ROSENCRANTZEven those you were wont to take such
delight in, the tragedians of the city.
HAMLETHow chances it they travel? Their residence,
both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
ROSENCRANTZI think their inhibition comes by the
means of the late innovation.
HAMLETDo they hold the same estimation they did
when I was in the city? Are they so followed?
ROSENCRANTZNo, indeed are they not.
HAMLETHow comes it? Do they grow rusty?
ROSENCRANTZNay, their endeavor keeps in the wonted
pace. But there is, sir, an aerie of children, little
eyases, that cry out on the top of question and are
most tyrannically clapped for ’t. These are now the
fashion and so berattle the common stages (so
they call them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid
of goose quills and dare scarce come thither.
HAMLETWhat, are they children? Who maintains ’em?
How are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality
no longer than they can sing? Will they not say
afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common
players (as it is most like, if their means are
no better), their writers do them wrong to make
them exclaim against their own succession?
ROSENCRANTZFaith, there has been much to-do on
both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tar
them to controversy. There was for a while no
money bid for argument unless the poet and the
player went to cuffs in the question.
HAMLETIs ’t possible?
GUILDENSTERNDo the boys carry it away?
ROSENCRANTZAy, that they do, my lord—Hercules
and his load too.
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| Wedding feast at the house of Sir Henry Unton (unknown, c. 1596) |
The “Children of the Blackfriars Theatre” are the inspiration for the novel The Ghost Theatre, a novel by Mat Osman, author and former bass player for the 90s Britpop band Suede. I need to expand my repertoire of reads, because I keep getting recommended and then falling into Shakespearean pastiches. Last summer it was Bedtrick, which I enjoyed, and then there’s Hamnet which I started more than once but keep losing interest in.
I seem to have just enough knowledge of what we do and do not know about Shakespeare the man that I have little patience with anything that smells fishy. What’s great about Ghost Theatre is that the Bard is mentioned once, in passing, and only then in regards to the aforementioned whinging from Hamlet.
The courtly theater of Blackfriars is a different beast than the Globe, in that it serves an audience of greater means, and as an indoor theater can play with light and stage effects in a manner that a daylight theater cannot. And in that, it is a very interesting read, a peek into a popular entertainment that doesn’t get the wide and varied historical fiction treatment that the Globe has received.
The story also delves into the murky world of a company made entirely of “underage” actors, taken from their parents (with permission from the Queen) to perform for the entertainment of adult audiences, with all of the perils that might suggest.
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