SHAKESPEARE AND SHOREDITCH

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 71, 10 April 1937, Page 17

SHAKESPEARE AND SHOREDITCH

Exciting Days of the Early Theatre BRAWLS AND RAIDS Shoreditch, according to a pamphlet recently issued by the Shoreditch Housing Association, was. tlie home of the first theatre ever built in London or in England. The association recently held an interesting -three-day Shakespeare exhibition and "fostivity ' ' to raise .funds for housing in the Hhortditch area. The exhibition, scrved itl purpcse admirably so far as Shoreditch housing is concerned. But one of its mostr interesting sidelights was the amount oi light it shed upon the early theatre and upon Shakespeare's association with Shoreditch. One pamphlet covered the field very extensively. The players of the timo, it said, ■wero beginning to be dissatisfied with appearing in inn-yards, and, moreover, Were disliked within the Gity bounds altogether on account of their generaJ rowdiness. The elder Burbage selected the suburb of Shoreditch — "it was Bufficiently respectable, (by . compaxison with Clerkonwell iand- Bankside) to have. support from the Court, and Bufficiently notorious to find -a pefmanent audiencO. " He built his theatre there, and as it stood in lonely grandeur without competitioa of any kind, he just calledit m&gnificently, "The Theatre." The Bankside houses, The Rose, The Swan, and The Beargatden^ came later. It was for "The Theatre," and for its Shoreditch neighbour, "The .Curtain," that Shakespeare wrote and acted' in his early masterpieces-'-in distracting surxonndings. The history relates that there were incessant' disturbances. "The Theatre" was built on borrowed money. There was litigation throughout the whole of its career, and also free fights for its possession. A widow who daimed a half-share in ' it came with supporters to collect the box-office reoeipts, and W&s beaten ofx •with cudgels. .A manager drew up battle-orders for hia troops, "If you will be ruled by me, at their nest coming provide chftrged pistols, with powder and hempseed, to shoot them in the legs." ^ The last act was the most dramatift. After ten years "The Theatre" fell on bad times. A inove was planned to Bankside — but was carried out by the aCtors te'ariug the old theatre to pieces Snd cawying its material to the site of the celebrated Globe, ,fthen and there pulling, breaking and throwing down the said theatre in a very outrageoiis, violent and riotous_sort," says a contemporaTy legal deposition. Shakespeare was a party to theso prdceedings. He hnd his money in the new playhouSe to be built. But his important plays up to that time haa been written for "The Theatre" and 14 The Curtain," and Juliet and Ealst&ff had both first seen the light w ■Shoreditch.