SHAKESPEARE’S DAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 968, 10 May 1930, Page 29

SHAKESPEARE’S DAY

Performances Started at Three in the Afternoon BEER FOR BREAKFAST “Shakespeare is the grandest thing we English have ever done.” wrote Thomas Carlyle 90 years ago. The prince of dramatists was born on April 23, 1564, it is supposed. He (lied on April 23, 1616. In Tudor times Londoners were early rises. Breakfast usually consisted of beef or bacon with ale, which was drunk at all meals, there being no tea or coffee to vary the menu. Wooden platters or trenchers were used for the food which was eaten with knives and fingers, the use of forks not being introduced from Italy until about 1614. As dinner-time was about 11 o’clock, and the performance at the theatre began at three, the morning was the time when Shakespeare wrote. The rest of the day he was too busv, and the poorness of the artificial lights made it almost impossible to write in the evening. But besides writing in the morning, Shakespeare must have had other matters to attend to. Perhaps he had to wait on his patron and friend, the Earl of Southampton. Perhaps he had io cross the Thames by London Bridge, then a great shopping centre, (0 see how the building of the Rose Theatre was progressing, or to consult Henslowe on some point. Probably the players, Shakespeare among them, reached the theatre at noon, and from then to three, when the show started, there would be rehearsals to conduct, business arrangements to make; and, in the earlier days of his theatrical career, Shakespeare would have to superintend the boys who acted as horse-holders to the “quality,” for there is probably reason for tradition calling these lads, “Shakespeare’s Boys.’.’ Then there were the costumes to be laid in readiness in the tiring-hall at the back of the stage; pine sprigs had to be laid on the floor beside the better seats for the gallants to lay iheir cloaks upon; and the supply of juniper berries had to be placed in readiness for burning when the atmosphere became too offensive through the presence of the unwashed and insanitary playgoers. Between two and three the theatre opened. There being no tickets or ticket-boxes, the money was taken at the doors. The auditorium was mostly roofless, and the "gods” paid a penny each to stand in the yard. These were the “groundlings.” For seats od either side of the stage there was often a charge of as much as 12s. The best seats were iu the proscenium boxes, which persist even to this day. There was nothing in the way of scenery other than a notice indicating whether the scene was a castle an inn or a ship. But the costumes were rich and expensive. We get a hint from this of how Shakespeare, whose name has ever since filled the world, spent his day.

Mr. PI. P. Muller, representative in New Zealand for J. C. Williamson and J. and N. Tait, is hopeful that New Zealand will be seeing a few of the urm’s strong attractions. A few of those attractions in Australia are the revivals of “Belle of New York” and “Merry Widow,” “Katinka” and “Maid of the Mountains” —the former by the “New Moon” Company, headed by Marie Bremuer and Sydney Burchall, and the latter by Gladys Moncrieff, Michael Cole, and a very big east; ••Love Lies,” with Clem Dawe Nellie Stewart, in “Romance’ ; V\ nliam Faversham, in a series of romantic roles; and later on “Mr. Cinders, featuring Hendle Edgar.