And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances: and one man in his time plays many parts ..... [As you like it] A highlight of this summer has been a trip to the Shakespeare Rose Theatre which has been built next to Clifford's Tower in York. During the summer months a superb cast has put on four Shakespeare plays. We went to see Macbeth. It was one of the HOTTEST days, and the theatre was open to the sky with a central pit for standing, and tiered seating in a circle round the stage. It was a magnificent production, but sitting on a plastic chair in such heat for three hours did take some stamina. When we got back to the car left in the park-and-ride car park (where it had been several hours) the thermometer read 31 degrees ! However, the play I will never forget. My vote for best actor would go to Paul Hawkyard who played Macduff, as his role ranged from violence to great passion, and his speech on hearing of the murder of his wife and children really did have me in tears. Great acting. There was a lot of blood. The battles were magnificent. During the 15 minute break two stage hands spent the whole time with mops and buckets cleaning the blood off the stage. Not so much Out damned Spot, I say, as needing a whole bottle of floor cleaner. Leandra Ashton was a scheming Lady Macbeth and Richard Standing was Macbeth, and Fine Time Fontayne (where did he get that name?) was a great King Duncan. The purpose of this temporary theatre in York was to give the audience the experience of what going to see a play would have been like in Shakespeare's life time. There were early theatres in London from the late 1500s with The Rose being built in 1587 and The Globe in 1599. They would have had permanent companies of actors who provided plays every day. But in the provinces entertainment was provided by companies of strolling players who travelled about. Plays were performed in a variety of locations, from the courtyards of inns to barns to countryhouses. Gradually some strolling players formed themselves into touring companies who put on plays on an established route or circuit. Richmond was part of one such circuit. Some of the Companies were made up of provincial actors and actresses, some from the London theatres who came out to the provinces during the summer season. The Georgian Theatre in Richmond is famous because the interior is original. This does give the theatre goer the authentic experience of going to see a play, with added aches and pains and cricks in the neck and knees as we are now larger in size than the Georgians. There are only two seats where husband can sit and have somewhere to put his legs. The Georgian Theatre was built in 1788 by Samuel Butler, who was an actor manager of a touring company who performed plays at the locations on the map above. He had married a lady with the wonderful name of Tryphosa Brockell, originally from Barnard Castle, she married three times and Samuel Butler was her third (and much younger) husband. To be , or not to be, that is the question, [Hamlet] gave her three opportunities to combine wedded bliss with a life on the stage. Her first marriage was to an actor called Henry Miller, then a Mr J Wright who was a theatrical manager of the circuit which included Kendal, later enlarged. When he died Tryphosa took over as manager, but then remarried to a young actor called Samuel Butler, when he was 23 and she was 46, and he became the manager of the circuit opening the theatre in Richmond and one in Ripon. Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em [Twelfth Night] must have crossed his ambitious mind when he proposed. Tryphosa had children, daughters who became actresses and married actors, and after Tryphosa died Samuel also remarried into another thespian family called Jefferson and had two sons who became actors. However ..... all this travelling about .... where did you stay ? What temptations fell your way ? In 1797, the year Tryphosa died, Samuel Butler, who at the time was at his theatre in Whitby, was summoned by the Westmorland Quarter Sessions for begetting an illegitmate child ! Mary Burrell of Kendal, singlewoman had declared that she was with child and that child was likely to be born a bastard, so Samuel was summoned to pay up for the maintenance of Mary and her baby. In his sorrow, was Samuel seeking The milk of human kindness [Macbeth] in the arms of another ? In due course Martha Burrell was baptised in Kendal in March 1798, and she survived, because much later she in turn also had an illegitimate child, which perhaps tells us something about the status of these Burrell women. No doubt poor Mary reflected that What's done cannot be undone - to bed, to bed, to bed ! [Macbeth] Going to the theatre was very popular entertainment, but as the companies travelled around the opportunity to go and see a play was seasonal. The Butler company often spent the winter in Whitby because the Whaling Fleet was at home. So imagine the rough, tough sailors recounting to each other The Play's the thing [Hamlet] on their long voyages. The touring companies had to plan ahead, make sure advertising was in place and locations prepared. Play Bills were their main form of advertising. Many companies tried to synchronise their performances with local horse races, as the race going public would also want entertainment in the evenings. The earliest reference to Butler coming to Richmond pre-dates 1788 when the theatre was opened and is on a fragment of a play bill. This is the entry for Sir Thomas Dundas's horses in Richmond Races in 1784. He was entering a Bay Colt called Balloon which had a pedigree by Telemachus and Alagreque and another Bay Colt with a pedigree by Pontac and Shakespeare (how appropriate) because it is obvious he had scribbled this on the back of something else. In 1776 Pontac was valued at £1,200 and after winning at Newmarket went to stud at Aske near Richmond. Alagreque was bred by Pratt of Askrigg and had nine progeny all at Aske. This part of Yorkshire was famous for horses. In the 1720s when Daniel Defoe was researching his book "Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain", he noted how this part of the country was full of jockeys. So for many of the nobility and local landowners it really was A horse ! A horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! [Richard III] And the other side of Dundas's scribbled note reveals that it was a Play Bill advertising a play called "The Wedding Ring" or "The Maid's the Mistress" and top of the Bill was Buttler (Samuel Butler). This would be the second play of the evening, we do not have the top half of the advertising Bill. The Stewards of the race meetings often commissioned performances and advertising for race meetings often added that there would be plays performed, so the two events went side by side. The Wedding Ring was a comic opera in two acts by Charles Dibdin, originally performed at Drury Lane in 1773. This playbill is dated 1792 and shows that the Stewards of the Races thought a Shakespeare play would suit the race goers, so after they had lost all their money betting on horses they would think that all that glisters is not gold and that the quality of mercy was not strained but droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. [Merchant of Venice]. Gretna Green was a musical farce first performed at the Haymarket in 1783, so this illustrates how provincial audiences kept up with London entertainment. Before a company could put on plays they had to obtain a licence from the Quarter Sessions. This is a letter written by Samuel Butler in 1795 requesting permission to put on plays in Bedale. By finding the petitions in the records of the Quarter Sessions it is possible to retrace the steps of the theatre companies (there were several) and see when and where they put on their plays. There were other circuits which included Easingwold, Stokesley, Guisbrough, Malton . And this is the record that a licence was issued in 1796 to Samuel Butler for his theatre in Bedale. We take popular entertainment so much for granted. It is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no matter where you are. If you have an electronic device to download music, films, television programmes, you are never without entertainment. If music be the food of love, play on [Twelfth night]. We have forgotten what a huge event it must have been when a group of performers came through your town or village. I thoroughly enjoyed the live performance of Macbeth, and it made me think of All our yesterdays and how Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. [Macbeth]. Long may live stage performances flourish.
When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightening or in rain ? When the hurly-burly's done, When the battle's lost and won That will be e're the set of sun.
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AuthorThis is where you can share creativity with me. I believe that everyone has something creative within them, and it is a joy to find ways of being creative. Blogging is NEW to me, so here goes ..... Archives
January 2024
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