We could go on with the list. I’ll mention a couple personal favorites. There’s a “Hell mought [mouth].” That, I assume, was used, probably over a trap door, at the end of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. There, the good Doctor is dragged into Hell by the devils. He cries out “Ugly Hell, gape not!” That would have been an impressive property on so small a stage, especially because it was big enough to accommodate Edward Alleyn, who played Faustus. Then again, there’s a “payer of stayers for Fayeton,” which would be a pair of stairs for “Phaeton,” a lost play performed by the Lord Admiral’s early in 1598. Phaeton was the son of Helios. He drove Helios’s chariot across the skies erratically, thus dooming himself. And again, a pair of stairs, presumably into the heavens, must have been a striking sight on so small a stage.
Like its stage the Rose’s auditorium was also surprisingly small, even in its expanded version. Its width at its widest point was about 27 meters. The auditorium’s depth from center stage to the back of the furthest gallery was only about 19 meters. Yet London’s theaters could attract very large crowds, in the range of 2,000 to 3,000. People were somewhat smaller then, but it also seems apparent that they expected less personal space than we do at theatrical events.
The Curtain
There’s much more to be done integrating the Rose’s archeology into our understanding of literary and stage history. But let’s leave that for future scholars and turn to a related subject. When might archeological evidence not be evidence at all? In the case of the Rose, the archeology correlates with the written records. What if it hadn’t?
That question leads us to the subject of the Curtain theater. We have learned from the archeologists in the last few years that the Curtain was a rectangular theater. That discovery has caused a major stir among theater historians. And the archeologists have indeed discovered a rectangular edifice. You can see that by looking at the foundations. But was that rectangular edifice the Curtain? The written records seem to show that the Curtain was a polygonal building, sufficiently polygonal to be described as round.
There are no fewer than four independent records touching upon the point. Let’s begin with what apparently is the only actual depiction of the Curtain. The depiction is contained within an undated panoramic engraving, The View of the Cittye of London from the North towards the South. Two copies survive. The engraving is undated but includes representations of two people, probably King James and Queen Anne, who are wearing costumes from well into the Jacobean period. It’s based on a preceding drawing. Herbert Berry minutely examines the engraving in Shakespeare Survey. He shows, beyond reasonable doubt, that the drawing was made sometime between 1600 and 1613. The View portrays a building in Shoreditch which clearly is a theater. Within the timeframe Berry identifies, that theater can only be the Curtain. The other theater in Shoreditch, the Theater, had been dismantled at the end of 1598.
Before Berry’s article, some scholars argued that the drawing or engraving had been made earlier, and that the building portrayed is the Theater. Another building shown next to the theater building, they argued, was the Curtain. They based this argument on the fact that the engraving seems to show a flag flying above the other building. But Berry points out that many buildings besides theaters flew flags. When you look at the other building, moreover, it sure doesn’t look like a theater. It’s small even compared to the ordinary buildings around it, and far smaller than the obvious theater building. It’s shorter than many of the ordinary buildings, and half the height of the theater building. Its flag is barely visible. Its façade is mostly covered by bushes.
The building that is thus apparently the Curtain isn’t depicted in the engraving with complete clarity. The engraver probably did not realize that this small part of his engraving would be so closely scrutinized by scholars 400 years later. Nevertheless, the engraver’s depiction is sufficiently clear to allow reasonable conclusions. He shows us a three-story building with three front-facing facets. The top line of the middle facet is horizontal, and the top lines of the two flanking facets descend from that horizontal. Hatchmarks drawn on the two flanking facets similarly descend from the center facet.
Considering geometry and perspective, these lines and marks can only represent a three-dimensional object in the shape of an octagon. The octagon could of course merely be representative of some polygon with more sides than eight. But the drawing cannot reasonably be interpreted to represent a rectangle. The engraver draws many rectangular buildings in the surrounding area. Those buildings show two facets conjoined at single lines, just as perspective and geometry require for rectangular buildings.
Indeed, the engraver depicts such a rectangular structure sitting atop our theater building. That presumably was an above-sage hut. The contrast in its shape and that of the building itself indicates that the engraver’s depiction of a polygonal shape for the building itself was altogether intentional. The engraver also shows two structures protruding from the sides of the theater building. Those presumably were housings for external staircases.
Whether the Curtain was octagonal or perhaps more multi-polygonal, it was sufficiently round to be described as such by several writers. Johannes de Witt, a Dutch visitor to London around 1596, reports in Latin that there are four beautiful London “amphitheatra.” The two more surpassing of these are the Rose and the Swan, across the Thames. The other two can be reached by passing through Bishopsgate. Those two were, almost certainly, the Theater and the Curtain.
“Amphitheatra” meant in Latin approximately what “amphitheaters” means in English today. They were round or ovular theaters with stages at their centers. A single Roman theater, a “theatrum,” was either a semicircle or half an oval. An “amphitheatrum” was a double theater. That is, a theater consisting of two conjoined semicircular or half-ovular theaters, making a full round.