DOCTOR FAUSTUS

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

FOCUS #2 – PLAYHOUSES IN LONDON 1567-1642

What the New Mermaids edition says in its introduction:

Premier: The Rose, Philip Henslowe’s suburban amphitheatre, records a performance of Faustus on 30
September 1594 so right after his death. However, despite many mysteries that surround the play, it certainly
premiered before Marlowe’s murder.
Philip Henslowe
The Rose
“Faustus may have premiered not outside but in, meaning both inside the City of London and inside a closed room.
The anti-theatrical scourge William Prynne1 recalls a frightening night at the Belsavage, a London Inn used for
playing, recalling ‘[t]he visible apparition of the Devill’ […] ‘on the stage at the Belsavage Play-house, in Queen
Elizabeths days…while they were prophanely playing the History of Faustus.’”

William Prynne: https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Prynne

https://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/playhouses.html

UNTIL THE MID-16TH CENTURY, acting companies toured and performed plays in make-shift spaces. But the
period starting in 1567 with the construction of the first purpose-built English playhouse to 1642 with the
closing of all playhouses by the Puritans represents both the incunabular2 period and a golden age of English
theatre.

Before the first public playhouses were built in London in the late 16th century, players performed in the
yards and upper rooms of the capital’s many inns. By the early 1600s there were several playhouses just
outside the City of London. They were of two types:

• Open-air amphitheatres. These were usually polygonal. The stage projected into the central yard and
may or may not have been covered. The audience stood around the stage in the yard, where places were
cheapest, or stood or sat in the tiers of galleries that enclosed it. These playhouses relied on natural light.

• Indoor halls. These were rectangular, with the stage along one of the short sides. The audience sat,
either immediately in front of the stage where the seats were most expensive, or in galleries which ran
around the other three sides of the room. These playhouses were lit by candles and torches.

Audiences were socially mixed, and women as well as men visited both the open-air and the indoor
playhouses. Admission to the open-air amphitheatres cost one old penny, and they catered more for the
citizenry. Admission to the indoor halls cost six old pennies, and they were frequented by the court and
gentry.

ENGLISH PLAYHOUSES - Map of London showing the playhouses

https://myshakespeare.me/shakespeares-times/theaters-london-1567-1642/

The Theatre
The Theatre was built in 1576 by James Burbage, father of the actor Richard Burbage. It was located in
Shoreditch, north-east of the City of London and just outside the City’s jurisdiction. It was an open-air

1 1600-1669. English Puritan pamphleteer trained as a lawyer. Began to publish Puritan tracts in 1627. Soon he was attacking the ceremonialism of
the Anglican church and the alleged frivolous pastimes of his age. In his famous book Histrio Mastix: The Players Scourge, or, Actors
tragoedie (1633), he tried to prove that stage plays provoked public immorality. Many believed his vigorous denunciation of actresses was directed
at Charles I’s theatrically inclined wife, and the powerful Anglican William Laud (archbishop of Canterbury 1633–45) had him committed to prison in
February 1633; a year later Prynne was sentenced to life imprisonment and his ears were partially cut off. Nevertheless, from his cell he issued
anonymous pamphlets attacking Laud and other Anglican prelates, resulting in further punishments: the stumps of his ears were shorn (1637) and
his cheeks were branded with the letters S.L., meaning “seditious libeler”—though he preferred “Stigmata Laudis” (“the marks of Laud”).
2
Incunable is the anglicised form of incunabulum, reconstructed singular of Latin incunabula, which meant "swaddling
clothes", or "cradle", which could metaphorically refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development". A former
term for incunable is fifteener, meaning "fifteenth-century edition".
DOCTOR FAUSTUS
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

amphitheatre, with three tiers of galleries and a covered stage. It was initially built for Burbage's
company, The Leicester's Men under the patronage of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. It later became the
venue for some of Shakespeare's early plays.
From 1594, the Theatre became the playhouse of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. After the lease on the site
expired in 1597, the Burbages dismantled the Theatre and in 1599 rebuilt it as the Globe.

The Curtain
The Curtain was built just south of the Theatre in 1577, and was similar in construction. The Curtain was still
being used for performances in the 1620s.
In 1585, Burbage began using the Curtain as a secondary venue. Then from 1597 to 1599, while trying to
renegotiate his lease at the Theatre, Burbage used the Curtain as his company's primary venue. Some of
Shakespeare's plays were performed there by the Lord’s Chamberlain’s men, including Henry V, in which
the Curtain was described in the Prologue of act 1 as, “this wooden O,” a description which applied as well
to the Theatre and the Globe.
The Curtain was still being used for performances in the 1620s.

The Rose
The Rose was built by Philip Henslowe in 1587, south of the River Thames on Bankside. It was an open-air
amphitheatre, with three tiers of galleries but smaller than either the Swan or the Globe. Henslowe increased
the size of the Rose in 1592 and may, at the same time, have had the stage covered. Its audience capacity was
about 2,000. This became the main venue for the Admiral's Men, whose principal playwright was
Christopher Marlow and whose most popular actor was Edward Alleyn. This was the home of
Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine the Great and The Jew of Malta, and of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part
1 and Titus Andronicus, perhaps his first plays. When Shakespeare first arrived in London in his early 20's in
the late 1580's, the Theatre, Newington Butts, the Curtain and the Rose were the only playhouses in
operation.The Rose was demolished by 1606.
https://shalt.dmu.ac.uk/locations/rose-1587-1604.html

The Swan
The Swan was built in 1595 on Bankside, and was intended as a competitor to Henslowe’s Rose. Francis
Langley built the Swan, home of the Pembroke's Men, in Bankside close to the Rose. For a time it was
considered the largest (holding an audience of about 3,000) and finest theater in England. It was an open-air
amphitheatre, with three tiers of galleries and a covered stage. It was the largest of London’s playhouses. The
Swan was fraught with scandal, the most famous being Ben Jonson's and Thomas Nashe's 1597
production, The Isle of Dogs. This satire of important people landed Jonson in prison and led to the revocation
of the Swan's license for a time.It was closed by government order in 1597, and apparently never regularly
used afterwards.

The Globe (the first) (1599-1613)

After failed negotiations to renew the lease for the land on which the Theatre stood, Burbage's company
disassembled the playhouse in December, 1598, and transported the timbers to Bankside just south of the
Thames, where they used the lumber to build their new playhouse, the Globe, near the Rose. In order to
finance this project, Burbage sold shares to five of his actors, including Shakespeare. Burbage owned a 50%
interest and each of the others owned a 10% interest. In March 1599, while the Globe was under construction,
Shakespeare wrote Henry V, which played at the Curtain, and later that year he wrote Julius Caesar, As You
Like It and Hamlet, which debuted at the Globe. This structure burned to the ground in 1613 as a result of an
accident during a performance of Shakespeare's last play, Henry VIII.

The Globe (the second) 1614-1642

Within a year of the original Globe burning to the ground, the King's Men rebuilt the theater. It continued
in operation under various companies until all theaters were closed in 1642.

SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE THEATRE – Shakespeare Resource Cener

https://www.bardweb.net/globe.html
DOCTOR FAUSTUS
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

The open-air, polygonal amphitheater rose three stories high with a diameter of approximately 100 feet,
holding a seating capacity of up to 3,000 spectators. The rectangular stage platform on which the plays were
performed was nearly 43 feet wide and 28 feet deep. This staging area probably housed trap doors in its
flooring and primitive rigging overhead for various stage effects.
SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE THEATRE – Shakespeare birthplace trust
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-globe-theatre/
The story of the original Globe's construction might be worthy of a Shakespearean play of its own.
BUILDING THE FIRST GLOBE THEATRE
The story of the Globe Theatre starts with William Shakespeare's acting company The Lord Chamberlain's
Men. Shakespeare was a part-owner, or sharer, in the company, as well as an actor and the resident
playwright. From its inception in 1594, the Lord Chamberlain's Men performed at The Theatre, a playhouse
located in Shoreditch. However, by 1598 their patrons, including the Earl of Southampton, had fallen out of
favour with the Queen. The Theatre's landlord, Giles Alleyn, had intentions to cancel the company's lease
and tear the building down.
While Alleyn did own the land, he did not own the materials with which The Theatre had been built. So, on
28 December 1598, after leasing a new site in Southwark, Cuthbert and Richard Burbage led the rest of the
company of actors, sharers, and volunteers in taking the building down timber by timber, loading it on to
barges, and making their way across the Thames. Working together, the actors built the new theatre as
quickly as they could.
The ground on the new site was marshy and prone to flooding, but foundations were built by digging
trenches, filling them with limestone, constructing brick walls above the stone, and then raising wooden
beams on top of that. A funnel caught the rainwater and drained it into the ditch surrounding the theatre
and down into the Thames.
The theatre was 30 metres in diameter and had 20 sides, giving it its perceived circular shape. The structure
was similar to that of their old theatre, as well as that of the neighbouring bear garden. The rectangular stage,
at five feet high, projected halfway into the yard and the circular galleries. The pillars were painted to look
like Italian marble, the sky painted midnight blue, and images of the gods overlooked the balcony. It could
hold up to 3,000 people.
By May 1599, the new theatre was ready to be opened. Burbage named it the Globe after the figure of Hercules
carrying the globe on his back - for in like manner the actors carried the Globe's framework on their backs
across the Thames. A flag of Hercules with the globe was raised above the theatre with the Latin motto 'totus
mundus agit histrionem', or 'all the world's a playhouse'.
Shakespeare's plays that were performed there early on included: Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like
It, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Here the Lord
Chamberlain's Men enjoyed much success and gained the patronage of King James I in 1603, subsequently
becoming The King's Men.
DISASTER AT THE GLOBE
During the fateful performance of Henry VIII on 29 June 1613, the cannon announcing the unexpected arrival
of the king at the end of Act 1 set fire to the thatched roof, and within an hour the Globe burned to the ground.
Everyone escaped safely, save for one man whose breeches reportedly caught fire. Two different songs had
been written about it by the next day.
The Globe was rebuilt by February 1614; the company could then afford to decorate it much more
extravagantly, and it had a tiled roof instead of thatched. However, by this point Shakespeare's influence had
lessened, and he was spending more and more time back in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Disaster struck again in the 1642 when parliament ordered the closure of London theatres. In 1644-5 the
Globe was destroyed and the land sold for building.
SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE TODAY
In 1970, an American actor and director Samuel Wanamaker set up the Shakespeare's Globe Trust to pursue
his dream of reconstructing the original Globe Theatre. For what would be almost the next 30 years, he and
his team worked and fought to obtain the permissions, funds, and research necessary for a project of this
scope.
Historians, scholars, and architects all worked together in their efforts to build the Globe in the same way
the Lord Chamberlain's Men did, down to the green oak pillars and thatched roof. Their work and dreams
were fulfilled when the new Globe Theatre opened in 1997, one street away from where the original stood.
DOCTOR FAUSTUS
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

The Globe stands today as a living monument to Shakespeare, the greatest English playwright, home to
productions of his plays and many other new ones every season

Anyway,
https://myshakespeare.me/shakespeares-times/theaters-london-1567-1642/

Successful companies began building permanent theaters just outside London's boundaries. While
these playhouses fell under the authority of the Crown's master of revels, they avoided the interference
of London's municipal authorities. These years gave birth to outdoor amphitheaters with trapdoors and
dressing rooms and indoor playhouses with artificial lighting. They gave rise to the first great “theatre
impresarios” like James Burbage and Philip Henslowe who possessed both artistic sensibilities and ruthless
business acumen. They produced “leading star actors” like Richard Burbage, James's son, who performed
many of Shakespeare's great characters, and Edward Alleyn, Philip's son-in-law, who performed many of
Marlowe's. Both actors enjoyed passionate fans, both died wealthy, and both were more publicly mourned
than the authors whose words they spoke.
All theaters were closed by Parliament under the Puritans in 1642 at the start of the English civil war. Some
continued to perform surreptitiously during this period. Some reopened in 1660 during the English
Restoration.

COMPANIES OF PLAYERS
https://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/companies.html
Back then, actors were not called actors but players.
There were no actresses, so women’s parts were played by boys.
In 1559, Elizabeth I issued a proclamation calling for all players to be licensed and informal troupes of
travelling players were soon replaced by new touring companies with patrons from among the Queen’s
leading courtiers (among whom the most famous one must have been The Earl of Leicester – If you want to
know something funny about him url)
The Queen herself became patron of her own company, the Queen’s Men replaced in 1594 by two newly
reorganized companies, the Admiral’s Men and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.

THE EARL OF LEICESTER’S MEN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester%27s_Men
a playing company or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre, active mainly in the 1570s and 1580s
in the reign of Elizabeth I. In many respects, it was the major company in Elizabethan drama of its time, and
established the pattern for the companies that would follow: it was the first to be awarded a royal patent, and
the first to occupy one of the new public theatres on a permanent basis.
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester had kept players as early as 1559; they can be traced through the 1560s
and into the 1570s by the records of their performances in various English cities as they toured the country.
When the Elizabethan Poor Laws were amended by the Act of 1572, the status of travelling players was
affected: those who did not possess sponsorship from a nobleman could be classed as vagabonds and
subjected to a range of penalties. Conversely, however, those who enjoyed such sponsorship were legally
more secure than they had previously been. A surviving letter to Leicester from his actors, dated 3 January
1572 and written by James Burbage for the company, requests that the actors be appointed not merely the
Earl's liveried retainers but also his "household servants"—a distinction that enabled them to come and go
in London without restriction. The letter also specifies that the actors would not expect any direct financial
support, "any further stipend or benefit," from the Earl; they wanted to enjoy his legal protection while
operating as an independent commercial entity, a model that subsequent companies would follow.
The 1572 letter was signed by Burbage, John Perkin, John Laneham, William Johnson, Robert Wilson, and
Thomas Clarke. The first five men are also listed on the royal patent of 10 May 1574, the first royal patent
granted to any company of players after the Act of 1572. The Queen's warrant authorized the company "to
use, exercise, and occupy the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, interludes, stage plays and other
such like...as well within our city of London and liberties of the same, as also within the liberties and
freedoms of any our cities, towns, boroughs etc. whatsoever...throughout our Realm of England."[1]
DOCTOR FAUSTUS
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

THE ADMIRAL’S MEN – 1576

They are linked to the first performances of Shakespeare’s Richard III. The company was reorganised in
1594, with Philip Henslowe as manager, and Edward Alleyn as their principal actor. In 1603, they came under
the patronage of Prince Henry (eldest son and heir apparent of James VI and I, King
of England and Scotland) and were known as the Prince’s Men. In 1613, following the Prince’s death, the
Elector Palatine became their patron and they were renamed the Palatine’s Men. The company ceased to
play in 1626, after the death of James I. The Admiral’s Men played at the Rose and later at the Fortune.

THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MEN

Henry Carey, 1st Lord Hunsdon, became Lord Chamberlain in 1585, and his company of players became
known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. The company was reorganised in 1594, with both Richard Burbage
and William Shakespeare among the players. When Henry Carey died in 1596, his son George Carey became
2nd Lord Hunsdon and their patron. The players were known as Lord Hunsdon’s Men until George Carey
became Lord Chamberlain in 1597. They kept the name Lord Chamberlain’s Men until the accession of James
I in 1603, when they became the King’s Men. Most of Shakespeare’s plays were created for the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men. Between 1594 and 1603, they mostly played in London at the Theatre, and then at the
Globe. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men also played at court.

THE KING’S MEN

The Lord Chamberlain’s men became the King’s Men following the accession of James I in 1603. Richard
Burbage and Shakespeare were among their leading members, and Shakespeare created further plays for
the company. As the King’s Men, they continued to play at the Globe. From 1609, they also played at their
indoor playhouse at Blackfriars. The King’s Men ceased to exist when the outbreak of the Civil War closed
the playhouses in 1642.

THE PEMBROKE’S MEN

Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, became patron to a company of players in 1591 or 1592. Richard
Burbage and Shakespeare may have belonged to Pembroke’s Men, who apparently played at the Theatre.
Pembroke’s Men are linked to the earliest performances of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3. The company
broke up in 1593, although a troupe of travelling players continued to perform under the Earl’s patronage
until his death in 1601.

So, back to our concern:

(introduction bottom Xii) The Question of when Christopher Marlowe wrote Faustus is a matter of scholarly
controversy, but to consider where Marlowe’s Faustus first appeared is to try to place it within the world of
Elizabethan theatre and to look at the ways the play leveraged the conditions of playing at the time, and
exploited the resources that theatre-making afforded around 1590.
The text reproduced on stage required “both ascents and descents, a heavenly throne winched down from
heavens by windlass and perhaps a ‘hellmouth’, a monstrous mouth to fit over the trapdoor and represent
passage to the underworld. In the same accounts where Henslowe records a performance of Faustus, he lists
among his properties both a hellmouth and a dragon in ‘Fostes’, another special effect the play might
produce3.
The play called for certain theatrical contrivances. Whether with an access to cutting-edge theatrical
technology, or with the barest of bare stage, the players had to summon all the theatrical prowess they
possessed to stage a blood-and-thunder spectacle of diabolic terror and it worked if we consider the
following testimony from the 17th century:
“acting upon the stage the tragical storie of Dr Faustus the Conjurer; as a certain number of Devels kept everie one
his circle there, and as Faustus was busie in his magical invocations, on a sudden they were all dasht, every one
harkning other in the eare, for they were all perswaded, there was one devell too many amongst them.”

If the play today is taught and performed for its ‘high seriousness,’ its first audience attended it for the effect
of the smoke and squibs as much as the poetry, or the admonitory caution of the play’s sententious end.

3
Henslowe’s Diary, p. 320