John Doran - Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3)

The mimes were satirical burlesques, parts of which were often improvised, and had some affinity to the pasquinades and harlequinades of modern Italy. The writers were the intimate friends of emperors; the actors were infamous. Cæsar induced Decius Laberius, an author of knightly rank, to appear on the stage in one of these pieces; and Laberius obeyed, not for the sake of the honorarium , £4000, but from dread of disobeying an order from so powerful a master. The unwilling actor profited by his degradation to satirise the policy of Cæsar, who did not resent the liberty, but restored Laberius to the rank and equestrian privileges which he had forfeited by appearing on the stage. Laberius, however, never recovered the respect of his countrymen, not even of those who had applauded him the most loudly.

The licentious pantomimists were so gross in their performances that they even disgusted Tiberius, who forbade them from holding any intercourse, as the professional histriones or actors of the drama had done, with Romans of equestrian or senatorial dignity. It was against the stage, exclusively given up to their scandalous exhibitions, that the Christian fathers levelled their denunciations. They would have approved a "well-trod stage," as Milton did, and the object attributed to it by Aristotle, – but they had only anathemas for that horrible theatre where danced and postured Bathyllus and Hylas, and Pylades, Latinus and Nero, and even that graceful Paris, whom Domitian slew in his jealousy, and of whom Martial wrote that he was the great glory and grief of the Roman theatre, and that all Venuses and Cupids were buried for ever in the sepulchre of Paris, the darling of old Rome.

In this our England, minds and hearts had ever been open to dramatic impressions. The Druidical rites contained the elements of dramatic spectacle. The Pagan Saxon era had its dialogue-actors, or buffoons; and when the period of Christianity succeeded, its professors and teachers took of the evil epoch what best suited their purposes. In narrative dialogue, or song, they dramatised the incidents of the lives of the saints, and of One greater than saints; and they thus rendered intelligible to listeners what would have been incomprehensible if it had been presented to them as readers.

In Castle-Hall, before farm-house fires, on the bridges, and in the market-places, the men who best performed the united offices of missionary and actor, were, at once, the most popular preachers and players of the day. The greatest of them all, St. Adhelm, when he found his audience growing weary of too much serious exposition, would take his small harp from under his robes, and would strike up a narrative song, that would render his hearers hilarious.

The mixture of the sacred and profane in the early dialogues and drama prevailed for a lengthened period. The profane sometimes superabounded, and the higher Church authorities had to look to it. The monotony of monastic life had caused the wandering glee-men to be too warmly welcomed within the monastery circles, where there were men who cheerfully employed their energies in furnishing new songs and lively "patter" to the strollers. It was, doubtless, all well meant; but more serious men thought it wise to prohibit the indulgence of this peculiar literary pursuit. Accordingly, the Council of Clovershoe, and decrees bearing the king's mark, severally ordained that actors, and other vagabonds therein named, should no longer have access to monasteries, and that no priest should either play the glee-man himself, or encourage the members of that disreputable profession, by turning ale poets, and writing songs for them.

It is a singular fact, that one of our earliest theatres had Geoffrey, a monk, for its manager, and Dunstable – immortalised by Silvester Daggerwood – for a locality. This early manager, who flourished about 1119, 2 2 Geoffrey was made Abbot of St. Albans in 1119. The play, of course, was many years earlier. rented a house in the town just named, when a drama was represented, which had St. Katherine for a heroine, and her whole life for a subject. This proto-theatre was, of course, burnt down; and the managing monk withdrew from the profession, more happy than most ruined managers, in this, that he had his cell at St. Albans, to which he could retire, and therein find a home for the remainder of his days.

Through a course of Mysteries, Miracle-plays – illustrating Scripture, history, legend, and the sufferings of the martyrs, – Moralities, in which the vices were in antagonism against the virtues, and Chronicle-plays, which were history in dialogue, we finally arrive at legitimate Tragedy and Comedy. Till this last and welcome consummation, the Church as regularly employed the stage for religious ends, as the old heathen magistrates did when they made village festivals the means of maintaining a religious feeling among the villagers. Professor Browne, in his History of Greek Classical Literature , remarks: – "The believers in a pure faith can scarcely understand a religious element in dramatic exhibitions. They who knew that God is a spirit, and that they who worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth, feel that His attributes are too awful to permit any ideas connected with Deity to be brought into contact with the exhibition of human passions. Religious poetry of any kind, except that which has been inspired, has seldom been the work of minds sufficiently heavenly and spiritual, to be perfectly successful in attaining the end of poetry, namely the elevation of the thoughts to a level with the subject. It brings God down to man, instead of raising man to Him. It causes that which is most offensive to religious feeling, and even good taste, irreverent familiarity with subjects which cannot be contemplated without awe. But a religious drama would be, to those who realise to their own minds the spirituality of God, nothing less than anthropomorphism and idolatry. Christians of a less advanced age, and believers in a more sensuous creed, were able to view with pleasure the mystery-plays in which the gravest truths of the Gospel were dramatically represented; nay, more, just as the ancient Athenians could look even upon their gross and licentious comedy as forming part of a religious ceremony, so could Christians imagine a religious element in profane dramas which represented in a ludicrous light subjects of the most holy character."

Mysteries kept the stage from the Norman to the Tudor era. The Moralities began to displace them during the reign of Henry VI., who was a less beneficial patron of the stage than that Richard III. who has himself retained a so unpleasant possession of the scene. Actors and dramatists have been ungrateful to this individual, who was their first practically useful patron. Never, previous to Richard's time, had an English prince been known to have a company of players of his own. When Duke of Gloucester, a troop of such servants was attached to his household. Richard was unselfish towards these new retainers; whenever he was too "busy," or "not i' the vein" to receive instruction or amusement at their hands, he gave them licence to travel abroad, and forth went the mirthful company, from county to county, mansion to mansion, from one corporation-hall and from one inn-yard to another, playing securely under the sanction of his name, winning favour for themselves, and a great measure of public regard, probably, for their then generous and princely master.

The fashion thus set by a prince was followed by the nobility, and it led to a legal recognition of the actor and his craft, in the royal licence of 1572, whereby the players connected with noble houses were empowered to play wherever it seemed good to them, if their master sanctioned their absence, without any let or hindrance from the law.

The patronage of actors by the Duke of Gloucester led to a love of acting by gentlemen amateurs. Richard had ennobled the profession, the gentlemen of the Inns of Court took it up, and they soon had kings and queens leading the applause of approving audiences. To the same example may be traced the custom of having dramatic performances in public schools, the pupils being the performers. These boys, or, in their place, the children of the Chapel Royal, were frequently summoned to play in presence of the King and Court. Boatsful of them went down the river to Greenwich, or up to Hampton Court, to enliven the dulness or stimulate the religious enthusiasm of their royal auditors there. At the former place, and when there was not yet any suspicion of the orthodoxy of Henry VIII., the boys of St. Paul's acted a Latin play before the sovereign and the representatives of other sovereigns. The object of the play was to exalt the Pope, and consequently Luther and his wife were the foolish villains of the piece, exposed to the contempt and derision of the delighted and right-thinking hearers.