Exhibition casts light on criminal, deadly world of Shakespeare's theater
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E-mail Xinhua, January 16, 2016
A new exhibition examines the world of William Shakespeare and reveals that he worked in a business that was considered scandalous and was discouraged by the London authorities, who tried their utmost to shut down theaters to prevent the bad influence of players and actors infecting their citizens.
The exhibition at the City of London's Guildhall Art Gallery uses priceless documents from the City's own archives and from other London sources to cast a light over what Shakespeare's life would have been like in London at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th.
Laurence Ward, a manager at the London Metropolitan Archive, told Xinhua that in Shakespeare's times the City authorities thoroughly disapproved of the theater as an institution.
Documents gathered in a bound volume called The Remembrancier track the City of London's attempts to get the reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth, and the head of her household, the Lord Chamberlain, to tackle the problem of the theaters.
"The City often coerced the Queen to take action against what it saw as the bad influence of the theaters," said Ward.
Displayed is a letter from the Lord Mayor of London's office which was asking the Queen to shut down the theaters.
"This happened quite regularly. This is just one example of the City of London making approaches to Queen Elizabeth ... about what they saw as the really bad influence the theaters were having on the clerks from the city," said Ward.
The theaters existed outside the jurisdiction of the city although there were exceptions to that through time.
Ward said, "These were entertainment districts. Shoreditch (to the immediate north of the city) and the South Bank (of the Thames) had a reputation for brothels and all sorts of crime is recorded there."
"The world Shakespeare and his players inhabited does sound quite dangerous. There is one recorded instance of Ben Jonson (a playwright contemporary to Shakespeare and an associate of his) being arrested after running through an actor, Gabriel Spencer, in a tavern and it resulted in a duel in which Jonson killed the actor."
"You get the sense of the tumultuous lives these players led. And in a place like Shoreditch they were in the thick of the more lawless elements of society."
SHAKESPEARE'S SHAKY SIGNATURE
One of the features of the exhibition is a document for the transfer of a property in the City of London to Shakespeare. It is probably priceless, as Shakespeare's signature appears at the foot of the document -- one of only six examples of the playwright's signature known to exist.
It dates from 1613, a time when Shakespeare was spending a lot time in Stratford and focusing on his business and property interests there.
But it was also the year that he bought a property in London -- the Blackfriars' Gatehouse property.
The precinct of the Blackfriars' monastery had been carved up into plots of land and was in the possession of various landholders. It was one of these plots that Shakespeare bought.
Ward said that the sale document was "an incredibly important document".
"There are only six known examples of his signature, all in legal documents like this. This is probably the closest tie between the City of London and Shakespeare," said Ward.
Shakespeare's signature is one of four on the bottom of the document, and appears to be a little shaky in its handwriting.
The other signatories are all trustees to the sale, and they all knew Shakespeare, including one signatory, John Heminges, who was an actor.
"Heminges was the man who was involved with Shakespeare as a player and along with Henry Condell, he eventually published the First Folio (of Shakespeare's plays). He was very, very closely associated with Shakespeare," said Ward.
And it is this close link that is strong evidence that this really is Shakespeare's signature.
"It is the Heminges' link which tells us as much as anything else that this is really Shakespeare. If you look at the six examples of his signature, they do vary," said Ward.
A plausible explanation for the differences between the six existing Shakespeare signatures is that he was likely to have been a fast writer, very accustomed to writing quickly and unworried about what the writing looked like or its readability, said Ward.
Also on display is one of the surviving copies of the First Folio edition of his works, which contains 36 of Shakespeare's plays. It was put together by Heminges and Condell and published in 1623, some years after Shakespeare's death in 1616. About 1,000 were printed and there are possibly 240 examples which have survived.
Because of Condell and Heminges's work, the vast majority of Shakespeare's work was saved.
The exhibition has one further item to bring us closer to the playwright. The First Folio edition also contains in its frontispiece a portrait of Shakespeare, and one which can be considered as a reliable likeness.
Ward said, "There is controversy over the different portraits of Shakespeare. But most people agree that this and the bust on his memorial in Stratford give us a sense of what he looked like because people like Condell and Heminges were involved in the publication of the book and Ben Jonson writes at the beginning of the book -- they all knew him."
"I guess they would not have allowed it to go out if it was an image that looked nothing like him at all."
Despite the paucity of documentary evidence directly linked to Shakespeare, it seems that despite the passage of 400 years we can at least be pretty certain of what the playwright looked like.
The exhibition is open each day at the London Heritage Gallery in the Guildhall Art Gallery in London until the end of March. Admission is free.
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