SHAKESPEARE'S DAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1926, Page 21

SHAKESPEARE'S DAYS.

ACTRESSES UNKNOWN". HAScxn-ons ophelias and J-QXISTS. (By R. A. MACPHERSON.) There is a hoary-headed stage tradition that in the days when England was -iferrie England," His Majesty, King James the First of England, and Sixth 0 f Scotland, attended a performance of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra." As the play -as late in starting his irate 11a jest j summoned before him the gta ge manager: the "tatter trembling, gun- himself upon his knees in the Eoyal box. gasping forth: "Sire! The play will start just as soon as the actors are ready, but at the moment. Majesty, Queen Cleopatra is being shaved." in this present year of grace, when the names of such famous actresses as Ellen Terry. Sarah Bernhardt, Irene Vanhrugh. and Gladys Cooper are world renowned, it is interesting to remember that in Shakespeare's days and for many years later, it was considered quite '"impossible and highly reprehensible for women to appear on the stage, and every female character was enacted by a, boy. or even fully-fledged men undertook such roles. To the theatregoer of 1926 this opposition to professional actresses seems wholly absurd, but Mrs. Grundy is for ever changing her views, and apparently the Mrs. Grundy of 300 years _<ro viewed such matters from a totally different viewpoint from her namesake of to-day. However, then, as now, it WOuH. appear to be impossible to please everybody, for although the Elizabethan proprieties were observed as far as possible hi such stage matters, the Puritans of that day attacked the actors bitterly, assertins that when they donned their female attire they defied the-Biblical .law _3 laid down *in Deuteronomy, and became "as an abomination to the Lord." It was not until the closing years 'of the 17th Century that the upon actresses was removed, and it is interesting to learn that the first Shakespearean play in which the heroine was acted by a woman was "Othello/ and surely it must have been "House Full" when, for the first time upon any stage —"Enter Desdemona" in her true - sex.— such entry doubtless being heralded by the huge applause of a packed pit. When we bear in mind that until that fateful performance Desdemona's exquisite speeches had invariably been spoken by men—men of all shapes, sizes and years —¥8 can understand how welcome the Innovation must have been. The wits of that day had for some time being gibing at the manly characteristics of heroines in general and a cynical prologue to a play of the 1600*s says: "For to speak truth, men act that are between Forty or fifty, wenches of fifteen, With bone so large and nerve so uncompliant— "When you call Desdemona —enter giant I" Shakespeare's plays contain many sly hits at this enactment by men of -women's parts.. One readily recalls how, in a "Midsummer Wight's Dream." Quince had a remedy for the member of his caste who felt he was a trifle too mature for a lady's part. Flute: Nay. faith, let mc not play a . woman: " I have a beard coming. Quince: That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. And again, turning from comedy to tragedy, in " Antony and Cleopatra " the lovely Cleopatra voices her terror": —' "I shall see Pome squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness." Undoubtedly many of the dramatists of Shakespeare's day were needlessly coarse in their writings and even the great "William" himself often erred in that respect, but we must remember that the theatrical audiences of those times were almost wholly composed of men. Queen Elizabeth herself, although devoted to the drama, never entered a playhouse, and such wfcmen who attended the public theatres were adjudged scarcely respectable. Thus "the dramatists of the 17th Century may almost be said to have written for "Men Only," and this—together with the fact that men enacted the female parts, to a great extent explains the coarseness and frankness of the playwright's dialogue. Small wonder, however, that the ladies kept away when we consider the almost open-air theatre of the Elizabethans. Only the stage itself, and the encircling galleries were roofed in—the popular parts of the house on the ground floor, were open to the elements, and even the manliest o€ the male spectators must have often quailed when—in the course of a play—drenching showers of rain, or driving clouds of snow, or-even fog, descended upon him. Furthermore, "Theatreland" of the London of the 17th Century was situated on Bankside. on the south side of the Thames, one of the least respectable parts of the grow- ! ing metropolis. Within a few hundred Srds of Shake-pear's famous Globe eatre, was the Bear Garden, where London citizens attended in crowds to witness the favourite, but brutal sport of bear baiting. To-day, in London, Shakespeare's * Henry VIII." Is being performed to crowded audiences at the famous Empire Theatre in Leicester Square, and it is interesting to note that it was during the production of this same play in 1613 that the Globe, Shakespeare' 3 circular theatre—"this wooden O" as he terms it—was burned to the ground. In the course of this play a Eoyal entrance Was announced by the discharge of stage cannons, and some burning wadding from these same cannons lodged in the thatched roof above the galleries, causing a speedy conflagration and the entire destruction of the theatre. So long, however, as English drama lasts, will memories of the original Globe be retained. During his tenure of this famour playhouse Shakespeare's art was approaching its zenith. The old .dramatic world was changing—the winte*' ■solstice was over, and with our national hard, the springtime of the English theatre had arrived. With the many scenic effects of the present day, stage representations of 1926 leave little to our imagination. The bare stage of 300 years ago—minus all effects and scenery—must, however, have taxed the imagination to its limit, and when, in the prologue to *—_mg Henry the Fifth" we are asked: "Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France 1 Or may we cram _ within this wooden O the very casques that did affright the air at Agin— court." V* feel that, with the "chorus" who ; f4_a we can only wonderl