Picture one of Shakespeare’s plays being performed for the first time: The hoi polloi stand before the stage, with the wealthier watching from boxes, in the circular confines of the Globe Theatre, as actors strut across the stage.
Well, this image may need to change a bit, because excavations of an earlier theatre Shakespeare used for his plays—the lesser-known Curtain theatre, where Romeo and Juliet and Henry V may first have been performed—has turned up some surprising finds, ranging from the shape of the theatre to the tools used in performances.
“There is going to have to be a certain amount of revision of the chapter on The Curtain in my book,” archaeologist Julian Bowsher told The Guardian.
Not a lark or a nightingale, but a whistle
According to BBC, a bird whistle has been recovered from the site of the Curtain—something that may have been used in performances of Romeo and Juliet, which frequently makes references to birdsong. “It is not yet near day: it was the nightingale, and not the lark,” Juliet tells Romeo, pleading him not to leave their marriage bed.
“Theatre producers at that time were always trying to find new ways to animate their productions and delight audiences,” Heather Knight, the senior archaeologist leading the dig on behalf of the Museum of London Archaeology, told BBC.
According to The Guardian, other finds include a lead token (possibly used to buy a pot of ale), a broken comb made of bone (likely for removing lice), and a fine metal mount for a cloth purse (interestingly, a cutpurse is known to have been arrested at the Curtain).
Credit: MOLA
Coming full-rectangle
The remains of the Curtain (which opened in 1577) were missing for a few hundred years; its general area was known, but the exact spot wasn’t rediscovered until five years ago, when buildings constructed in the 1970s and 80s were removed for redevelopment.
Happily, “missing” did not mean the site was totally ruined. In fact, it’s the best-preserved of all of Shakespeare’s theaters that have been excavated, according to Knight. For instance, the Globe and the Rose theaters have nothing left save trace remains of the foundations. The relative preservation of the Curtain is apparently thanks to the building later being reused for a different purpose.
Credit: MOLA
Archaeologists have so far found several brick walls that reach up to 4’9” (1.5 m), and part of the sloping graveled surface where the less wealthy stood to watch performances has been uncovered as well.
But most excitingly, the excavations have revealed that the long-held belief regarding the shape of the theater was entirely wrong. Since it’s believed that Henry V was first staged in the Curtain, and the prologue of the play takes note that the theater is round (it’s referred to as a “wooden O”), historians long thought that the Curtain was round.
The current excavations, however, show that the Curtain is rectangular.
“It now seems clear that the playhouse was a conversion of an earlier tenement – essentially a block of flats – and was later converted back into a tenement again,” said Bowsher to The Guardian.
Bowsher believes the Henry V line about the wooden O may be a later addition, then, for when the play was performed at the Globe. Addition or not, though, the show always went on.
“There’s been a lot of scholarly argument about the shape of Tudor theaters, but the evidence from actors is that it made no difference to the performance of the plays, you could ask them to stand on a chair and they’d just get on and do it.”
Credit: MOLA
The site of the Curtain will be put on permanent display, according to BBC, in an area that will also feature brand-new homes, shops, and restaurants. But if you’d like to visit the site before then, there are free public tours on Fridays until the 24th of June—be sure to book your place here if you would like to go!
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Image credit: MOLA
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