Drury Lane

Earlier this year, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane shut down for renovations, including making all levels accessible by elevator.

That wasn't what it was like when I first went there. Since I'd bought a ticket way up in the cheap seats, I couldn't even enter through the lobby. Instead, I had to go around the corner to the side entrance--the one that had been built for servants during the 19th century--and walk up seemingly endless rows of stairs. And, personally, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Don't get me wrong. It's important that we make theatres accessible for everyone. I'm just glad I had a chance to see Drury Lane the old-fashioned way, the way servants and other working-class folks saw it during the Regency period when the building first opened in London. The building that's there now goes back to 1812, though it's legacy goes back even farther.

During the Restoration, Thomas Killigrew got a patent from King Charles II to set up a theatre troupe known as the King's Company. At first, they just performed in a tennis court, as was sometimes done in France at that time, but in 1663 Killigrew opened a theatre on Bridges Street near Drury Lane. The flat area near the stage, what we today would call the orchestra, was known as the pit, and around it were boxes for wealthier patrons.

Originally, the pit was uncovered, but later the management added a glazed dome to (try to) keep out the rain. Unlike audience members in the pit of Shakespeare's Globe who stood, the audiences in the pit of Killigrew's theatre sat on backless benches. Even upper-class men would sit there to get a better view of the action. Respectable ladies, on the other hand, tended to stay in their boxes, as they didn't want to be mistaken for the infamous "orange girls" who sold refreshments (and sometimes other things) to audience members.

The rival Duke's Company had set up a magnificent theatre in a former tennis court located at Lincoln's Inn Fields. It included elaborate stage machinery hidden by a proscenium arch. Not to be outdone, Killigrew's theatre contained a proscenium and shutter-and-groove system for changing scenery. Actors weren't used to this setup, though, and continued to perform on the large apron in front of the proscenium. It was on this stage that Nell Gwyn began her career and attracted the attentions of the king himself. Unfortunately, the building was destroyed by fire in 1672.

A replacement opened in 1674 and was referred to as "Drury Lane" since that street ran along the east side of the building, though the audience still entered through a passage from Bridges Street. Again, there was a pit surrounded by boxes. There were also two galleries of cheap seats above the boxes. This inexpensive part of the theatre was the "eighteen-penny place" alluded to in William Wycherley's The Country Wife. We don't know exactly what this building looked like, but the Theatre Royal Bristol was partially based on it when that theatre was built in 1766, so we have at least a general idea.

By the end of the 18th century, the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane seemed cramped and outdated, so it was torn down and replaced by a brand-new structure in 1794. It was huge, capable of holding up to 3,600 people. Richard Brinsley Sheridan managed the theatre and bore most of the expenses for its construction. It was a gamble, but he was a gambling man. As long as he packed the auditorium each night, he would be able to not only make his money back, but to make a fortune. Then, on February 24, 1809, the theatre burned down--only fifteen years after it had opened. Sheridan pretty much lost everything.

The present-day theatre opened at the same location in 1812 with a production of Hamlet. Its renovations are probably necessary, but I do hope they retain a bit of the history of the place. For me, Drury Lane will always be special.

Theatricality in THE COUNTRY WIFE

The prologue to William Wycherley's Restoration comedy The Country Wife takes a bit of a personal turn when Wycherley writes:

                    But though our Bayes's battles oft I've fought,

                    And with bruis'd knuckles their dear conquests bought;

                    Nay, never yet fear'd odds upon the stage,

                    In prologue dare not hector with the age,

                    But would take quarter from your saving hands,

                    Though Bayes within all yielding countermands,

                    Says you confed'rate wits no quarter give,

                    Therefore his play shan't ask your leave to live.

Who is this Bayes that Wycherley mentions? He's not an actual person, but the fictional playwright in The Rehearsal, a satirical play written by George Villiers and a group of his upper-class friends.

Bayes is based on John Dryden, and The Rehearsal skewers Dryden's play The Conquest of Grenada. As it happens, Dryden wrote in the prologue to The Conquest of Grenada a denunciation of contemporary dramatists which did indeed seem to hector with the age.

The Conquest of Grenada is written in two parts, and the prologue to the first was written to be recited by Nell Gwyn, a talented actress who even attracted the attentions of the king. Dressed in a broad-brimmed hat, she addressed the audience with these words:

                    For 'twere a shame a poet should be killed

                    Under the shelter of so broad a shield.

                    This is that hat, whose very sight did win ye

                    To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye.

After The Rehearsal, Bayes became Dryden's unfortunate nickname. What Wycherley seems to be doing is attacking Dryden through the fictional Bayes, reminding the audience of the playwright's rather defensive prologue. To be fair to Dryden, his prologue actually attempts to poke fun at audiences in a humorous, good-natured way, as Gwyn was more than capable of doing.

However, the prologue is not the only part of The Country Wife that tips its hat to the institution of the theatre. From the very first act, Wycherley uses meta-theatricality, reminding the audience of the very institution in which they are watching his play. Dorilant speaks of "orange wenches" who sold refreshments in the theatre, the "vizard-mask" which was worn by ladies to disguise themselves at the theatre, and even "a great-bellied actress" and "a second-hand critic."

Toward the end of the first act, Horner tells Pinchwife, "I saw you yesterday in the eighteen-penny place with a pretty country wench." Seats in the gallery above the boxes were only eighteen pence, and Pinchwife seems to have taken his new bride there to hide her from his friends. Unfortunately for him, this tactic doesn't work. Not only was his wife Margery seen, but she develops a taste for the theatre. Complaining to her sister-in-law, she says that at the playhouse Pinchwife kept her "amongst ugly people" and while she found herself "weary of the play" she "liked hugeously the actors."

The gallery was where the cheap seats were, and below them were the boxes, where respectable people could watch the play while still enjoying some privacy. These seats were the most expensive in the auditorium, but not necessarily the best place to watch the play. The floor of the auditorium was known as the pit, and since it was closest to the stage, it was where the best seats were if you actually wanted to see and hear the show rather than just be seen and gather with close family members and friends. Upper-class men would purchase box seats since that was expected of them, but if they wanted to get a better view of the stage (and mingle with the general public) they would then go down into the pit to watch the show.

In Act II of The Country Wife, Margery's sister-in-law Alithea complains when invited to the theatre, "I will not go, if you intend to leave me alone in the box and run into the pit, as you use to do." Her husband-to-be responds to her, "if I sat in the box, I would be thought no judge but of trimmings." True enthusiasts of the theatre sat in the pit, which of course made it difficult for respectable women to fully enjoy a play while maintaining their respectability. That didn't mean upper-class women didn't attend the theatre, though. They would just have to stay in a box, or if they did venture down into the pit, they would generally wear a mask. In Act II a group of women even comes over to Pinchwife's house expecting to take his new bride with them to see a play.

Pinchwife's strategy to take his wife out into the world but not provoke the desire of men is to dress her as a man and pretend that she is her own brother. Alithea suggests she instead "put on her mask" as would have been common for women attending the theatre. Later, however, she reflects that "beauty masked, like the sun in eclipse, gathers together more gazers than if it shined out." Similarly, when Margery Pinchwife dons male clothing, she attracts more attention from men than ever, yet her husband must stand idly by while men insist on kissing his "brother-in-law" right in front of him.

Though the theatre becomes less important in the play's final acts, there are still references to it. In Act V, Mrs. Squeamish says, "that demureness, coyness, and modesty that you see in our faces in the boxes at plays, is as much a sign of a kind woman, as a vizard-mask in the pit."

Remember, only disreputable women could be seen in the pit, so many ladies wore masks to disguise themselves there. Squeamish is saying that the reputation of a "good" woman in the box seats was just as much a disguise as the masks worn by prostitutes and loose women down below them.

It's a rather cynical attitude, but The Country Wife is a rather cynical play!