ABSTRACT
A visit to a private theatre in the 1620s or 1630s was a social event. Acting in the private theatres became more natural, less bombastic perhaps, than in the old open air playhouses. The fact was that was a more intimate audience than had been seen in any previous theatre. In the candle-lit theatres, the actors were very close to the spectators and could move swiftly and easily from action to dialogue, from dialogue to soliloquy. And the theatre companies tailored what they offered to their patrons’ interests: plays were often cut or re-ordered after the first performance, songs might be added, and prologues or epilogues, special to the first performance, dropped. From the stage directions in surviving plays, we can grasp something of the effective acting which was possible, even as we heed Thomas Killigrew’s warning in The Parson’s Wedding; after a notably complicated instruction he adds, ‘if the scene can be so ordered ’.
