ABSTRACT
James Wright's Historia Histrionica, 1699, as its title declares, is a history of the theatre. It was published anonymously and is cast as a dialogue between two interlocutors, Lovewit and Truman. Truman is 'an old cavalier', and he claims a first-hand knowledge of the theatre of the 1630s which Wright, an antiquary and playbook collector, must have gleaned from reliable sources (he himself was not born until 1643). Truman, selfconfessed admirer of the pre-Commonwealth stage, explains to Lovewit the major differences between private and public playhouses:
The Blackfriars, Cockpit, and Salisbury Court were very small to what we see now [presumably 1699]. The Cockpit was standing since the Restoration, and Rhodes' company acted there for some time. I have seen that. Then you have seen the other two, in effect; for they were all three built almost exactly alike in form and bigness. Here they had pits for the gentry, and acted by candlelight. The Globe, Fortune and [Red] Bull were very large houses, and lay partly open to the weather.
