London - Edward Rutherfurd [330]
“You wish to see my play, sir?”
Black Barnikel nodded slowly.
“I thank you for your kindness then. And yet I cannot help you.”
“The reason?”
“Why, that my play, sir, is not made to be seen.” And as Barnikel gazed at him, the other two gallants laughed. For they knew what he meant.
There were two kinds of play in Elizabethan London. The common herd liked a spectacle: a battle, a sword fight – the actors were expert at these. Even a cannon was fired sometimes. They liked broad jokes from popular clowns who adlibbed to the audience, and every play, no matter what the subject, ended with a gig – a song and dance routine. These were the spectacles written, as Meredith and his friends would say, to be seen. But for the discriminating, for the more private, courtly audience, there was another kind of play, full of wit and decorous language. The kind that Edmund meant to write. Plays written not to be seen, but to be heard.
“It will not be played?” the seafarer softly asked.
“Marry, sir, yes.”
“I come here to the Curtain,” Black Barnikel said.
“Then you shall neither see nor hear it.”
“Where should I go then?”
“Why, you may go to the devil,” Edmund laughed. “But to hear aught for your good, sir,” he continued lightly, “I commend you to a monastery.” And the little company applauded.
This little sally was not without wit. For if there were two kinds of play in London, there were also two kinds of theatre. Most playhouses were essentially open-air stages surrounded by a circular gallery. Of the two in Shoreditch, the Theatre and the Curtain, the nearby Theatre which was used by Shakespeare and the Chamberlain’s men, was moderately respectable and confined itself to plays; but the Curtain was known for its vulgar entertainments and so like a bear-pit that, as today, it was even used as one. The only advantage of these roofless and noisy buildings was that the acting companies could pack in a large paying audience; but the dream of every serious actor was to perform indoors, before a quiet and attentive audience. In 1597, the lease on the Theatre having run out and renewal refused, it was precisely this that the Chamberlain’s men proposed to do.
It was a radical move. Though boy companies from the London schools had put on courtly indoor productions from time to time, this would be the first time in history that anyone had put on serious, professional indoor drama. “We’ll have nothing but the finest plays,” they decided, and a splendid hall had been found and fitted up in the precincts of the Blackfriars, the former monastery. Edmund planned to have his play performed in this elegant new setting when the indoor productions began later that year.
Black Barnikel’s eyes took on an almost sleepy look as he watched the little group. The brewer, the carpenter and young Dogget did not interest him. He noted the girl’s pale freckled skin and her abundant red hair with interest. But though he had seen, and sailed with, and even killed all kinds of men, this clever young popinjay was a type that was new to him. He did not especially mind being teased with riddles. London was full of witty fellows and even the crudest theatre audience expected the clowns to amuse them with quips and conundrums. But behind Meredith’s words, he detected a trace of contempt.
“I think you mock me,” he gently suggested. And stretching easily, he took out his dagger and gazed at it thoughtfully. “They say that my point is sharp.”
The other two gallants put their hands towards their swords, but if Edmund felt any alarm, he had too much spirit to show it. “I intend no mockery, sir,” he said. “But I warn you even so that my pen is mightier than your dagger.”
“How so?”
“Why, with your dagger, sir, you may end my life,” Edmund laughed. “Yet with my pen, I can make you immortal.”
“Mere words,