The Indoor Tennis Court Theatres
The Tennis Courts were a temporary solution to London's lack of modern playhouses, but their shape and design had a resounding effect on the construction of theatres for the next hundred years. The success of this 'temporary solution' is evident in Lisle's Tennis Court's long life; it was still in use as a theatre sixty years after its first opening.
As we can see in the diagram below, Lisle's and Gibbons's Tennis Courts were long rectangular buildings with windows high up near the rafters. Both Playhouses were roughly the same size and were in close proximity. J. L. Styan estimated the seating capacity at not 'much over 400 person'.1 Styan also suggests that the Tennis Courts were easily adaptable buildings with the right basic shell and were similar to the pre-Civil War indoor theatres that many remembered.2 This basic structure set a precedence for how the theatre and stage would develop.
Wenceslaus Hollar's engraving of West-Central London.3 Please place the mouse pointer over the picture to see the location of the theatres.
Killigrew opened his first playhouse at Gibbons's Tennis Court six months before Davenant would open his rival theatre at Lisle's Tennis Court. How was Killigrew able to open his theatre before Davenant? The answer is in Davenant and Killigrew's attitude to theatre. First we will deal with Killigrew.
Gibbons's
Tennis Court, Vere Street (opened 8 November 1660)
Richard Leacroft offers a reasonable explanation of Killigrew's speedy
theatre development. Leacroft claims that 'it is generally acknowledged that
this theatre was designed on the lines of the earlier Elizabethan indoor theatres,
with no allowance for the use of the perspective scene, but with a platform
stage hung with tapestries.'4 Richard
Southern backs up Leacroft's statement, commenting that Killigrew may have revived
some of the old theatrical traditions and more importantly that he did not initially
use perspective scenery.5
Leacroft and Southern's arguments fit in with Killigrew's
situation. Killigrew's theatre company
contained many of the older actors from the pre-Civil War era and he had the
rights to two-thirds of Shakespeare's works, it was a company built on tradition.
Since there had been no tradition for the use of a scenic stage in English drama
Killigrew did not incorporate scenes into his theatre construction, thus he
was able to open Gibbons's theatre a great deal sooner than Davenant.
Samuel Pepys' slightly exuberant description of Gibbon's
Tennis Court from 20 November 1660 highlights Restoration society's desire for
the return of the theatre to the capital.
' …To the new playhouse near Lincoln's-Inn-Fields (which was formerly
Gibbon's Tennis Court)…And indeed it is the finest playhouse, I believe,
that ever was in England.'6
Lisle's
Tennis Court, Portugal Street (opened 28 June 1661)
Just over half a year later than Killigrew, Davenant finally opened his
theatre at Lisle's Tennis Court. The theatre's opening did not just herald the
arrival of strong competition for Killigrew's company, but it also brought with
it a new way of stage presentation, one which would effect the design and layout
of theatres forever. Davenant's new theatre had taken so long to refurbish because
it used movable perspective scenery. Davenant replaced the single stage of Elizabethan
and Jacobean theatre with two very separate stage areas, the
forestage and the scenic stage. Lisle's
Tennis Court's greatest strength was that it was efficient and functional.
David Thomas describes a possible basic layout for this theatre '...pit and tiered boxes with seats for all patrons; apron stage with stage doors on either side; rear scenic stage with painted wings and shutters...'7 The stage area had two parts. Firstly, the forestage on which all the acting would have taken place, this had one or two pairs of stage entrances with balconies above them. The second part was the scenic stage behind the proscenium arch that was used to create perspective and was not used for acting. Thomas notes the combination of old and new, suggesting that the shape of the rectangular tennis court forced the central entrances of the Elizabethan stage into the side walls of the proscenium, but he also notes that the stage door entrances are a 'refinement of the Elizabethan stage, reflecting the continuation of an acting tradition.'8 Davenant's 'refinement' of the stage doors allowed the scenic stage to be fully emphasised. This basic configuration and construction would shape all other theatre construction in the Restoration and Georgian periods.
There are two contemporary descriptions of Leslie's Tennis
Court theatre, both from The Diary of Samuel Pepys.
Pepys' view of Lisle's Tennis Court, 2 July 1661
'...The King being come, the scene opened; which indeed is very fine
and magnificent; and well acted, all but the Eunuch, who was so much out that
he was hissed off the stage.'9
Pepys's
Second view some years later, 12 May 1669
'He had to sit 'in the side balcony, over against the musick, did hear,
but not see, a new play, the first day acted, "The Roman Virgin",
and old play, and but ordinary, I thought; but troubled of my eyes with light
of the candles did almost kill me.'10
After Davenant
Roughly three years after Davenant's death in 1668 the Duke's Company, under
Thomas Betterton, moved to their new theatre in Dorset Garden, but this was
not the end for Lisle's Tennis Court. In 1672 the King's players moved here
after their theatre in Bridges Street burnt to the ground, they stayed for two
years. The theatre then reverted to tennis courts for seventeen years before
Betterton returned after the dissolution of the united company in 1694. The
building was once again a playhouse and stayed that way for ten more years.
The playhouse was out of commission between 1705-1713, but later in 1714 Christopher
Rich, after being pushed out from Drury Lane rebuilt the theatre, his son, John
Rich later produced John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera in 1728. After
this success, Rich abandoned the theatre for a larger space. The building was
never again used as a theatre.11 Davenant
must have done something right, as a simple indoor tennis court flourished as
a theatre for just under sixty years.
1 J. L. Styan, Restoration Comedy
in Performance, Cambridge University Press 1986, p.20.
2 Ibid., p.19.
3 Leslie Hotson, The Commonwealth
and Restoration Stage, Russell & Russell Inc 1962, facing p.128.
4 Richard Leacroft, The Development
of the English Playhouse, Eyre Methuen Ltd 1973, p.80.
5 John Loftis, Richard Southern, Marion
Jones & A. H. Scouten, The Revels History of Drama in English, Volume
V 1660-1750, ed. T. W. Craik, Methuen & Co Ltd 1976, p.84.
6 Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel
Pepys, The Globe edition, Macmillian & Co Ltd 1905, p.56.
7 Theatre in Europe: a Documentary
History: Restoration and Georgian England, 1660-1788, ed. David Thomas,
Cambridge University Press 1989, p.54.
8 Ibid., p.59.
9 Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel
Pepys, The Globe edition, Macmillian & Co Ltd 1905, p.91.
10 Ibid., p.751.
11 Leslie Hotson, The Commonwealth
and Restoration Stage, Russell & Russell Inc 1962, p.127.