Show TABLET TABLE FOR SITE r OF THEATRE I PLANNED I LONDON O Au Aug 14 t. l-t.- War War and the j i necessary curtailment of ot expenditures expendi expendi- tures have interfered with many civic activities in London amo among them the useful work undertaken for tor man many years ears past by the London cou county ty council of or marking historic house and their sites The council noW now have decided that thal when peace returns a commemorative tablet shall be placed on on the spot where stood The Th Theatre TheatrE Theatre Thea Thea- tre the tho first pla playhouse built buill In London London Lon ton don for stage tage performances This tablet Is to be fixed on th the wall of the Curtain Road Rand school Shoreditch This structure structure- la lay away to to the east end of t the town at an nn uninviting quarter toda today when the I n metropolis has lias spread so so far east ast but In Jn Elizabethan times this was the thet t t e of ot open fields Giles GlIes Allein gentleman gen gen- gen gen- Eleman of H In Essex hadland had hadland hadland land and a great reat barn there and part of at this ground in 1576 he granted to Tames James e. e Joiner joiner- late of ot London for tor the erection of oC ofa a pla playhouse play play- house on lease lense of oC twenty one one years ear at 14 70 r Favored by Queen VV to V The choice of ot such a place for tor the thc playhouse close to the city whence its patrons must be drawn but not In Sn ft It Is explained readily Gr Great at Elizabeth Eliz Ella abeth herself showed favor to pla plays fI fIand and interludes interlude t. t and even formed her own company of or players for tor her entertainment but to the religious s civic fathers tather the play was a thing abominable ab nh- ab- ab the the devils devil's work Against pressure of or all kinds they for a term barred pla play acting from the city Later Later La- La La La- ter performances In Inn yards grudgingly grudgIngly came to be tolerated like th those se seat at the Bull Dull in street and nd the Bell BeU Savage Sauge on on Ludgate hill hilI But the earliest pla playhouses houses were without exception built in places which stood outside th the Jurisdiction of or that high and dreaded functionary the lord Jord- mayor to whom the players were vere mere rogues and vagabonds vagabonds- undesirables moreover not only because be because because be- be cause of ot their l idle l calling but from tram the danger of the audiences they brought together spreading plague within the city Shoreditch Shored itch bein being In Middlesex the players might det defy the lord mayor and th there r accordingly the Joiner raised the original London I playhouse He was already an though little known He had not nt th th- tWe money none required for the enterprise b but t obtained a 3 aloan loan of ot I from I his law in James Baynes who made It a a. condition that he should have a molet moiety of the theatre and of or the tho profits Unfortunately nothing Is known of ot the house Itself In either Its internal or external features save that it was constructed of or wood Probably it was the Globe in Southward Southward within this wooden O 0 0 of ot Shakespeare's phrase phrase and and was open to thet sk sky the stage standing out toward the tho center Rivalry Keen D De Witt's Witts description of the London theatres 1596 gives Ives the house bouse as one of ot the four amphitheatres The more more fashionable part of or the audience would have occupied the tiers or exhibited themselves and their finery on the stage itself while the craftsmen the tho apprentices and others the the groundings of at the Elizabethan er era stood era stood uncovered In what now would pass for the pit and stalls The Tho theatre had a rival ri playhouse called the Curtain built close to It Il either the same or the next year but the first named enjoyed existence for twenty years though stage o performances performances perform perform- ances fr frequently were vee abandoned abandon d for tor long Intervals Interval owing to plague an and other ther causes causes Ce Ceased f t to Exist It had ceased to exist In when whim th the ground landlord cOun- cOun to the privy y council that part pait his bIB rent was unpaid and that Cuthbert Cuthert Cuthpert Cuth- Cuth pert bert ert the builders builder's son eon had that year carried the wood to the and there erected a new playhouse 88 with the said wood So Ho at ot least the timbers d Of the old house were saved aved to fulfill a useful purpose at the more anore famous Globe The Tho of annala-of the Theatre are are of at the moat meat meager kind for tOr the stage then had hod but bitt little honor John Stow gives brief mention n to It and Its itA neighbor In his ls Im immortal Survey of ot London but afterward conscious that BO so ribald a a. matter matler as the pla play should have no po place In a a. serious worK world In the he edition which he revised before his death he cut the passage out None In those Infant days of the theatre could have dreamed of ot Its in popular estimation and its JtB enormous expansion and London does well to tho the memory of ot its fla e earliest pla playhouse h us Shoreditch like Bankside will be a n. place of ot dramatic pilgrimage now that the actual site of ot th the old Theatre I is laid don down n. n |