Transcript The Swan Theater

The Swan Theatre
1595
The Swan Theatre
• Located :– on the west end of the Bank side district of Southwark,
– across the River Thames from the City of London
– at the northeast corner of the Paris Garden estate that Francis
Langley had purchased in May 1589
– east of the manor house
– 150 yards south of the Paris Garden stairs at the river's edge
The Swan Theatre Location
• A drawing in the library of Utrecht
University, Netherlands. Fol. 131v132v of MS 842, a notebook
compiled by Arnoldus Buchellius Arendt van Buchell (1565-1641),
contains a drawing bearing the
inscription of his friend, Ex
obseruationibus Londinensibus
Iohannis De Witt -Canon Johannes
De Witt in 1956
• If the Lord Chamberlain's Men acted
Twelfth Night’s at the Swan in the
summer of 1596—which is possible,
though far from certain—they would
be the actors shown in the Swan
sketch
• The descriptions of the Swan from Johannes De Witt, a
Dutchman who visited London around 1596(translated
from Latin);
• finest and biggest of the London theatres of its day
• a capacity for 3000 spectators
• was built of flint stones stacked on top of each other
• its wooden supporting columns were so cleverly painted that
"they would deceive the most acute observer into thinking
that they were marble,"
• giving the Swan a "Roman" appearance
• Open-air amphitheatre playhouse, virtually round in
shape, has a stage projecting to the yard surmounted by a
stage cover supported on 2 pillars
• The Swan Theatre was the fourth in the series of
large public playhouses of London, after James
Burbage's The Theatre (1576) and Curtain (1577),
and Philip Henslowe's Rose (1587–88).
• Named after the “Swans” swimming along the
River Thames where it is located
• The Swan was used for plays until 1620, was still
standing in 1632, and may have survived until
c.1637
• In 1597 the Swan housed the acting company Pembroke's Men, who
staged the infamous play The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe and Ben
Jonson, the content of which gave offense for unknown reasons was
highly critical of the government and which landed the dramatists in
jaiiland the Swan was closed in that year
• Francis Langley, already in trouble with the Privy Council over matters
unrelated to theater, may have exacerbated his danger by allowing his
company to stage the play after a royal order that all playing stop and all
theaters be demolished
• This order may have been directed at Langley alone; the other
companies, the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men, had
been authorized to return to the stage by October
• The Swan had a revival of theatrical activity between 1611 and 1615 after
it was opened again on 1602
• Along with The Isle of Dogs, the most famous play to
premiere there was Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid
in Cheapside, performed by the newly-merged Lady
Elizabeth's Men in 1613
• The Swan Theater offered other popular entertainments,
such as swashbuckling competitions and bear-baiting
• The facility of The Swan Theatre grew decrepit over the
next two decades.
• In Nicholas Goodman's 1632 pamphlet Holland's Leaguer,
the theatre is described as "now fallen into decay, and,
like a dying swan, hangs her head and sings her own
dirge."
• Historical sources do not mention the Swan after that
date
• The New Swan Theatre
– A reconstructed Shakespearean theatre in
Stratford, Greater London, United Kingdom
~The End~
Front Text: "The Swan 1595“
Reverse Text: "Shakespeare's Globe (The Swan 1595). Reproduced from a stamp designed
by C Walter Hodges and issued by Royal Mail on 8 August 1995“
Publisher: Royal Mail Stamp Card Series; PHQ 172(a) 8.95; 1995