1589-1590 - “The play’s the thing…”

“The play’s the thing…” 1589 - 1590

Sometime late in the 1580’s, Shakespeare probably joined the Pembroke’s Men (sponsored by the Earl of Pembroke, Henry Herbert). He probably also did some acting also for the Lord Strange’s Men and the Lord Admiral’s Men. There were three categories of players and payments were organized accordingly. There were sharers (or shareholders), hired men and apprentices. As a hired man, Shakespeare was probably paid 5 shillings (60p a week) at a time when an ale cost 1-2p, lodging 6-8p a week, eggs 6 for 1p and beef 2p or one half groat.

In 1589, William Shakespeare wrote or collaborated to write his first play which was probably written for Pembroke’s men. He probably got paid about 10 Shillings to £1-as an untested playwright. The play was Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

Shakespeare may have written the whole play or parts of the play with the comic actor Richard Tarlton in his mind as playing Launce since Tarlton was famous for his comic scenes with dogs. Tarlton’s death in 1588 would have put an end to that idea. Shakespeare probably read the Bartholomew Young translation of the Spanish Prose Romance Los Siete Libros de la Diana (‘The Seven Books of the Diana’) around this time because he draws strongly on this for Two Gentlemen of Verona. He also used John Lyly’s Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit and probably used ideas from Arthur Brooke’s narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. Shakespeare probably knew that this narrative poem had greater potential and thought he would save using too many ideas from this narrative poem for a later, perhaps using them in one whole complete play.

When comic theatre started thriving again in London in 1589 and with the public liking Ancient Roman comedies and the new comedies of the Commedia dell Arte, Shakespeare probably knew that he should revisit the ideas he had for a comedy. Shakespeare would have first read or showed parts of the script to players in the Lord Strange’s Men and either William Kempe, Thomas Pope or George Bryan probably encouraged Will Shakespeare to submit them for some playwrighting payments. Probably Pembroke’s Men saw the opportunity and either through loyalty or the promise of payment in hand, Shakespeare gave the play over to Pembroke’s Men for copying the actor’s parts and their cues ready for the three or four days of morning rehearsals and then performances. Of course every morning of rehearsal was followed by afternoon performances of other plays, so any rewrites or additions were done by the young Shakespeare late at night under the midnight candle before the next morning’s rehearsal.

So sometime in 1590 or 1591, Shakespeare’s first play was performed probably at Cross Keys Inn outside London since the Lord Mayor of London had banned plays within the city in 1589 and 1590. In the cobbled courtyard of the Inn, about 300 people probably gathered (the courtyard held about 500 people for major plays and events) to witness Shakespeare’s debut as a playwright. It could have been one of any eight early Shakespeare plays including The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, KIng John, Henry VI Part 1, Henry VI Part II or Henry VI Part III. Shakespeare was probably paid about £2 for the play. A successful play would bring in £2 each performance for the owners of the company and the theatre. If the play was a success, then early in the winter of 1591 it was probably performed at Court and when the London theatres opened again in the summer of 1591, it would have been performed at the Curtain or The Theatre. The play was possibly performed by 10 actors and had only sixteen characters (and a dog). The actors (which probably included Shakespeare himself) were paid about six pence a week if they were a main actor and two pence for a non-main actor (no wonder Shakespeare went into playwrighting and buying shares in his own company of players). It was probably one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays at 2233 lines or 2 hours and 10 minutes of playing time. It was most probably a light comedy filled with humor, the themes of sex, violence and love, clever dialogue, witty banter, deception, mistaken identities, disguises, family drama, multiple plots with multiple twists and turns and a play where ultimately love triumphs with a marriages ending the play. The play was probably Two Gentlemen of Verona.

As the summer of 1591 came closer, Shakespeare the player was slowly becoming Shakespeare the playwright. With Two Gentlemen of Verona under his belt, Shakespeare probably prepared two plays for the summer season - another comedy and a history play.

The comedy he prepared was The Taming of the Shrew. It is essentially a play within a play, a frame play. Shakespeare probably talked through the ideas for this play with other players. Probably stories from ‘Arabian Nights’ were floating around the actor circuit and Marlowe and other playwrights talked about Commedia troupes in Europe using some of the ideas from these stories. Shakespeare would have also been familiar with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and elements of ‘The Miller’s Tale’ were perhaps commonly used in plays around that time. Shakespeare may have even appropriated the main plot from a poem of the period sometimes known as ‘The Merry Jest’. Shakespeare also used elements of tales from Ancient Greek times and Socrates as well as Gascoigne’s 1573 version of a story based on the 1551 Ariosto’s version entitled ‘Suppositi’. The Induction scene which starts the play within the play or frame play technique was probably a common stylistic device which started to become popular again in the early 1590’s. ‘The Taming of the Shrew probably opened at The Theatre in May of 1591.

To add to this success, Shakespeare had written a history play, a smaller part of a potential sequence of plays. History plays were becoming popular after England and Queen Elizabeth's defeat of the great Spanish Armada in 1588. England seem to revel in and become proud of its own history and its war exploits. In 1591, with the plague abating and the theatres were open again, it seems that longer entertainments of a more serious nature were again fashionable, popular and profitable. While also working on The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare was probably pouring over Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York and Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles. In fact Holinshed’s Chronicles was a source that Shakespeare used for much of his life and he even uses parts of this text verbatim for his history plays. He probably was first introduced to the bookstalls surrounding and attached to St Paul’s Cathedral in 1590 but in early 1591, he probably had enough money to purchase a number of texts and pamphlets including his beloved Holinshed’s Chronicles. He probably also discovered that around the bookstalls were watering holes and inns that were great places to meet other writers and intellectuals and pick up ideas and the latest gossip. It is undoubtedly here that he met Christopher Marlowe for the first time early in 1591.

Shakespeare knew that certain types of history plays were popular but tricky to pull off since any element of political undertone might be seen as libelous by the authorities. He would have carefully crafted the ideas from Holinshed and for the summer season had the history play which was to become known as Henry VI Part 2. Shakespeare may have even got £4 for this play and an advance of another £4 for the promise of two sequels. Henry VI Part 2 is a play of the political machinations which inevitably lead up to the War of the Roses and it focuses on the damage caused by nobles fighting and bickering amongst themselves. The play had everything Elizabethan audiences wanted intrigue, strong characters, the rise of a man of royal blood and the play ends with the first battle of the War of Roses. It was a success and Shakespeare’s name as a playwright was finally on the map. So by 1590, with a number of plays to his name and still acting during the season, William Shakespeare was now a player and a playwright making £22 a year (£11,000 a year in today's money).