The rose theatre, London: the state of knowledge and what we still need to know.

The rose theatre, London: the state of knowledge and what we still need to know. "Can this cockpit hold The vasty vast��y?adj. vast��i��er, vast��i��est ArchaicVast. fields of France? Or may wecram Within this wooden O the very casques That did afright the air atAgincourt?" Henry V, prologue Introduction The site of The Rose playhouse, first uncovered fifteen years ago,has become an extraordinary crossroads. It is now a meeting-place foractors, architects, theatre designers and historians of early theatre, amultitude of enthusiasts for Shakespeare and Marlowe, and of course thearchaeologists who recorded the remains for the Museum of LondonArchaeology Service The Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS) is a Registered Archaeological Organisation (RAO) with the Institute of Field Archaeologists (IFA) and is a self-financing part of the Museum of London, providing a wide range of professional archaeological services to clients in (MoLAS MoLAS Museum of London Archaeology Service ), Julian Bowsher and Simon Blatherwick. Keydesigners of the replica of the neighbouring Globe theatre, namely thearchitect, Jon Greenfield and Peter McCurdy, the master carpenter, andhistorians such as John Orrell and Andrew Gurr Andrew John Gurr (born December 23, 1936) is a contemporary literary scholar who specializes in William Shakespeare and English Renaissance theatre.Born in Leicester, Gurr was raised in New Zealand, and educated at the University of Auckland and at Cambridge University. have converged on thearchaeologists and their evidence in the hope of learning more about thetheatre where almost all of Marlowe's and at least two ofShakespeare's plays William Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. His plays are traditionally divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy. were staged (1 Henry VI and Titus Andronicus Titus Andronicusexacts revenge for crimes against his family. [Br. Lit.: Titus Andronicus]See : Vengeance ),and possibly where Shakespeare himself acted. We present here a summary of what we have gleaned from a study ofthe MoLAS records of the 1989 dig, which have become available in thelast two years. The new deductions mark out The Rose as a site thatdeserves to be celebrated as more than just the third of London'sElizabethan playhouses; it contained features which throw light on thedevelopment of theatre-building during one of the greatest periods ofplay-writing the world has known. The Rose in documents First constructed in 1587 by a new entrepreneur, Philip Henslowe Philip Henslowe (ca. 1550 - January 6, 1616) was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his Diary, which is a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London. ,ten years after the first two of London's open-air theatres werebuilt, The Rose was enlarged five years later, and two years after thatin 1594 it became one of the only two theatres to be officially licensedfor use in London. The other, the Theatre in Shoreditch, was pulled downin 1599 and reconstructed as The Globe only fifty yards from The Rose.The two sites in Southwark's Park Street are the only fragments sofar to be uncovered of the playhouses that Shakespeare and Marlowe used.That gives the archaeological sites their unique status, though it doesnot say much for London's historical priorities that we have beenable to do so little up to now towards a thorough analysis of what theyhave to tell us about Shakespeare's workplaces. The Rose is central to the study of Elizabethan play-going not onlybecause all the foundations have survived, but because it featuresprominently in the Henslowe papers, housed in Dulwich College. They area unique day-by-day record of what plays were staged at The Rose andwhat money they brought in between 1592 and 1597, together withinventories of the costumes and properties The Rose actors used. Thereare also some accounts about rebuilding work in 1592 and 1595. But thesedocuments tell us very little about the first five years of theplayhouse from 1587. Up to 1989, when the remains were first uncovered and partlyanalysed, the only information about the shape of The Rose was a pair ofsketches published on the same engraving in 1600 by John Norden John Norden (1548- 1625) was an English topographer, He was the first Englishman who designed a complete series of county histories and geographies. His earliest known work of importance was the Speculum Britanniae, first part Middlesex (1593); the MS. , aLondoner. He drew a panorama of London from the tower of SouthwarkCathedral Southwark Cathedral or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge.It is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. (as Wenceslas Hollar V��clav Hollar (IPA: [ˈva:tslaf ˈɦolar]), known in England as Wenceslaus Hollar or sometimes Wenzel (July 13, 1607 - March 25, 1677), was a Bohemian etcher. later and more famously did for his'Long View' of London). Norden's main design (Figure 1)showed the playhouse as six-sided, but an inset drawing (Figure 2) madeit round and called it not the Rose but The "Stare",presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. the result of a mistake from thinking the Tudor rose on itsflag was a star. Norden was mistaken about the six sides too, since thetheatre's footprint dug out in 1989 showed it had fourteen. [FIGURES 1-2 OMITTED] If the documents are unspecific Adj. 1. unspecific - not detailed or specific; "a broad rule"; "the broad outlines of the plan"; "felt an unspecific dread"broadgeneral - applying to all or most members of a category or group; "the general public"; "general assistance"; "a general rule"; about the early form of The Rose,there are nevertheless other references which will prove useful in theinterpretation of the archaeological remains. Philip Henslowe, theRose's financier, was famous for many theatre-related andprofitable activities over the years. One of them was a contract he tookout in August 1614, less than a month after the destruction of thenearby Globe by fire, to build a multi-purpose arena, for baiting bearsevery Thursday (Henslowe had become Master of the King's Bears in1604), and to stage plays on every other day of the week. Before 1587London's only bear-baiting house was in the same area by the RiverThames (Figure 3), and Henslowe must have found it enticing to watch thecrowds flocking to the shows there. His later building of 1614, which hecalled, ironically as it turned out, The Hope, in fact proved deeplyunpopular with the actors because of the stench from the bears andhundreds of dogs in their kennels next to the new playhouse. Alter lessthan one year as a dual-purpose venue the actors fled and the newstructure frustrated Henslowe's expectations by turning into just abear garden. The name survives in the alley off Park Street called BearGarden, and Wenceslas Hollar in his Long View just called it abear-baiting house, though his engraver did manage to reverse the titlesof the two adjacent amphitheatres, misnaming one the beere baitingh.' and the other 'the Globe'. In Southwark bear-baitinghad preceded play-acting as the local spectacle, and the two couldtheoretically be combined. [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] The archaeology of The Rose The discovery of The Rose's foundations in February 1989caused enormous excitement, and enormous trouble for the developmentcompany who had the job of building a ten-storey office block (now RoseCourt) over it. The diggers Diggers,members of a small English religio-economic movement (fl. 1649–50), so called because they attempted to dig (i.e., cultivate) the wastelands. They were an offshoot of the more important group of Puritan extremists known as the Levelers. were pulled off the site in April afteruncovering only a portion of the remains, and had no time for thethorough analytical excavation that was needed (see Orrell & Gurr,1989b). Since then the site has been kept in a reasonable state ofpreservation by English Heritage English Heritage is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) with a broad remit of managing the historic environment of England. It was set up under the terms of the National Heritage Act 1983. , covered in sand, concrete and water inwhat was intended to be Rose Court's underground carpark. Itsbenign Fate and its availability for further discoveries contrasts withThe Globe site, 50 yards away. Ten per cent of that playhouse wasuncovered in October 1989, but the remains are now sealed in undercobblestones, with no likelihood of any further excavation in theforeseeable future. The 1989 excavation of The Rose was carried out by two separatearchaeological units: the Museum of London's Department of GreaterLondon Archaeology Unit (formerly MoLAS) and English Heritage'sCentral Unit. Both their data sets have recently been combined into asingle digital file, so that the more difficult parts of the site,particularly the fragmented southern portion, can now be examined incontext with the rest of the auditorium more easily. In 1998 JulianBowsher published a book about the findings, The Rose Theatre: anarchaeologic discovery. It was written as the first draft of anarchaeological interpretation in response to the public interest, andwas not based oil the usual 'post excavation analysis', whichMoLAS have only just started. It cites many of the questions theabbreviated dig left open. Now that Jon Greenfield and Peter McCurdyhave subjected the archive to careful and exhaustive new scrutiny, theirfindings do not just raise flesh questions about the design but they putthe whole building into a new perspective. This flesh perspective raisesmore questions, which can only be answered by further analysis of thesite itself. The case for uncovering The Rose again in order to makepossible a comprehensive archaeological and historical analytical recordhas become imperative. The story so far--the ground plan The foundations of the early playhouses were built upwards from astone-filled trench, on which were set the brick walls which took thewooden groundsills of the playhouse's framing timbers. Revisitingthe layout of The Rose's stones with a fresh approach hassignificantly refined our understanding of the remains. We now have ageometry that appears to make sense of the archaeological record The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. . Byconcentrating the new investigation on the stones that were uncoveredclosest to the surface, the ones, it could be argued, that mostreflected Griggs's superstructure superstructure/su��per��struc��ture/ (soo��per-struk?chur) the overlying or visible portion of a structure. su��per��struc��turen.A structure above the surface. and not his rough-laid, massmasonry foundations, we found the riddle we faced could be reduced to asmall number of accurately positioned points. These results were fedback to see how they fitted the more general archaeological record inthe better and more coherent data set that is now available. One of the most obvious of the familiar questions is why and howdid the builder, John Griggs, give the theatre fourteen sides? (Figure4) It was not laid out as a perfectly regular polygon polygon,closed plane figure bounded by straight line segments as sides. A polygon is convex if any two points inside the polygon can be connected by a line segment that does not intersect any side. If a side is intersected, the polygon is called concave. , because the sidenearest Maiden Lane (now Park Street) is quite a lot broader than theother sides of the polygon. It may have been made wider because that waswhere the auditorium's principal entrance was, bringing people into face the stage on the opposite northern flank. But the stage is notlocated precisely opposite that side, and in any case there are doubtsabout whether the extra-large side of the polygon was the onlyentranceway for the audience. The many possible explanations why thestage was built off-centre, as were both the first one built in 1587 or1588 and the rebuilding in 1592, leave an enigma that only a detailedre-scrutiny of the evidence on the ground and a deeper dig can explain. [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] In parallel with our study of the records, we looked at theknowledge of Cartesian geometry that was current in 1587 and would havebeen used by John Griggs. This offered a neat solution to the initiallybaffling baf��fle?tr.v. baf��fled, baf��fling, baf��fles1. To frustrate or check (a person) as by confusing or perplexing; stymie.2. To impede the force or movement of.n.1. discovery that the Rose footprint is based on the unexpectedgeometry of a fourteen-sided figure. Albrecht Durer in 1520 published amethod for dividing a circle into seven equal parts, a method that wouldcertainly have been known to Griggs (Figure 5). It is not amathematically perfect method, but the inaccuracies in it are verysmall. It is easy to do, and was useful to practitioners such ascarpenters and painters. Looking at the archaeological record of thewhole footprint, Jon Greenfield worked out a solution to the question ofthe fourteen sides by using the standard surveyor's measure of onerod, or sixteen feet six inches. A rod triangulated makes the rightnumber of angles, and creates a seven-sided structure which can easilybe doubled up by marking a circle linking the seven points and thenbisecting each side and extrapolating the halfway point out to the edgeof the circle. Joining the fourteen points with straight lines createsthe fourteen sides. The resultant ground-plan has exactly the diameteridentified by MoLAS at the Rose, seventy-two feet. [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] The discovery that the inner ring of The Rose is based on thediagonal of a square of one rod (16 feet six inches), the commonland-surveying measure of the time, and that an equally simple geometrycan extend the measure to establish the outer ring of The Rose, came tous as a 'Eureka!' It means that on paper, with just onemeasurement to represent a rod, used only once, the whole of The Rosecan be set out with just a pair of compasses (standard in an Elizabethancarpenter's tool kit) and a straight edge. Or, by extension, thewhole of the building can be set out in pegs on the ground using onesurveyor's rod for the first measurement and several string lines.The correspondence between these two methods is astounding. The developing superstructure A commission from Shakespeare & Company, theMassachusetts-based theatre group that plans to reconstruct The Rose,encouraged us to return to the records and search for the elements ofthe original building of 1587. Fortunately MoLAS could extract theprimary features from their records, but the result contained somesurprises. Figure 6 summarises the structural sequence so Far deducedfrom the archaeological evidence, from its hypothetical earliest plan(A) in 1587 to the rebuilding of 1592 (D). It seems that the firstbuilding was positioned to exploit a natural hollow in the ground. Theyard has a slight dish, and features a plain slope downwards to thenorth, over which a permanent stage was, at some time, introduced. Thissuggested the possibility that the first building did not actually havea stage, an idea for which there was some corroboration from the groundlevels. When we related the yard levels inside the 'wooden O'with those oil the ground outside and plotted the most likely heights ofthe brick footings and timber cills, we found a surprising difference inheight (Figure 7). The most pronounced effect is to the north, where thefloor level of the lowest gallery would have been 4 feet 10 inches abovethe yard, and if we add the height of the balustrade around the front ofthe gallery we find a sheer wall over seven feet high. At that time theaverage height of a man was only five feet six inches. Why did Griggsset the first gallery so high? A possible explanation seems to be thatThe Rose was first constructed as a bear-baiting house, or as adual-purpose theatre and baiting house, and that its designer expectedthat there would be fierce animals in the yard, bears and bulls, beingbaited by dogs. Of course, if animals were being baited in the yardthere would have been no standing audience there, and no stage. [FIGURES 6-7 OMITTED] Examination of the site drainage, and particularly of a magnificentbox drain (Arch.) a drain constructed with upright sides, and with flat top and bottom.See under Box, Counter.See also: Box Drain unearthed Unearthed is the name of a Triple J project to find and "dig up" (hence the name) hidden talent in regional Australia.Unearthed has had three incarnations - they first visited each region of Australia where Triple J had a transmitter - 41 regions in all. in the northern segment behind the stage to carrywater away from what became the stage tiring house or dressing room,reinforces our conclusion that The Rose was first built without a stage.Figure 8 shows how well the yard was drained, through this box drain andinto the northern boundary ditch if the yard is imagined without astage. The addition of a stage, perhaps put in expediently but certainlythoughtlessly, disrupted the pre-established course of the rainwaterrun-off from the yard (Figure 6b). No wonder the area in front of thestage became a churned up muddy puddle and was eventually eroded away,as the mortar surfacing shows. [FIGURE 8 OMITTED] After the initial construction of the arena in 1587, the stagesappear to have been developed in a very different way to the galleriesof the auditorium, perhaps by someone other than Griggs. If Hensloweinitially built The Rose as a simple circular (or 'conjoined')set of standings for shows of dancing, displays of combat juggling andanimal baiting (see Figure 6a) he soon responded to the demands of hisaudience and built a stage. His first attempt would almost certainlyhave been to place the stage on the polygon's axis. This, however,had the great disadvantage that it could only have accommodated twostage entry doors, because a central post would have occupied the'discovery' position (see Figure 6b) which had to be wideenough open to admit major actor-entries, including perhaps the chariotpulled by four kings on which Tamburlaine made his entrance. Could ithave been that the actors, unable to make the best use of such a stage,demanded a central opening so that they could do productions more likethe ones that Burbage was putting on at the Theatre across the river? Ifso, the easiest way of modifying the stage to give a central openingwould have been to twist it just enough to make it miss the centralpost. This is a nice thought, because that way the stage ends up inexactly the skew (1) The misalignment of a document or punch card in the feed tray or hopper that prohibits it from being scanned or read properly.(2) In facsimile, the difference in rectangularity between the received and transmitted page. position the archaeologists unearthed in 1989, andwhich has so far defied explanation (see Figure 6c). The implication isthat The Rose contains the imprint of some of the fundamental changes instage structure for staging purposes that characterised this period inEnglish drama Drama was introduced to England from Europe by the Romans, and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose. By the medieval period, the mummers' plays had developed, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such . Questions to be answered next The recent analysis has produced some striking answers to thequestions raised in 1989, and of course raises even more. JonGreenfield's ground plan gives a width for each gallery of thepolygon of just twelve feet, close to, but smaller than, the twelve feetsix inches found on The Globe site, and incidentally just what wasspecified in the contract to build The Fortune, The Rose'ssuccessor, which is preserved in the archives at Dulwich. TheRose's actual gallery widths as measured from the archaeologyrecords at MoLAS suggest a size between 12 feet and 12 feet 4 inches.Re-excavation of the site should confirm those measurements, and allowextrapolation (mathematics, algorithm) extrapolation - A mathematical procedure which estimates values of a function for certain desired inputs given values for known inputs.If the desired input is outside the range of the known values this is called extrapolation, if it is inside then of the various sections of the theatre foundations whichare damaged or missing. The implication of The Rose starting without a fixed stage as aprecursor to Henslowe's nearby Hope of 1614 raises a mass of newquestions. Only a year after its construction, in April 1588, the localSewer Commission called it "the new Play-house", so by then itevidently was being used for plays. Was the first stage structure atemporary affair made of planks laid on barrels, as shown in pictures ofinnyard stages, or was it made as a permanent structure, integrated withthe adjacent gallery timbers? The angled wall foundations of the twostages uncovered in 1989 join the inner walls of the galleries atpeculiarly irregular points. Moreover there is no sign of any bases forstage posts to support a cover over the stage in the remains of the1587-8 design, so perhaps the original stage cover was cantilevered outfrom the gallery walls, as specified in the contract for The Hope. Orwas there a canvas awning stretched over the stage? The absence ofevidence for any foundations for stage posts in the remains of the firststage has led to the view that it was left uncovered, which givenLondon's weather and the high cost of the stage costumes is highlyunlikely. More evidence about the date and longevity of the first stagestructure may survive under the surface of The Rose's yard, whichhas yet to be excavated. The eastern section of The Rose, also not yet excavated, may offermuch more than a simple confirmation of the polygon's symmetry. Amap of the South Bank area made in 1628 shows The Swan, built in 1595well to the west of The Rose, as having fourteen sides (not the twentyor twenty-four of the notorious De Witt De Witt,uninc. town (1990 pop. 8,244), Onondaga co., central N.Y., a residential suburb of Syracuse. drawing of The Swan'sinterior), and a stair turret on its north-eastern flank. Stair turretswere an invaluable feature in the open-air theatres, because they gavethe audience direct access to the upper galleries, and thus saved on theseating space inside the frame that would otherwise have to be taken upby interior staircases. The Hope contract specified that its stairturrets should be copied from The Swan. The logical place for a stairturret at The Rose would be on the north-eastern side, closest to LondonBridge London Bridge,granite, five-arched bridge formerly over the Thames, in London, England. It is 928 ft (283 m) long and was designed by John Rennie and built between 1824 and 1831. which most customers from the city would have used to get to theplayhouse. Excavating the eastern section of the site might tell us agreat deal about the disposition of the Rose's structure aboveground. There are many other questions about The Rose design that needfacing. Were there two galleries or the three that Norden seems todepict in his first engraving, for instance? The erosion trench cut intothe mortar surface of the yard by constant dripping of water from thethatch of the gallery roof is noticeably closer to the inner gallerywalls than the one that the drips have marked in the new Globe'syard. The Globe's three galleries include two jutties or extensionsforward into the yard from the second and third levels of gallery. Theerosion trench at The Rose, being nearer the inner gallery wall, mayshow the position of thatch covering only two galleries, with a singlejutty. That is one question which calls for renewed study. Another isthat if the intended use was for a baiting arena, it would have demandeda highish wall protecting the lowest gallery on the inside facing thearena, in order to keep the spectators well above the animals. Thatpossibility was not in anyone's mind when the first investigationof the site took place. It too needs a fresh scrutiny, since it couldlead to a radical reinterpretation re��in��ter��pret?tr.v. re��in��ter��pret��ed, re��in��ter��pret��ing, re��in��ter��pretsTo interpret again or anew.re of the entire site design of 1587. Then there is the question of the drainage. On such a marshy marsh��y?adj. marsh��i��er, marsh��i��est1. Of, resembling, or characterized by a marsh or marshes; boggy.2. Growing in marshes. site,with a distinct low area in what became the middle of the yard, itsdrainage to the river was from the outset a major problem for thebuilder. There were almost no indications before April 1989 to say howit worked. The substantial wooden drain leading northwards was found alittle below the main foundation level behind the stage, probably, itwas thought, to take away water from the gutters over the stage.Otherwise, all the evidence about what kept the yard dry liesundiscovered beneath its mortar surfaces. A barrel-head was found set inthe mortar of the yard, off-centre on the western flank of the secondstage's foundations of 1592. It is not really likely that this wasintended to be a sump draining water from the centre of the yard, but itis a possibility. Excavation might determine if it was a sump or abarrel left behind from underpropping used to make a temporary boothstage in 1587-8. The recent analysis has begun to provide a richer, fuller pictureof the theatre where Shakespeare and Marlowe played, making possible anew architectural reconstruction (Figures 9, 10). Meanwhile we areconscious that there is still much to confirm or discover. To this end,The Rose Theatre Trust is preparing an application for funding to helpfinance a renewed dig, and set up a display putting the remains on showto the public. Southwark Council and the owners of Rose Court are happywith these plans. A major US acting group, led by Tina Packer once ofthe RSC, called Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. Set in Western Massachusetts, it is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,077 at the 2000 census. , wantsto build a replica in the Berkshires, near the Boston SymphonyOrchestra's summer home at Tanglewood. There has never been abetter time to complete the excavation that was stopped short in 1989. [FIGURES 9-10 OMITTED] References JULIAN BOWSHER. 1998. The Rose Theatre. An archaeologicaldiscovery. Museum of London The Museum of London documents the history of London from the Palaeolithic to the present day. The museum is located in a 1970s building close to the Barbican Centre, approximately 10 minutes' walk north of St Paul's Cathedral and admission is free. , London, 1998. JULIAN BOWSHER & SIMON BLATHERWICK. 1990. "The Structureof the Rose", in New Issues in the Reconstruction ofShakespeare's Theatre, ed. F. J. Hildy, Peter Lang, New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , 1990. SUSAN P. CERESANO. 1989. Raising a playhouse from the dust.Shakespeare Quarterly 40:483-90. CHRISTINE ECCLES. 1990, The Rose Theatre, Nick Hern hern?n.A heron.[Variant of heron.] Books, London. R.A. FOAKES. 1991. The Discovery of the Rose theatre: someimplications. Shakespeare Survey 43: 141-8. ANDREW GURR. 1992. Cultural Property and 'sufficientinterest': the Rose and the Globe sites. International Journal ofCultural Property I: 9-25. JOHN ORRELL & ANDREW CORR CORRUsed on the consolidated tape to indicate a correction in a reported transaction : CORR.LAST.GY 50 WAS 51. . 1989a. What the Rose can tell us.Times Literary Supplement, 9-15 June 1989: 636, 649; --1989b What the Rose can tell us. Antiquity 63: 421-9. JEAN WILSON There are several people named Jean Wilson: Jean Wilson (scientist), a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Jean Wilson (speed skater) (1910–1933), a Canadian speed skater. . 1995. The Archaeology of Shakespeare. Alan Sutton,Stroud. Jon Greenfield (1) & Andrew Gurr (2) (1) Parameta Architects, 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ, UK,Director, Rose Theatre Trust (Email:jongreenfield@parameta-architects.co.uk) (2) Department of English Noun 1. department of English - the academic department responsible for teaching English and American literatureEnglish departmentacademic department - a division of a school that is responsible for a given subject , The University of Reading, P. O. Box218, Reading RG6 2AA, UR;), Director, Rose Theatre Trust (Email:andyguru2@aol.com) Received: 13 March 2003; Accepted: 30 September 2003; Revised: 21November 2003